A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Good afternoon. It is a great pleasure to be here in San Jose and to be part of the Commonwealth Club tradition. This is my third day in California visiting with teachers, parents, students and technology leaders. Today, I would like to talk to you about the hopes and aspirations of America's teenagers.

I am pleased to base my observations on the Shell Poll of over 1,000 high school students, which we are releasing today. I thank Shell for its very generous contribution. Peter Hart, the very well known and respected pollster, conducted this poll. I win tell you that this is a very honest poll. Over 20% of the students who were polled said flat out that they hated school or liked it only a little.

Now, the first thing you may be asking is why even do such a poll. Well, my answer is very simple.

We have more young people in our nation's schools than ever before - over 53.2 million - and many more of them are going to be high school students. Right now, 13.5 million young people go to our nation's high schools. In the next ten years, we are going to have to educate and find space for an additional 1.3 million high school students.

California is at the very center of this rising tide of teenagers. In the next ten years, California is going to have to find additional classrooms for over 260,000 more teenagers. That's a lot of young people. So it makes a good deal of sense to me to take a closer look at the values and expectations of all of these young people.

There is another reason why we need to put the "spotlight' on the American high school. There is a tendency in America to stereotype just about everything. Our high schools are no exception. Movies from "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" to "Clueless" to Matthew Broderick's latest movie, "The Election" have a wonderful time portraying the American high school as full of perky blonde cheerleaders, dumb jocks, quirky nerds and teachers who haven't a clue.

But as you will see in this revealing poll, our high school students deserve a much more sophisticated and well-rounded image - one that is more promising, ambitious, striving and open to the future.

The first very big thing that America's teenagers are telling us is that it is "tough" to be a teenager. Two out of three teenagers use the word "tough" to describe their lives. This number is even higher for young women and African-American teenagers. So why do America's teenagers describe their lives as "tough"?

Well this is what they tell us. They feel a great deal of pressure to get good grades (44%) and to get into college (32%), and those two pressures out weigh the pressure they feel to "fit in socially" (29%) use drugs (19%) or be sexually active (13%).

In my opinion, this is good news. America's teenagers are more worried about getting good grades than using drugs or being sexually active. Yet, the pressure to be sexually active is very strongly felt by 9th and 10th grade girls.

At the same time, America's teenagers in overwhelming numbers feel happy (90%), cared about (91%), confident (90%) motivated (86%) and fortunate (84%). Our children are optimistic, resilient, and three-fourths of them think the future looks very promising.

There is a wonderful hopefulness in our teenagers, which stands in sharp contrast to a consistent negativity that all too often seems to define how we adults think about our young people.

Last year, for example, the Public Agenda released a study entitled "Kids These Days" which told us that a majority of adults in America viewed teenagers in the "negative" and saw them as "rude, irresponsible and wild." This study went on to suggest that the majority of adults believed that our young people were "failing to learn such values as honesty, respect and responsibility."

Yet, our poll of America's teenagers gives us a very different picture. They rank being honest, working hard, being a good student, and helping others as being far more important than all the things that make someone popular - like having lots of friends, being a great athlete, having a lot of money or having a boyfriend or girlfriend.

Our young people seem to have their heads on their shoulders. They recognize that the stakes are high in this new time when learning how to learn and keep on learning is the key to future success.

Let's give our young people the vote of confidence they deserve. They may dress differently, look differently, and listen to music that is simply beyond us, but they are not a lost generation or a negative generation. They are quite the opposite of slackers. By and large, America's teenagers are thinking hard about their future. A large majority is planning to go on to college.

Eighty percent of our teenagers believe that "it's better to aim high and have big ambitions" rather than just play it safe or muddle through. These are encouraging findings. They suggest to me that we really do need to develop a new language and mindset that reflects the hope and aspirations our high school students have for the coming times.

Are all of America's high school students doing well? Our poll tells us that 80% of teenagers seem to have their act together but there is another 20% that really does need our help.

One in 5 teenagers say they have their hands full grappling with five or more serious problems and all at one time. Just listen to some of the problems that they are contending with: doing poorly in school, pressure to use chugs and alcohol; a difficult family life; being worried about violence; an unwanted pregnancy, and not having enough to do. In real numbers that's about 2.7 million teenagers.

Here is another piece of news that may surprise you. When America's teenagers look for help and guidance they turn to their parents. About 80% of all teenagers "rely a lot for support" and guidance on their parents. This finding should reassure parents that all of their hard work pays off. Despite the fact that your teenagers may have a big "keep out" sign on their bedroom door - your teenagers depend on you to be there when they need advice.

The Shell Poll tells us two other fascinating facts about how involved parents can make a real difference in the lives of their teenagers.

The first fact goes back to the earliest days of parenting. Teenagers who were read to as young children every day seem to make much more of an effort "to do their best" in school. The lesson here is that all those nights reading to a toddler really do pay off in the end.

The other fact speaks to how parents can help their teenagers prepare for the future. Teenagers are getting the message from parents about drugs, drinking, sexual relations, and which kids to hang out with. Most parents are getting through when it comes to helping young people make good choices.

At the same time, teenagers are telling us that they could use some help when it comes to sorting out their emotions and making good choices about career and job decisions. Only 40% of our sample told us that they were very confident about dealing with their emotions, and only half felt very confident about making good career choices.

When it comes to getting an education, America's teenagers give their school solid marks. Sixty-six percent of our sample give their school a grade of "B" or better for giving them a good education.

We asked teenagers to rate their high school in 16 different categories from teaching core academic subjects like math and science, to computer availability, to racial harmony, to feeling safe at school. In 15 of the 16 categories teenagers gave their high schools a rating of " B" or better.

Young people give high schools very high marks for giving them access to technology, teaching the arts and music, giving them advice on how to prepare for college and generally challenging them.

Seven in ten teenagers say they have a teacher that they feel close to, and close to half of those polled say they have had a teacher who has changed their lives. Teaching Mrs. Tingle, a current movie which portrays a teacher in a very harsh light, is now in movie theaters across the country - but it certainly doesn't reflect the thinking of America's high school students.

Three-fourths (77%) of all high school students feel very safe going to school. That's a very solid number given the tragedies of the last two years. African-American teenagers, however, feel less confident when it comes to safety. Over 40% of African-American students give their schools a "C" or lower when it comes to safety.

America's high school students also have some very clear opinions about how they would improve the American high school experience. They don't like big, impersonal schools. Nearly half of our sample gave high schools low marks when it comes to providing students with smaller classes and more personal attention. High school students also believe that smaller schools are safer. This is one more reason why this nation should get on with the business of building more high schools.

Let's remember that many of our nation's high schools are already overcrowded, and they are going to get even more crowded in the years ahead. This is why President Clinton has been asking the Congress to pass school construction and modernization legislation for the last three years.

While young people give schools high marks for encouraging racial harmony (72%), almost half of our sample gave their schools low marks for encouraging "respect" among each other. Even though 4 out of 5 high school students feel like they "belong" to their school, they are also telling us that they need help connecting with and respecting each other.

In this post-Columbine environment, we need to be sensitive to this issue and make sure that no teenager feels alienated or disconnected. Here is an opportunity for schools to invite the community in, and to expand opportunities like peer mentoring and conflict resolution classes to help young people learn how to respect each other.

The poll also confirms that high school students am looking for help in sustaining their own positive values. The day-to-day social scene at the typical American high school seems to be at the heart of their concerns.

The pressure to be popular and the values associated with popularity seem to be "out-of-step" with the positive values that matter most to the majority of our young people.

Our teenagers are also telling us that for all their ambition and looking to the future, nearly 40% of all teenagers work "just hard enough" to get by in school. Here we see a gender gap emerging with a solid 67% of all girls making their best effort compared to only 53% of all boys.

Girls are also thinking much more about the future compared to teenage boys. Eighty-four percent of all girls have thought hard about their futures compared to just over 70% of all boys. While young men and women are equally happy and confident, young women do a lot more "worrying" - a gender gap of 18%.

This poll suggests two other areas of concern that deserve our attention.

First, we need to tune into the fact that 43% of our teenagers are telling us that drug and alcohol use is a very serious problem among their friends. Last week, the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse reported that drug use among teenagers is dropping. That is very good news. But today's poll tells us that we have a long way to go before we can rest easy when it comes to drugs and alcohol.

A second concern, while the great majority of our young people are looking to the future with a strong sense of optimism and are preparing to go to college, we still have 19% who are not college bound. These young people seem less confident about the future, and 44% of them are asking for more advice and guidance about their lives. This group of young people should not be forgotten or ignored.

I think by now you have a sense of the hope and promise as well as the concerns and worries of America's teenagers. Overall, I believe this survey is a positive report that should give us some satisfaction that our young people are heading in the right direction.

Our teenagers feel the pressure of growing up but they are coping well and they are confident. The future is there to grab if we help them. Yes, America's teenagers are optimistic and striving. Their willingness to aim high and accept new challenges surely should encourage us to have the same sense of optimism when it comes to improving American education.

Let's put away the nostalgia that some people seem so determined to hold on to at all costs - the belief that once there was a time in the past when everything in American education was somehow better. Let's see our high school students for who they are and what they want to become and help them in the here and now.

I believe that America's high school students are prepared to accept more responsibility rather than less, and challenge of making good choices about their lives - if we help them. They are a striving group and full of promise.

If we believe in them - and aim as high as they do - I believe America will be more prosperous, more hopeful, a more educated and a better nation in the years to come. Thank you.