[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 18 (Monday, May 8, 2000)]
[Pages 994-1000]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Webside Chat With Tracy Smith of Channel One in St. Paul

May 4, 2000

    Ms. Smith.  So now we're going to go live, to the live webcast. So 
everyone out there watching us on your computer, thank you so much for 
joining us. Welcome to everybody. Thank you, City Academy. And thank 
you, Mr. President.
    The President.  Thank you, Tracy. Are we ready to start?
    Ms. Smith.  We are ready to start.
    The President.  Well, let me begin by thanking Channel One and the 
Channel One schools and all those who are taking part in this 
Presidential Webside Chat.
    This has a rich history, really. Fifty years ago and more, President 
Roosevelt used the radio to bring democracy into the homes of the 
American people, with his Fireside Chats. Thirty years later, President 
Kennedy regularly used televised press conferences to do the same thing. 
And I think it's quite appropriate to use this newest medium of 
communication to answer more questions from more students. And I think 
we ought to get right to it.
    All of you know that I'm speaking to you from the City Academy in 
St. Paul, Minnesota. It was the Nation's first charter school. I believe 
in these schools, and I've tried to promote them and want to do more, 
and that's why I'm here.
    The most important thing that we can do today is to reach out and 
answer questions from the students of America, so let's begin. How do 
you want to do it, Tracy?

Education and Moving Out of Poverty

    Ms. Smith.  Well, our first question is actually from Amy, who is 
from City Academy--we do have it in the computer here; it's question 
number zero--which is, what more can education do to improve people's 
lives and move them out of poverty?
    The President.  Well, I think the obvious answer is just to look at 
the difference in the job prospects and the income prospects of people 
who have education and people who don't. Education in this economy, 
where we have the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years, if you have 
enough education you have almost 100 percent guarantee that you'll have 
a good job and you can move out of poverty.
    But it is, by and large, necessary to do more than graduate from 
high school. Most people, to have good job prospects, need at least 2 
years of college. And I have worked very hard in the last 7 years to 
open the doors of college to everyone. We've increased the Pell grants. 
We've made student loans less expensive. And we have given a tax credit 
worth $1,500 a year to virtually all Americans for the first 2 years of 
college. So the most important thing for you to know is, you'll get out 
of poverty if you have an education, but you need more than high school.

Technology in Education

    Ms. Smith.  All right, great. A tech question, of course, since 
we're talking to a bunch of techies out there. This is question number 
200: Mr. President, my math teacher uses technology to teach us every 
day. Do you think this is an important part of learning?
    The President.  Yes. I don't think it's a substitute for knowing the 
basics, but it facilitates learning.

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    And one of the things that we know now--and I bet a lot of you here 
at City Academy have learned this--one of the things we know now is that 
people learn in different ways. And sometimes, like in grade school, 
some kids will be identified wrongly as being slow learners or maybe not 
very smart when in fact they learn in different ways. We know that some 
kids learn by repetition, doing basic math on a computer, better. Some 
kids learn by listening better. Some learn by reading better. So I think 
that's important.
    But the main thing that technology is going to do for education is 
something entirely different. Look at this. We've already got over 2,000 
questions. We're talking to people all over the country here. Because of 
technology, we can bring what's in any textbook, anyplace in the world, 
not only to a place like the City Academy in St. Paul; we can bring it 
to poor villages in Africa, in Latin America, in east Asia. Technology 
can enable us to bring all the knowledge stored anywhere to anybody who 
lives anywhere, if they have the computer--the poorest people in the 
world. And so it is going to be, I think, the most important fact about 
education for the next 20 or 30 years.

Government Initiatives in Computer Availability

    Ms. Smith.  I guess the followup question to that is question number 
721: Mr. President, how can the Federal Government help provide enough 
money to have enough computers in school for everyone to be able to have 
access to a good computer?
    The President.  Well, let me tell you what we have done. In 1996 we 
passed something in Congress called the Telecommunications Act. And Vice 
President Gore led our fight to require in that law something called the 
E-rate, the education rate, to guarantee that all schools and libraries 
could afford to logon to the Internet. It's worth over $2 billion a year 
in subsidies to schools. That's why 95 percent of our schools are hooked 
up now to the Internet, connected to the Internet, because they can 
afford it.
    I have also worked very hard to try to get the Government to give 
all the computers we could to schools and to go out and work with the 
private sector to get more computers in the schools. Frankly, the big 
issue now is making sure that the teachers are well-trained to maximize 
the potential of the computers and the educational software. You know, 
most teachers will tell you that in every school, there are always a few 
kids that know more about all this than the teachers do. So what we've 
had to do is to go back and re-emphasize training the teachers.
    And let me just say one other thing. I believe that the next big 
move will be to try to make personal computers in the home available to 
more and more people who can't afford them now, lower income people.
    When Tom was up here talking earlier, he said he was born in Mexico. 
I went to a school district in New Jersey where most of the kids are 
first-generation immigrants. And the school district, with Bell 
Atlantic, put computers in the homes of more and more of the parents so 
they could talk to the principals and the teachers during the day. And 
it had a dramatic impact on the learning of the kids and on reducing the 
dropout rate. And the kids, of course, could then use the computers at 
home as well.
    So I think that's the next big frontier. Can we make the use of the 
computer as universal as the use of the telephone is today? I wish I 
were going to be around, but I think that's a big frontier the next 
President should try to cross.
    Ms. Smith.  This is question number 2,173. We are getting a lot of 
questions today. This is from Lawrence, from Fayetteville, Arkansas.
    The President.  I've been to this school. This is the town that 
Hillary and I were married in. I lived there when I went home to 
Arkansas and taught in the university.

School Violence

    Ms. Smith.  All right. He's in the seventh grade, and he wants to 
know what you plan to do about making students feel safer in today's 
classrooms.
    The President.  Well, first of all, I think the only way to make you 
feel safer is to try to make sure you are safer. But you should know 
that, in spite of these horrible examples of school violence we've 
seen--we just celebrated the anniversary of Columbine; we had

[[Page 996]]

the terrible incident in Arkansas and Mississippi, Oregon, lots of other 
places--that, overall, school violence has gone down. And I think the 
main thing you have to do is to keep guns and weapons out of schools, to 
try to keep people off the school grounds that don't belong there, and 
to have a zero-tolerance policy for guns in the schools and for 
violence.
    Then I think it's also important to have positive ways of dealing 
with conflict. I think there need to be peer mediation groups in 
schools. I think students need to have access to counselors and, if they 
need it, to mental health services. I think that we have to teach young 
people that there are nonviolent ways that they can resolve their 
legitimate conflicts, and there are nonviolent ways they have to get 
their anger and frustration out.
    So I think there's partly a law enforcement strategy to keep guns 
and knives and other weapons out of the hands of kids at school, to keep 
people off the school grounds who shouldn't be here. Then I think there 
has to be a positive human development effort to get people to adopt 
nonviolent strategies for dealing with their anger, their hurt, and 
their conflicts.

Education Infrastructure

    Ms. Smith.  Let's do 201. This is from Elena--I hope I'm saying that 
right: President Clinton, do you think that the physical condition of a 
school building has an effect on learning in the classroom?
    The President.  Yes, I do. If it's bad enough--in two or three ways. 
First of all, I think if a school is in terrible physical condition, 
when children go through a school every day, if the roof is leaking and 
the windows are broken and it's stiflingly hot--I mean, young people are 
not stupid; they're smart. They say, ``Okay, all these politicians and 
teachers say we're the most important people in the world. If we're the 
most important people in the world and education is the most important 
thing in the world, why are they letting me go to school in this wreck 
of a building where I'm miserable?''
    The second problem is, it's actually harder to teach in difficult 
physical facilities. I was at a school--actually, a very beautiful 
school yesterday in Davenport, Iowa. It's 93 years old. And there are 
rooms in that building where there were no electrical outlets in the 
walls, and there are all kinds of problems there. It's a magnificent 
building. They shouldn't tear it down, but they need to modernize it.
    And so I do, I think it makes a big difference. That's why for over 
2 years now I've been trying to get Congress to adopt a plan to let the 
Federal Government help build 6,000 new schools and help repair 5,000 
more every year for the next 5 years, because it's a terrible problem. 
The average school building in Philadelphia is 56 years old--65 years 
old--in New Orleans, over 60 years old. In New York, there are school 
buildings that are heated still by coal-fired furnaces.
    And also, there are all these overcrowded schools. I went to a 
little grade school in Florida with 12 housetrailers out behind it to 
house the kids--12--not one or two. So yes, I think it makes a big 
difference.

School Uniforms

    Ms. Smith.  Let's go to--here's one I know you have an opinion 
about--2,987. This is Brandon: What do you think about school uniforms?
    The President.  I support them in the early grades. I think--and 
I'll tell you why. I have been a big supporter of school uniforms--well, 
I support them for high schools, too, if people want them. But let me 
just say, we have a lot of evidence that particularly in elementary and 
junior high schools, school uniforms perform two very valuable 
functions: They promote discipline, and they promote learning. Why? 
Because in the early years, school uniforms remove the economic 
distinctions between kids.
    I went to a junior high school out in California, in the third-
biggest school district in California, where they have a school uniform 
policy. And I had an inner-city young boy talking and a young girl who 
was probably upper middle class. And both of them loved the uniform 
policy, because they said it removed the distinctions between kids, and 
it removed the pressure to try to show where you were in some economic 
or social hierarchy by what you were wearing.
    But I also can tell you, there is lots and lots of evidence that it 
reduces conflict and

[[Page 997]]

violence and promotes an atmosphere of discipline among younger people. 
So I think--you know, I really think that having that policy is good. 
I've seen it all over America. I've done everything I could to promote 
it. I've been ridiculed and attacked and made fun of for promoting it, 
but I believe in them. I think they do good. I do.
    Ms. Smith.  We've done lots of stories on that. I don't think every 
kid in America agrees with you, but----
    The President.  I know they don't. [Laughter] You ought to see my 
mail about it. [Laughter]

Community Service

    Ms. Smith.  Question number 296. This is from Melinda, from Dublin 
High School. We don't have where Dublin is.
    The President.  Ohio, I think, isn't it?
    Ms. Smith.  Is it Ohio?
    The President.  I think so.
    Ms. Smith.  Very good. Do you believe that students should be 
required to do community service as a part of their core curriculum?
    The President.  Yes. That's the short answer. I do. Maryland is the 
only State now that requires community service as a requirement. To get 
a high school diploma in Maryland, at some point you have to do some 
community service.
    You know, I've been a big supporter of community service. I founded 
the AmeriCorps program, and now 150,000 young people have served their 
communities and earned some money to go to college through various 
AmeriCorps projects. We started a program called America Reads. There 
are now people from 1,000 different colleges going into the grade 
schools of America, helping make sure all of our third graders can 
read--and a lot of retired groups, too.
    I believe community service is one of the most important things that 
happens in America to bind us together across the lines that divide us. 
And in 1987, 13 years ago, I was on a commission on middle schools which 
recommended that community service be made a part of the curriculum. So 
I've been a believer of this for a long time.
    I would leave it to the schools or the school districts to decide 
what the young people should do. But I think it does us all good to get 
out and deal with people who are drastically different from ourselves 
and who--no matter how bad we think our lives are, there is always 
somebody with a bigger problem and a bigger need and a bigger challenge. 
And I just think it's good for people to serve other people in the 
community. So I would make it a part of the curriculum. I would.

Educational Opportunities for the Disadvantaged

    Ms. Smith.  Okay, this is 3,348, from Mission Junior High, in Texas: 
What is being done to ensure that economically disadvantaged students 
are provided the opportunities for higher education?
    The President.  Good question. Let me give you all the answers. This 
has been a big priority of mine. Here's what we've done. Since I've been 
President, we have increased the number and the amount of the Pell 
grants, which is the scholarship the Federal Government gives to the 
poorest students. We have also changed the student loan program, so that 
it's now cheaper to take out a loan if you get one of the so-called 
direct loans, issued directly from the Federal Government. The interest 
rate is lower. And then when you get out of school, if you take a job 
that has a modest salary, you can limit your repayments to a certain 
percentage of your income. It's saved, in 5 years, $8 billion in student 
loan costs for America's students.
    We've raised the number of work-study positions from 700,000 to a 
million. And we passed the HOPE scholarship. That's the biggest deal. 
It's a $1,500 tax credit for the first 2 years of college, and then also 
for the junior and senior year and for graduate schools you get a tax 
break. And I'm now trying to get Congress to adopt a law which allows 
people to deduct up to $10,000 in college tuition from any tax burdens 
they have. So I think that will help.
    If that passes, I think we can honestly say that income is not a 
barrier to going to college. Between the scholarships, the loans, the 
work-study programs, and the HOPE scholarship tax credit, which 5 
million families have already used, that's why college-going--

[[Page 998]]

67 percent of the high school graduates in America are now going on to 
college. And I want to get it up as close to 100 as we can get it. So if 
you have any other ideas in Mission, Texas, let me know. But we've done 
a lot on this, and I think it's very important.

Quality Teachers

    Ms. Smith.  Question 4,641, this is Mike from Buffalo: What do you 
think the Federal Government can do to attract quality teachers to 
inner-city public schools?
    The President.  Well, we've got a little program we started a couple 
of years ago--this is a really good question--where based on the old 
health service corps idea, where we would pay off people's loans to 
medical schools if they'd go practice medicine in isolated, rural areas 
or inner city areas.
    So we have a small program now to say to young people, if you'll go 
back and teach in an inner-city school where there is a teacher 
shortage, we'll pay off your college loans. And I think that will help. 
I would like to see that program dramatically expanded.
    I think the other thing is, though, we're going to have to pay these 
young people more if we want them to do that. In the next few years we 
could have a real problem with teacher shortage, because we've got the 
largest student body in American history. You finally--all of you are 
bigger than the baby boom generation I was a part of, for the last 2 
years. We have about 2 million teachers slated to retire over the coming 
5 to 8 years. And we have a greater need for teachers than ever before 
because our student bodies are more diverse, in terms of language and 
background and culture.
    So I think the States and the Federal Government are going to have 
to look at this. I'm trying to put 100,000 more teachers out there now 
in the early grades. I know the Vice President has said that he believes 
we ought to have--the Federal Government should help the States and 
school districts hire 600,000 more over the next 4 years after that. But 
this is going to be a big issue.
    My own view is, the best way to get young people to go into the 
inner cities, though, is to defray the cost of their own education--say, 
if you teach for 2, 3, 4 years, you get this much knocked off, because I 
have found that there is a great desire, again, for community service. 
And there is a lot of interest in doing this if we can make it 
reasonably attractive.

Home Schooling

    Ms. Smith.  This is Brenna, from Lamar: President Clinton, what are 
your views on parents home schooling their children?
    The President.  I believe two or three things about home schooling. 
I've had a lot of experience with this, because I was a Governor at a 
time when this was being debated around America. I think that States 
should explicitly acknowledge the option of home schooling, because it's 
going to be done anyway.
    It is done in every State in the country, and therefore, the best 
thing to do is to get the home schoolers organized, if they're not 
organized in your State, deal with them in a respectful way and say, 
``Look, there is a good way to do this and a not so good way to do this, 
but if you're going to do this your children have to prove that they're 
learning on a regular basis. And if they don't prove that they're 
learning, then they have to go into a school, either into a parochial or 
private school or a public school. But if you're going to home school 
your kids, the children have to learn. That's the public interest 
there.''
    And that's what we did in Arkansas. The Home School Association 
strongly supported it, accountability for what their children were 
learning. There will always be, in any given State, a certain percentage 
of people, normally a small percentage, for reasons of personal values 
or educational philosophy will want to do that. And most of the time 
they're very dedicated parents, deeply committed to what they're doing. 
And I can tell you this: It's going to happen regardless, so it's better 
to have laws which have standards on it.
    From my personal point of view, I never--it wasn't an option in our 
family, but if it had been I wouldn't have done it because I wanted my 
daughter to go to school where she would be exposed to all different 
kinds of people and see how the larger society worked and be a part of 
it. But I think that

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we should explicitly make that option available; we should respect the 
people who choose it, but we ought to say, ``If you do it, your children 
have to demonstrate that they know what they're supposed to know when 
they're supposed to know it.''
    Ms. Smith.  Just an update, we've received more than 10,000 
questions so far. Pretty good.
    The President.  I need to give shorter answers. [Laughter]

Goals of Education

    Ms. Smith.  Question 4,154, this is Howard from Providence: Do you 
consider the goal of public education to be to make someone ready for 
employment, practical, or to make someone a well-rounded, enlightened 
individual?
    The President.  Both. That is, I think--when I say ready for 
employment, if you're talking about getting through high school, I've 
already said I don't think that will make most people ready for 
employment.
    We live in a world in which what you know is important, but what 
you're capable of learning is even more important, because the stock of 
knowledge is doubling once every 5 years, more or less. So I think that 
being able to be a useful member of society is important. But I also 
think being able to be a good citizen and having a liberal arts 
background is important. So I think we should pursue both.
    I've never thought of education as purely a utilitarian thing, just 
something that is a meal ticket. It also makes life more interesting. 
All these young people here--you know, if you develop the ability to 
read and to think and to feel comfortable with ideas and emotions and 
concepts, it makes life more interesting. It makes your own life more 
fulfilling. So I think education should both prepare you for the world 
of work and help you live a more fulfilling life and be a better 
citizen.

Standards Tests

    Ms. Smith.  Okay, this question 5,492. This is Eliza from New York: 
How can the testing system be changed so that teachers are not pressured 
to the point that they are cheating for the kids? Don't you see it as a 
flaw in the system more than in the teachers? I guess they're talking 
about high-stakes standards testing.
    The President.  Yes, well, here's the problem. First of all, I think 
that it is almost unavoidable, if you believe as I do, that there has to 
be some measure at some point along the way in school of whether young 
people have actually learned what their diplomas say they have learned. 
And what I think is important--the way--I can tell you how it can be 
changed so that the teachers aren't pressured to cheat. You can have one 
or more second chances.
    Ms. Smith.  So if you fail a test----
    The President.  Yes, yes. Let me give you an example. In Chicago, 
for example, which most people believed a few years ago had the most 
troubled big-city school system in the country, they adopted a no-
social-promotion strategy. And if you didn't pass the exams and make 
appropriate grades, you couldn't go on. But they gave 100 percent of the 
people a chance to go to summer school and do well. As a result of that, 
today, the Chicago summer school is--listen to this--it's the sixth-
largest school district in America, just the kids going to summer 
school. But as a result of that, there aren't very many people who are 
held back, and that dramatically reduces the tension to cheat.
    I think an even better system is to make sure that all the kids who 
are having trouble, and particularly all the schools that are low 
performing, have really rich and substantive after-school programs, 
weekend programs, as well as summer school programs, so that the tests 
measure whether the children are learning.
    Look, we know nearly--literally right at 100 percent of the people 
can learn what they need to know to go from grade to grade. You know, 
this whole business that all children can learn is not just a slogan. So 
I think it's very important not to blame the children when the system 
fails them.
    So the answer is--to reduce the tension to cheat, is to have a lot 
of second chances but to make sure that when a young person is told you 
get to go on because you learned something, that the stuff has really 
been learned.

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Education Then and Now

    Ms. Smith.  We want to squeeze in just one more question, question 
249, from Leah in Cybervillage: Mr. President, how would you compare 
your education in grade school to public education today?
    The President.  Well, first of all, in many ways, it's better today, 
although one of the things I will say is I was very blessed; I had great 
teachers. I had--my sixth grade teachers, Kathleen Scher, was typical of 
the teachers of the early--the first 50, 60 years in this country. She 
was a lady who--she never married; she lived with her cousin. They were 
both teachers, and they lived to be 90 years old. And I corresponded 
with her until she died. She came to see me once a year. We were 
friends, and she was a great, devoted teacher.
    The discrimination against women in the workplace in the first part 
of this century worked to drive the smartest and most gifted and most 
dedicated of public servants among women into the classroom. They were 
teachers and nurses--women--because that's what they could do. And the 
end of discrimination among women, which has been a great thing for 
women, has given women lots of other options.
    But I had good teachers. So that's the good thing I will say about 
that. I was very fortunate and blessed. But I went to segregated 
schools, which I resented at the time. I knew it was wrong, before the 
civil rights movement. And it's better today that we have a diverse 
student body, and we're all learning to live together and work together 
in school.
    There were no computers, although we read a lot. And at the time, it 
was assumed that most people would not go to college, instead of that 
most people would. So in that sense, I think things are better today.
    Now, violence was having a fist-fight on the playground. Nobody had 
a gun. So there was less fear. The only thing you ever had to fear was 
whether somebody that hated you was going to beat you up. You never had 
the fear that somebody would pull a knife or a gun. So I'd say those 
were the differences.
    But if you look, on balance, we're better off today than we were 
when I was in grade school. We just have to deal with today's 
challenges. There will never be a time that's perfect and without 
challenges. But we're better off being integrated than segregated. We're 
better off with the new technology. We're better off with the assumption 
that we ought to try to prepare every kid and give every child the 
chance to go to college. That's my view.
    Ms. Smith.  As you see from the number of questions, we could do 
this all day, but we're out of time.
    The President.  These are great questions--I mean, great.
    Ms. Smith.  Aren't they great? There are so many, one after the 
other.
    The President.  I wish that they all had yes/no answers; I'd just 
run down. [Laughter]
    Ms. Smith.  You know what, they can all E-mail you, right? 
[Laughter] Just kidding.
    Well, I want to thank you so much for being here, Mr. President. 
This was a treat. I want to also thank the distinguished guests that 
were here, thank City Academy, thank Yahoo! for providing this chat 
auditorium, and of course, all of the students across the country who 
logged in and participated in this. Sorry we couldn't get to all of you. 
Great questions.
    The President.  Thank you. Great job. Thank you.

Note: The interview was taped at 10:13 a.m. in gymnasium at the City 
Academy and was broadcast online via the Internet. In his remarks, the 
President referred to Tomas Gonzalez, 1994 City Academy graduate. A tape 
was not available for verification of the content of these remarks.