[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 19 (Monday, May 15, 2000)]
[Pages 1074-1076]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at the Award Ceremony for the National Teacher of the Year

May 11, 2000

    The President.  Thank you very much. Thank you, ladies and 
gentlemen. Let me begin by welcoming you to the Rose Garden and saying, 
I'm grateful that it's not too hot and it's not too cold. Sounds like 
one of those books we used to read when I was 6 years old--it's just 
right. [Laughter] Actually, we got rained out here yesterday at an 
event. And we had two events earlier today, and it was quite warm. So 
this is--you're here at just the right time.
    I'd also like to thank the representatives of the Marine Band who 
played for us today. This is their third event today, and they've done a 
great job. Thank you very much.
    I want to thank Secretary Riley, my friend and co-worker for better 
education for well over 20 years now. Even my adversaries will concede 
that he is the finest Secretary of Education this country has ever had, 
and I am very grateful to him.
    I welcome the other representatives of the Department of Education 
and the executive director of the Council of Chief State Schools, Gordon 
Ambach; Scholastic, Inc., Senior Vice President Ernie Fleishman and all 
those from Scholastic who are here. And I want to recognize the 
president of the National Education Association, Bob Chase, who has done 
a wonderful job representing all the teachers of our country here in 
Washington, including those in the AFT. And I think they would say the 
same thing. And we thank you for all the fights that you've waged for 
us, and with your friends in the AFT, and people who love education 
everywhere. We've had a good 7 years here, thanks in no small measure to 
you, sir. And we thank you very much.
    We have here 54 or 55 State Teachers of the Year, 36 former National 
Teachers of the Year, and our present honoree, Marilyn Whirry of 
California. And I want to say a little more about her in a moment.
    President Truman presented the first of these awards here at the 
White House almost half a century ago. And every year since, Presidents 
or members of their family have personally handed out this award to 
recognize not only the awardee and the awardees but, indeed, all of our 
teachers. On that very first occasion, President Truman said, ``Next to 
one's mother, a teacher has the greatest influence on what kind of a 
citizen a child grows up to be.''
    Every day, 5 days a week, 9 months a year, teachers have the future 
of America in their hands. They teach our children to read, to write, to 
calculate, to sing, to paint, to play, to listen, to question, to work 
with others, and to think for themselves. They excite our children's 
imagination, lift their aspirations, open their hearts, strengthen their 
values.
    I imagine every one of us can recall the names and faces of teachers 
who influenced us profoundly; indeed, so profoundly that without them we 
wouldn't be sitting here or standing in the Rose Garden today. We tend 
to remember the teachers most who challenged us the most; the ones who 
held us to high standards and convinced us we could achieve; teachers 
who praised us when they knew we were doing our very best; and who 
motivated us, sometimes gently and sometimes not so gently, to do even 
better; teachers who watched with delight the amazement on our faces 
when we produced work we never imagined we were capable of.
    For 35 years now, Dr. Marilyn Whirry has been that kind of teacher, 
instilling in her students a love of literature. Seniors at Mira Costa 
High School in Manhattan Beach, California, vie for spots in her 
advanced placement English class. Even freshmen and sophomores hope some 
day to join what are called the ``Whirryites,'' in book-lined Room 19, 
to discuss Shakespeare and Camus, Toni Morrison and Dostoyevski.
    Her teaching style, I understand, is like a softer, more nurturing 
version of Professor Kingsfield's in ``The Paper Chase.'' She paces the 
room posing questions to each student, responding to each answer with 
still more questions, digging deeper and deeper into the toughest texts 
until their meanings are revealed. She believes there are no obstacles 
to learning that cannot be overcome through effort and high standards. 
And she lives by that belief.
    A few years ago, she underwent treatment for cancer, yet almost 
never missed a day of work. She not only beat the cancer but that

[[Page 1075]]

year every one of her students passed the AP tests. She's traveled 
America giving workshops to educators on teaching standards-based 
reading and writing.
    For the last 7 years, she's been Secretary Riley's appointee to the 
National Assessment Governing Board. I think I should point out that she 
was first appointed to NAGB by the previous administration, so 
admiration for her is bipartisan. [Laughter]
    The role of teachers has never been more important to our society 
and our future than it is today--in a global economy that rewards what 
we know and what we can learn more than ever, with the largest and most 
diverse student population in our history, and with 2 million teachers 
set to retire in the next decade, and already a crying need to lower 
class sizes and modernize facilities.
    Clearly, recruiting and retaining more and better teachers is one of 
the greatest challenges we face as a nation. And we see unusual efforts 
now being adopted all across the country. In the State of Mississippi, 
they just voted to raise teachers' salaries $10,000. In California, they 
give big bonuses to people who come into teaching. And you'll see more 
and more of this as we recognize not only the imperative of having good 
teachers but also just the sheer challenge of replacing the retiring 
teachers as the corps of students continues to grow.
    One of the things we have to do to meet that challenge is to do more 
to honor and respect our best teachers, like our honoree. Everyone who 
becomes a teacher recognizes on the front end that this is not the 
surest path to wealth. People who do it, in the end, do it and stay at 
it because they love it, because they find fulfillment in giving, in the 
spark of learning they see in children's eyes.
    The least the rest of us can do is to pay them adequately, train 
them well, give them the facilities and support they need and the 
respect that they deserve. And that last intangible element was 
conclusion number one of the Survey of America's Top Teachers, released 
just this week by Scholastic, Inc., and the Council of Chief State 
School Officers. The survey also concluded if we want to recruit more 
and better teachers and hang on to those we have, we must pay them more.
    More and more gifted young people start out teaching, but they don't 
stay as long as they used to, and that's a big challenge. Thanks to the 
longest running expansion in American history, most States have 
substantial budget surpluses now. They have to decide how best to use 
them. States, like the Nation, this year must decide what to do with 
this magic moment of prosperity in improving social conditions If I were 
a Governor and I had a surplus, I'd give my teachers the pay they 
deserved, and I hope more and more States will do that.
    We also know that the National Government has a role to play. I have 
proposed $1 billion effort to help recruit, train, and support teachers, 
to invest more in teachers even as we demand more of them. I'm 
disappointed, yesterday, that Congress set in motion a budget that, I 
believe, strongly invests too little in our schools and expects and 
demands too little from them, a plan that ignores some of our schools' 
most pressing needs, from more well-trained teachers to more modern 
classrooms. We can and must do better, and we will.
    Last week I took a school reform tour through four States. It was an 
amazing experience for me. I went to western Kentucky, and I went to 
Minnesota. I went to Iowa. I went to Ohio. I could have gone to 
anyplace, I suppose, and found much the same thing. But it was so moving 
for me to have a chance to demonstrate to the country, through the good 
offices of our friends in the media, that all children can learn and our 
schools are doing better. Test scores are up; many of our lowest 
performing schools are turning around.
    Every teacher here today and every teacher across the country ought 
to be proud of the progress that is being made. You have proved that all 
students can learn. Now our task is to ensure that all students do 
learn, that they all receive the world-class education they need, they 
deserve, and the rest of us desperately need for them to have. If we 
continue to build on our progress, I have no doubt that we can fulfill 
that promise.
    Let me just say one other thing about this that's not in the text, 
but one of the things that troubled me greatly when I became President 
in January of 1993 is that even a

[[Page 1076]]

lot of people who voted for me because they believed in what I was 
saying, didn't really believe we could turn the country around. They 
didn't really believe we would ever get rid of the deficit. They didn't 
really believe we would ever reduce the welfare rolls. They didn't 
really believe that we could make crime come down every year. And even 
though every single citizen knew some teacher that they just adored, 
they didn't really believe that on a sweeping national basis, we could 
improve the performance of our students. And now that we know, that 
imposes a special responsibility on us.
    When I leave office, we're going to have paid off $355 billion of 
the Nation's debt. We know we can get the country out of debt and still 
keep investing in education. We've got the crime rate coming down 8 
years in a row; the welfare rolls are half what they were. But a lot of 
people still don't know that the schools, against increasing challenges, 
are doing better and better. And I'll just give you one example.
    I was in Kentucky, in Owensboro, a little town in western Kentucky, 
in a school that was one of the 170 schools in 1996 identified as a low 
performing school. Within 2 years, 91 percent of the schools were off 
the list. As of last year, in 4 years, in a school with two-thirds of 
the kids eligible for free or reduced lunches, the number of children 
reading at or above grade level had gone from 12 to 57 percent; doing 
math at or above grade level had gone from 5 to 70 percent; doing 
science at or above grade level had gone from zero to 64 percent. The 
school ranked 18th in the State in overall performance, with two-thirds 
of the kids eligible for free or reduced lunch. And in Kentucky, 10 of 
the 20 best performing grade schools have over half the kids eligible 
for free or reduced lunch. Race, income, and region are not destiny, 
thanks to teachers and schools. And we need to get that out there.
    And that's what you represent to me. You are the living embodiment 
that you get more from giving than taking in life. And I can't think of 
anybody who's given more. My only regret today is that I have never been 
in one of Marilyn Whirry's classes. [Laughter] So maybe we'll get the 
next best thing as I bring her up here and present her her award.
    Ladies and gentlemen, the Teacher of the Year.

 [At this point, the President presented the award to Ms. Whirry, who 
then made brief remarks and gave the President a crystal apple.]

    The President.  Thank you. Well, thank you. I have all kinds of 
questions I wanted to ask you, about Dostoyevski and Camus and--
[laughter]
    Ms. Whirry.  Okay.
    The President.  ----the last novel he wrote that's just been 
published. What did Toni Morrison mean when she said I was America's 
first black President? [Laughter] I thought it was a great compliment.
    Let me tell you, I generally believe Presidents should not receive 
awards because the job is award enough. But I love this. And every day I 
have left here, this award will be on my desk in the Oval Office, and I 
hope you get to see it on television.
    Thank you. Bless you all. Thank you.

 Note:  The President spoke at 5:28 p.m. in the Rose Garden at the White 
House.