U.S. Department of Education, NEWS
FOR RELEASE CONTACT:
Mary Stanik
(202) 401-3026
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Chicago, Illinois
July 4,
2000
Remarks as prepared for delivery by
U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley
2000 National Education Association Representative Assembly
Chicago, Illinois
Thank you, Bob Chase, Reg Weaver, and Dennis Van Roekel, for the tremendous welcome to the 138th annual meeting of the National Education Association. We are making progress. And, in this exciting era of education, the NEA’s constant and vigorous support and hard work on behalf of American education are greatly valued. On this 4th of July, I am pleased to be here with some of the most patriotic Americans in our great democracy. America’s teachers, faculty, educators and the many other support staff who work side by side in our schools, committed to the educating American children. I thank you for your love of teaching— and for your patriotism.
It seems very appropriate to be talking about hard work and education on this Independence Day. After all, hard work is what helped make this country great, from its earliest days of sovereignty to the present time. We’re also here in Chicago, which is known as the "city that works."
Working to improve American education is what all of us have been doing over the past seven-and-a-half years. We haven’t just been talking about doing more for education. But, don’t think for one moment that we are finished. After all, to use the words of Chicago’s own writer Studs Terkel—we all have to, as he wrote, "make the most of every molecule you’ve got as long as you’ve got a second to go."
We have much more than a second to go in the Clinton-Gore administration and we are going to make the most of it. As I like to say, we’re not winding down, we’re winding up. First, I’d like to talk a little bit about what we’ve done since 1993 on behalf of American education.
When President Clinton and Vice President Gore said education would be a priority for their administration, they were not spouting empty words. Both of them have been willing not only to just talk about better education for our children; but also they have worked to reach this goal. Under the leadership of Bob Chase, the NEA has worked to make education better and we have been with you every step of the way. While others are promoting taking resources away from public schools for vouchers or through block grants, and even elimination of the Department, President Clinton and Vice President Gore have been fighting hard for better education. It is clear to me that vouchers are a mistake for America. Vouchers will not solve the problems of low-performing schools. Vouchers divide us and divert us from the real challenge of lifting up all of our children—and I mean all of our children.
You and I are working to improve education, and that means challenging students, teachers and all school staff to do their best. But, we must have safe schools if we are to expect the best. The NEA has helped tremendously in addressing this issue.
To make schools safer, one of the things we have done is the 1994 Gun-Free Schools Act. And I am proud of the fact that the president and vice president support sensible and meaningful gun control. It simply makes good sense. I was proud to read that Bob Chase paid special attention to gun control in his speech yesterday. And I think the American people agree with us on this issue. We’ve also released, along with the Justice Department, two guides that deal specifically with school safety: The Early Warning Guide and Safeguarding Our Children: An Action Guide. I urge you to use these guides to make our schools even safer and more disciplined.
We all know that increased parent involvement in education can help make our schools both safer and more productive. To that end, in 1994, we also inaugurated the Partnership for Family Involvement in Education. We started the partnership to strengthen family-school-community partnerships through good communication and mutual responsibility for children’s learning. What began with just 35 member organizations has grown to over 6,000 partner organizations. The NEA was one of our charter members.
As you begin planning for a new school year, please increase the ways parents and community groups can become real partners with your schools. Be part of our America Goes Back to School campaign. It will pay off in ways you can only imagine. We even have a toll-free number to call for free information on parental involvement—
1-800-USA-LEARN.
One of the partnership’s priorities that is shared throughout my Department is an emphasis on safe and smart after-school programs. Our 21st Century Community Learning Centers program allows schools to stay open longer in order to offer many services, including: youth tutoring; homework help; college prep work; music classes; physical fitness and health; technology education; drug and violence prevention counseling; and services for youth with disabilities.
These after-school and summer centers in schools are good for education and good for parents. That’s why we’ve asked the Congress for $1 billion to help 2.5 million children—to triple the children we currently serve. The NEA knows how important these programs are, and we can only hope that the majority in Congress will come to acquire the same wisdom. They have not, so far.
A growing concern nationwide is the digital divide. I know this is a major issue for the NEA, because the 94 percent of your members who regularly surf the Internet can’t be wrong. The E-rate discount, a program that makes technology more readily available and affordable to education institutions like schools and libraries, is really making a difference. Vice President Gore has been a leader of the E-rate program, which has provided more than $4 billion in discounts to connect schools to the Internet.
But we have much more work to do. Educators just like you tell us that they need time and help to learn how to use technology well. That’s why we are asking Congress for double the funding for our Preparing Teachers to Use Technology Initiative. Here again, the U.S. House of Representatives has not responded to our request.
Of course, safe and challenging teaching and learning can only occur in sound and healthy school facilities. As the NEA’s own report found, many schools do not provide suitable environments for the sort of education we want for our children. What kind of message do we send our students and teachers when we send them into rundown, overcrowded schools, particularly at a time of budget surpluses?
Currently, there exists in the Congress a bipartisan bill (now counting some 218 sponsors) that would provide $24.8 billion to help build or update 6,000 schools. We sincerely hope the Congress will do the right thing and pass this bill, co-sponsored by Reps. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) and Nancy Johnson (R-CT). It must be a priority. As we enter this new century, let’s show our children that they are our priority. Let’s build schools for them, not prisons.
Now let me talk with you about a few more issues that are directly related to your hard work. As you know, education must be available to all children, regardless of their ability or their disability. NEA is to be commended for its advocacy for additional funding for children with disabilities. I also applaud your strong view that such increases should not divide the education community, nor should they come at the expense of other initiatives that benefit all children.
Today, in response to your request, we are issuing guidance on IDEA requirements for individualized education programs (IEPs). We hope that the document will be used for professional development, to promote better understanding of federal requirements, reduce paperwork, and focus time and resources on improving positive results for children.
One way to help children is to reduce class size. Our Class Size Reduction Initiative has already put some 29,000 more teachers into the nation’s classrooms. Again, the majority in Congress is blocking our efforts to help your schools further reduce class size, and that’s wrong. We must continue our fight to reduce class size.
Smaller class size has proven to be so important in the early grades because that is when children are learning to read. Small classes give teachers the opportunity to provide individual attention to their students. And that’s the right thing to do.
While all of these ideas that I’ve mentioned are very, very important, I have not yet mentioned the most important part of a good school--good teachers. Yes, it is true-- teachers make all other professions possible. And we in America, including each of you, face a teacher challenge. We need 2.2 million new teachers over the next 10 years. We have a particular need for math and science teachers. Dennis Van Roekel is serving on the commission chaired by John Glenn to make recommendations on how to best teach math and science and how to attract enough qualified people to the profession.
Another idea that I proposed recently is to make teaching a year-round and better paid profession. We can no longer get teachers on the cheap. And if we are asking teachers to teach to new high standards, we are asking them to do much more than before. I believe that making teaching a year-round profession is the future of American education. If we demand more of our teachers, we need to compensate them for their efforts and treat them as professionals.
This year, we are asking Congress for $1 billion to improve the recruitment and preparation of teachers. Again, the majority has not responded positively and this too is a mistake.
We also need to keep pushing hard to get high standards into the classrooms. In my last State of American Education address, I called on every state to undertake a "midcourse" review and analysis to make sure we are putting standards in place in the right way. I set out five principles, and I will describe them in brief.
First, standards are going to succeed only if state leaders have an open, healthy, and ongoing dialogue with teachers and parents. Teachers and principals need to be at the table and at the very center of any discussion about revising standards, curriculum and assessment.
The second principle: states must make sure that their standards are challenging and realistic. There is no point in raising standards so high at the beginning that no one can reach them. When Olympic high jumpers compete, they start at a certain jump level and then the bar is gradually raised and they get several chances to reach the new standard. That’s the right way to go when it comes to raising standards in the classroom. Ratchet up standards a step at a time. The child should feel challenged, not traumatized.
The third principle: you can’t improve something that you can’t measure. We must have quality assessments that are linked to high standards and to a curriculum that teachers are actually using in the classroom. If all of our efforts to raise standards are reduced to one test, we’ve gotten it wrong. If we force our best teachers to teach only to the test, we will lose their creativity and even lose some of them from the classroom. And, if we are giving students a high-stakes assignment that is not linked to a high- standards curriculum then we are doing something very wrong.
The fourth principle: invest wisely to improve teaching and learning. As states continue to implement standards, they need to invest in their teachers and students. We need to be investing in sustained professional development. Learning how to teach to new, high standards is very hard work. States also need to be expanding summer school and after-school opportunities so all students who need extra help to learn the material and pass high-stakes tests get the help they need. It’s not fair otherwise.
Finally, the fifth principle: we must insist on real accountability for results. We cannot accept low-performing schools, many of them in poor neighborhoods, under weak leadership and with little parent and community support. We must act now and give schools the help they need now. And if a school is truly struggling, even after giving them the resources and time to improve, we should not be afraid to reconstitute it or close it down and start over.
At the same time, we have to make sure that all pieces are in place—that standards are linked to curricula that teachers know how to teach—so teachers can prepare all of their students to pass a quality assessment.
I am worried that, in the push to put standards in place, we, in some cases, may be putting the cart before the horse, rushing to put assessments into place and, sometimes, doing so in a hurried response to political pressure. Then we wonder why a backlash against testing is now developing among some parents and teachers. Helping all students learn to high and challenging standards is the right way to go. It is not easy, and we must make sure we do it right, and review what we are doing as we go forward.
Now, I’d like to end with a quote from an old friend of mine from South Carolina, the writer Pat Conroy. This is from his novel The Prince of Tides. In one passage, the main character, Tom, a teacher, is asked why he chose to "sell himself short" when he was so talented and could have done anything with his life.
Tom’s reply goes like this: "There’s no word in the language that I revere more than ‘teacher.’ None. My heart sings," he says, "when a kid refers to me as his teacher and it always has. I’ve honored myself and the entire family of man by becoming a teacher."
I know some of you have heard me use this quote before. But I respect teachers so much that my heart sings when I am in your presence.
Thank you for your commitment to American education. I urge you to remember Studs Terkel’s challenge, and to continue to make the most of every molecule you’ve got for better education and better lives for our children as long as you’ve got a second to go. It will be my honor to continue to fight with you in our patriotic work to serve our children and our country. Thank you and happy 4th of July.
