For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
September 10, 2001
President Visits Elementary School in Jacksonville - Urges Quick Passage of Education Plan
President Visits Elementary School in Jacksonville
Urges Quick Passage of Education Package
Justina Road Elementary School
Jacksonville, Florida
3:45 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: It's about time
he got it right, isn't it?
(Laughter.) Governor. (Laughter.) Obviously,
we were raised right, because Jeb's priority and my priority are the
same -- that is to make sure every child gets a good education in
America.
We understand -- we understand -- that an
educated child is one that is much more likely to realize the great
American experience. And it is so important that we get it
right in America. And I'm proud of my brother; he's doing a
really good job here in Florida and I appreciate Jeb. (Applause.)
And Jeb is right. I don't think
education ought to be a partisan issue. I know reading is
not a partisan issue. I mean, getting very chid to read in
America is an American issue and it ought to be an American
goal. And it is going to be for this administration.
Jeb had the honor of introducing members
of the State House and the State level that are going to make this
happen. I traveled today with three members of the Florida
delegation: that United States Senator, Senator Nelson, thank you for
coming, sir. (Applause.) A member of the House --
Stearns and Crenshaw are with us, as well. Thank you all for
being here. (Applause.) That is Ander Crenshaw.
And we had a good discussion coming
down. I said, we're going to go to a school that's showing
what can happen when people get their minds together and focus on a
goal. And the goal of teaching every child to read is an
incredibly important goal and I want to congratulate the teachers and
the parents who are insisting that no child -- (applause.)
And I want to thank Diane for having
us. Diane told me she just moved down from
Virginia. It's a wonderful -- to me, a wonderful sign of her
dedication, that she would leave Virginia Tech and to come down and put
to work her skills, right here on the front lines of education a
principal. So thank you for being here. (Applause.)
I picked a good man to be the Secretary of
Education. I know the Superintendent of Schools here for
Duval County is here. There he is; thank you, Super, for
being here. (Applause.) Well, I picked a man who
had been the Superintendent in Houston, Texas. I didn't want
somebody who knew the theories of education; I wanted somebody who knew
the practical aspects of education, somebody who had been on the front
lines, somebody who shares with me the belief that every child can
learn; who is willing to challenge what I call the soft bigotry of low
expectations; the feeling that if you lower the bar, you're going to
get lousy results and that we all ought to raise the bar -- and that's
my friend from Houston, who is now the Secretary of Education, Rod
Paige. Thanks for coming, Rod.
SECRETARY PAIGE: Thank you, Mr.
President. Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: I want to thank
the boys and girls who are here. I like to -- sometimes when
I see elementary school students or, for that matter, middle school
students and sometimes high school, so I ask the question, do you read
more than you watch TV?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: That's good, the
one that said, yes. Make sure you tell the
truth. (Laughter.) And that's an important
question to ask, because it's so much easier to watch TV and not
read. And, yet, you learn so much more when you
read. So all of us as parents have got to work hard to teach
our children the importance of practicing reading and the importance of
not watching TV -- in all due respect to the camera folks back
there. (Laughter.)
Because reading is
essential. And we've got to get it right as a
nation. Now, lest I make the Governor feel uncomfortable,
I'm absolutely against the federalization of public
education. I believe that the best way to achieve excellence
for every child is to pass power out of Washington and to trust the
local folks. (Applause.)
And I presume -- I presume the good
Governor is still doing what he said, which is to pass power out of
Tallahassee to Jacksonville. Because one size doesn't fit
all and it's important to empower people at the local level to have the
-- to give them the flexibility necessary to meet common goals.
But the federal government can help, and
it will help. In the bills that I've submitted that passed
the House and the Senate, we've got a fantastic reading initiative
started. First, there's the call for more
money. And we need to put some more resources behind
education and we have in the budget -- about $900 million a year for
reading programs which will help local districts develop diagnostic
tools necessary to determine whether or not children need help.
You see, one of the fundamental aspects of
making sure a child learns to read is, first and foremost, to diagnose
the issue. How do you know if you don't
diagnose? How do you know if you don't have the tools
necessary to say that this young first-grader needs a little extra help
when it comes to phonics or when it comes to fluency or when it comes
to comprehension.
And so the monies will be available for
that. The monies that need to be available, as well, for
teacher training. One of the unfortunate aspects that we
find in many states is that there are great teachers who have got
wonderful hearts who don't know how to teach reading; that don't know
the science of reading -- and we've got some of the scientists here who
understand reading and how it works, and we're going to hear from them
here in a minute, if we can ever get the President to stop talking.
(Laughter.)
One of my dreams is to make sure that
schools understand and have the resources available for schools within
schools. My attitude is, if it takes teaching reading all
day long, do it and get it right before we move children through the
system. We can't continue to shuffle them through.
(Applause.)
The other thing we've done is we want to
provide help for local districts. And I've got two things I
want to talk about. First, we've got a parent guide that
Rod's department is going to put out. It's called, "Put
Reading First," which is a way for parents to take a look, to determine
whether or not the school districts around your city are doing what the
scientists tell us need to be done. It's kind of a go-by, to
make sure that what works is being instituted at the local level.
There is nothing better, it seems like to
me, than to arm parents and concerned citizens with the facts so they
can ask the relevant questions to the school officials.
And, secondly, we're going to have what we
call reading leadership academies around the country. And
there is a lot of new data when it comes to what
works. There is a lot of data on curriculum development, for
example. There are a lot of fads, too, that seem to be
working their way through the system.
And it seems like to me a useful function
of the federal government is to take the good folks out at the NIH, for
example, that have studied the science of reading and send them around
the country to meet with local citizens and school board members and
superintendents to share the data, so that people know precisely what
is working and what's not working, so that the good folks at the local
level can cut through all the hot air and the finger-pointing and the
politics of reading and find out what works and then help implement it
at the local level.
Because what we find is a good curriculum
based upon the science of reading is necessary to make sure no child
gets left behind. And that is, after all, the goal and the
agenda.
Now, I believe, and I know Rod believes
and brother Jeb believe, and I bet you Diane believes, every child can
learn. You start with the premise that every child can learn
to read -- not just a handful, not just some, not just a few from a
demographic group, but everybody. And that ought to be the
goal of this country. And it starts with having a President
set an ambitious goal, empowering local people to follow that goal,
providing the resources necessary and also the sound science and the
reform to make it work.
I'm proud of the accountability system
Florida has developed. You see, this country of ours needs
to start asking the question, what do you know. A lot of
times when there is no accountability, we guess, we wonder out loud --
oh, gosh, I wonder if he or she is learning to read. Which
means that the question ultimately asked in our system like that is,
how old are you -- because if you're 10, we're supposed to put you
here; and if you're 12, we're going to move you here.
And that has got to change. We
need to start asking early, before it is too late, what do you
know. And that means accountability systems. And
not only do we need to know whether or not children can read, but if
not, we need to correct early. And that's the goal and
that's the drive. And I will promise you, America will be a
much better place when we teach -- not, if -- but when we teach every
child in this great country to read.
Thank you for having me,
Diane. Brother Jeb, thanks very much. Thank you
all. (Applause.)
* * * * *
THE PRESIDENT: Let me say
something about him before he starts -- go
Seminoles. (Laughter.) That's overt pandering.
GOVERNOR BUSH: Be careful,
George.
THE PRESIDENT: Just trying to
make him feel better.
He got very much involved -- we got
involved with the Reading Initiative in Texas when I was the Governor
and, you know, there's just so much debate about curriculum and it gets
pretty -- people begin to get pretty prejudiced about the
case. And so we decided to bring in some people that really
knew what they were doing. Dr. Torgesen is one of them that
came down to help a friend named Reed Lyons.
Reed is out of the National Institute of
Health. These are folks -- when you heard me talking about
the science of reading, the scientists that are trying to figure out
how it works as opposed to what might sound good -- this is the kind of
guy I'm talking about.
Thank you for coming.
* * * * *
THE PRESIDENT: One point on
that -- the Bush boys, we can dominate, we've got the
mikes. (Laughter.) Is that we've also taken the
work that has been done to the NIH and have developed a simple go-by
for Head Start programs. And the purpose is to help the Head
Start program become much better at providing the essential skills for
early reading to our kids. It's a perfect opportunity to take young
kids and to give them just the essentials, so that when they finally
get here, that as many people are at the same place as possible before
the accountability systems kick in. And that's another one
of the initiatives that makes a lot of sense, it seems like to me.
* * * * *
THE PRESIDENT: I'm glad you
brought that up, because that's another place we could use a little
help with the Congress. We had a good bill out of the House;
I hope we can get it up on the Senate floor, to discuss on the Senate
floor how to empower the folks of compassion in America. I
mean, we've got some unbelievably generous group of people in
America. And a lot of them are found in faith-based
programs. And this nation ought not to fear faith, we ought
to welcome it and we ought to allow faith-based programs to access
taxpayers' money, so long as they meet a need.
(Applause.) And the need they're going to meet is to help
every person realize the promise of America. And the two go
hand in hand.
We had a great friend of Rod's and mine
out of Houston, one time stood up at a conference such as this, and she
said -- this is when I was the Governor -- she said, "Governor, reading
is the new civil right." It's a pretty profound statement
when you think about it, because if you can't read, imagine what
society is going to be like for you. And if we're interested
in having a society in which everybody gets to access the greatness of
this country, then the goal has got to be, and a goal we must meet is
for every person to be able to read.
And it's so important. And I
want to thank you all for giving us a chance to come and highlight this
initiative. It's an opportunity for me to say that, at the
federal level, both Republicans and Democrats are discussing this
important issue. It's a priority of both
parties. And I'm confident that with the right attitude in
Washington -- and we did need a little attitude adjustment in terms of
trying to focus on good public policy instead of trying to tear each
other down -- that we can get a good bill out.
Now, one has passed the House and one has
passed the Senate. Both bills have got really good features
to them. And it's now time for people to act in the nation's
Capital and get the bill to my desk, so that people at the local level
can start to plan and start to strategize, and to make things happen in
a positive way.
There's too many of our kids in America
who can't read today -- maybe not in this school, but around the nation
there's just too many. And now it's time to wage war on
illiteracy for the young, and to whip this problem
early. (Applause.)
Thanks for having
me. (Applause.)
* * * * *
END 4:15 P.M. EDT
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