[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 44, Number 16 (Monday, April 28, 2008)]
[Pages 587-592]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at the White House Summit on Inner-City Children and Faith-Based 
Schools

April 24, 2008

    Thank you all. Aysia, thanks for the introduction. You did a 
fabulous job. I'm told that you're a very hard worker who loves school, 
and it's clear you always wear a smile. She's a member of her school's 
student advisory group, has performed in plays ranging from Shakespeare 
to ``The Lion King,'' writes short stories, and as you just heard her 
explain, she loves all language arts. Well, that's good. Some people say 
I'm pretty artful with language as well. [Laughter]
    It is clear she has a promising future because of the education she 
is receiving at Saint Ann's. Unfortunately, thousands of other children 
like her are missing out on these opportunities because America's inner-
city faith-based schools are closing at an alarming rate. And so that's 
why we've convened this summit, to discuss how we can extend lifelines 
of learning to all America's children. And I want to thank you for 
coming.
    I take this summit seriously. Obviously, you do as well. My 
administration looks forward to working with you. This is a national 
objective, to make sure every child gets a good education. And I really 
appreciate you coming.
    I want to thank my friend and the Secretary of Education, Margaret 
Spellings, for joining with us today. I thank the Acting Secretary of 
HUD, Roy Bernardi.
    Archbishop Wuerl, thank you very much, sir, for being here. We were 
just talking about what a glorious week it was to welcome His Holiness 
to America. It was an extraordinary moment for all who were directly 
involved and, I think, an extraordinary moment for all of America.
    I got to know Archbishop Wuerl in Pittsburgh. I hope I conveyed to 
him my sense that providing a sound education for every child is one of 
the really important challenges for America. I happen to believe it is 
one of the greatest civil rights challenges. I am fully aware that in 
inner-city America, some children are getting a good education, but a 
lot are consigned to inadequate schools.

[[Page 588]]

    And I believe helping these children should be a priority of a 
nation. It's certainly a priority to me. I married a teacher who has 
worked in inner-city schools; I helped raise one as well. And helping 
inner-city children receive the education they deserve is so important 
as we head into the 21st century to make sure every child has got the 
skills necessary to succeed. That's what a hopeful country is all about.
    Over the past 7 years, we have worked to strengthen the public 
school system. In other words, we haven't given up on public schools. 
Quite the contrary, we've tried to help them succeed by passing the No 
Child Left Behind Act. In some circles, it's controversial. I don't 
think it should be controversial, however, to demand high standards for 
every child. I don't think it should be controversial to insist upon 
accountability to see if those children are meeting those standards. And 
I don't think it should be viewed as controversial to say to a public 
school, if children are falling behind, here's supplemental services to 
help that individual child catch up.
    As a result of accountability measures, I can now say that eighth 
graders set a record high for math scores. In other words, in order to 
be able to say that, you have to measure in the first place. When I was 
Governor of Texas, I didn't like a system where we just simply guessed--
you know, ``Do you think the child is learning?'' ``I don't know. Maybe, 
maybe not.'' [Laughter] That's unacceptable, particularly when a child's 
life is at stake.
    We've learned that scores for minority and poor students are 
reaching alltime highs in a number of areas, and that's great. As a 
matter of fact, there's an achievement gap in America that is 
unacceptable. The good news is, it's beginning to narrow. The problem 
is, is that while the No Child Left Behind Act is helping to turn around 
many struggling schools, there are still children trapped in schools 
that will not teach and will not change.
    Today, nearly one-half of children in America's major urban school 
districts do not graduate on time--one-half of our children in major 
urban school districts do not get out of school on time. In Detroit, one 
student in four makes it out of the public school system with a diploma. 
When schools like these fail our inner-city children, it is unfair, it's 
unacceptable, and it is unsustainable for our country.
    And so there are a variety of solutions. One is to work hard to 
improve the public school system. But also another solution is to 
recognize that there is a bright future for a lot of children found in 
faith-based schools.
    The faith-based school tradition is not a 21st century phenomenon. A 
Quaker school opened in Philadelphia in 1689. A Jewish day school opened 
in New York more than 40 years before the American Revolution. And 
during the 19th century, Catholic schools in our biggest cities welcomed 
children of poor European immigrants. Can you imagine what it would--
what it's like to be an immigrant coming to America, can't hardly speak 
the language, and find great solace in two institutions: one, church; 
and two, schools? And generations of Americans have been lifted up. 
Generations of the newly arrived have been able to have hopeful futures 
because of our faith-based schools. It's been a--it's a fact. It's a 
part of our history. Frankly, it's a glorious part of our history.
    Today, our Nation's poorest--in our poorest communities, religious 
schools continue to provide important services. And as they carry out 
their historic mission of training children in faith, these schools 
increasingly serve children, you know, that don't share their religious 
tradition. That's important for people to know, that there's a lot of 
students who, for example, may not be Catholic who go to the schools and 
get a great education. That's what we ought to be focused on, how to get 
people a great education.
    In neighborhoods where some people say, children simply can't learn, 
the faith-based schools are proving the naysayers wrong. These schools 
are--provide a good, solid academic foundation for children. They also 
help children understand the importance of discipline and character.
    Yet for all their successes, America's inner-city faith-based 
schools are facing a crisis. And I use the word crisis for this reason: 
Between 2000 and 2006, nearly 1,200 faith-based schools closed in 
America's inner cities. It's affected nearly 400,000 students. They're 
places of learning where people are

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getting a good education, and they're beginning to close, to the extent 
that 1,200 of them have closed. The impact of school closings extends 
far beyond the children that are having to leave these classrooms. The 
closings place an added burden on inner-city public schools that are 
struggling. And these school closings impoverish our country by really 
denying a future of children a critical source of learning not only 
about how to read and write but about social justice.
    We have an interest in the health of these institutions. One of the 
reasons I've come is to highlight this problem and say to our country, 
we have an interest in the health of these centers of excellence. It's 
in the country's interest to get beyond the debate of public/private, to 
recognize this is a critical national asset that provides a critical 
part of our Nation's fabric in making sure we're a hopeful place.
    And so I want to spend a little time talking about what can be done 
to help preserve these schools and provide, more importantly, a hopeful 
future. And that's what you're going to do after I leave as well.
    First, ensuring that faith-based schools can continue to serve 
inner-city children requires a commitment from the Federal Government. 
Federal funds support faith-based organizations that serve Americans in 
need. So we got beyond the social service debate by saying, you know, 
it's okay to use taxpayers' money to provide help for those who hurt. My 
whole theory of life was, we ought to be asking about results, not 
necessarily process. When you focus on process, you can find all sorts 
of reasons not to move forward. If you say, focus on results, it then 
provides an outlet for other options than state-sponsored programs, 
which is okay.
    I mean, what I'm telling you is, is that we're using taxpayers' 
money to empower faith-based organizations to help meet critical needs 
throughout the country, critical needs such as helping a child whose 
parents may be in prison understand there's hope; a critical need is 
helping a prisoner recently released realize there's a hopeful tomorrow; 
a critical need is to help somebody whip drugs and alcohol so they can 
live a hopeful life. And we do that in the social services.
    We also provide Federal funds--funding support for institutions of 
higher learning. We're using taxpayers' money to enable somebody to go 
to a private university, a religious university. It's a long tradition 
of the United States of America.
    So my attitude is, if we're doing this, if this is a precedent, why 
don't we use the same philosophy to provide Federal funds to help inner-
city families find greater choices in educating their children.
    There is a precedent for this called the DC choice initiative act. 
And we've got some advocates here for the DC Choice Incentive Act--I 
know; I've worked with them--and I'm surprised they're not yelling 
again. [Laughter] The law created Washington's opportunity scholarship 
program, which has helped more than 2,600 of the poorest children in our 
Nation's Capital find new hope at a faith-based or other nonpublic 
school. In other words, one way to address the closings of schools is to 
empower parents to be able to send their children to those schools 
before they close.
    And this is a successful program, I think it's safe to say. One way 
to judge whether it's successful is to look at the demand for the 
scholarship relative to the supplies of the scholarship. And there's a 
lot of people who want their children to be able to take advantage of 
this program. As a matter of fact, demand clearly outstrips supply, 
which says to me we ought to expand the program and not kill the 
program. I mean, when you have a--[applause].
    So we'll continue to work with Congress to not only reauthorize the 
program as it exists but hopefully expand it so that parents will be 
able to--[applause].
    I also proposed an idea that I really hope Congress takes seriously, 
and that is Pell Grants for Kids. We--this would be a $300 million 
initiative that would help as many as 75,000 low-income children that 
are now enrolled in troubled public schools to be able to go to a school 
of the parents' choice. See, one of the--what's very important to make 
sure that an accountability system works is there's actual consequences 
and outlets.
    And one of the outlets would be, if you're in a public school that 
won't teach and won't

[[Page 590]]

change, and you're--qualify--here's a scholarship for you to be able to 
have an additional opportunity. And, to me, this is a good way to help 
strengthen the schools that I was talking about that are losing. I mean, 
one way to make sure you don't lose schools is you have people that are 
able to afford the education--sustain the cashflow of these valuable 
American assets.
    Pell grants--I want to remind our citizens, Pell grants have helped 
low-income young adults pursue the dream of a college education. And it 
is time to apply the same spirit to liberate poor children trapped in 
public schools that aren't meeting expectations.
    State and local governments can help. Today, more than 30 state 
constitutions include so-called Blaine amendments, which prohibit public 
support of religious schools. These amendments have their roots in 19th 
century anti-Catholic bigotry, and today, the legacy of discrimination 
continues to harm low-income students of many faiths and many 
backgrounds. And so State lawmakers, if they're concerned about quality 
education for children and if they're concerned about these schools 
closing, they ought to remove the Blaine amendments; they ought to move 
this part of history.
    There are other things State and local governments can do. I would 
call people's attention to the Pennsylvania Educational Improvement Tax 
Credit--P-E-I-T-C--PEITC--[laughter]--which allows businesses to meet 
State tax obligations by supporting pre-K through 12 scholarships for 
low-income students. It's an innovative way to use the tax code to meet 
a national--in this case, State--objective. The scholarships then allow 
children to attend the school of their choice, including religious 
schools. Since 2001, these tax credits have yielded more than $300 
million to help Pennsylvania families. It's an innovative use of the tax 
code to meet social objectives. All 12 high schools in the diocese--in 
Pittsburgh, bishop, have seen increased enrollment each year the program 
has been in place. That's positive.
    And so I would call upon State leaders to listen to what comes out 
of this conference and to think of innovative ways to advance education 
for all children. Faith-based schools can continue to serve inner-city 
children requires a--to see that that happens requires a commitment from 
the business community. It's in corporate America's interest that our 
children get a good education, starting in pre-K through 12th grade.
    In Chicago, a group of Jesuit priests found an innovative way to 
finance children's education called Cristo Rey, and they convinced 
Chicago's businesses to become involved. It's interesting that the 
Jesuits took the initiative. I would hope that corporate America would 
also take initiative. [Laughter] But 4 days of the week, the children go 
to class, and then on the fifth, they report for work at some of 
Chicago's most prestigious firms.
    The businesses get energetic, reliable workers for high turnover 
jobs. The students get a topnotch education plus real work experience. 
They feel a sense of pride when they leave some of the city's most 
dangerous neighborhoods for the city's tallest skyscrapers. It's a 
program that is working, and many of the students take that same sense 
of pride and accomplishment to higher education.
    It's interesting to note that Cristo Rey is now involved in 19 
cities. In other words, the good ideas can take hold. The job of this 
conference is to provide a kind of goby for people who share a sense of 
concern about our Nation's future. And hopefully, from this summit, good 
ideas will be spawning other good ideas--at the Federal level, the State 
and local level, at the corporate level, and then, of course, at the 
citizen level.
    Citizens are--you know, we are a compassionate nation. What I see is 
America at its very best, which is these millions of acts of kindness 
and generosity that take place, and it doesn't require a government law. 
Sometimes it takes a little higher authority than government to inspire 
people to acts of kindness and mercy. But it happens all the time in 
America. It truly does. About one-third of Americans who volunteer do so 
through religious organizations. Many of them happen to be faith-based 
schools, by the way. When you hear about an America that volunteers, 
many of the volunteers are at faith-based schools.
    I was struck by a interesting story that came out of Memphis, 
Tennessee. Ten years ago, private donors gave approximately $15

[[Page 591]]

million to the church in Memphis to help revive Catholic schools in the 
city's poorest neighborhoods. Assets exists; they're worried about them 
going away. So rather than just watch schools close, somebody--
individuals did something about it by putting up $15 million. With the 
seed money, the diocese launched the Jubilee Schools initiative and 
reopened Catholic schools that had been shuttered, actually in some 
cases, for decades. Today, 10 Jubilee schools serve more than 1,400 
students. Eighty-one percent of these children are not Catholic; nearly 
96 percent live at or below poverty level.
    With the help from Jubilee scholarship donors, tuition becomes 
whatever the family can afford. And the schools happen to be working as 
well, which is really important. The program--and the reason I can tell 
you is because test scores are up; like, they're not afraid to measure. 
You've got to be a little worried in our society when somebody says, ``I 
don't think I want to measure.'' That's like saying, ``I don't want to 
be held to account.'' The problem with that line of reasoning when it--
is that when you're dealing with our children, it's unacceptable. Of 
course you should be held to account. We ought to praise those who 
achieve excellence and call upon those who don't to change so they can 
achieve excellence.
    And so this school system is willing to measure, and it has been a 
great joy for the people of Memphis to watch excellence spread. And I 
want to thank those who have put forth the money and call on all 
citizens to find ways they can contribute with their hearts to help 
educational entrepreneurs succeed--is really what we're talking about, 
isn't it? Kind of innovation--the willing to challenge the status quo if 
it's not working. I call it educational entrepreneurship, so I'd 
consider yourself entrepreneurs--social entrepreneurs.
    Faith-based schools can continue to serve inner-city children, and 
sometimes they can get a good boost from higher education. It seems like 
to me it's--when I was Governor of Texas, I tried to get our higher 
education institutions to understand that rather than becoming a source 
of remediation, they ought to be a source of added value. And one way to 
do so is to help these schools early on to make sure that children don't 
slip behind in the basics.

    I was impressed by Notre Dame's Alliance for Catholic Education, 
known as ACE, which prepares college graduates to work as teachers in 
underserved Catholic schools. It's an interesting way to participate in 
making sure the Catholic schools and the faith-based schools stay 
strong, and that is to educate teachers, actually go in the classrooms 
and make sure that there's adequate instruction available. The people at 
Notre Dame commit to teach for 2 years as they earn their master's 
degree in education. And turns out that when you get a taste for being a 
teacher, that you tend to stay. And so today, there are about 650 ACE 
teachers and graduates who work at Catholic schools across the country.

    And there's a--I like the idea of these higher education 
institutions saying, okay, here's what I can contribute to making sure 
that elementary school and junior high school and high school education 
has high standards and excellence. And one way to do it is to support 
our faith-based schools all across the country.

    And so that's what I've come to talk to you about. Here are some 
ways--I mean, these are levels of society that ought to all be involved, 
and hopefully, out of this meeting, that there's concrete action. We 
didn't ask you to come to Washington just to opine; we came and asked 
you to Washington to set good ideas out there for others to go by, 
because there's a lot of people in our country who share the same 
concern you share. People understand what we're talking about here. This 
is pretty practical stuff. This isn't--these are just down-to-earth 
ideas on how to solve some of our Nation's critical problems.

    And so I'm--let me end with a story here about Yadira Vieyra. 
Yadira's here. She goes to Georgetown University, and she said--I 
heard--I was asking if Yadira was going to be here so I could ask her to 
stand here in a minute, and a fellow told me she's a little worried 
about missing class. So whoever Yadira's teacher is, please blame it on 
me, not her. [Laughter]

[[Page 592]]

    She is a--she was born in Mexico--Mexicana. And they moved to 
Chicago, probably to try to realize a better life--I'm confident, to try 
to realize a better life. Mom and dad had a dream to give their family 
hope. There's no more hopeful place in the world, by the way, than the 
United States of America. We shouldn't be surprised when people come to 
America for a hopeful life. And that's what America has been and should 
be.
    And then we shouldn't be surprised when the parents hope that their 
children get a great education, because there's nothing more hopeful for 
a parent than to know their child is receiving a good education. Well, 
that's what Yadira's folks wanted for her. And so when the time came--
time for her to go to high school came, they wanted something better 
than a low-performing high school. You know, one of the interesting 
things about the accountability system--a lot of people think that their 
child goes to the finest school ever, until the results get posted. 
[Laughter]
    And it's--the whole purpose, by the way, is not to embarrass 
anybody; it's not to scold anybody. The whole purpose is to achieve 
excellence for every person. And so Yadira's parents, I'm sure, took a 
look at the school system and said, there's a better way. And so guess 
what? She went to Cristo Rey, the program I just described to you. And 
she was challenged by the school's rigorous academics.
    If you set low standards, guess what you're going to get--low 
results. If you believe in every child's worth and every child can 
learn, it's important to set high standards and challenge the children. 
And that's what happened in the school she went to. She was inspired by 
great teachers. She said she was motivated by the school's amazing job 
program. And she is now at Georgetown University, one of the great 
schools--universities in America. And guess what she wants to do when 
she leaves Georgetown? She wants to enroll in Notre Dame's ACE program. 
Yadira, thanks for coming.
    You either just got an A--[laughter]--or an F. [Laughter] Either 
case, we're glad you're here--[laughter]--and I love your example. And 
the reason why it's important to have examples--so that we get beyond 
the rhetoric and realize that we're dealing with the human potential. 
Someday, no telling what Yadira's going to be in life, but one thing is 
for certain: It's going to be a productive citizen, and America will be 
better for it. And so we're glad you're here. Thank you for your spirit. 
Tell your parents thank you.
    And so let me close with what happened at Nationals stadium with His 
Holy Father. He--when he celebrated mass there, one of the objects he 
blessed at the end of the mass was the new cornerstone of the Pope John 
Paul the Great High School in Arlington, Virginia. Isn't that 
interesting? I mean, I'm sure there was a lot of demands on His Holy 
Father, but he took time to bless the cornerstone of a school.
    And my hope is, is that we're laying cornerstones for new schools 
here or revived schools; that we take the spirit of the Holy Father and 
extend it throughout the country and work for excellence for every 
child; to set high standards, and when we find centers of excellence, 
not let them go away, but to think of policy that will enable them to 
not only exist, not only survive but to thrive. It's in our Nation's 
interests. It's an important summit for America.
    I thank you for bringing your talents, your energies, and your 
efforts. I thank you for caring deeply about our young. And I thank you 
for being a part of what I believe is a necessary strategy to make sure 
America continues to be a hopeful place for all.
    God bless you. Thank you all.

Note: The President spoke at 10:23 a.m. at the Ronald Reagan Building 
and International Trade Center. In his remarks, he referred to Aysia 
Mayo-Gray, student, St. Ann's Academy, Washington, DC; Donald W. Wuerl, 
Archbishop of Washington; and Pope Benedict XVI.