President Visits PA School to Discuss Education & Changing Job Market
Remarks by the President in a Conversation on Education and Jobs for the 21st Century Initiative
Central Dauphin High School
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all very much. It is nice to be back in
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Thank you for such a warm welcome.
(Applause.) Behave yourself. (Laughter.) I -- we're going to have an
interesting dialogue today about how our economy works, how we can make
sure people are prepared to take advantage of a growing economy. I
hope that the students here at this very fine high school are able to
have a better understanding about their future, and how to seize
opportunities.
Before we begin the discussion, I do want to thank the high school
for welcoming me and quite a large entourage. (Laughter.) Rich, thank
you, and your staff. I appreciate the teachers of this fine high
school. I want to thank you all for teaching. Teaching is such a
noble profession. (Applause.)
I've come to this high school -- it's a high school that's willing
to raise the bar, challenge what I've been calling the soft bigotry of
low expectations; that is willing to measure, willing to change if you
need to change, willing to use curriculum that actually works, in order
to make sure every child is educated, every child has a chance to
succeed.
This is a fabulous high school. I'm proud of the administrators
and teachers and students who make it such. I also want to thank the
parents who are here for paying attention to your sons and daughters,
for caring about the quality of the education they receive. I often
talk about the need for us to usher in a period of personal
responsibility -- nothing is more responsible than a parent
understanding that he or she is the first teacher of a child, and he or
she must pay attention to the education of their children.
I also want to thank our panelists, who we'll talk to in a minute
here. But I also want to thank members of the mighty Pennsylvania
congressional delegation for traveling with me today. (Applause.) The
senior Senator -- I try to downplay the senior part -- (laughter) --
today is actually his birthday. That would be Arlen Specter who is
traveling with us. (Applause.) I look forward to working with him.
Where is the Senator? He's somewhere around here anyway. Either that,
or he knew this was going to be a long speech. (Laughter.) We're
working well together. We've got some challenges in Washington. I
appreciate him working with my administration on issues such as
judges.
Speaking about friends and people who I think is doing a great job
for the state of Pennsylvania, Senator Rick Santorum is with us, as
well. (Applause.) Don't go overboard. (Laughter.) I've got to fly
back with him to Washington. (Laughter.)
I appreciate the Congressman from this district, Tim Holden.
Congressman, thank you for accompanying us today. (Applause.) The
Congressman kindly allowed others from the Pennsylvania congressional
district to come into his district today, members such as John
Peterson, Joe Pitts, Don Sherwood, Todd Platts, Bill Shuster, and Jim
Gerlach. Thank you all for coming. (Applause.) We've got senators
here; we've got state representatives here; we've got mayors here.
Thank you all for being here -- city councilmen, a lot of citizens.
I'm proud to be here to share with you some thoughts about how to
make sure the American Dream shines brightly in every corner of the
country. Before we have a little discussion about economics and of
what we can do to make sure people are prepared for the new jobs of the
21st century, I do want to herald a Lauren Simkulak. Lauren is a
senior at this high school. She came out to meet me at Air Force One.
She was invited to do so because, you see, she is volunteering her
time. She's taking time out of her busy life. If you're a senior in
high school, your life can be very busy, sometimes with studying,
sometimes with other things, but nevertheless -- (laughter). She's
involved with the Four Diamonds Fund, a fund to create awareness for
cancer. She is a volunteer in the army of compassion.
The reason I bring that up is that oftentimes, you hear our
country's strength is defined as our military might. We're going to
stay strong. You hear people talk about the might of America being the
size of our wallets. We want more citizens having bigger wallets. But
the truth of the matter is the strength of this country is the heart
and souls of the American people, people who are willing to love --
(applause) -- people who are willing to love a neighbor just like they
would like to be loved themselves.
Here's my message to the high school students who are listening,
and to anybody else: Find somebody who hurts and surround them with
love. Governments -- (applause) -- you can do so in all kinds of
ways. You can do so in a Boys or Girl Scouts; you can do so in the
Boys or Girls Club; you can do so through your church or your synagogue
or mosque. The strength of America is the fact that we're a loving,
compassionate, decent people who are willing to help save America, one
soul at a time. I appreciate -- (applause) -- I appreciate the service
-- (applause.)
I want the students here to understand we've been through historic
times in this country. You hear me often say, I'm optimistic about the
future. Well, one reason I'm optimistic is because I've seen what we
have just been through as a nation. Remember, this country has been
through a recession, an attack by an enemy which clearly hates what we
stand for. We had some corporate scandals -- and, by the way, we
expect our citizens in positions of responsibility to tell the truth.
We passed tough laws, by the way, to send those corporate criminals to
justice, which is exactly where they belong because they betrayed the
trust to employees and shareholders.
And then I made the tough decision about dealing with threats by
committing some incredibly citizens into harm's way to remove a danger,
to remember the lessons of September the 11th and remove a danger
before it became imminent and before it could conceivably strike
America again. All that affected our economy.
Think about what this economy has been through -- recession, an
attack, a national emergency, corporate scandals, and war. And yet,
the economy is growing. (Applause.) The numbers are good, see. The
numbers are good, but I don't worry about numbers, I worry about
people. There are still some people looking for work because of the
recession. There are people looking for work because jobs have gone
overseas. And we need to act in this country. We need to act to make
sure there are more jobs at home, and people are more likely to retain
a job.
I've got some ideas that I'd like to share with you, before we get
to making sure we educate people for the jobs that are being generated
in the 21st century. The first idea is to make sure there's certainty
in the tax code. As you know, we acted by cutting taxes. We saw all
the challenges to our economy; we cut taxes, which basically meant
people had more money in their pocket. (Applause.)
It's kind of a simple Crawford, Texas economic lesson. When you
have more money in your pocket, you're likely to demand a good or a
service -- an additional good or a service. And when you make a demand
for an additional good or a service, in our economy, somebody will
produce the good or a service. And when somebody produces the good or
a service, somebody is more likely to retain a job or find a job. In
other words, the tax cuts stimulated growth. The tax cuts also made it
more likely that the small business sector of our country would be
strong and vibrant. Seventy percent of the new jobs in America are
created by small businesses. And that's why much of the tax cuts --
the individual tax cuts, as well as the encouraging of investment,
those tax cuts which encourage investment, were aimed at small
businesses.
The tax cuts are making a difference, but, unfortunately, they are
set to expire, which means if Congress doesn't renew the tax cuts, the
child credit will go down. So, in other words, if you're now getting a
bigger child credit because you're a mom or a dad, you're going to pay
more taxes. It's a tax increase. The marriage penalty will go up if
Congress doesn't act. In other words, they'll be raising your taxes.
In order to make sure people can find work or retain a job, we need to
make the tax cuts permanent. There needs to be certainty in the tax
code. People need to be able to plan. Small businesses need to be
able to plan. Individuals need to be able to plan. We do not need a
tax increase right now in our country. (Applause.)
Health care costs are too high. It's going to be hard to increase
jobs with health care costs going up. I put out a plan to address
health care costs, associated health plans, health savings accounts.
But one of the interesting components of making sure we control the
rising costs of health care is to make sure our judicial system doesn't
run docs out of business and run the cost of medicine up for patients.
We need medical liability reform in the United States. (Applause.)
We've got too many lawsuits in America. It's one thing to be
taking a lawsuit based upon a real claim. There's too many junk
lawsuits which are running up the cost of doing business. It makes it
hard to increase the job base. It makes it hard for people to retain a
job when people are getting sued right and left. We need tort reform
at the federal level. We need class-action reform. We need asbestos
reform. We need to get less regulations on people who are trying to
create jobs. Washington oftentimes poses too many mandates, which
makes it hard to retain a job.
The other day I met with an entrepreneur from Philadelphia. She
runs a small foundry. She said, "I've got some issues. I'm worried
about jobs." She said, "I'm worried about the taxes jumping up and
down." She said, "A lot of my customers are getting sued, which makes
it hard for them to buy products from me." She also said something
very interesting -- she said she's worried about reliable energy
supplies. You see, when you have blackouts or brownouts, and you're
trying to employ people, it's awful hard to have -- to do so.
In order to get jobs back, in order for people to retain jobs, we
need an energy plan in this country. We need to modernize the
electricity grid. We need to become less reliant on foreign sources of
energy. (Applause.)
Listen, Pennsylvanians are great entrepreneurs and farmers. We
ought to be opening up markets for Pennsylvania products. In other
words, there's a lot of things we can do. But I'm confident about the
future of this economy because I've seen what we've been through. I
know the spirit of America. I know the entrepreneurial spirit; I know
the fact we've got the best workers in the world. Productivity
increases are high. This is a fabulous country. There's nothing we
can't overcome. And we are overcoming it. And as we overcome the
recession and war and emergency, we'd better make sure we've got a work
force that is prepared for the higher-paying jobs of the 21st century.
And that's what we're here to talk about today. (Applause.)
A good education system begins at the early grades. We passed
what's called the No Child Left Behind Act. It basically says we trust
local people to chart the path to excellence. We're going to spend
more federal money, but we want to know whether or not their children
are learning to read, write, and add and subtract. This business about
just shuffling kids through the system has got to end. It's got to
end. (Applause.)
We've got to make sure that, as we focus on primary and secondary
education, we never forget the fact that we can strive for higher
standards at the high school level. One of the things you hear people
talking about is reading programs, to make sure that those kids who
have been shuffled through now have a chance to read before it's too
late, and, by the way, using curriculum that actually works, not
curriculum that sounds good, not curriculum that may be based upon some
interesting theory, but curriculum that actually makes a difference, so
that when we measure we can see clearly that children are learning to
read.
We need to expand AP courses. We're going to talk a little bit
about AP. One of the interesting things about AP courses, it says
clearly that we expect the best from our children. AP courses
challenge our kids. It also means that they're more likely to go to
college and strive for higher goals. Too many of our minority students
aren't getting AP classes. I've got a plan to make sure AP is spread
throughout all segments of our society. (Applause.)
We've got to make sure that math and sciences are -- we've got to
focus on math and science. We've got to encourage people who have got
expertise in math and science to come into classrooms. Oftentimes
you'll hear school districts say, we're pinched for teachers. We need
extra help with math and science. We've got a program to encourage
people to come in and teach part-time to help out. In other words,
we're focused on making sure that secondary and elementary education
works well, and that high schools work well.
And another interesting part of our society which oftentimes gets
overlooked is the fabulous community college system in America. You've
got a great community college here in -- (applause.) Community
colleges are available and affordable. They're particularly affordable
because the federal government wants to help people go to community
college, with all kinds of different scholarship programs, including
Pell grants, which we intend to expand, particularly for those students
who are willing to take rigorous academic programs, are willing to set
their sights.
The community college system is flexible. And you're going to hear
an interesting and innovative program that deals with your health care
system here in Harrisburg and central Pennsylvania, and the community
college and the high school, to prepare folks for the jobs which
actually exist.
Listen, it used to be in job training that they never asked the
question whether the jobs -- do the jobs exist for the training
programs. The way I used to put it is, you used to train 500
hairdressers for 10 jobs. And yet we satisfied our requirement at the
state level. Because they didn't ask whether or not the jobs actually
existed, they just asked, were you training somebody. Now we're
beginning to ask the question, when you train somebody, is there a job,
and does the curriculum make sense for the job. (Applause.)
So what you're about to hear is educational excellence here in
Harrisburg exists; innovative programs exist. People who are listening
in different communities around Pennsylvania and the country might want
to pay attention to what is happening in this community. (Applause.)
Rich -- I appreciate your hospitality -- is the Principal of the
Mighty Rams. (Applause.)
MR. MAZZATESTA: You're more than welcome here, Mr. President.
(Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: I guess I should have said, you're the Head Ram.
(Laughter.)
MR. MAZZATESTA: Well, Dr. Hasson might think that I'm the second
Head Ram. (Laughter.)
THE PRESIDENT: You can call her a Ram, I'm not. (Laughter and
applause.) I'm going to call her, "Ma'am." (Laughter.)
DR. HASSON: Barbara.
THE PRESIDENT: Barbara, that's right.
* * * * *
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I'm here to help. (Laughter and applause.)
However -- however, educational excellence will only be found at the
local level. And by that I mean, is that it's important to have local
control of schools so that good superintendents and good principals are
able to be -- adjust according to the circumstances. The federal
government can write checks, and we are. Federal funding is up.
What's changed is we're finally asking the question, are we getting any
results for our money. Good schools don't mind answering that
question. (Applause.)
Rich said something interesting about the No Child Left Behind
Act. What's interesting in this piece of legislation is that because
of measuring, you're able to determine whether or not a child can read
or write and add and subtract early. And what the measurement system
allows you to do is, one, analyze curriculum -- you know, is it
working, is the reading program we've got working -- but also, it
enables you to focus attention on a particular child that might slip
behind, which will make it easier, by the way, when this law if fully
implemented, for high schools because you'll have a more literate
population coming your way at some point in time.
We've got kind of a gap in the pipeline. There's been a -- because
we haven't focused that intensely on measurement. There's some kids
who are just being shuffled through, and you're having to remediate.
But we're going to correct that by having high standards early, enough
money to help provide remedial help, so that no child is left behind.
That's why we called it that law. We don't want anybody left behind in
America.
Barbara -- listen, I've been listening to Barbaras all my life.
(Laughter and applause.)
DR. HASSON: And as I told the President back stage here, he's
going to listen to one more Barbara. (Laughter.)
* * * * *
THE PRESIDENT: Let me see here -- (laughter) -- I think we're
doing our responsibility here at the federal level. Most funding
should be at the state and local level, in order to make sure you've
got local control of the schools. We've increased the federal funding
at the -- for elementary and secondary school programs up by 49 percent
over the last four years.
I think -- let me say a couple of things Barbara said. First,
because you measure, you know whether or not children are learning. I
hear people say, well, I can't believe you're making people measure.
Look, I didn't like to take tests either, but that's too bad. You see,
we've got to know. If you don't know whether a child can read and
write and add and subtract, it's likely that child will be just
shuffled through. And guess who gets hurt? Guess who gets hurt? A
lot of inner city kids get hurt. We want the American Dream to be
everywhere.
A lot of kids whose parents may not speak English as a first
language, they're easy to quit on. Let's just move them through, see.
But we're through with those days in America. Every child has worth.
I believe every child can learn, and our systems must challenge
mediocrity when we find it, must be willing to raise the bar.
Barbara, that's why I'm here. You're willing to raise the bar.
She said, we accept the challenge. It's not my challenge. It's a
national challenge to make sure every single child can learn. If you
can't read, there is no way you're going to be able to take advantage
of the fantastic opportunities being created in America. If you can't
read, you're going to be left behind when it comes to these
unbelievable job opportunities that are going to exist.
And so what we're talking about really here is the basics of job
training, aren't we? And that's to give the people the skills
necessary to take advantage of a changing, dynamic, exciting economy.
Schools can't survive without good teachers. And we've got one
with us right here. Rebecca is a -- shall I tell them 31-year
teacher? No, I won't say that. (Laughter.) It might give away our
age. (Laughter.) She's been in the classroom for 31 years. She is an
incredibly dedicated professional who told me that after 31 years, she
still loves walking into the classroom. Rebecca is in charge of the
English AP. Would you share with us your story? (Applause.)
* * * * *
THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate your dedication. You're leading with
your heart, and you've got to be. See, the issue at AP is whether or
not teachers know how to teach AP. That's one of the bottlenecks, to
make sure more advanced placement -- AP means raising the bar, is what
it means. It means challenging students to the max, which is what we
want to do in society, don't we? And part of the money that we're
going to spend out of Washington is to make sure that there is teacher
training money.
Another bottleneck is -- you know, a kid goes home and says, "Mom,
I want to take the AP exam, how much does it cost?" And it's quite
costly. And so, therefore, a lot of students say, well, I'm not going
to take the course, because it's too much money to take the exam.
We've got to help particularly low-income students pay for the exam.
We cannot allow the cost of a test to prevent students from reaching
high. (Applause.)
* * * * *
THE PRESIDENT: What Barbara mentioned, for example, is not only
training AP teachers how to teach AP, which is essential, but if you
remember Barbara said, we're making sure our teachers have been
retrained in the curriculum we're now going to use for reading at the
primary level. Teacher training is an essential aspect of making sure
our children get the best education possible.
And one of the reasons you measure, by the way, is to test whether
or not the curriculum is working. And if the curriculum is not
working, you need superintendents and principals and teachers bold
enough to say, it's not working. And so you then you pick what you
think will work, and then you've got to train teachers to teach
curriculum. That's what the No Child Left Behind Act also does.
And you've got a vibrant school district here. You see, if you
listen carefully, what people are saying is, we're going to challenge
every child. And that's the beginnings of educational excellence. And
we need to challenge every child because the jobs of the 21st century
are going to require a lot of smarts. People have to have the capacity
to think. It used to be, you know, crank somebody out of high school,
and if they could run a backhoe, that's going to be fine. And there's
nothing wrong with backhoe drivers, we're going to need them. But
we're also going to need computer programmers, or people working in the
health sciences.
There's some exciting new fields coming, and, therefore, the
education system must start early, make sure the high schools continue
to raise the bar, and our community colleges must be flexible enough to
have a curriculum that actually meets the needs of the local
communities. In other words, you don't need to be training people for
jobs that don't exist.
And somebody who understands that is Edna. She runs the Harrisburg
Area Community College, which as I understand it, is the oldest
community college --
DR. BAEHRE: That's correct.
THE PRESIDENT: The youngest leader with the oldest college.
(Applause.)
DR. BAEHRE: Don't I wish. (Laughter and applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: Tell us about your school, tell us how you've made
the curriculum relevant. Tell us what you're doing.
* * * * *
THE PRESIDENT: What -- let's see if I can say -- kind of summarize
what you just said. There's a lot of interesting job opportunities,
whether it be forklift drivers or health care providers, and there are
people who need to get extra training to be able to do those jobs. And
you're helping them. And that's good. That's what we want our
community colleges to do. (Applause.)
* * * * *
THE PRESIDENT: All right, Roger. Roger is the CEO of
PinnacleHealth System. He's here because you're looking for people to
work. One of the most exciting fields is the health care field, one of
the exciting fields to find work. But you've got to able to have some
-- got a skill set that makes you employable.
And tell us what you've done with the community college. Tell us
what kind of people you're looking for.
* * * * *
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Roger. Thanks for being innovative.
The message I heard from Roger is if you're looking for work in
central Pennsylvania and you're willing to retrain, willing to go back
to school, you can find work, see. There's jobs in this part of the
world that may require a different skill set than you have. But there
is ample opportunity to retrain, particularly at the community college
level. And I'm sure there's some people listening out there saying, I
want to work, I'm worried about my job security, but I may be too old
to go back to the community college. That's not the way it works. The
community college accepts all comers. What Roger is looking for is
smart, capable, hardworking people who needs just a little extra
training so he can put them to work.
Speaking about young workers, Athan's mother is here. Athan is
four?
MS. AFTOSMES: Four-and-a-half.
THE PRESIDENT: Four-and-a-half, yes. I want to make sure she's
four-and-a-half. Cari is a student at HACC. She got an interesting
story that I would like for her to share with you. By the way, for the
Congress to understand, she got $1,000 child credit for Athan, and if
they don't make the tax cuts permanent, she's going to be paying taxes
next year. (Applause.)
* * * * *
THE PRESIDENT: It's a fabulous story. Cari, first of all,
understands her most important responsibility is to love her child with
all her heart and, therefore, to be able to provide for her child.
(Applause.) She's also willing to say, I can do better, I want to do
better -- I want to serve my community, and I understand it's going to
take a little extra time to get the skills necessary. So she actually
became entrepreneurial. She said, how best to improve? And she
researched and she found a good company willing to pay for her tuition,
a community college system that was able to develop a curriculum that
matched her desires. And here she is on the cusp of a new career, one
that pays better, with better benefits.
See, education enables our workers to be more productive. When you
here about productivity increases, what you're really hearing about is
better-paying jobs. But it requires a certain spirit, doesn't it? It
requires somebody to seize the moment, some citizen to say, I want to
do better. Government can't make you do better. We can provide the
opportunities, and we all work hard to do so. But it requires the
spirit of a person like Cari to rise up and say, I want to do my duty
as a mom, I'm going to do my duty as a wife, I'm going to do my duty as
a citizen to provide care and comfort for people in hospitals. She
took advantage of the opportunity. For those of you looking for work
out there, take advantage of the opportunities available to embetter
yourself.
Listen, I'm going to tell you something. We've been through a lot
in this country. We're going to win the war on terror. We're going to
promote freedom and peace. (Applause.) The world is going to be more
free and, therefore, more peaceful. At home, we're going to be a
society which understands the issues facing our fellow citizens, helps
our fellow citizens realize great expectations of our society,
encourages the entrepreneurial spirit of Americans, enables people to
realize their dreams by having an education system, which works and
functions well.
And, as well, this is a society where people who hurt and are
lonely and hopeless can find solace, because there's a loving citizen
with arms open, willing to do their duty as an American by loving their
neighbor.
I am so honored to be back here in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I
thank you for the warm welcome. I thank our panelists for this
discussion. And may God bless you all.