[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 43, Number 9 (Monday, March 5, 2007)]
[Pages 238-243]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at Silver Street Elementary School in New Albany

March 2, 2007

    Thank you all. Please be seated. A little bossy today, aren't I? 
Yes. [Laughter] Thrilled to be here in New Albany. Thanks for coming out 
to say hello. I want to talk about schools and the Federal role in 
schools relative to local governments--is what we're here to talk about.
    I'm glad to be here in the home of the Stars, the Silver Street 
Stars. I brought a lot of cameras and limousines--[laughter]--kind of 
fits in with the theme, doesn't it--Silver Street Stars. I understand 
the school is 90 years old. You've seen a lot of decent people come here 
to teach, I'll bet you--a lot of people who said, ``I want to put my 
community first,'' and became teachers and principals and caring 
citizens of the State. And so I'm real proud to be with you.
    I'm here because I think it's important for a President to herald 
success and to talk about what's possible, particularly when it comes to 
schools. My only regret is that my wife hasn't joined me today. She's, 
by far, the best deal in our family. Just like in Mitch's family, I want 
you to know. I know the Danielses well, and I can certify that the 
person from New Albany is, by far, the best part of his family too. 
[Laughter]
    I'm real proud of Mitch. I know him--he worked in my administration. 
I hauled him out of the private sector when I first got sworn in. I 
said, ``Would you come and work for the country?'' And he did. He was 
the watchdog for the people's money--it's what's called the OMB. And he 
did a fine job there, really, and I miss him a lot. I love his sense of 
humor. I knew he'd make a fine Governor. He asked me about Governor; I 
said, ``Listen, it's the greatest job in America--next to President.'' 
But it's a great--[laughter]. And he's an innovative, smart, capable, 
honest guy, and I'm proud to be with him.
    I know he cares a lot about schools too. And so when I talk about 
education, I can talk confidently about the schools here in Indiana, 
because you've got a Governor who will prioritize education. I used to 
say to people, public education is to a State what national defense is 
to the Federal Government. It ought to be the number-one priority, and I 
know Mitch is making it that way.
    I want to thank Tony Duffy. Duffy has done a find job of dealing 
with a impossibly large entourage. [Laughter] I really appreciate your 
spirit. It turns out that if you were to correlate education in a school 
with educational entrepreneurship at the principal level, the two go 
hand in hand. In other words, you have to have a good principal in order 
to be able to challenge failure when you find it, mediocrity when you 
see it, and praise excellence when it's evident. And you've got a good 
principal here, and I can't thank you enough, Tony.
    I want to thank all the teachers, as well, who teach here. Teaching 
is a hard job. It's a really hard job, and it's never really appreciated 
enough in some circles. And I just want the teachers to understand full 
well that I know the community here thanks you from the bottom of their 
heart, and the parents thank you.
    And for the parents who are here, I appreciate you paying attention 
to your school. It turns out, parental involvement is an essential part 
of having excellence in the school system. So when parents pay 
attention, it not only gives confidence to the teachers; it also enables 
the school to listen to the needs of those who matter most, and those 
are the parents and the children.
    I appreciate very much Congressman Baron Hill joining us today. The 
Congressman flew down on the airplane. As you know, we're not from the 
same political party, but we both care about education. And it's nice of 
you to come. You'll meet a friend of mine who is with us, Mike and 
Keta--appreciate you all coming.
    Now is not the time to be involved with politics when we're talking 
about the education of our children. This is an issue that needs to rise 
above politics and needs to

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focus on what's right, because getting the schools right in America will 
make sure that this country remains competitive and hopeful and 
optimistic. So I'm proud you traveled with me, and it's good to see you 
both again. Thanks for coming.
    Mayor Jim Garner and Debbie are with us. Mr. Mayor, thank you for 
being here, sir. Proud to be in your city. I appreciate the reception 
that we received from the citizens. People respect the Presidency, and 
sometimes they like the President. [Laughter] I appreciate the fact that 
people came out to wave.
    I want to thank Dr. Reed, who is the Indiana Superintendent of 
Public Instruction. Thank you for coming, Dr. Reed. There you are. I 
appreciate Mr. Don Sakel; he's the president of the School Board. Don, 
where are you? There you are, yes. I saw him coming in, I said, ``You've 
probably got the toughest job in America, being on the school board.'' 
[Laughter] For those of you who know school politics, you know what I'm 
talking about. But I appreciate the school board and the board of 
trustees, people who serve the local community by serving on the school 
board, making sure that local control of schools remains an essential 
part of the school system in this State and around the country. Dr. 
Dennis Brooks, who is the superintendent of the New Albany and Floyd 
County school system is with us. And community leaders, thanks.
    So there is a bill coming up for reauthorization called the No Child 
Left Behind Act. I happen to think it's, if not the, one of the most 
substantial pieces of legislation I will have had the honor to sign--
I've signed a lot. I want to describe to you the philosophy behind the 
act and why I strongly believe it needs to be reauthorized by the United 
States Congress.
    I first became directly involved with public schools from a public 
policy perspective as the Governor of Texas, and I was deeply concerned 
about systems that quit early on a child and just moved them through. In 
other words, I was concerned about a system where people would walk in 
the classroom and say, ``These children are hard to educate; therefore, 
let's just move them through the system.'' It may not have happened in 
Indiana, but it happened in Texas. And it was unacceptable, because 
guess who generally got shuffled through the system: the poor, the newly 
arrived, the minority student. And I knew that unless we confronted a 
system which gave up on children early, that my State would not be a 
hopeful place.
    And so I decided to do something about it, and I took that spirit to 
Washington, DC. Now, look, I fully understand some are nervous when they 
hear a President talking about Federal education. You start thinking to 
yourself, the Government is going to tell you what to do here at the 
local level. Quite the contrary, in this piece of legislation. I 
strongly believe in local control of schools. I believe it's essential 
to align authority and responsibility. And by insisting upon local 
control of schools, you put the power where it should be--closest to the 
people.
    On the other hand, I know full well that to make sure a system 
doesn't lapse into kind of the safety of mediocrity that you've got to 
measure. See, in my State, we said, we want to know whether or not a 
child can read and write early, before that child gets moved through the 
system. And so I insisted upon accountability, and the spirit of the No 
Child Left Behind Act is the same.
    It says, if you spend money, you should insist upon results. Now, I 
recognize the Federal Government only spends about 7 percent of the 
total education budgets around the country, and frankly, that's the way 
I think it should be. In other words, if local people are responsible or 
the State is responsible, that's where the primary funding ought to 
come. But I also strongly subscribe to the idea of the Federal 
Government providing extra money for what's called Title I students, for 
example, students who go to this school--money that I think bolsters 
education for students in the community.
    But I also believe that in return for you spending that money--it's 
your money, after all--it makes sense for Government to say, ``Is it 
working? Are we meeting objectives? Are we achieving the results 
necessary for all of us to say that the school systems are working 
nationwide?'' And so step one of the No Child Left Behind Act was to 
say, ``You've got to measure.''

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    We didn't design a Federal test, because I believe a Federal test 
undermines local control of schools. As a matter of fact, Mitch and 
Baron and I were talking in the car about how Indiana has had a 
longstanding accountability system, and that's good. It ought to be your 
accountability system; after all, it's your schools. But I do believe 
you need to measure, and I know you need to set high standards and keep 
raising those standards.
    In life, if you lower the bar, you get lousy results. If you keep 
raising that bar, it's amazing what can happen. I call it challenging 
the soft bigotry of low expectations. And that's an important part of 
the No Child Left Behind Act. We expect people to set high standards and 
measure to determine whether or not those standards are being met.
    Now, one of the interesting debates in the school systems is 
curriculum. I imagine you've had a few of those tussles here; we had a 
lot of them in the State of Texas. Reading curriculum, for example, 
there was a longstanding debate over which type of system works better. 
And it can get pretty heated. One way to cut through all the noise, 
however, is to measure. If the children are learning to read given a 
basic curriculum, then you know you picked the right way to teach, the 
right set of instructions. If your children are not meeting standards, 
then an accountability system gives you the opportunity to change. And 
school systems, in my judgment, need to be flexible. That's why local 
control of schools makes sense. When something isn't working, you need 
to correct. But what the accountability systems enable you to do is 
determine if it's working at all.
    I think it's very important for there to be transparency. In other 
words, when you have scores--I don't know if you do this, Mitch, or not, 
but I would strongly suggest that you post them for everybody to see, 
across the State of Indiana. It's kind of hard to tell how you're doing 
relative to your neighbor unless there's full accountability--in other 
words, unless everybody can see the results. A lot of times people think 
their school is doing just great--the principal, in all due respect, 
says, ``We're doing just fine; don't worry about it, community.'' But 
you may not be. And it's important for people to fully understand how 
your school is doing relative to other schools, so that if you need to 
correct, you're able to do so. See, if you have high standards, then you 
want to aim to those standards and make sure that you're doing well 
relative to other schools that are setting high standards.
    Finally, what we need is to make sure that we individualize, as best 
as possible, the school system. That's what happens here at Silver 
Street. In other words, when you use your accountability system 
properly, you can tailor it to each individual student. That's why the 
act is called the No Child Left Behind Act. It doesn't say ``all 
children shouldn't be left behind;'' it says ``no child.'' In other 
words, you can individualize curriculum based upon accountability, and 
this school does that.
    Testing data has helped teachers tailor instruction. Here's what 
your principal said. He said, ``We drill down in the data.'' In other 
words, they take the data and drill down--I presume you meant analyze a 
lot. Yes, that's good. I'm from Crawford, Texas, too, so I know. 
[Laughter] They analyze. They drill down in the data and figure out what 
the best practices are that we need to be using in the classroom. In 
other words, they use the data, not as a way to punish but as a way to 
improve.
    The spirit of the No Child Left Behind Act says, we will spend 
money, we will use accountability to drill down to make sure no child 
gets left behind. You know, one way you can really use this, 
particularly in your early grades, is for literacy. Science doesn't 
matter if the child can't read. It's really hard to be good in math if 
you don't have the capacity to read the problems in the first place. And 
so I know this school is focused on literacy, as it should be, as a step 
toward educational excellence in all subjects.
    I appreciate very much the fact that this school uses the 
accountability to focus on teaching techniques. Sometimes, probably not 
in this school, but sometimes teachers have got the right heart, but 
they don't have the techniques necessary to deliver the results that are 
expected. And so you can use your accountability system, if you're wise, 
to make sure that the techniques are analyzed and the compassion in the 
classroom is

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backed with the skills necessary to be able to achieve objectives.
    Here's what the principal also says--and this is an important part 
of excellence--``We never give up. There are no excuses.'' Sometimes if 
you don't measure, you can find all kinds of excuses. And it's just not 
in schools; it's life. The easy position sometimes is the default--by 
saying, ``Well, I just didn't have what was necessary to get the job 
done,'' or something like that. This is a no-excuses school. That means 
high standards. Low standards are a place where people find excuses; 
high standards, there is no excuse, and there's a focus on what's right 
for each child.
    And that's why I'm here at Silver Street. I appreciate so very much 
that this school has met State standards for progress under No Child 
Left Behind every year since 2002. [Applause] Isn't that interesting? 
Isn't it interesting to be able to say that? You can't say something 
that draws applause unless you measure. Without a measurement system the 
president would be saying, ``Well, we anticipate that we are doing well. 
We certainly hope that we're meeting State standards.'' Under this 
system you can say, ``We know we're meeting State standards.'' And that 
should give the parents who pay attention to this school a great comfort 
and give the teachers who teach here great pride.
    The No Child Left Behind Act is working across the country. So when 
Members of Congress think about reauthorization--by the way, I'm here 
to--I'm not only speaking to you; I'm lobbying. This is--I'm lobbying 
Congress. [Laughter] I'm setting the stage for Congress to join me in 
the reauthorization of this important piece of legislation.
    The test scores across the country are heartening. Now, there's 
still a lot of work to be done--don't get me wrong--but there's 
improvement. One of my issues is that there's an achievement gap in 
America; certain students are doing better than other students. White 
students are doing better than African American students or Latino 
students. And that's not--that's simply not acceptable. It's not 
acceptable to the country. It's not--it forebodes not a positive future, 
so long as that achievement gap exists. The gap is closing. It's 
heartening news.
    Fourth graders are reading better. They've made more progress in 5 
years than the previous 28 years combined. In other words, we're able to 
measure whether or not all children--and by the way, we disaggregate 
results. That is a fancy, sophisticated word meaning that we're able to 
focus on demographic groups. And the progress has been substantial. You 
just heard that it's easy to quantify how well we're doing because 
there's measurement.
    In math, 9-year-olds and 13-year-olds earned the highest scores in 
the history of the test. I hear some people say, ``Oh, we don't like 
tests.'' I didn't like them either. [Laughter] But it's really important 
to make sure that we're achieving standards, and so reauthorizing this 
good piece of legislation is one of my top priorities. And my claim is, 
it's working. Now, we can change parts of it for the better, but don't 
change the core of a piece of good legislation that's making a 
significant difference in the lives of a lot of children.
    We're living in a competitive world. Whether people like it or not, 
the reality is, we live in a world where our students are going to have 
to compete for jobs with students in China or India or elsewhere. And if 
this country wants to remain the economic leader in the world, we've got 
to make sure we have a workforce capable of filling the jobs of the 21st 
century. And it's a real challenge for us. It's a challenge we're going 
to meet, by the way. There's no doubt in my mind we can meet it.
    But it really starts with elementary school. It really starts here, 
in schools like this. And it's important to get it right early, to make 
sure that children have got that foundation necessary to become the 
scientists and the engineers and the leaders for tomorrow. No Child Left 
Behind Act is a central part of the competitiveness initiative, to make 
sure that America remains on the leading edge of change and is the 
economic leader of the world.
    We can do some other things around. One thing we need to do is to 
make sure that we align our high school graduation requirements with 
college readiness standards, which is precisely what the State of 
Indiana has done. We want to make sure that a high

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school diploma means something. I happen to believe that we ought to 
take the same accountability that we've got in elementaries and junior 
highs and get it to high school, just to make sure; to be able to say 
with certainty, the high school diploma that somebody gets really means 
something, that it's working.
    I fully believe that we need to advance--that we need to spread 
Advanced Placement courses around the country. Advanced Placement is a 
fabulous program. It's a way to set high standards, isn't it? And we 
need to train teachers in AP and help students afford the AP exam. AP is 
a good way to--[applause]--we've got an AP teacher back there.
    Math and science are really important subjects. I can remember--math 
and science probably doesn't, like, have cachet. It's not cool, but it's 
important to emphasize math and science. And one way to do that is to 
take math and science professionals and encourage them to go into 
classrooms. I went to a school with Margaret Spellings, who happens to 
be the Secretary of Education, a dear friend of mine, and doing a fine 
job--and we went to a school in Maryland, and there was a scientist from 
NASA explaining the beauties of science.
    Parents sometimes have trouble explaining the beauties of science. I 
certainly did when I was trying to work on those science projects. 
[Laughter] But when you get a professional, somebody who knows what 
they're talking about, they can really enlighten a child to the benefits 
of math or science focus. And so we've got a program to work with 
Congress to get more of those professionals in classrooms. We call them 
adjunct professors. I hope the Congress funds that program. So there's 
one way, for example, to build on the No Child Left Behind Act, focus on 
high schools and math and science.
    Secondly, one of the things that we've got is--in our budget is to 
understand that when a school struggles, that there ought to be extra 
Federal money to help the struggling school. And I look forward to 
working with Congress to fully fund that. We've got incentive--a teacher 
incentive fund, grant programs to encourage teachers to go to schools 
that need extra help with the teachers. I think it makes sense to give 
school districts grant money--or States to give grant money--to say, 
here's a district that needs focus. It's test scores probably aren't as 
good as they should be. If there needs to be additional qualified 
teachers there, we'll provide incentives for the teachers to go.
    Thirdly, I strongly believe that there needs to be consequences when 
there's failure. And, oh, by the way, Baron and I talked about this, and 
Mitch and I talked about the accountability systems. They ought to be 
flexible; we understand that. Now, flexibility does not mean watering 
down standards. In other words, when we talk about accommodating special 
needs students in terms of the accountability system--which I understand 
is an issue, and so does Margaret Spellings, who is working with 
Congress on this issue--we cannot use that flexibility to water down 
accountability.
    And so we--Margaret briefed the Governors and told Mitch and all the 
other Governors, we'll work with them, just so long as we maintain those 
high standards. And I believe we can make sure that we accommodate 
school needs without watering down this important piece of legislation. 
Watering down No Child Left Behind Act would be doing thousands of 
children a disservice, and we can't let it happen.
    We've got a--one of the problems we have--well, one of the good 
things in the bill was that when a child is in a school and has fallen 
behind--a Title I child--there's going to be extra money for tutoring, 
which I think is a great idea. In other words, you find a young child 
early in his or her career, school career, and they can't read, there's 
extra money. Now, one of the problems we've had is for--is to make sure 
we get the test scores out in a timely basis to school districts who, 
therefore, can then get the information on a timely basis to their 
parents, to make sure that the extra tutorial money is available for 
their child.
    Sometimes the best intentions get stuck in getting the information 
to students. And so Margaret is going to work hard with Congress to make 
sure that parents whose child is not meeting standards and who is 
eligible for this extra money gets notified early

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enough to be able to take that money wherever the parent may want their 
child to receive tutorial help. See, I'm a person who believes that 
parents know best when it comes to the interests of their child. And 
therefore, when we find a school that is persistently in failure, 
parents must be given different options. There has to be a consequence. 
Something has to happen if schools refuse to change and a child stays 
trapped in mediocrity. And one such consequence is to give parents the 
ability to send their child to a different school, public or private, as 
far as I'm concerned.
    Another option, and something I strongly support, is for there to be 
competitive grant programs for opportunity scholarships. You know, in 
Washington, DC, we've got a terrible problem there in the public school 
system because it's not meeting standards. They're just simply not 
getting the job done in too many instances. And so I work with the 
mayor, a Democrat mayor--a Democratic mayor--who, by the way, believes 
what I believe, that when you find failure, you can't accept it. And so 
you know what we did? We put forth what's called opportunity 
scholarships for families of the poorer students, so their family, if 
the school isn't meeting needs, can afford to go to a different kind of 
school. What matters is the child getting the education. That's what 
matters most. And my attitude is, if there's persistent failure, it 
makes sense to liberate the parents so their child can have a better 
chance.
    So here's some reforms I look forward to working with Congress on. 
This is a piece of legislation that is--it's vital for the country, in 
my judgment. It's working, and I think we ought to make sure it stays in 
law. And I'm looking forward to working with both Republicans and 
Democrats to get it done. I've reached out to the bill sponsors in 2001, 
Senator Kennedy of Massachusetts, Congressman Miller of California, 
Congressman Boehner of Ohio, and Senator Gregg of New Hampshire. These 
four gentlemen worked with the White House the last time to get the bill 
done; we're in consultations now to get it reauthorized.
    I'm pleased to report, we're all headed in the same direction. In 
Washington, when you get everybody like that headed in the same 
direction, sometimes you can get some things done. Believe it or not, it 
is possible to put aside the sharp elbows of partisan politics and focus 
on what's right for the country. And in my strong opinion, the 
reauthorization of No Child Left Behind is right for the country, and 
that's what I've come to New Albany to tell you.
    God bless.

Note: The President spoke at 2:38 p.m. In his remarks, he referred to 
Gov. Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr., of Indiana, and his wife, Cheri Herman 
Daniels; former Representative Michael E. Sodrel and his wife, Keta; 
Mayor James E. Garner, Sr., of New Albany, IN; and Mayor Adrian M. Fenty 
of Washington, DC.