[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 40, Number 2 (Monday, January 12, 2004)]
[Pages 47-50]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks to the National Catholic Educational Association

January 9, 2004

    Welcome, please. Thanks for coming. Please be seated. Thanks for 
coming. [Laughter] Welcome to the people's house. We're glad you're 
here.
    The last 100 years, the leadership of the National Catholic 
Education Association has been vital in advancing the work of Catholic 
schools around the Nation and, therefore, has been vital to the hopeful 
future of America. I'm honored to join you for celebrating your 100th 
anniversary. And this is a fitting place to celebrate the anniversary.
    Catholic schools carry out a great mission, to serve God by building 
knowledge and character of our young people. It's a noble calling. It's 
an important part of the fabric of America. By teaching the Word of God, 
you prepare your students to follow a path of virtue and compassion and 
sacrifice for the rest of their lives. And by insisting on high 
standards for academic achievement, Catholic schools are a model for all 
schools around our country.
    I was hoping to run into a fellow Texan today. [Laughter] His 
Excellency Gregory Aymond is the bishop from Austin, Texas. [Laughter] 
He is--I'm glad there's only a handful of Texans here. [Laughter] The 
bishop is the board chair of the National Catholic Education 
Association, and I want to thank you for joining us.
    I appreciate Michael Guerra. Michael Guerra is the president of the 
National Catholic Education Association. Michael, thank you, and thank 
you for all the board members who graciously had a picture taken in the 
Blue Room with me. I appreciate you doing that.
    His Excellency John Cummins, who is the bishop emeritus of Oakland, 
California, is with us. His Excellency, thank you for being here, sir.
    I appreciate Carl Anderson, the Supreme Knight of the Knights of 
Columbus, and Dorian for joining us today.
    I'm sorry my neighbor His Eminence Theodore Cardinal McCarrick is 
not with us, a decent man. [Laughter] I really, really am proud to call 
him friend. He's a really good guy, as we say in Texas.
    I appreciate you all coming. I really do. Thanks for being here.
    Catholic educators share the basic conviction that every child can 
learn, and every child can learn to lead a life of service. That's a 
pretty good mission statement, isn't it? Let us teach every child to 
read and write and add and subtract, and as we do so, let us teach every 
child to serve a cause greater than self. The whole Nation benefits 
because of the good scholars and good citizens who graduate from 
Catholic schools. That is a fact.
    Through your faith in every child--and I emphasize ``every child''--
Catholic schools have overcome challenges and experienced remarkable 
results. It is well known that Catholic schools operate on small 
budgets. [Laughter] The per-pupil cost in a Catholic school classroom is 
substantially below the per-pupil costs of many other schools, public or 
private.
    And yet, the results are astonishing: 2.6 million students who 
attend Catholic schools will graduate--that's 99 percent--and almost all 
go to college. Even though the per-pupil expenditure per classroom is 
low, the results are extremely high. And it says something is going 
right--[laughter]--starting with the fact that Catholic schools have 
high expectations. You challenge what I call the soft bigotry of low 
expectations. You believe in the worth of every person and every child. 
You believe that inherent in every child is the capacity to learn. And 
you refuse to quit on any child.
    The Catholic schools understand that love and discipline go hand in 
hand. The Catholic schools are willing to change curriculum if it 
doesn't work. The Catholic schools sometimes meet longer hours than some 
would expect is the norm. Take LaSalle Academy, a Catholic school in 
Philadelphia. Students

[[Page 48]]

attend classes from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and the school year is several 
weeks longer than average. Whatever it takes to make sure no child is 
left behind, the Catholic schools do.
    In addition to learning to read and write, students take courses in 
computers and music and art. At David McDonough, the principal of the 
school said this, ``We bombard them''--that would be his students--
[laughter]--``We bombard them with love, attention, and work, and they 
thrive.''
    An important part of the Catholic education is the commitment to 
serving what our society calls the disadvantaged student, regardless of 
religious affiliation. I appreciate that a lot. These are the students 
who sometimes in the public school system are deemed to be uneducable 
and, therefore, are just moved through the system. The Catholic schools 
have done our country a great service by a special outreach to minority 
children, who make up 26 percent of the enrollment of our Catholic 
schools. This is a great service to those children and their parents and 
our country.
    Catholic schools have a proven record of bringing out the best in 
every child, regardless of their background. And every school in America 
should live up to that standard. We want our public schools to live up 
to the standard you have set in Catholic schools.
    I signed what's called the No Child Left Behind Act. It is the most 
historic education reform in a generation. It actually passed with 
bipartisan support, which is unusual for Washington these days. 
[Laughter] Let me tell you a little bit about the philosophy behind the 
law, and I think you'll find it to be reminiscent.
    First, the law assumes that every child can learn and, therefore, 
expects every child to learn. We've increased Federal spending and now, 
for the--at the Federal level, primarily for Title I students, many of 
whom would be--go to your schools, if they went to the--would be 
eligible for this program if they went to public schools, many of your 
students would be eligible for this program. But in return we now expect 
results. See, we believe every child can learn, and therefore, we're 
saying to States, ``You must measure to show us whether a child has 
learned to read and write and add and subtract. And if not, let's solve 
the problem early, before it's too late.''
    In other words, we've introduced accountability into the system for 
the first time, insisted upon accountability, and then said, ``Let's 
have enough money available to correct problems.'' And so now the States 
must test regularly, every year. And if the curriculum isn't working, 
you change it. And if it is working, there will be plenty of praise. If 
the math programs aren't working, change them, because we now expect 
results. Because like the Catholic schools, we believe in the worth of 
every child. We're challenging the soft bigotry of low expectations by 
raising the standard and refusing to accept the status quo when our 
children are not learning.
    We've also done something different as well. We've insisted that 
these schools post results. It's an interesting phenomena to see a 
parent react when the expectation isn't met for a public school. In 
other words, everything may be fine, and all of a sudden the test scores 
are revealed and, oops, my school is not doing like I thought it was 
doing and, therefore, I, a parent, should become more involved in my 
child's school when I see failure.
    But even beyond that, we've begun introducing to the system for the 
first time at the Federal level the capacity to take Federal money and 
spend that money in the private sector to get special tutorials. In 
other words, if a child is trapped in a school which is failing and 
won't change, after a reasonable period of time, there is some money 
that follows the child and the child can take that money, the parent can 
take that money and get his or her child additional tutoring--at a 
public facility, private charity, or at a Catholic school.
    And so all of a sudden the No Child Left Behind Act not only demands 
accountability, but we've also started to empower parents to make 
additional choices for their child when the child is trapped into a 
school that won't change. And that includes, by the way, not only 
private tutoring but also a additional public school, a different--in 
other words, what we're trying to do is introduce parental involvement 
through accountability standards.

[[Page 49]]

    Parents, I believe--and I believe we ought to expand this 
opportunity further, which we're trying to do here in Washington, DC. 
And I want to describe to you right quick what this administration has 
done, where you can help a little bit in perhaps influencing the 
process, to begin what I think is a major reform.
    As you know, the Government is responsible for much of the education 
in Washington, DC. And so working with people in Congress, we decided to 
expand on the spirit of the No Child Left Behind Act and introduce 
school choice here in Washington. Under this program the Federal 
Government would provide what's called scholarships to low-income 
families with children in under-performing schools--these families whose 
children clearly need better choices; if you're going to an under-
performing school, you need a better choice--would receive a scholarship 
of up to $7,500, Federal money, to help meet the cost of tuition at any 
school of the parents' choice, a private school or a Catholic school, 
for that matter.
    I suspect that this program would have a lot of takers when we can 
get it funded, because I think some parents, any parent, regardless of 
his or her income status, wants the best for their child. And when they 
begin to feel like the school isn't meeting the child's needs, it's just 
natural that they be looking for an alternative. The Catholic school 
system here in DC provides a really good alternative. And the Federal 
Government is now willing to help fund that alternative.
    The good news is education is a priority in DC. The Mayor, a good 
fellow and a strong leader, recognizes the advantages of having a school 
choice program. Mayor Tony Williams is a strong supporter of the 
initiative we put forth on Capitol Hill. The House passed a bill that 
provides $14 million for this $7,500 per child scholarship program. It 
is a part of the Senate omnibus bill--that's what we call it, an omnibus 
bill--that has yet to be passed. The omnibus bill contains a lot of 
other parts of the appropriations process. The Senate is getting ready 
to come back into town. For the sake of educational excellence and for 
the sake of trusting parents to make the right decision for their 
children, for the sake, really, of helping to begin a change in 
education around the country, for the sake of helping the Catholic 
schools in the DC area fulfill their mission, meet their obligation, and 
to continue doing the excellent work they're doing, the Senate needs to 
pass this bill and make school choice in Washington, DC, a reality.
    I want to build on this vital reform. I'm going to ask Congress to 
provide 50 million new dollars in this year's budget for what we call a 
national choice incentive fund. The program would award Federal grants 
to communities and organizations that help students, especially those 
from low-income families and those trapped in under-performing schools, 
to find a better education, become seed money for additional programs 
like the DC choice program I just described to you.
    The initiative has a simple goal, yet it's a profound goal, to help 
more parents send their children to the school that is best for them, no 
matter what kind of school it is. When parents have more control over 
their children's education, children have a better chance to learn, 
schools have a better incentive to improve.
    Much of what is behind the No Child Left Behind Act, the spirit and 
the philosophy of the No Child Left Behind Act, came from the examples 
set by the Catholic schools. It's a sense of what is possible. It is a 
sense that everybody has worth, that each soul matters. And therefore, 
we will not accept systems that just shuffle people through.
    Everyone involved in the National Catholic Education Association can 
look back with pride over 100 years of excellence. And that's what we're 
here to celebrate today, 100 years of excellence. You are serving God by 
serving our children. You are making America a stronger and more 
compassionate country, one child at a time. Congratulations and thank 
you.

Note: The President spoke at 2:10 p.m. in the East Room at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to Bishop Gregory J. Aymond of 
Austin, TX; Dorian Anderson, wife of Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of 
the Knights of Columbus; and Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, Archbishop of 
Washington, DC. He also referred to Title I of the Improving America's 
Schools Act of 1994 (Public Law No. 103-382), which amended Title

[[Page 50]]

I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (Public Law No. 
89-10).