[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 18 (Monday, May 8, 2000)]
[Pages 990-994]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at the City Academy in St. Paul, Minnesota

May 4, 2000

    Thank you very much. Well, after Tom and Milo talked, I don't know 
that I need to say much of anything. I thank you for what you said and 
for the example you have set. And I want to say a little more about Milo 
and this school in a moment. I'd like to thank my friend Bruce Vento for 
not only doing a superb job in representing the people of his community 
and, indeed, the people of Minnesota in the United States House of 
Representatives but also being a wonderful friend and adviser to me 
these last 7 years and a few months. You should be very proud of Bruce 
Vento. He's a very, very good man. Thank you.
    When Lieutenant Governor Schunk told me that she was going to visit 
every school district in Minnesota, I was wishing I were the Lieutenant 
Governor of Minnesota. That sounds like a good job to me. I thank you. 
And Mr. Mayor, thank you for being here today. It's good to see you 
again, and it's good to be back in your community.
    There are a number of other people I would like to acknowledge, and 
doubtless I will miss some, but I'd like to thank Education Commissioner 
Jax for being here; and Superintendent Harvey; Majority Leader of the 
Senate Roger Moe. The mayor of Minneapolis I think is here, Sharon 
Sayles Belton; former Attorney General Skip Humphrey. I'd like to thank 
State Senator Ember Reichgott Junge, a longtime friend of mine, and 
former State Representative Becky Kelso, who were the original 
cosponsors of the charter school legislation. The Charter Friends 
National Network director, Jon Schroeder, who drafted the original 
Federal charter law, which we adopted. The Center for School Change 
director, Joe Nathan, a longtime personal friend of mine with whom I 
worked for many years.
    And I'd like to acknowledge some people who came on this tour with 
me, some of whom who have been very active in the charter school 
movement for a long time: the president of the Progressive Policy 
Institute in Washington, Will Marshall; the president of the New Schools 
Venture Fund, Kim

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Smith; the policy director of the National Urban League, Bill Spriggs; 
and a longtime friend and city council member from New York City, 
Guillermo Linares. And they're over here to my right. They've come a 
long way to be with you, to see this first charter school in the United 
States. So I hope you'll make them--[applause].
    When I was listening to Milo Cutter and Tom Gonzalez talk first 
about this school, how it got started, what its mission is, and then 
hearing Tom talk about his life and how his then-girlfriend and present 
wife got him into this school, it reminded me of all the struggles that 
I have seen the charter school movement go through throughout the United 
States and reaffirm my conviction that every effort has been worth it.
    There are a lot of people here in this room who have devoted a lot 
of their lives to trying to help young people in trouble. I was 
delighted to hear Milo mention Hazel O'Leary's support for this school. 
She was my first Energy Secretary. And I want to thank, in particular, 
one person who's made an extraordinary commitment to helping young 
people lead the lives of their dreams and avoid the lives of their 
nightmares, my good friend Supreme Court Justice Alan Page, who's out 
here. Thank you, Alan, for everything you have done.
    The idea behind charter schools is that not all kids are the same. 
They have different needs. They have different environments. But there 
is a certain common level of education that all kids need, no matter how 
different they are. And that it would be a good thing to allow schools 
to be developed which had a clear mission, which could reach out to kids 
who wanted to be a part of that mission and who could achieve 
educational excellence for children who otherwise might be left behind 
or, to use Tom's phrase, might fall through the cracks.
    It is true that when I ran for President in 1992, Minnesota had the 
only public charter school in the country, this one. And so when I went 
around the country talking about charter schools, most people thought I 
had landed from another planet, because most people hadn't been here. 
Most people still haven't been here to this school. But I knew it was an 
idea that had enormous promise. And some of the people involved in this 
enterprise have been working with me for years on educational matters 
when I was the Governor of Arkansas.
    I also knew that if Minnesota was doing it, there was a pretty good 
chance it was a good idea, since the State already had some of the best 
performing schools in the United States. And I think the State and this 
community deserve a lot of credit for the general direction of education 
reform and rising test scores. Minnesota really is about to become Lake 
Wobegon, where all the children are above average. [Laughter] And that's 
good for you. Good for you.
    I'm here today because I want all of America to know about you, and 
through you, to understand what might be done in other communities with 
the charter school movement, to give all of our children the education 
they need and the education our country needs for them to have in a 21st 
century information economy.
    This is a good time for us to be doing this. Our economy is in the 
best shape it's ever been. We have been working for 20 years on school 
reform; no one can claim anymore they don't know what works. We now have 
enough evidence that the charter school movement works if it's done 
right, as it has been done here. And we have the largest and most 
diverse student body in our history, which means there are more 
different kinds of people that may learn in different ways and have 
different personal needs, but they all need--I will say again--a certain 
high level of educational attainment.
    The strategy that clearly works is accountability for high 
standards, with a lot of personal attention and clear support for the 
education mission of every school. We've tried to support that now for 7 
years. The Vice President and I have supported everything from 
increasing Head Start to smaller classes in the early grades to funds to 
help all of our States and school districts set high standards and 
systems for implementing accountability for those standards to opening 
up the doors of college to more Americans.
    Here in St. Paul, our movement to put 100,000 teachers on the 
streets--in our schools, I mean--has led, I think, to 23 more teachers 
being hired. And here in this city

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the average class size in the early grades is 18. If that were true in 
every place in America, the children would be learning and all of our 
third graders would be able to read, more of them would stay in school, 
fewer of them would drop out, more of them would do well. So I want to 
congratulate you on making good use of that, as well.
    We've also tried to make sure all of our schools were wired to the 
Internet. We're going to do a little work on the Internet later this 
morning. When the Vice President and I started and we got the so-called 
E-rate passed in Congress, which allows lower income schools to get 
subsidies to be wired and to use the Internet, to access it, there were 
only 16 percent of the schools and 3 percent of the classrooms 
connected. Today, 95 percent of the schools and almost 75 percent of the 
classrooms are connected. And I think by the end of this year, certainly 
some time next year, we will have every classroom in America, certainly 
every school, connected, except those that are literally too old and 
decrepit to be wired. And unfortunately, there are some, and I've been 
out on another crusade to try to build new school facilities and have 
the Federal Government help in that regard, too.
    But we've come a long way. And yet, we know that there are still 
schools which aren't performing as they should. Even though test scores 
are up, even though college-going is up, we know that there are schools 
which aren't performing. And I wanted to come here today because of what 
you've done, because you've proved that charter schools were a good 
idea.
    As I said, when I started running for President, there was a grand 
total of one charter school--you. You were it. Now there are over 1,700 
in America. And we have invested almost half a billion dollars since 
1994 to help communities start charter schools. That's why there are 
over 1,700, and I'm proud of that.
    And this is actually National Charter School Week, which is nice for 
me to be here by accident in this week. And I can say that--you know, my 
goal was to at least fund 3,000 or more by the time I left office. And I 
believe we are going to meet that goal, and one of the reasons is that 
you have set such a good example.
    Now, what I want to talk about today is how the charter schools work 
a little--I want to say a little about that. And then I want to answer--
if you'll forgive me for doing it, since you don't have this problem--I 
want to answer some of the critics of the charter school movements who 
say that not all the schools have worked.
    Schools like City Academy, as I said, have the flexibility to reach 
out to students who may have had trouble in ordinary school experiences. 
At the same time, very often we see charter schools provide an even 
greater atmosphere of competition that induces kids to work harder and 
harder to learn. Studies show that charter schools are at least as 
racially and economically diverse as the public schools, generally. And 
here in Minnesota, they're more diverse than average schools.
    Surveys show the vast majority of parents with children in our 1,700 
charter schools think their children are doing better academically in 
those schools than they were in their previous schools. There are long 
waiting lists to get in most charter schools all across the United 
States.
    Now, does that mean every charter school is a stunning success? No. 
But I don't think that anyone can cite any endeavor of life where 
everybody is doing a great job. The idea behind the charter schools was 
never that they would all be perfect, but that because they were unlike 
traditional schools they had to be created with a charter and a mission 
that had to be fulfilled. If they were not successful in that mission, 
they could be shut down or changed, or the children could go somewhere 
else.
    And so that they would be under a lot more--pressure may be the 
wrong word--but the environment would be very different--that if they 
didn't work, the kids wouldn't be stuck there forever, that there would 
always be other options, and that they, themselves, could be 
dramatically transformed.
    Now, the one problem we have had is that not every State has had the 
right kind of accountability for the charter schools. Some States have 
laws that are so loose that no matter whether the charter schools are 
doing

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their jobs or not, they just get to stay open, and they become like 
another bureaucracy. Unfortunately, I think even worse, some States have 
laws that are so restrictive it's almost impossible to open a charter 
school in the first place.
    So the second point I want to make to the people, especially to the 
press folks that are traveling with us who have to report this to the 
country, is that not only has this first charter school in America, City 
Academy, done great, but Minnesota's law is right. You basically have 
struck the right balance. You have encouraged the growth of charter 
schools, but you do hold charter schools responsible for results. That's 
what every State in the country ought to do.
    And I think, indeed, we should build the level of accountability you 
find here in the charter school system into all the schools in our 
system. That's what I'm trying to get Congress to do. Bruce and I have 
been working for a couple of years on an educational accountability act, 
which basically would invest more money in what we know works and stop 
investing money in what we know doesn't work, the kind of direction 
taken not only by the charter schools but by this State, in terms of 
standards, accountability, not having social promotion but not blaming 
kids for the failure of the system, permitting after-school, summer 
school programs, and real support for people like you.
    Unfortunately, this week the Congress is--the majority is trying to 
pass legislation that neither puts more money or more accountability 
into the system. But I'm still hopeful that we'll be able to pass a good 
bill that really works before we go home.
    Let me finally say that there are some people who criticize charter 
schools by saying that even though they are public schools, they amount 
to draining money away from other public schools. That's just not true. 
You would be in school somewhere. And if you were, whether your school 
was doing an effective job or not, the tax money would be going there. 
The charter school movement, if it works, can help to save public 
education in this country, by proving that excellence can be provided to 
all children from all backgrounds, no matter what experiences they bring 
to the school in the first place. That's what this whole thing is about.
    My goal is to get more money and more people involved in the charter 
schools movement, to break down the walls of resistance among all the 
educators to it, and to get community people all over the country more 
aware of it. Today we are going to release about $137 million in grants 
to support new and existing charter schools in 31 States, the District 
of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. I am going to ask the Secretary of 
Education today to develop guidelines for employers and faith-based 
groups so that they will know how they can be actively involved in 
supporting the charter school movement.
    While charter schools have to be nonsectarian, there is a role, a 
positive role, that faith-based groups can play. And employers, we find 
around America, increasingly are willing to provide space and other 
resources to help charter schools get started. In nearby Rockford, 
Minnesota, for instance, there is the Skills for Tomorrow School, 
sponsored jointly by the Teamsters Union and the Business Partnership. 
Union, corporate, and small business leaders have helped to develop the 
school. They also provide students with internships and take part in 
judging whether they have met their academic graduation requirements to 
ensure that they have the skills they need to succeed. I think the 
guidelines I'm calling for today will get more businesses and more 
faith-based groups involved in the charter school movement.
    We have learned now for 7 years that charter schools will work if 
you have investment and accountability, and if you make them less 
bureaucratic and more mission oriented. I'm very proud of the fact that 
in our administration the Secretary of Education has reduced the 
regulatory burden on local schools and States in administering Federal 
aid by about two-thirds, while we have doubled the investment in 
education for our schools.
    And I'm very proud of the fact that long ago, even though I wasn't 
given the privilege of coming to this school, I heard about Milo; I 
heard about the City Academy; I heard about the charter schools 
movement. I talked to Joe Nathan. I talked to Ember about it and a 
number of other people. And I ran for President in 1992 pledging that if 
the

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people voted for me, we would have more of these schools. And over 1,700 
schools later, thanks to your example, my commitment, I think, has been 
fulfilled and American education has been advanced. I only hope that my 
presence here today will help to get us to 3,000 and will help to get us 
to the point in America where every school operates like a charter 
school.
    Thank you very much.

 Note:  The President spoke at 9:45 a.m. in the gymnasium. In his 
remarks, he referred to Tomas Gonzalez, 1994 graduate, who introduced 
the President, and Milo Cutter, founder and director, City Academy; Lt. 
Gov. Mae Schunk of Minnesota; Mayor Norm Coleman of St. Paul; Christine 
Jax, commissioner, Minnesota Department of Children, Families & 
Learning; Patricia Harvey, superintendent, St. Paul School District No. 
625; State Senate Minority Leader Roger D. Moe; former Minnesota State 
Attorney General Hubert (Skip) Humphrey III; and State Supreme Court 
Justice Alan Page.