Read excerpts related
to Education from the President's 6th annual State of the Union Address
(January 27, 1998).
Ladies and gentlemen, the state of our Union is strong.
With barely 700 days left in the 20th century, this is not a time to
rest. It is a time to build, to build the America within reach: an America
where everybody has a chance to get ahead with hard work; where every
citizen can live in a safe community; where families are strong, schools
are good and all young people can go to college; an America where scientists
find cures for diseases from diabetes to Alzheimer's to AIDS; an America
where every child can stretch a hand across a keyboard and reach every
book ever written, every painting ever painted, every symphony ever composed;
where government provides opportunity and citizens honor the responsibility
to give something back to their communities; an America which leads the
world to new heights of peace and prosperity.
This is the America we have begun to build; this is the America we can
leave to our children -- if we join together to finish the work at hand.
Let us strengthen our nation for the 21st century….
SMALLER CLASSES = MORE TEACHERS, MORE SCHOOLS
The Information Age is, first and foremost, an education age, in which
education must start at birth and continue throughout a lifetime. Last
year, from this podium, I said that education has to be our highest priority.
I laid out a 10-point plan to move us forward and urged all of us to let
politics stop at the schoolhouse door. Since then, this Congress, across
party lines, and the American people have responded, in the most important
year for education in a generation -- expanding public school choice,
opening the way to 3,000 new charter schools, working to connect every
classroom in the country to the Information Superhighway, committing to
expand Head Start to a million children, launching America Reads, sending
literally thousands of college students into our elementary schools to
make sure all our 8-year-olds can read.
Last year I proposed, and you passed, 220,000 new Pell Grant scholarships
for deserving students. Student loans, already less expensive and easier
to repay -- now you get to deduct the interest. Families all over America
now can put their savings into new tax-free education IRAs. And this year,
for the first two years of college, families will get a $1,500 tax credit
-- a HOPE Scholarship that will cover the cost of most community college
tuition. And for junior and senior year, graduate school, and job training,
there is a lifetime learning credit. You did that and you should be very
proud of it.
And because of these actions, I have something to say to every family
listening to us tonight: Your children can go on to college. If you know
a child from a poor family, tell her not to give up -- she can go on to
college. If you know a young couple struggling with bills, worried they
won't be able to send their children to college, tell them not to give
up -- their children can go on to college. If you know somebody who's
caught in a dead-end job and afraid he can't afford the classes necessary
to get better jobs for the rest of his life, tell him not to give up --
he can go on to college. Because of the things that have been done, we
can make college as universal in the 21st century as high school is today.
And, my friends, that will change the face and future of America.
We have opened wide the doors of the world's best system of higher education.
Now we must make our public elementary and secondary schools the world's
best as well by raising standards, raising expectations, and raising accountability.
Thanks to the actions of this Congress last year, we will soon have,
for the very first time, a voluntary national test based on national standards
in 4th grade reading and 8th grade math. Parents have a right to know
whether their children are mastering the basics. And every parent already
knows the key: good teachers and small classes.
Tonight, I propose the first ever national effort to reduce class size
in the early grades.
My balanced budget will help to hire 100,000 new teachers who have passed
a state competency test. Now, with these teachers -- listen -- with these
teachers, we will actually be able to reduce class size in the 1st, 2nd,
and 3rd grades to an average of 18 students a class, all across America.
If I've got the math right, more teachers teaching smaller classes requires
more classrooms. So I also propose a school construction tax cut to help
communities modernize or build 5,000 schools.
We must also demand greater accountability. When we promote a child
from grade to grade who hasn't mastered the work, we don't do that child
any favors. It is time to end social promotion in America's schools.
Last year, in Chicago, they made that decision -- not to hold our children
back, but to lift them up. Chicago stopped social promotion, and started
mandatory summer school, to help students who are behind to catch up.
I propose to help other communities follow Chicago's lead. Let's say to
them: Stop promoting children who don't learn, and we will give you the
tools to make sure they do.
I also ask this Congress to support our efforts to enlist colleges and
universities to reach out to disadvantaged children, starting in the 6th
grade, so that they can get the guidance and hope they need so they can
know that they, too, will be able to go on to college....
TRAINING DISPLACED WORKERS
We should also offer help and hope to those Americans temporarily left
behind by the global marketplace or by the march of technology, which
may have nothing to do with trade. That's why we have more than doubled
funding for training dislocated workers since 1993 -- and if my new budget
is adopted, we will triple funding. That's why we must do more, and more
quickly, to help workers who lose their jobs for whatever reason.
You know, we help communities in a special way when their military base
closes. We ought to help them in the same way if their factory closes.
Again, I ask the Congress to continue its bipartisan work to consolidate
the tangle of training programs we have today into one single G.I. Bill
for Workers, a simple skills grant so people can, on their own, move quickly
to new jobs, to higher incomes and brighter futures....
TAX CREDITS FOR CHILDCARE
Childcare is the next frontier we must face to enable people to succeed
at home and at work. Last year, I co-hosted the very first White House
Conference on Childcare with one of our foremost experts, America's First
Lady. From all corners of America, we heard the same message, without
regard to region or income or political affiliation: We've got to raise
the quality of childcare. We've got to make it safer. We've got to make
it more affordable.
So here's my plan: Help families to pay for childcare for a million
more children. Scholarships and background checks for childcare workers,
and a new emphasis on early learning. Tax credits for businesses that
provide childcare for their employees. And a larger childcare tax credit
for working families. Now, if you pass my plan, what this means is that
a family of four with an income of $35,000 and high childcare costs will
no longer pay a single penny of federal income tax.
I think this is such a big issue with me because of my own personal
experience. I have often wondered how my mother, when she was a young
widow, would have been able to go away to school and get an education
and come back and support me if my grandparents hadn't been able to take
care of me. She and I were really very lucky. How many other families
have never had that same opportunity? The truth is, we don't know the
answer to that question. But we do know what the answer should be: Not
a single American family should ever have to choose between the job they
need and the child they love.
A society rooted in responsibility must provide safe streets, safe schools,
and safe neighborhoods. We pursued a strategy of more police, tougher
punishment, smarter prevention, with crime-fighting partnerships with
local law enforcement and citizen groups, where the rubber hits the road.
I can report to you tonight that it's working. Violent crime is down,
robbery is down, assault is down, burglary is down -- for five years in
a row, all across America. We need to finish the job of putting 100,000
more police on our streets.
Again, I ask Congress to pass a juvenile crime bill that provides more
prosecutors and probation officers, to crack down on gangs and guns and
drugs, and bar violent juveniles from buying guns for life. And I ask
you to dramatically expand our support for after-school programs. I think
every American should know that most juvenile crime is committed between
the hours of 3:00 in the afternoon and 8:00 at night. We can keep so many
of our children out of trouble in the first place if we give them someplace
to go other than the streets, and we ought to do it.
Drug use is on the decline. I thank General McCaffrey for his leadership.
And I thank this Congress for passing the largest anti-drug budget in
history. I ask you to join me in a ground-breaking effort to hire 1,000
new border patrol agents and to deploy the most sophisticated available
new technologies to help close the door on drugs at our borders....
We should enable all the world's people to explore the far reaches of
cyberspace. Think of this -- the first time I made a State of the Union
speech to you, only a handful of physicists used the World Wide Web. Literally,
just a handful of people. Now, in schools, in libraries, homes and businesses,
millions and millions of Americans surf the Net every day. We must give
parents the tools they need to help protect their children from inappropriate
material on the Internet. But we also must make sure that we protect the
exploding global commercial potential of the Internet. We can do the kinds
of things that we need to do and still protect our kids.
For one thing, I ask Congress to step up support for building the next
generation Internet. It's getting kind of clogged, you know. And the next
generation Internet will operate at speeds up to a thousand times faster
than today....
SAVE AMERICA'S TREASURES
And this October, a true American hero, a veteran pilot of 149 combat
missions and one five-hour space flight that changed the world, will return
to the heavens. Godspeed, John Glenn. John, you will carry with you America's
hopes. And on your uniform, once again, you will carry America's flag,
marking the unbroken connection between the deeds of America's past and
the daring of America's future.
Nearly 200 years ago, a tattered flag, its broad stripes and bright
stars still gleaming through the smoke of a fierce battle, moved Francis
Scott Key to scribble a few words on the back of an envelope -- the words
that became our national anthem. Today, that Star Spangled Banner, along
with the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of
Rights, are on display just a short walk from here. They are America's
treasures and we must also save them for the ages.
I ask all Americans to support our project to restore all our treasures
so that the generations of the 21st century can see for themselves the
images and the words that are the old and continuing glory of America;
an America that has continued to rise through every age, against every
challenge, of people of great works and greater possibilities, who have
always, always found the wisdom and strength to come together as one nation
-- to widen the circle of opportunity, to deepen the meaning of our freedom,
to form that "more perfect union." Let that be our gift to the 21st century.
Read excerpts related
to Education from the President's 6th annual State of the Union Address
(January 27, 1998).