For Immediate Release
Office of the First Lady
January 21, 2004
First Lady Laura Bush Remarks in Media Availability - Orlando, FL
Discovery Middle School
Orlando, Florida
11:33 A.M. EST
MRS. BUSH: Hello everybody. I'm so glad to be here today at
Discovery Middle School. I just had a really great visit in a
classroom. I think most of you were there. I hope you were there.
And I got to see some strategies that are being used for striving
readers, for children who have reached middle school or high school
level, who are behind in their reading ability, they're behind their
grade level in reading. And these are strategies for teachers to use
with those students so those students can catch up and catch up
quickly.
I want to thank the superintendent and the principal and all the
teachers here for welcoming me. I'm really thrilled to be here today.
Last night, the President talked in his State of the Union address
about this very problem, the problem of children who have reached
junior high or high school and can't read, and today he'll announce the
budget proposal for that part of what he talked about last night, which
is $100 million for the striving readers initiative.
This all goes under the big umbrella that he talked about last
night of jobs for the 21st century, when he talked about strengthening
community colleges so that people who are looking for jobs can be
retrained for jobs in community colleges that are right in the
community where the jobs are necessary. Where he talked about
strengthening science and math skills because so many of the new jobs
for the new century require good science and math skills.
He mentioned actually having adjunct teachers come in, scientists
and mathematicians whose companies maybe would let them go teach a
class or two or take a sabbatical and teach a year, scientists and
mathematicians who really could bring a lot of content knowledge to
high school age and college age students.
I was really particularly interested, of course, since I'm a
teacher and a librarian, in this part of what he talked about last
night when he talked about striving readers. And I'm really thrilled
to have been here to see some examples of some ideas about what we can
do for striving readers.
There's a lot of research, a lot of new research about early
reading. And that early reading money is already in the No Child Left
Behind Act. Most states, including I know Florida, have used that
money to retrain kindergarten and first grade and second grade teachers
in the principles of teaching in a systematic way, explicitly and
systematically, as we heard during the roundtable discussion, reading
skills to young students.
But this money, the hundred million, would be for school districts
around the country to get grants so they could put in programs very
much like the ones that Discovery is using today, which are
research-based reading programs. We don't have as much research about
adolescents and how they can be taught to read when they are several
grades behind. But it's so crucial.
Every one of us know that we can just imagine what it would be like
to be in the seventh or eighth or ninth or tenth grade and not be able
to read very well, because all of your work by the time you're in high
school depends upon being able to read in a very good way, with great
skill. So it's very important that we address this issue.
A lot of students who can't read are the ones who drop out because
of frustration, because of embarrassment, because of all the social
problems that come with illiteracy. So I'm excited to be here today to
announce the $100 million that's part of the striving readers program
from the President's budget. And then also to see this great example
that I think is a really great example for schools across the country.
So thank you all for coming and watching. And now I'll be glad to
answer your questions.
Q No Child sets out really strict standards on teacher
certification, on highly qualified teachers, and even the 60 hours for
peri-professionals. Do you feel like there should be anything in terms
of substitutes who are occupying an increasing number of slots in the
system?
MRS. BUSH: Well, I don't know about that and I don't know those
statistics specifically for Florida. But it is very important that
every child have a really highly qualified teacher and that's what
school districts are trying to do when they are putting in programs
like this one, where teachers get a lot of support, they get extra --
many extra hours working and learning new systems. And that's what
these teachers have done. And then there are people who actually come
in to the schools and give those teachers support as they try to
institute these new programs that they've been taught.
But teacher shortage is going to be a crucial problem in the United
States. We're going to need over 2 million new teachers in the next
decade. And I want to encourage people to choose teaching as a
career. It's a really wonderful career. You can do more for people, I
think, as a teacher than you can for almost any other -- than you can
in almost any other profession. All of us remember a teacher who
changed our lives and who taught us something about ourselves that we
didn't know before.
I've done a lot of work with the New Teacher Project and Teach for
America and Troops to Teachers, which is a federal program that tries
to encourage retiring military for their second career to take up
teaching back in their own home towns or wherever they want to retire
after the military. And I also want to encourage recent college
graduates to consider teaching.
Q Mrs. Bush, could you kind of describe what that roundtable --
what kind of took place in there and kind of some of the ideas that
were kicked around?
MRS. BUSH: Well, we had -- two of the people who were at the
roundtable are professors, they're PhDs. They have made a lifetime of
studying reading issues. One of them, Dr. Torgenson, is from here,
Florida State University. He is particularly -- has particularly
studied the early childhood, early reading skills. And then Dr.
Deschler, who is from Kansas University, and they've done a lot of
research with adolescent reading.
And that's what we're trying to encourage school districts to do,
and that is to choose programs or to develop their own programs that
are research based and then to evaluate how well their students do so
they will know whether or not these strategies that they're teaching
work. It's just not really fair to adopt some new program and teach
everyone that new program and then never know whether or not it
worked. And what we really want, especially with adolescents, is a big
body of knowledge on what works with adolescents, so that other schools
and other school districts can copy it and children learn to read. I
mean, that's the goal. The goal is to have students who can graduate
from high school, who can go on to college, who can get good jobs, who
can stay out of the criminal justice system, who can live rich and
fulfilling lives because they are educated. Q Mrs. Bush, why
Discovery to announce the new initiative? Why did you choose this
particular school?
MRS. BUSH: Because they were actually already doing this program
that addresses a lot of the issues that we're talking about. It's a
program that's research based, it includes training teachers and
retraining teachers.
This is the interesting part. When you think about the way junior
high and high school is, where you go to four or five or six different
classes with four or five or six different teachers, and one of the
strategies that one of the teachers talked about here was being able to
help his science students by using these new strategies to talk about
content and really, in some ways, he's also teaching them to read.
He's helping them learn to read. And I think that's why we picked
Discovery, because they're already doing a program that we want other
school districts nationwide to look at.
Any others?
Q Mrs. Bush, last night, the President's State of the Union
took on sort of a campaign tone. Are there any thoughts about who he
sees maybe facing in November, or maybe who he's looking out for?
(Laughter.)
MRS. BUSH: Well, last week we thought it was going to be -- and
then this week -- no. (Laughter.)
Sure, I mean, we're watching with great interest like I know the
whole country is to see who the Democrats are going to nominate. It's
been a very interesting process so far. We were in this a mere five
years ago or four years ago, we were in the snows of Iowa and New
Hampshire. And it's a really very interesting and very American
process. And so of course we're interested, and I don't have any --
I'm not picking any candidates yet. (Laughter.) I'll wait and see who
they pick.
Q Mrs. Bush, what kind of stood out last night of what the
President said on any topic in general?
MRS. BUSH: Well, this. I liked what he talked about with this. I
liked it when he talked about a program and appropriations for
prisoners as they leave prison, to help them transition into society.
One of the men who was sitting in the box with me was in prison for 12
years for a drug arrest and, while he was in prison, he got his
graduate -- got his undergraduate degree and then his graduate degree
from New York Theological Society. And when he got out of prison, he
started a transitional program for offenders, to give them a place to
live, to help them find a job, to give them a chance to go back into
society in a good way.
And that's something that I thought was very interesting. His
program and then the President calling on all of us around the country
to support other programs like that, including -- and this will also
include some appropriations -- money for transitional housing.
And he -- the President would like for faith-based programs to also
have the opportunity to work with prisoners, as well as other
charities. And I liked that. I thought that was an interesting
proposal.
Q Tom Brady was your guest --
MRS. BUSH: Tom Brady was my guest.
Q Anyone else from the --
MRS. BUSH: I think we already had the list planned. And then I
don't know if you noticed Tamika Catchings, who was behind me, who is
an NBA player. And they were both there when the President talked
about the role he hoped professional athletes -- the example he hoped
professional athletes would serve for young people. And to stop using
-- for professional athletes, teams and owners and players -- to
address the problem of steroids. Because young people, young athletes,
high school age athletes, look at them. And we want them to be really
good examples for young people.
Q Speaking of steroids, how much did he see -- did your husband
see during his time with the Texas Rangers?
MRS. BUSH: Well, you know, I don't know. I mean, I don't really
remember ever seeing it or knowing about it on our team. But then,
once again, the baseball union is very strong and you know, I don't
think there's really drug testing or anything in baseball.
Q How do you think this kind of program will affect in a good
way the Hispanic community --
MRS. BUSH: The immigration program, or just in general?
Q The Hispanic community.
MRS. BUSH: Well, I think everything that he talked about addresses
really every community. The idea of education is by far the most
important piece for every community to be successful. And we need to
address the gap between minority students' achievement and majority
students' achievement. It's really a very critical issue for the
United States, and it's an issue that all of us ought to address.
Every one of us as community leaders, you certainly can in the media
because there are a lot of ways you can cover all of these issues. And
then, of course, education professionals have to address that issue,
and that's really important.
When he talked about jobs and job retraining, that's important for
every group, but certainly important for minority groups. He mentioned
again his immigration proposal, about a temporary worker program which
I think is a realistic way to address the problem of millions --
literally millions of illegals in the United States.
Q Last night the President mentioned a program about bringing a
part-time math professionals and science professions to become teachers
in schools. Are there any details of that program right now? How does
he plan to attract those people to teaching in schools?
MRS. BUSH: Well, he wants to ask employers to look at that idea,
the employers or companies to see if scientists and mathematicians, if
they work for companies, if they either would give them time off to go
teach part time one or two classes, or if they would give them the
chance to do distance learning. They could actually teach on a
computer, you know, with distance learning. And those are the things
he's hoping to work with employers.
Because employers around the United States know that we need a very
educated job force, work force. And all -- most of the new,
fast-growing sectors of the economy, where there are a lot of jobs
being created, have to do with either science or math or health,
biotechnology. And so you really need a really good background in
science or math to acquire those jobs. And I think it's a really good
idea to bring in scientists and mathematicians to teach.
Q In terms of bringing those people in, they lack probably the
pedagogy skills --
MRS. BUSH: That's right. And those issues would have to be
addressed by school boards who would have to figure out how they could
address those issues.
Q How critical do you think that is, in terms of the education
schools who are graduating education majors? Do you feel like they've
got the right emphasis on pedagogy versus actually knowing --
MRS. BUSH: I think it's very important to know your content
material. That's very important and that's one of the things a
scientist or mathematician would know, and that's really important. On
the other hand, it's also really important to have had a few education
classes and school districts, if they have an alternative certification
program, or states, are -- can address that problem with all the kind
of support that we're talking about that we talked about in the
roundtable with teachers.
But teachers who have that, who have been to graduate schools or
undergraduate schools with a teaching certificate and a teaching degree
should keep in contact with their school that they went to and write
back to them and say, you know, these classes were great, this really
helped me, but I felt like you should have had more classes in this or
that. And it's really a responsibility of teachers to let their
universities that prepared them know what they think about it and how
prepared they were when they left. I can assure you those universities
want to prepare good teachers. They really do want to. And I think
they would be very responsive if they heard from their students when
they went out and became teachers.
All right, thanks so much for coming out. We're glad to be here in
the warm weather. I think it was 19 when we left Washington. In fact,
my Secret Service asked if we could stay for a week. (Laughter.)
Goodbye. Thank you all very much.
END 11:50 A.M. EST
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