[Return to ED Homepage]
Thank you very much. Keith [Geiger], Don [Cameron], Ken [Melley], and all the state Presidents and Executive Directors ... I am so pleased to have this chance to talk to you today.
We come together at a very important time. What happens in Washington over the next three weeks will have a profound influence on the quality of education in every state not for one year, but over the next seven years and beyond.
The question is not whether to balance the federal budget, but how to balance it. Between now and December 15, an unprecedented debate on national budget priorities will unfold in Washington.
President Clinton has made sure that education will be front and center in that debate.
He has insisted that in this Information Age, America needs to invest more in better education. He has warned against--and steadfastly opposed--the path of retreat followed by the Congressional majority, which has targeted education for more than $30 billion in cuts.
Some in the Congress have misread the election of 1994 as some kind of signal to cut education and some kind of license to shut down the government. Fortunately, in the agreement reached on Sunday to re-open the government, President Clinton succeeded in establishing education as a budget priority.
The polls show overwhelming public support for investment in education. A Times Mirror poll last year found 81 percent of the American people opposed to cutting education in order to cut the deficit. And this year, Gallup found that 75 percent of the American people believe federal aid to education ought to be expanded.
My friends, we need to translate those poll numbers into personal involvement, personal stories, and common actions that reflect the direct impact of the devastating cuts proposed by the Congress. This is consistent with your adopted strategic focus toward restoration of public confidence in the public schools.
The Congressional majority likes to say that they are not cutting programs, but just slowing the rate of increase. But when it comes to education, that's simply not true. This Congress has sought to break the longstanding bipartisan commitment to education by trying to impose real and damaging cuts.
They have proposed drastic cuts in extra help in basic skills through Title I -- on the House side, more than a billion dollars, for an actual cut of 1.2 million students. The House is trying to cut Safe and Drug Free Schools by more than half -- and wipe out the Goals 2000: Educate America Act, which is just starting to help schools and communities raise standards, improve teacher training, increase parent involvement, and expand access to technology.
The debate on Goals 2000 has been interesting, to say the least. We have heard Goals 2000 referred to as a U.N. cabal, that shots to immunize children are really mind control shots for the U.N. takeover, and a plan to take children from you if you owned a gun of a certain kind. There was even -- and I'm not kidding about this -- a serious story in a Montana newspaper about a woman who claimed she was a "sex slave for Goals 2000." She said this happened 11 years ago -- 9 years before Goals 2000 was even passed.
These absurd charges would be a whole lot funnier if they weren't contributing to the kind of political climate that threatens to derail efforts to improve public schools and as an effort to keep up the drumbeat against teachers.
Let's look at the areas that the American people have identified as critical for improving education:
Now we need to make the link between these cuts and our children's future back home in your states and communities. We need to make our case not through abstractions, but with actual cases--not through program names such as Title I, but through program objectives, such as providing extra instruction to improve basic skills.
We need to show how these cuts undercut parent involvement and undermine opportunities to be prepared to go to college. We need to show how these cuts jeopardize the very promising partnerships advanced by recent federal legislation.
That means highlighting school-law enforcement partnerships through the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Act; school-community partnerships for excellence through Goals 2000; school-employer- community college partnerships through School-to-Work; and school-parent compacts through Title I. What is important is not the names of the programs, but the need for these investments and partnerships.
The Congressional majority would have us believe that by cutting federal aid to education, they would be supporting local schools and empowering parents. Let's make the case -- and it is a convincing case -- that they are doing just the opposite, that cutting federal aid to education means deflating or even destroying these very hopeful initiatives at the local level to help our students learn and achieve.
Let's speak from personal experience and let's stand firm against those critics -- in the media and in politics -- who are so eager to condemn our public schools yet somehow never willing to visit them.
We have many materials available that explain the impact of these cuts on your state and across America.
Many in the Congressional majority have come to Washington, it seems, so they can rail against Washington. And they tell us that by cutting education, they are somehow doing a favor to the states.
As a former Governor, I appreciate the fact that education is a state responsibility and a local function. But I know -- and certainly President Clinton knows -- that it must also be a national priority. And I believe it is irresponsible to pretend that at a time when governors and states legislators will be asked to pick up new costs for Medicaid and for welfare and to cope with the costs of a tidal wave of teenagers in our schools, they will somehow magically be able to make up for the money lost through cuts in federal aid to education.
Furthermore, slashing federal aid to education would send a terrible signal to states, educators, students, and parents about the importance our country places on preparing our young people for college, promising jobs, and responsible citizenship.
We have a tremendously strong case to make in support of President Clinton's insistence that education must be a national budget priority. Let's make that case at the grass-roots level. Let's make sure our allies -- and our potential allies -- hear from parents who are determined, above all, to provide a better education for their children.
So after we all take a few days off to see family, eat turkey, gain weight, watch parades and football, let's burn those calories off in the most constructive possible way -- by fighting for improved education for every child.
As we prepare, together, to wage that fight, I take heart from the fact that the American people are on our side. I say that not simply because of the polls I have cited, but all the parents I have seen and talked with in the hundreds of classrooms I have visited in every part of this country.
I take heart from the excellent work of teachers, and all of your dedicated, skilled, and well-informed members, who serve as champions for the interest of America's children.
I take heart that we have a President with a personal and abiding commitment to education. Bill Clinton has put education at the center of his Presidency. He knows that to cut education is to violate our values as a great nation.
And finally, let me say I take heart from the fact that the higher education community, including college students, forced the Congress to give up $5 billion in cuts for college loans. Now I am not about to declare victory in the federal budget for higher education. The Congress is still trying to make cuts in student loans and to effectively destroy the highly effective and enormously popular direct loan program for college students.
But I think it is instructive to note how Congress reacted when the higher education community mobilized.
Now all of us who are working to improve K through 12 must intensify our efforts. I am not going to let down. If we all do our jobs, we will win. Right now there's still an alarming disconnect between what the polls show people want and what the Congress is trying to do to education. Many local people don't know how these budget cuts affect them and their families.
As we approach the defining moment in this national budget debate, let's make it unmistakably clear that the American people want to invest in a better future for our children. Our children didn't run up this deficit -- and they shouldn't have to pay for it with their education.
Together, we must keep faith with our children. Their future and our future depend on it.
-###-
[ Return to Speeches and Testimony ]
[Return to ED Homepage]