For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
February 20, 2001
Remarks by the President and Mrs. Bush in Education Roundtable
Sullivan Elementary School Columbus, Ohio
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10:42 A.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: Maria, thanks very
much for your hospitality. I hope you thank all the people
that are on your staff that accommodated this hord of folks that travel
with me. (Laughter.) And I hope we haven't been
too disruptive, but it's an honor to be here.
First, I want to say thanks to my friend, the
Governor. It's good to see you again, Bob. I
appreciate your hard work here. I want to thank the
congressional delegation that traveled with me -- the Senator, two
Congressmen -- other than Congressman Pat Tiberi from this
district. Debra Price and Dave Hobson came down on the plane
with us, and I appreciated our discussion and thanks for your time,
both of you. And thank you, Mike, as well, for being here.
I want to thank my friends, the Wexlers, for
being here. One of the things we saw was a program of
mentors. And it's a good way to lead into the strength of an
accountability system and what it means, because a mentor is really not
very effective unless there is a need identified. I mean,
what we need to use mentors for and hosts -- and a host program for is
to combine the love of our citizenry with enabling children to learn to
read, in this case, by identifying problems.
One of the things that I'm insisting that the
Congress enact is a law that says that if you receive federal money,
you, the state or the local jurisdiction, must measure to show us
whether or not children are learning. The heart of education reform is
accountability. The heart of making sure every child learns
and no child is left behind is accountability. Because how
do you know if you don't measure? How can you possibly judge
whether a child is learning to read and write and add and subtract
unless we know?
A system that refuses to be held accountable
is a system that shuffles children through. And guess who
gets shuffled through? In my state, oftentimes children
whose parents didn't speak English as a first language. Inner city
children. It's so much easier to walk into a room and say,
oh, these kids aren't supposed to learn, let's just move them
through. It will be okay. Somewhere along the
line something positive may happen. That's
unacceptable to me, and I think it's beginning to be unacceptable to
America. I know it's unacceptable to Rosa. I got
to know Rosa last summer when I was in your school district, and she
knows what I know -- that good education starts with high standards and
the unfailing belief that every child can learn, regardless of their
background or their circumstances.
Secondly, that local control of schools is
paramount to change and excellence. It's important to
empower the superintendents, like Rosa. She knows what I
know, a great principal of a school is going to make an enormous
difference as to whether or not children learn. One of the
reasons we picked this school is because of Maria's guidance and
leadership.
But also the cornerstone of reform and the
need to make sure we meet the national goal of no child being left
behind, is to test. I'm unalterably opposed to a national
test. Any kind of national test would undermine local
curriculum and local control of schools.
But I do believe it makes sense and is right
to ask the question: if you receive federal money, what are
the results for the money spent? I know that some say, well,
testing is punishment. Testing is a diagnostic tool,
necessary to correct problems early, before it's too late.
Later on, I'll be in St. Louis, Missouri,
today, and I'm going to talk about a reading initiative that will start
at the Head Start program. But in order to make sure any
reading initiative or any math initiative that takes place is
effective, we must measure. And we must make sure that
children, by the way, all start at the same spot, at the same starting
point in order for the accountability systems to make sense.
I think it's fundamentally -- well, I know
it's fundamentally important to ask the question, what
works. They say, well, the host program
works. Well, how do you know if you don't measure.
When we ask the question, what works -- Rosa
asks that question all the time here in the Columbus School
District. And the feedback she gets from accountability
system will help determine, not theory, but the practicality of good
curriculum and teacher training programs and giving students the
necessary language skills to be able to succeed in our society.
So I'm here to talk about accountability as
the cornerstone for the kinds of reforms that will empower local folks
to make necessary decisions. One of the key components of any
accountability system is there must be a consequence. If
there is success, there must be a consequence. Often times,
the best success, as these local educators will tell you, is to have a
parent walk up -- like our good parent here, Brenda -- and say, thanks
for what you're doing, you saved my son, or you saved my
daughter. That's the best feedback.
But I also believe there needs to be bonus
plans and my budget will include some notion for bonuses for districts
that succeed. However, if we find failure, there must be
consequence. And I believe that districts ought to be given
-- those who received federal money ought to be given a reasonable
period of time to correct problems. And there needs to be
some intermediate help to help districts correct problems.
But at some point in time there has to be a
final moment -- at some point in time we've got to say, failure is
unacceptable. We believe every child can learn; and since
every child isn't learning, something else must happen. And
I believe the best program is that which empowers local districts,
empowers us to make different choices. If the children are
mired in mediocrity and failure.
I'm excited about the progress I've seen being
made on our public school reform in Washington, D.C. It
starts with the understanding that Washington is not the fount of all
knowledge. As a matter of fact, we're going to pass power
back out of Washington, to empower people at the local
level. But it's important for us to have that national goal
of every child being educated and the best public school system ever
possible on the face of the Earth. And that's a goal both
Republicans and Democrats and those who don't care about any political
party can agree on.
And we're making progress, and I look forward
to working with members on both sides of the aisle to put the most
important cornerstone of reform in place, and that's
accountability. Someone who is not afraid of being
accountable because she's got an unbelievably positive record and a
positive spirit and a great attitude is the Superintendent of schools
right here in Columbus, Ohio, Dr. Rosa
Smith.
(Applause.)
DR. SMITH: President Bush and Mrs.
Bush, we're glad to have you here because my board of education and I
do believe in accountability. Three years ago we implemented
an accountability system which categorizes our schools based on a
testing program. And it allows us to know which schools need
more support, which schools to celebrate and, ultimately, which schools
need consequences.
We have an assessment program here in Columbus
Public Schools where every nine weeks we assess our students -- not to
see what is taught, but to see what was learned, in order to know how
to inform our teaching. And this evening our board will be
considering a plan which addresses the lack of improvement for our 22
lowest performing schools, which has a lot of support. So we
can erase all the excuses, school excuses, for no success, and then for
those schools that do not improve over two years with this support,
then there are alternative consequences. So we are aligned
with the things you have in your plan.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Thank you,
Rosa. As I mentioned, I had the honor of meeting Rosa last
summer, and to show you how powerful she is, she said, you need to
appoint Dr. Rod Paige to become Secretary of Education.
(Laughter.) Well, six months later I
did. (Laughter.)
MS. STOCKARD: I think it's really
important to hear a teacher's perspective. Maicie Glover is
a 3rd and 4th grade reading teacher in our building. I'm
sorry to say that this is her last year, she will be retiring and will
be sadly, sadly missed. She has impacted the lives of many,
many children along the way. And I don't know what we'll do
without her. But I think she has an interesting perspective
on assessment and what exactly that means. It means
different things to different people. So I think it's
important to hear a teacher's perspective of that.
MS. GLOVER: Thanks,
Maria. We believe that assessments are a very effective
means by which we gather data so that we can further plan for the
instructions of our children in order that they can be successful, so
that we can determine their weaknesses and their strengths, so that we
can not only make plans for the children, but it's also a very
resourceful tool for teachers so that they can plan and generate
whatever is necessary to meet these needs. We want our
students to achieve, so assessments are very, very valuable tools to
gather data for that purpose.
PRESIDENT BUSH: I think that's
important for people to hear. The assessment system is never
meant to punish, it is meant to provide a useful tool to both teacher
and specialists and principals and superintendents to determine what
works.
There's a lot of discussion about parental
involvement in schools. There is nothing that will make a parent more
involved than to know whether or not his or her child is
learning. One of the things that in my state I did when I
was the governor was encourage there to be open transparency when it
came to performance. So everybody knew, so everybody was
aware of whether or not their school -- a lot of parents think their
school is doing just fine, until the results are posted.
And we've got a parent here that I can't wait
for you all to hear from. (Laughter.) I got an
earful behind the scenes. (Laughter.) A positive
earful. (Laughter.) Tell us your story, Brenda.
MRS. SEFFRIN: Well, first of all, I
think parents need to be held accountable also. It starts at
home. And that's what we have to realize. Yes, the schools
can be held accountable, the teachers can be held accountable, the
students can be held accountable. But we have to get
involved. We have to be accountable at home for our
children. We need to get parents more involved.
My son, in 1st grade we found out he was
learning disabled. And the first thing they wanted to do was
put him in special ed, and I was, like, there is no way, he can be
taught just like any other normal kid.
Q He didn't go
here. (Laughter.)
Q No, he did
not. But we found Mrs. Stockard, we found this
school. She got him a tutor. They're saying by
6th grade he will not need a tutor any longer, he will not be learning
disabled. He's making his own grades. He's one
grade away from the honor roll here, doing his own work. And it's
amazing. This school is amazing. And I owe it all
to this school.
THE PRESIDENT: You were going to
tell me something? (Laughter.) Don't panic --
Q Why are you putting
me on the spot? (Laughter.)
THE PRESIDENT: Well, join the
club. (Laughter.)
Q I just was wondering
if you could recommend any programs for our school to help encourage
children -- and this if for you, too -- to write books, as well as read
books. If there was anything that we could do.
THE PRESIDENT: My recommendation is
you tell Maria that. (Laughter.) The truth of the matter is,
the best way to achieve objectives is to empower people at the local
level to make those decisions. That's why a good principal,
like Maria, will encourage parental involvement, so she gets feedback
from what parents would like to see their children doing.
Part of the problem is Washington -- people
look at Washington and say, well, we've got all the answers up
there. And the truth of the matter is, we don't --
particularly when it comes to education. We may be able to
provide some funding, so long as that funding is not so prescriptive
that it hamstrings the ability for people to make decisions necessary,
because I can assure the schools in Columbus, Ohio are really different
from Laredo, Texas. The children are to be loved, but we've
got different challenges in different parts of the
country. And that is why flexibility is important.
And that's why specific programs that you'd
like to see incorporated in the schools ought to be taken to the
principal and not to some distant land called Washington, D.C.
Q I've been fortunate
to work with Governor Taft, he's been extremely supportive -- extremely
supportive of the schools. And he has not only said what he
was going to do, he has actually done it. He is a tutor,
dedicated to the children of Columbus public schools. And he
has allowed us the opportunity to get funding to implement our Columbus
Reads -- I'm talking about Columbus Reads, also. We have
wonderful tutors that come from the Limited, four days a week, 30
minutes a day. The governor has been very, very supportive
in providing us some funding for that. And so I thought
maybe you could talk a little bit about that.
GOVERNOR TAFT: Maria, first of all,
thank you for your extraordinary leadership of this
school. It is truly a remarkable place and I think it's a
tribute to you and to your excellent staff here, to the parental
support and also to the leadership of Rosa Smith.
This is an improving school, Mr. President.
Year after year, this school improves. And they measure and
they know how they are improving. But, unfortunately, that's not true
of every school in the Columbus district, or every school in
Ohio. And that's why we want to have for every school what
is happening here in this school, which is really the cornerstone of
what you are proposing at the national level.
And, in fact, we had a commission in Ohio this
past year -- the Commission on Student Success -- and Rosa helped us
out with that and some other folks here, as well, looking at the issue
of how can Ohio have the best possible system of high standards and
assessment aligned with those standards, and then accountability for
results. And that report aligns virtually 100 percent with
the program that you have proposed at the national level.
And I want to recognize some of our
legislative leaders who are here today because they made it House bill
1 and Senate bill 1 in the state of Ohio, the recommendations of the
Commission on Student Success --
Assessment enables you to know when you need
to intervene and how you can help the kids that aren't learning what
they need to be knowing. And we're doing that here at this
school with a lot of different types of intervention, one of which, as
you saw in the classroom, are tutors. And we have now across
Ohio some 27,000 volunteer tutors in the elementary schools, each
helping a child each week to learn how to read.
I think there are something like 1,500
employees who are involved in tutoring in one way or another, and there
are many companies -- (applause.) But there are many other groups --
the Governor's Office, private companies, small businesses, who are
involved in our Ohio Reads campaign to support the children who need
help.
But as you say, unless you assess, you don't
know which kids need the help and how to marshal those resources to
make sure that no child is left behind.
THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate that,
Governor. The Governor recognized legislators who will
decide the fate of the program. I need to do the same
thing. (Laughter.) One of the things chief
executives in government know, we get to propose, we just don't get to
write the law. We occasionally get to veto law, but we don't
get to write it.
There's a lot of pressure on members from a
couple of fronts. One is the no testing crowd, based upon
there's no role for government. I strongly disagree, and I
hope you agree with me, because we need to be results-oriented
people. All we're asking is, is it working? What
are the results?
There's another segment of our society, the no
testing crowd saying, all they do is teach the test. Well,
just ask Brenda what it's like to see her son get taught how to read,
who then was able to pass the literacy test.
There's a group of folks that will say you
can't test because it's racist. What's racist is not
testing. What's racist it seems like to me is giving up on
kids, just move them through and hope we get it right, and hope we get
it right. One of the most profound statements I heard was
from a lady in Houston who was the reading czarina from the Houston
Independent School District who worked for Rod, named Phyllis
Hunter. She said reading is the new civil
right. That's a pretty powerful statement when you think
about it.
The fate of the program that I've submitted
depends upon members of the United States Congress, and you've elected
a good one from the Columbus area named Tiberi, sitting right up
here. Are you with me, Pat? (Laughter.) Not to
put any pressure on you. (Laughter.) Just
teasing.
REPRESENTATIVE TIBERI: Do I have
the stage? (Laughter.)
THE PRESIDENT: You've got the vote
and you've got the stage.
REPRESENTATIVE TIBERI: Well, as a
new member of the Education Committee as well, Mr. President, this is
truly an issue that is passionate to you. And I just want to
applaud you -- if you spend five minutes with the President you know
how passionate he is about improving public education in the United
States of America. And I am proud that you came to Columbus,
that you came to the Columbus public schools. As Dr. Smith
knows, I'm a proud graduate of the Columbus public
schools. And this school is a dynamite example of what good
can happen in Columbus' schools.
This is a learning experience for me, as well,
and just listening to the parent right next to me about the improvement
of Jonathan, her 3rd-grader, is a testament that things can happen in a
positive way. This is an exciting time not only for
educators, but for children and parents across America, as the focus is
on education reform, that no child should be left
behind. And the recipe for success, as you know, is not just
the federal government, it's all of us working together. And
we in Columbus have a great formula for that success, with the state
participating, with, obviously, the Columbus schools participating,
with the private sector participating, as well. And there's
also room for parents -- a very important part of that
equation. And I think it's great to hear stories like
Brenda's because it refuels the flame that we can make a difference.
THE PRESIDENT: That means
yes. (Laughter.) Smart man, holding out to the
--(laughter.) Thanks for traveling with us,
Pat. I am passionate on the subject. I can't
think of a more noble goal than to make sure every child is
educated. And it's going to happen. You see, the
systems in the past have viewed kind of mass migrations of students
through, and one of the things that an accountability-oriented system
will do is we start judging each child on his or her individual merit.
One of the keys to success -- and I think
we're going to get this out of Congress, by the way, and I hope the
members of the legislation support the Governor on this -- is to do
what they call disaggregating results. When you measure, you must
measure on a child-by-child basis. Think about the reform
means that when we start viewing -- saying each child matters, and
we're going to track each child based upon his or her progress, it
starts to provide the catalyst for ultimate change, which is a system
that slowly, surely evolves away from the mass migration of students
through schools to tailoring programs to meet an individual's needs.
The mentoring program that the Limited has put
in place is the beginnings of a system that is able to focus on a child
on a one-to-one basis. Rosa says that they assess each
child's progress on a nine-week basis. That says we're first
asking the question, what about this particular child? In
the past, accountability systems that really weren't holding people
accountable would just lump people into an overall group.
And so I want to applaud the members of the
Ohio legislature for being willing to think about how to encourage
reform within the system.
There's a lot of debate about school choice,
and there should be. That's fine. But the cornerstone for
reform is accountability, ultimately, giving parents, if need be,
depending on whether the state likes it or not, the opportunity to make
a different choice. That's up to the state. As
far as I'm concerned, if a district receives federal money, and that
school won't teach and won't change, then at some point in time, that
money should not go to continue to fuel failure.
And one option is charters, and one option is
school choice, but another option is private tutoring or private
schools. But that's -- and the Congress is going to wrestle
with that issue. But the whole reason I'm here today is to
remind people that the true agent for reform is
accountability. And be willing to measure on a child by
child basis, and then correct on a child by child basis, where
correction is needed. And you watch what happens in
America.
The spirit of reform, and as Pat said, the
willingness for people to discuss this issue in an open way, is going
to really reinvigorate the public schools, and to say to our teachers
loud and clear, we love you for teaching, and to say to our Principals,
thanks for being the catalyst, the educational entrepreneurs we need,
to herald the great Superintendents around the country that are making
a major difference. That's what this is all about.
And this is something our country must achieve
and will achieve. And it's not going to come out of the
federal government. We're just a small part of
it. But one thing the President can do is to continue
talking about this issue until we get it right. And that's
exactly what I'm going to do. (Applause.)
Q I just want to say
Amen to that first, Mr. President. I also want to make one
other point, and ask Maria to make a comment. Something
that's missed when we talk about clear standards and assessment is that
it's to provide feedback about the performance of the child, not only
to the teacher and the school, but to the child and to the parent of
that parent. And Maria has done something here, very
interesting, in terms of how you bar chart or show
progress. Would you just mention that Maria?
MS. STOCKARD: First I need to take
this opportunity to also show appreciation to my
staff. Every single -- it's wonderful to be the Principal
here. (Applause.) I never do anything
alone. They are -- we are together, and they do everything
possible. They have made the choice to work here, and they
do everything possible so that we can increase academic achievement.
What we've decided that a missing piece to
student achievement was children understanding how they were
doing. That the teacher has all the knowledge, maybe their
parent -- their parents have all the knowledge. The child
might not have any clue, until the report card would come out, about
how they're doing. So what we've developed are student
centered rubrics that -- we use bar graphs, simple bar graphs, to show
a child his or her progress -- where they are at the beginning of the
year, where they should be at the second grading period, where they
should be at the third grading period.
And it's as simple as a bar graph with a line
at a top, and they color in the squares, based on the different levels
they're achieving. They can see the goal, where they're
going, where they need to be at each grading period, and so can the
teacher. It's a visual for the teacher, it's a visual for
the child.
So an important piece of assessment is a child
having an assessment that they can use, and understand how they're
doing. They need to understand -- that is an important piece
-- if a child doesn't know, it's -- and I think that probably Mrs. Bush
has some insight on these things, because she is an educator
first. And I think it would be very important for us to hear
what you have to say.
MRS. BUSH: Well, I am a former
school teacher and school librarian, and I love to visit
schools. One thing that I hope to work on in my role is
trying to attract young people to the teaching
profession. (Applause.) I know that when Mrs. Glover
retires, the whole school system will loose someone who's so
experienced and knowledgeable, but I hope that there will be some young
and very idealistic person who will want to move in and --
Q I just may come
back.
MRS. BUSH: That's
right. You're still idealistic. But anyway, I
think it's very important for all of us in our whole society to value
teachers like they should be valued. Teachers really have
the most profound profession. They impact our whole country,
every person. And every single person, I'm sure, has a
memory of a teacher who inspired them or really changed their life by
letting them know something they could do that they didn't know they
could do.
So I hope to have that opportunity to
encourage people to choose teaching as a profession again. A
lot of people have left teaching because it's so
difficult. It's a very, very challenging
profession. But I hope young people will start thinking
about it again as a profession. And I also want to thank all
the teachers that are here, for your dedication.
THE PRESIDENT: Fred, have you got
anything else you want to say, now that you're warmed
up? (Laughter.)
Q No, but thank you for
being here. It really meant a lot.
THE PRESIDENT: Well,
thanks. We're delighted. Well, what do you think,
Gov?
GOVERNOR TAFT: I think you've got
Congressman Tiberi's vote. (Laughter.) Senator DeWine is
looking very supportive back there.
THE PRESIDENT: He is supportive.
GOVERNOR TAFT: And Congresswoman
Price as well. I think that she looks
supportive. I think you're making some
headway. And I just want to say this, we really appreciate
the fact that you have come to Ohio to highlight your education
program.
THE PRESIDENT: It's a great state.
GOVERNOR TAFT: Really your first
domestic trip outside of Washington. We're honored.
THE PRESIDENT: Well,
thanks. It's a great state, and it seems like every time I
come to Columbus, I'm coming to another school. That's a
great testimony to the school district. And for those in
Columbus who don't realize this, actually I've got some roots
here. My Grandfather was raised in Columbus,
Ohio. Yes, Prescott S. Bush. So we're proud of
the city, and really appreciate the hospitality always shown when we
come here.
Thanks very much for having
us. Appreciate it. (Applause.)
END
10:07 A.M. EST
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