To those who want to see real improvement in American education, I say: There will be no renaissance without revolution.
For today's students, we must make existing schools better and more accountable.
For tomorrow's students, the next generation, we must create a New Generation of American Schools.
For all of us, for the adults who think our school days are over, we've got to become a Nation of Students-recognize learning is a lifelong process. Finally, outside our schools we must cultivate communities where learning can happen.
George Bush
April 18,
1991
Message from the
Secretary
On April 18, 1991, President Bush announced AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy. It is a bold, comprehensive, and long-range plan to move every community in America toward the National Education Goals adopted by the President and the Governors last year.
This booklet offers a comprehensive description of the AMERICA 2000 strategy and the National Education Goals it will help us achieve.
In his address to the nation, also reprinted in the pages that follow, the President offers a striking vision for our schools. He challenges us all to join him in a populist crusade to make America - community by community, school by school-all that it should be.
Lamar Alexander
Secretary
of Education
August
1991
THE NATIONAL
EDUCATION GOALS
By the year 2000:
1. All children in America will start school ready to learn.
2. The high school graduation rate will increase to at least 90 percent.
3. American students will leave grades four, eight, and twelve having demonstrated competency in challenging subject matter including English, mathematics, science, history, and geography; and every school in America will ensure that all students learn to use their minds well, so they may be prepared for responsible citizenship, further learning, and productive employment in our modern economy.
4. U.S. students will be first in the world in science and mathematics achievement.
5. Every adult American will be literate and will possess the knowledge and skills necessary to compete in a global economy and exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.
6. Every school in America will be free of drugs and violence and will offer a disciplined environment conducive to learning.
The four-part AMERICA 2000 education strategy will enable every community to achieve these goals.
AMERICA 2000: AN EDUCATION STRATEGY
Executive Summary
AMERICA 2000 is a long-term strategy to help make this land all that it should be a nine-year crusade to move us toward the six ambitious National Education Goals that the President and the Governors adopted in 1990 to close our skills-and-knowledge gap.
The strategy anticipates major change in our 110,000 public and private schools, change in every American community, change in every American home, change in our attitude about learning.
This strategy is bold, complex and long-range. It will start quickly, but results won't come quickly. It will occupy us at least for the rest of this decade.
We already know the direction in which we must go; the AMERICA 2OOO strategy will help us get there.
The strategy will spur far-reaching changes in weary practices, outmoded assumptions and long-assumed constraints on education. It will require us to make some lifestyle changes, too. Yet few elements of this strategy are unprecedented. Today's best ideas, dedicated education reforms, impressive innovations and ambitious experiments already point the way. We already know the direction in which we must go; the AMERICA 2000 strategy will help us get there.
AMERICA 2000 is a national strategy, not a federal program. It honors local control, relies on local initiative, affirms states and localities as the senior partners in paying for education, and recognizes the private sector as a vital partner, too. It recognizes that real education reform happens community by community, school by school, and only when people come to understand what they must do for themselves and their children and set about to do it.
The federal government's role in this strategy is limited-wisely-as its part in education always has been. But that role will be played vigorously. Washington can help by setting standards, highlighting examples, contributing some funds, providing flexibility in exchange for accountability and pushing and prodding-then pushing and prodding some more.
The AMERICA 2000 strategy has four parts that will be pursued simultaneously. They can be visualized as four giant trains-big enough for everyone to find a place on board-departing at the same time on parallel tracks on the long journey to educational excellence. All four must move swiftly and determinedly if the nation is to reach its destination:
For today's students, we must radically improve today's schools by making all 110,000 of them better and more accountable for results.
For tomorrow's students, we must invent new schools to meet the demands of a new century with a New Generation of American Schools, bringing at least 535 of them into existence by 1996 and thousands by decade's end.
For those of us already out of school and in the work force, we must keep learning if we are to live and work successfully in today's world.
A "Nation at Risk" must become a "Nation of Students." For schools to succeed, we must look beyond our classrooms to our communities and families. Schools will never be much better than the commitment of their communities. Each of our communities must become a place where learning can happen.
Our vision is of four big trains, moving simultaneously down four parallel tracks: Better and more accountable schools; a New Generation of American Schools; a Nation of Students continuing to learn throughout our lives; and communities where learning can happen.
The Challenge: America's Skills and Knowledge Gap
Introduction
Eight years after the National Commission on Excellence in Education declared us a 'Nation at Risk;' we haven't turned things around in education. Almost all our education trend lines are flat. Our country is idling its engines, not knowing enough nor being able to do enough to make America all that it should be. Yet we're spending far more money on education. Total spending for elementary and secondary schools has more than doubled since 1980- while the number of students has remained about the same. In real terms, education spending has increased approximately 33 percent per public school student. As a nation, we now invest more in education that in defense. But the results have not improved, and we're not coming close to our potential or what is needed.
As a nation, we now invest more in education than in defense.
Nor is the rest of the world sitting idly by, waiting for America to catch up. Serious efforts at education improvement are under way by most of our international competitors and trading partners. Yet while we spend as much per student as almost any country in the world, American students are at or near the back of the pack in international comparisons. If we don't make radical changes, that is where we are going to stay.
Meanwhile, our employers cannot hire enough qualified workers. Immense sums are spent on remedial training, much of it at the college level. Companies export skilled work-or abandon projects that require it. Shortcomings are not limited to what today's students are learning in school. The fact is that close to 85 percent of America's work force for the year 2000 is already in the work force today. These people are the products of the same education system.
Perhaps 25 million adults are functionally illiterate. As many as 25 million more adult workers need to update their skills or knowledge. While more than 4 million adults are taking basic education courses outside the schools, there is not a systematic means of matching training to needs; no uniform standards measure the skills needed and the skills learned.
While the age of technology, information and communications rewards those nations whose people learn new skills to stay ahead, we are still a nation that groans at the prospect of going back to school. At best, we are reluctant students in a world that rewards learning.
And there
is one more big problem: today's Americans spend barely 9 percent of their
first eighteen years in school, on average. What of the other 91 percent,
the portion spent elsewhere-at home, on playgrounds, in front of the television?
* For too
many of our children, the family that should be their protector, advocate
and moral anchor is itself in a state of deterioration.
* For too
many of our children, such a family never existed.
* For too
many of our children, the neighborhood is a place of menace, the street
a place of violence.
* Too many of our children start school unready to meet the challenges of learning.
* Too many of our children arrive at school hungry, unwashed and frightened.
* And other modern plagues touch our children: drug use and alcohol abuse, random violence, adolescent pregnancy, AIDS and the rest.
No civil society or compassionate nation can neglect the plight of these children who are, in almost every case, innocent victims of adult misbehavior.
But few of those problems are amenable to solution by government alone, and none by schools alone. Schools are not and cannot be parents, police, hospitals, welfare agencies or drug treatment centers. They cannot replace the missing elements in communities and families.
Merit Schools Program. Individual schools that make notable progress toward the National Education Goals deserve to be rewarded. Congress will be asked to enact a new program that will provide federal funds to states that can be used as rewards for such progress.
Governors' Academies for School Leaders. Academies will be established with federal seed money, so that principals and other leaders in every state will be able to make their schools better and more accountable.
Governors' Academies for Teachers. Academies will also be established with federal seed money, so that teachers of the five core subjects in every state will be ready to help their students attain the World Class Standards and pass the American Achievement Tests.
Differential pay for teachers. Differential pay will be encouraged for those who teach well, who teach core subjects, who teach in dangerous and challenging settings or who serve as mentors for new teachers.
Alternative teacher and principal certification. Congress will be asked to make grants available to states and districts to develop alternative certification systems for teachers and principals. New college graduates and others seeking a career in teaching or school leadership are often frustrated by certification requirement unrelated to subject area knowledge or leadership ability. This initiative will help states and districts develop means by which individuals with an interest in teaching and school leadership can overcome these barriers.
Honor teachers. The federal government will honor and reward outstanding teachers in all five of the core subjects with Presidential Awards for Excellence in Education.
AMERICA 2000
Track I Accountability Package
* World
Class Standards
* American
Achievement Tests
* Test
results used by colleges, universities and employers
* Presidential
citations for educational excellence
* Presidential
Achievement Scholarships
* Report
Cards
* Changes
in National Assessment of Educational Progress
* New choice
incentives and choice applied to Chapter I
* Educational
flexibility legislation to support the school as the site of reform
* Merit
Schools Program to reward schools that move toward the goals
* Governors'
Academies for School Leaders
* Governors'
Academies for Teachers
* Differential
pay for teachers
* Alternative
certification for teachers and principals
* Honoring
outstanding teachers in the five core subjects
Schools can contribute to the easing of these conditions. They can sometimes house additional services. They can welcome tutors, mentors and caring adults. But they cannot do it alone.
We tend to say that "the nation is at risk, but I'm okay".
At one level, everybody knows this. Yet few Americans think it has much to do with them. We tend to say that "the nation is at risk, but I'm okay".
Complacency is widespread with regard to one's own school, one's own children, one's own community. This leaves us stuck at far too low a level, a level we ought not tolerate.
One of the lessons of the education reform movement of the 1980's was that little headway can be made if few of us see the need to change our own behavior. Yet few of us can imagine what a really different education system would look like. Few of us are inclined to make big changes in familiar institutions and habits. Until last year, few could even describe our education goals. As a nation, we didn't really have any.
In 1990, the President and the Governors adopted six ambitious education goals. AMERICA 2000 is a strategy to achieve them.
Track I
For Today's Students: Better and More Accountable Schools
Goals served:
All six, but especially #2 (90 percent graduate from high school), #3 (competence in core subjects) and #4 (first in the world in science and mathematics).
Strategy:
Through a 15-point accountability package, parents, teachers, schools and communities will be encouraged to measure results, compare results and insist on change when the results aren't good enough.
Specifics:
World Class Standards. Standards will be developed in conjunction with the National Education Goals Panel. These World Class Standards-for each of the five core subjects-will represent what young Americans need to know and be able to do if they are to live and work successfully in today's world. These standards will incorporate both knowledge and skills to ensure that, when they leave school, young Americans are prepared for further study and the work force.
American Achievement Tests.
In conjunction with the National Education Goals Panel, a new (voluntary) nationwide examination system will be based on the five core subjects and tied to the World Class Standards. These tests will be designed to foster good teaching and learning as well as to monitor student progress.
Encouragement to use the tests.
Colleges will be urged to use the American Achievement Tests in admissions and employers will be urged to pay attention to them in hiring.
Presidential Citations for Educational Excellence.
Citations will be awarded to high school students who do well on the American Achievement Tests. Until those tests become available, Presidential Citations for Educational Excellence will be awarded based on Advanced Placement tests.
Presidential Achievement Scholarships.
Once enacted by Congress, these scholarships will reward needy college and university students who achieve academic excellence.
Report Cards on results.
More than reports to parents on how their children are doing, these Report Cards will also provide clear (and comparable) public information on how schools, school districts and states are doing, as well as the entire nation. The national and state Report Cards will be prepared in conjunction with the National Education Goals Panel. If standards, tests and Report Cards tell parents and voters how their schools are doing, choice gives them the leverage to act.
Report Card data collection.
Congress will be asked to authorize the National Assessment of Educational Progress regularly to collect state-level data in grades four, eight and twelve in all five core subjects, beginning in 1994. Congress will also be asked to permit the use of National Assessment tests at district and school level by states that wish to do so.
Choice.
If standards, tests and Report Cards tell parents and voters how their schools are doing, choice gives them the leverage to act. Such choice should include all schools that serve the public and are accountable to public authority, regardless of who runs them. New incentives will be provided to states and localities to adopt comprehensive choice policies, and the largest federal school aid program (Chapter 1) will be revised to ensure that federal dollars follow the child, to whatever extent state and local policies permit.
The school as the site of reform. Because real education improvement happens school by school, the teachers, principals and parents in each school must be given the authority-and the resposibility-to make important decisions about how the school will operate. Federal and state red tape that gets in the way needs to be cut. States will be encouraged to allow the leadership of individual schools to make decisions about how resources are used, and Congress will be asked to enact Education Flexibility legislation to remove federal constraints that impede the ability of states to spend education resources most effectively to raise achievement levels. The Business Roundtable, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and other groups representing the private sector are to be commended-and encouraged-in their important efforts to create state and local policy environments in which school-by-school reform can succeed.
Track II
For Tomorrow's Students: A New Generation of American Schools
Goals served:
All six. In fact, they are the principal standards against which every New American School will be measured.
Strategy:
We will unleash America's creative genius to invent and establish a New Generation of American Schools, one by one, community by community. These will be the best schools in the world-schools that enable their students to reach the National Education Goals, achieve a quantum leap in learning, and help make America all that it should be.
A number of excellent projects and inspired initiatives already point the way. These include Washington State's Schools for the 21st Century, Theodore Sizers Coalition of Essential Schools, James Comers School Development Program, Henry Levin's Accelerated Schools, RJR Nabisco's Next Century Schools, the Saturn School of Tomorrow in St. Paul and other commendable efforts.
But this strategy goes beyond what these pioneers have begun. It enlists communities-aided by the best research and development the nation is capable of-to devise their own plans to break the mold and create their own one-of-a- kind high-performance school. It relies on clear, rigorous measures of success-the World Class standards and American Achievement Tests discussed under Track I. The goal is to bring at least 535 such schools into existence by 1996. And it calls on leaders at all levels to join in this effort.
Specifics:
Research and development. America's business leaders will establish and muster the private resources for the New American School Development Corporation, a new nonprofit organization that will award contracts in 1992 to a number of Design Teams. These Teams may consist of corporations, universities, think tanks, school innovators, management consultants and others. The President will ask his Education Policy Advisory Committee, as well as the Department of Education, to examine the work of these Design Teams (and similar break-the-mold school reform efforts), and to report regularly to him and to the American people on their progress.
New American Schools.
The mission of the Design Teams is to help communities create schools that will reach the National Education Goals and the World Class Standards (in all five core subjects) for all students, as monitored by the American Achievement Tests and similar measures. Once the design effort is complete and the schools are launched, the operating costs of the New American Schools will be about the same as those of conventional schools.
Design Teams... can be expected to set aside all traditional assumptions about schooling and all the constraints under which conventional schools work.
Breaking the Mold.
The Design Teams-and the communities with which they work-can be expected to set aside all traditional assumptions about schooling and all the constraints under which conventional schools work. They will naturally need to consider the policy environment within which schools can thrive. Time, space, staffing and other resources in these new schools may be used in ways yet to be imagined. Some schools may make extensive use of computers, distance learning, interactive videos and other modern tools. Some may radically alter the customary modes of teaching and learning and redesign the human relationships and organizational structures of the school. Whatever their approach, all New American Schools will be expected to produce extraordinary gains in student learning.
Note: A New American School does not necessarily mean new bricks and mortar.
Nor does a New American School have to rely on technology; the quality of learning is what matters.
AMERICA 2000 Communities.
The President will call on every community in the land to do four things: adopt the six National Education Goals; develop a community-wide strategy to achieve them; design a report card to measure result; and plan for and support a New American School.
Communities that accept this challenge will be designated (by the Governor of their states) as "AMERICA 2000 Communities."
The First 535+ New American Schools. Each AMERICA 2000 Community may develop a plan to create one of the first 535+ New American Schools with limited federal support for start-up costs. In that plan, they will be expected to suggest their own answer to the question: What would it take to develop the best school in the world in this community-a school that serves the children of this community while also meeting the National Education Goals?
Governors, in conjunction with the Secretary of Education, will review these community- developed plans, with the assistance of a distinguished advisory panel, and will determine which AMERICA 2000 Communities in each state will receive federal help in starting New American Schools. At least one New American School will be created in each congressional district by 1996. This distribution assures that every type of community in every part of the country will have the chance to create and establish one of the first 535+ New American Schools. The Governor and the Secretary will take added care to make sure that many such schools serve communities with high concentrations of "at-risk" children.
Funding.
American business and other donors will make sufficient funds available through the New American Schools Development Corporation to jump-start the Design Teams-at least $150-200 million. Congress will be asked to provide one-time grants of $1 million to each of the first 535+ New American Schools to help cover their start-up costs. State, local, and private sources will enable thousands more such schools to begin by the end of the decade.
Bringing America On-Line.
The Secretary, in consultation with the President's science advisor and the Director of the National Science Foundation will convene a group of experts to help determine how electronic networks might be designed to provide the New American Schools with ready access to the best information, research, instructional materials and educational expertise.
The New American Schools Design Teams will be asked for their recommendations on the same question. These networks may eventually serve all American schools as well as homes, libraries, colleges and other sites where learning occurs.
Track III
For the Rest of Us (Yesterdays Students/Today's Work Force}: A Nation of Students
Goals Served:
All six, but especially #5 (adult literacy, citizenship, and ability to compete in the workplace).
Strategy:
Eighty-five percent of America's work force for the year 2000 is already in the work force today, so improving schools for today's and tomorrow's students is not enough to assure a competitive America in 2000. And we need more than job skills to live well in America today. We need to learn more to become better parents, neighbors, citizens and friends. Education is not just about making a living; it is also about making a life.
That is why the President is challenging adult Americans to "go back to school" and make this a "Nation of Students." For our children to understand the importance of their own education, we must demonstrate that learning is important for grown-ups, too. We must "go back to school" ourselves. The President is urging every American to continue learning throughout his or her life, using the myriad formal and informal means available to gain further knowledge and skills.
Education is not just about making a living; it is also about making a life.
Specifics:
Private-Sector Skills and Standards. Business and labor will be asked to adopt a strategy to establish job-related (and industry-specific) skill standards, built around core proficiencies, and to develop "skill certificates" to accompany these standards. The President has charged the Secretaries of Labor and Education to spearhead a public-private partnership to help develop voluntary standards for all industries. Federal funds are being sought to assist with this effort, which will be formed by the work of the Labor Department's Commission on Work-Based Learning and the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills.
Skill Clinics.
The strategy
will promote one-stop assessment and referral Skill Clinics in every large
community and work-site, including many federal agencies. In the Skill
Clinics, people can readily find out how their present skills compare with
those they would like to have-or that they need for a particular job-and
where they can acquire the skills and knowledge they need. Federal Leadership.
Federal agencies will set an example for other employers by embarking upon
a government-wide program of skill upgrading. The President has asked the
director of the Office of Personnel Management to lead this important initiative.
Recommitment to Literacy.
The nation's efforts will be strengthened by developing performance standards for all federally aided adult education programs and making programs accountable for meeting them. The National Adult Literacy Survey will be expanded so that we have better information on a regular basis about the condition of literacy among adults. The Administration will also work with Congress and the Governors to enact sound literacy and adult education legislation.
National Conference on Education for Adult Americans.
A major conference will be called to develop a nationwide effort to improve the quality and accessibility of the many education and training programs, services and institutions that serve adults.
Track IV
Communities Where Learning Can Happen
Goals Served:
All six, but especially #1 (children starting school ready to learn) and #6 (drug-and violence-free schools).
Strategy:
Even if we successfully complete the first, second and third parts of the AMERICA 2000 education strategy, we still would not have done the job. Even with acceptability embedded in every aspect of education, achieving the goals requires a renaissance of sound American values-proven values such as strength of family, parental responsibility, neighborly commitment, the community-wide caring of churches, civic organizations, business, labor and the media.
It's time to end the no-fault era of heedlessness and neglect. As we shape tomorrow's schools we should rediscover the timeless values that are necessary for achievement.
Government at every level can play a useful role, and it is incumbent upon all of us to see that this is done efficiently and adequately. But much of the work of creating and sustaining healthy communities-communities where education really happens-can only be performed by those who live in them: by parents, families, neighbors and other caring adults; by churches, neighborhood associations, community organizations, voluntary groups and the other "little platoons" that have long characterized well-functioning American communities. Such groups are essential to building relationships that nurture children and provide them with people and places to which they can turn for help and guidance.
Specifics:
AMERICA 2000 Communities.
The President is challenging every city, town and neighborhood in the nation to become an AMERICA 2000 Community.
The President has asked each to undertake four tasks:
Adopt the six National Education Goals.
Develop a community-wide strategy to achieve them.
Design a report card to measure results.
Plan for and support a New American School.
Designation by Governors.
Designation as an AMERICA 2000 Community will be made by the Governors, with 535+ of them receiving help to create the first New American Schools by 1996.
Recognition.
The President and the Administration will promote AMERICA 2000 Communities with national attention to and rewards for community planning and progress. Special emphasis will be placed on the creation of such communities in areas with high concentrations of at-risk children.
The Cabinet.
The Domestic Policy Council's Economic Empowerment Task Force, working with the National Governors' Association and other state and local officials, will seek ways to maximize program flexibility and effectiveness to meet the needs of children and communities. This initiative will include streamlined eligibility requirements for federal programs, better integration of services and reduced red tape.
Individual Responsibility.
Increased attention will be focused on adult behavior, responsibility for children and family, and community values essential for strong schools. This includes involving parents as teachers of their children and as school partners.
Who Does What?
The four-part AMERICA 2000 states depends upon the strong and long-term commitment of all Americans.
The President, the Department of Education and the entire Cabinet will help keep the focus on this strategy, spotlight areas of trouble as well as examples of excellence, reward progress and spur change.
The Congress will need to pass the AMERICA 2000 Excellence in Education Act, containing most of the federal initiative in support of this strategy. Since most of the important changes need to occur outside Washington, we hope that every member of Congress will also press for the kinds of state and local changes that need to be part of this strategy, will foster the establishment of AMERICA 2000 Communities in their states and districts and will serve as mentors to the New American Schools in their districts.
The Governors, too, are key. They will designate the AMERICA 2000 Communities. They (with the Secretary of Education) will decide where the first 535+ New American Schools are located. With their legislatures, they will have the opportunity to support the new schools as they do the old. They will catalyze the creation of Governors' Academies for School Leaders and Governors' Academies for Teachers of core subjects. In no state is an Education President or federal program as important as a committed Education Governor.
The Business Community is also vital. It will jump start the Design Teams that will design the New American Schools. The business community will use the American Achievement Tests in hiring decisions, develop and use its own skill standards and, perhaps most important, will provide people and resources to help catalyze needed change in local schools, communities and state policies.
And at the community level, it will take all of us-principals, teachers, students, businesses, office-holders, the media, the medical and social service communities, civic and religious groups law enforcement officials, caring adults and good neighbors-to effect the planning and follow-through that every AMERICA 2000 Community will need.
Most of all, it will take America's parents-in their schools, their communities, their homes-as helpers, as examples, as teachers, as leaders, as demanding shareholders of our schools-to make the AMERICA 2000 education strategy work-to make the land all that it should be.
Some Questions and Answers
Q: How much
will the AMERICA 2000 plan cost?
A: The
Department of Education will support appropriate activities under existing
programs in this year's budget to get AMERICA 2000 off the ground-and the
President is requesting $690 million for the strategy in the 1992 budget.
That does not include programs in many other departments (e.g., Labor, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development), which are essential to the success of AMERICA 2000. Nor does it include the $150-200 million form the business community to jump start the New American Schools Design Teams. But two other points need to be made.
First, state and local governments provide more than 90 percent of all education funding-a responsibility both the President and the Governors have concluded should not be altered. But AMERICA 2000 is not expected to raise state or local spending.
Second, both state/local funding and federal funding have increased dramatically in recent years without significant results. Since 1980, public funding is up 33 percent per student (after inflation). The answer does not lie in spending more money on old ways, but in redirecting our resources and our energies to new approaches.
Nobody says education is free, but ingenuity, commitment and accountability matter more than money.
With state, local and private sources doing their parts, and the federal government doing its part, the elements of this strategy that may need money will have what is required. Excellent schools, let's remember, don't have to cost more than mediocre ones. Nobody says education is free, but ingenuity, commitment and accountability matter more than money.
Q: Aren't
the New American Schools going to be more expensive than today's schools?
A: No.
It will be a requirement for the Design Teams that the new schools they
design can operate at costs no more than conventional schools.
Q: Are the
designs for New American Schools likely to stress technology and glitz
rather than teaching and learning?
A: Schools
should certainly avail themselves of the help that technology can furnish.
(Some say that schools are one of the few institutions in society largely
untouched even by the Industrial Revolution, much less by the Information
Age.) But technology is no cure-all for educational and social problems.
Great schools are built by people, people who care and who act. A great
school is one where adults teach children sound values and good character
as well as knowledge and skills. The secret ingredient is human, not electronic.
We expect that the Design Teams will begin by erasing all conventional assumptions and constraints about schooling: the schedule (and calendar), curriculum, class size, the pace of learning, teacher/student ratios, adult roles, teacher recruitment, health and nutrition, discipline, staff development, organizational and management structures, resource allocation, students-as-tutors, the nature of instructional materials and much more.
Q: Why should
there be only 535+ New American Schools?
A: We want
there to be thousands. These are just the first 535+. In time there could
be 110,000. We believe-and hope-that many states and communities will move
quickly toward their own New American Schools.
Q: What's
the plus sign in "535+?"
A: We propose
to provide federal start-up funds not just for one New American School
for every Senator and Representative that a state has, but also for the
district of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. territories.
Q: Is it
worth becoming an AMERICA 2000 Community if you don't win one of the first
535+ New American Schools?
A: It sure
is. Every neighborhood, town or city that cares about its children, its
schools and its future will want to become an AMERICA 2000 community. The
act of creating such a community-by meeting the President's four-part challenge-will
itself do immense good. Consider, for example, what it means to devise
a community plan to ensure that all children enter school ready to learn,
that all the schools are safe and drug free, or that all adults will be
literate. We predict that, by the year 2000, there will be literally thousands
of AMERICA 2000 Communities. They will be the pace-setters, the beacons,
the heartbeat of this education strategy-and of their children's future.
Q: Will
choice apply to private schools as well as public? Will it apply to religiously
affiliated schools?
A: It will
apply to all schools except where the courts find a constitutional bar.
The power of choice is in the parents' leverage both to change schools
and to make change in the schools. The definition of "public school" should
be broadened to include any school that serves the public and is held accountable
by a public authority.
Q: What
do you say to those who argue that school choice mainly benefits the well-to-do
and the white?
A: Rich
parents, white and non-white, already have school choice. They can move
or pay for private schooling. The biggest beneficiaries of new choice policies
will be those who now have no alternative. With choice they can find a
better school for their children or use that leverage to improve the school
their children now attend.
Q: Aren't
the places that most need radical changes in their arrangements for children-
those with the highest concentrations of at-risk girls and boys-those least
able to make such changes?
A: It has
been demonstrated in a number of communities that we must never underestimate
the effectiveness of a community that decides to transform itself. It's
true, of course, that the AMERICA 2000 strategy can do the greatest good
for troubled rural and inner-city areas, and we all need to be sure that
they get whatever help they need to take part.
Q: Will
the American Achievement Tests compete with the work of the National Education
Goals Panel?
A: No,
we expect to follow the panel's lead in developing the World Class Standards
and the American Achievement Tests.
Q: Do national
tests mean a national curriculum?
A: No-although
surveys and polls indicate that most Americans have no objection to the
idea of a national curriculum. The American Achievement Tests will examine
the results of education. The tests have nothing to say about how those
results are produced, what teachers do in class from one day to the next,
what instructional materials are chosen or what lesson plans are followed.
The tests should result in less regulation of the means of education, because
they focus exclusively on the ends.
Q: When
will the new tests be ready?
A: In 1994,
we will have available a system of high quality individual tests, at least
in reading, writing and mathematics-education's traditional "three R's"-for
states and localities that want them. Because the new American Achievement
Tests probably cannot be perfected that quickly, we will ask Congress to
authorize the rapid deployment of an individual version of tests used by
the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
Q:
Do we really need another test? Aren't tests biased against minorities?
A: A nationwide system of high quality national exams-more than one version,
but calibrated to the same standards-will probably begin to take the place
of some of today's numerous testing schemes. As for bias, the new tests
will be screened to eliminate it. Bear in mind that minority parents also
want to know how well their children-and the schools their children attend-are
doing in relation to the National Education Goals and World Class Standards.
Sometimes less-than- satisfactory news serves to catalyze needed change.
Q:
Can all six National Education Goals really be reached?
A: They are all ambitious. Some, like literacy for all adults, and leading
the whole world in math and science, are very challenging. But each is
a worthy national objective, and we should not rest until all are achieved.
The AMERICA 2000 strategy will give us the tools we need to achieve them.
Q-
How much of this is just politics?
A: Better education benefits the entire nation, not one particular political
party. AMERICA 2000 is a nonpartisan education reform strategy. There is
plenty of room on these four trains for every American, and we begin with
the assumption that everyone will want to climb aboard. Sure, we'll argue
about the details in the formal political process and elsewhere, and the
strategy will doubtless be improved through those arguments. But let's
talk them through in a spirit of wanting a first-rate education for all
our children, in every corner of this great land.
It's another of those historic American challenges-and it starts in every community, every school, every household.
Q: What's
the single most important part of the AMERICA 2000 strategy?
A: The
most controversial may be school choice-at least until it's well understood.
The knottiest is probably standards and testing, which is technically quite
complex. The most dramatic is the design effort for New American Schools.
But the most important may be the AMERICA 2000 Communities!
Washington cannot achieve the six National Education Goals for the nation; that has to happen at the local level. It's another of those historic American challenges, and it starts in every community, every school, and every household.
Q: What
can parents do to help?
A: A thousand
things. Parents are the keys to their children's education, and there is
no part of the AMERICA 2000 strategy in which they do not have an important
role. As for what they can do today-they could read a story to their children,
check to see that tonight's homework is done, thank their child's teacher,
talk with their children's teachers and principals about how things are
going in school, and set some examples for their children of virtuous,
self-disciplined and generous behavior.
Q: What
can the media do to help?
A: Recognize
that education is an ongoing story-a local story and a national story.
The details are seldom dramatic. But this is the challenge that will tell
the story of America's future. By focusing on the story every day, and
assigning their best reporters to cover it, the media can help win the
battle.
Appendix I
The National Education Goals Fact Sheet*
At the historic education summit in Charlottesville five months ago, the President and the Governors declared that "the time has come, for the first time in United States history, to establish clear national performance goals, goals that will make us internationally competitive." The six National Education Goals contained here are the first step in carrying out that commitment.
America's educational performance must be second to none in the 21st century. Education is central to our quality of life. It is at the heart of our economic strength and security, our creativity is in the arts and letters, our invention in the sciences, and the perpetuation of our cultural values.
Education is the key to America's international competitiveness. Today, a new standard for an educated citizenry is required, one suitable for the next century. Our people must be as knowledgeable, as well-trained, as competent, and as inventive as those in any other nation. All of our people, not just a few, must be able to think for a living, adapt to changing environments, and to understand the world around them. They must understand and accept the responsibilities and obligations of citizenship. They must continually learn and develop new skills throughout their lives.
America can meet this challenge if our society is dedicated to a renaissance in education. We must become a nation that values education and learning. We must recognize that every child can learn, regardless of background or disability. We must recognize that education is a lifelong pursuit, not just an endeavor for our children.
Sweeping, fundamental changes in our education system must be made. Education must be given greater flexibility to devise challenging and inspiring strategies to serve the needs of a diverse body of students. This is especially important for students who are at risk of academic failure-for the failure of these students will become the failure of our nation. Achieving these changes depends, in large part, on the commitment of professional educators. Their daily work must be dedicated to creating a new educational order in which success for all students is the first priority, and they must be held accountable for the results.
This is not the responsibility of educators alone, however. All Americans have an important stake in the success of our education system, and every part of our society must be involved in meeting that challenge. Parents must be more interested and involved in their children's education, and students must accept the challenge of higher expectations for achievement and greater responsibility for their future. In addition, communities, business and civic groups, and state, local, and federal government each has a vital role to play throughout this decade to ensure our success.
What our best students can achieve now, our average students must be able to achieve by the turn of the century.
The first step is to establish ambitious National Education Goals-performance goals that must be achieved if the United States is to remain competitive in the world marketplace and our citizens are to reach their fullest potential.
These goals are about excellence. Meeting them will require that the performance of our highest achievers be boosted to levels that equal or exceed the performance of the best students anywhere. The performance of our lowest achievers must be substantially increased far beyond their current performance. What our best students can achieve now, our average students must be able to achieve by the turn of the century. We must work to ensure that a significant number of students from all races, ethnic groups, and income levels are among our top performers.
If the United States is to maintain a strong and responsible democracy and a prosperous and growing economy into the next century, all of our citizens must be involved in achieving these goals. Every citizen will benefit as a result.
When challenged, the American people have always shown their determination to succeed. The challenge before us calls on each American to help ensure our nation's future.
Readiness for School
Goal 1: By the year 2000, all children in America will start school ready to learn.
Objectives:
* All disadvantaged and disabled children will have access to high quality and developmentally appropriate preschool programs that help prepare children for school.
* Every parent in America will be a child's first teacher and devote time each day to helping his or her preschool child learn; parents will have access to the training and support they need.
* Children will receive the nutrition and health care needed to arrive at school with healthy minds and bodies, and the number of low birth weight babies will be significantly reduced through enhanced prenatal health systems.
High School Completion
Goal 2: By the year 2000, the high school graduation rate will increase to at least 90 percent.
Objectives:
* The nation must dramatically reduce its dropout rate, and 75 percent of those students who do drop out will successfully complete a high school degree or its equivalent.
* The gap in high school graduation rates between American students from minority backgrounds and their non minority counterparts will be eliminated.
Student Achievement and Citizenship
Goal 3: By the year 2000, American students will leave grades four, eight, and twelve having demonstrated competency in challenging subject matter including English, mathematics, science, history, and geography; and every school in America will ensure that all students learn to use their minds well, so they may be prepared for responsible citizenship, further learning, and productive employment in our modern economy
Objectives:
* The academic performance of elementary and secondary students will increase significantly in every quartile, and the distribution of minority students in each level will more closely reflect the student population as a whole.
* The percentage of students who demonstrate the ability to reason, solve problems, apply knowledge, and write and communicate effectively will increase substantially.
* All students will be involved in activities that promote and demonstrate good citizenship, community service, and personal responsibility.
* The percentage of students who are competent in more than one language will substantially increase.
* All students will be knowledgeable about the diverse cultural heritage of this nation and about the world community.
Science and Mathematics
Goal 4: By the year 2000, U.S. students will be first in the world in science and mathematics achievement.
Objectives:
* Math and science education will be strengthened throughout the system, especially in the early grades.
* The number of teachers with a substantive background in mathematics and science will increase by 50 percent.
* The number of United States undergraduate and graduate students, especially women and minorities, who complete degrees in mathematics, science, and engineering will increase significantly.
Adult Literacy and Lifelong Learning
Goal 5: By the year 2000, every adult American will be literate and will possess the knowledge and skills necessary to compete in a global economy and exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.
Objectives:
* Every major American business will be involved in strengthening the connection between education and work.
* All workers will have the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and skills, from basic to highly technical, needed to adapt to emerging new technologies, work methods, and markets through public and private educational, vocational, technical, workplace, or other programs.
* The number of quality programs, including those at libraries, that are designed to serve more effectively the needs of the growing number of part-time and mid-career students will increase substantially.
* The proportion of those qualified students, especially minorities, who enter college; who complete at least two years; and who complete their degree programs will increase substantially.
* The proportion of college graduates who demonstrate an advanced ability to think critically, communicate effectively, and solve problems will increase substantially.
Safe, Disciplined, and Drug-Free Schools
Goal 6: By the year 2000, every school in America will be free of drugs and violence and will offer a disciplined environment conducive to learning.
Objectives:
* Every school will implement a firm and fair policy on use, possession, and distribution of drugs and alcohol.
* Parents, businesses, and community organizations will work together to ensure that the schools are a safe haven for all children.
* Every school district will develop a comprehensive K-12 drug and alcohol prevention education program. Drug and alcohol curriculum should be taught as an integral part of health education. In addition, community-based teams should be organized to provide students and teachers with needed support.
Necessary Changes and Restructuring
These goals are ambitious, yet they can and must be achieved. However, they cannot be achieved by our education system as it is presently constituted.
Substantial, even radical changes will have to be made.
Without a strong commitment and concerted effort on the part of every sector and every citizen to improve dramatically the performance of the nation's education system and each and every student, these goals will remain nothing more than a distant, unattainable vision.
For their part, Governors will work within their own states to develop strategies for restructuring their education systems in order to achieve the goals. Because states differ from one another, each state will approach this in a different manner. The President and the Governors will work to support these state efforts and to recommend steps that the federal government, business, and community groups should take to help achieve these National Education Goals. The nature of many of these steps is already clear.
The Preschool Years
American homes must be places of learning. Parents should play an active role in their children's early learning, particularly by reading to them on a daily basis. Parents should have access: to the support and training required to fulfill this role, especially in poor, undereducated families. In preparing young people to start school, both the federal and state governments have important roles to play, especially with regard to health, nutrition, and early childhood development. Congress and the Administration have increased maternal and child health coverage for all families with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty line. Many states go beyond this level of coverage, and more are moving in this direction. In addition, states continue to develop more effective delivery systems or prenatal and postnatal care. However, we still need more prevention, testing, and screening, and early identification and treatment of learning disorders and disabilities.
The federal government should work with the states to develop and fully fund early intervention strategies for children. All eligible children should have access to Head Start, Chapter 1, or some other successful preschool program with strong parental involvement. Our first priority must be to provide at least one year of preschool for all disadvantaged children.
The School Years
As steps are taken better to prepare children for schools, we must also better prepare schools for children. This is especially important for young children. Schools must be able to educate effectively all children when they arrive at the schoolhouse door, regardless of variations in students' interest, capacities, or learning styles.
Next, our public education system must be fundamentally restructured in order to ensure that all students can meet higher standards. This means reorienting schools so they focus on results, not on procedures; giving each school's principal and teachers the discretion to make more decisions and the flexibility to use federal, state, and local resources in more productive, innovative ways that improve learning; providing a way for gifted professionals who want to teach to do so through alternative certification avenues; and giving parents more responsibility for their children's education through magnet schools, public school choice, and other strategies. Most important, restructuring requires creating powerful incentives for performance and improvement, and real consequences for persistent failure. It is only by maintaining this balance of flexibility and accountability that we can truly improve our schools.
The federal government must sustain its vital role of promoting educational equity by ensuring access to quality education programs for all students regardless of race, national origin, sex, or handicapping conditions.
Federal funds should target those students most in need of assistance due to economic disadvantage or risk of academic failure.
Finally,
efforts to restructure education must work toward guaranteeing that all
students are engaged in rigorous programs of instruction designed to ensure
that every child, regardless of background or disability, acquires the
knowledge and skills necessary to succeed in a changing economy.
In recent years, there has been an increased commitment to mathematics
and science improvement programs. The federal government should continue
to enhance financial assistance to state and local governments for effective
programs in these areas. Likewise, there has been a greater federal
emphasis on programs
that target
youth at risk of school failure and dropping out. The federal government
should continue to enhance funding and seek strategies to help in their
efforts to seek solutions to these problems.
Restructuring requires creating powerful incentives for performance and improvement, and real consequence for persistent failure.
Improving elementary and secondary student achievement will not require a national curriculum, but it will require that the nation invest in developing the skills and knowledge of our educators and equipping our schools with up-to-date technology. The quality of teachers and teaching is essential to meeting our goals. We must have well-prepared teachers, and we must increase the number of qualified teachers in critical shortage areas, including rural and urban schools, specialized fields such as foreign languages, mathematics and science, and from minority groups.
Policies must attract and keep able teachers who reflect the cultural diversity of our nation. Policies that shape how our educators are prepared, certified, rewarded, developed, and supported on the job must be consistent with efforts to restructure the education system and ensure that every school is capable of teaching all of our children to think and reason. Teachers and other school leaders must not only be outstanding, the schools in which they work must also be restructured to utilize both professional talent and technology to improve student learning and teacher-and system-productivity.
The quality of teachers and teaching is essential to meeting our goals.
The After-School Years
Comprehensive, well-integrated lifelong learning opportunities must be created for a world in which three of four new jobs will require more than a high school education; workers with only high school diplomas may face the prospect of declining incomes; and most workers will change their jobs ten or eleven times over their lifetime.
In most states, the present system for delivering adult literacy services is fractured and inadequate. Because the United States has far higher rates of adult functional illiteracy than other advanced countries, a first step is to establish in each state a public-private partnership to create a functionally literate work force.
In some other countries, government policies and programs are carefully coordinated with private sector activities to create effective apprenticeship and job training activities. By contrast, the United States has a multi-layered system of vocational and technical schools, community colleges, and specific training programs funded from multiple sources and subject to little coordination. These institutions need to be restructured so they fit together more sensibly and effectively to give all adults access to flexible and comprehensive programs that meet their needs. Every major business must work to provide appropriate training and education opportunities to prepare employees for the 21st century.
Finally,
a larger share of our population, especially those from working class,
poor, and minority backgrounds, must be helped to attend and remain in
college. The cost of a college education, as a percentage of median family
income, has approximately tripled in a generation. That means more loans,
scholarships, and work-study opportunities are needed. The federal government's
role in ensuring access for qualified students is critical. At the same
time, the higher education system must use existing resources far more
productively than it does at present and must be held more accountable
for what students
do or do
not learn. The federal government will continue to examine ways to reduce
students' increasing debt burden and you address the proper balance between
grant and loan program.
Assessment
National Education Goals will be meaningless less progress toward meeting them is measured accurately and adequately, and reported to the American people.
Doing a good job of assessment and reporting requires the resolution of three issues.
First, what students need to know must be defined. In some cases, there is a solid foundation on which to build. For example, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the Mathematical Sciences Education Board have done important work in defining what all students must know and be able to do in order to be mathematically competent. A major effort for science has been initiated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. These efforts must be expanded and extended to other subject areas.
Second, when it is clear what students need to know, it must be determine whether they know it. There have been a number of important efforts to improve our ability to measure student learning at the state and national levels. This year for the first time, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) will collect data on student performance on a state-by-state basis for thirty-eight states. Work is under way to develop a national assessment of adult literacy. These and other efforts must be supported and strengthened.
The Governors urge the National Assessment Governing Board to begin work to set national performance goals in the subject areas in which NAEP will be administered. This does not mean establishing standards for individual competence; rather, it requires determining how to set targets for increases in the percentage of students performing at the higher levels of the NAEP scales.
Third, measurements must be accurate, comparable, appropriate, and constructive. Placement decisions for young children should not be made on the basis of standardized tests. Achievement tests must not simply measure minimum competencies, but also higher levels of reading, writing, speaking, reasoning, and problem-solving skills. And in comparing America's achievement with that of other countries, it is essential that international comparisons are reliable. In addition, appropriate, nationally directed research, demonstration, data collection, and innovation should be maintained and recognized as a set of core responsibilities of the federal government in education. That role needs to be strengthened in cooperation with the states.
The President and the Governors agree that while we do not need a new data-gathering agency, we do need a bipartisan group to oversee the process of determining and developing appropriate measurements and reporting on the progress toward meeting the goals. This process should stay in existence until at least the year 2000 so that we assure ten full years of effort toward meeting the goals.
These National Education Goals are not the President's goals or the Governors' s goals; they are the nation's goals.
These education goals are the beginning, not the end, of the process.
Governors are committed to working within their own states to review state education goals and performance levels in light of these national goals.
States are encouraged to adjust state goals according to this review and to expand upon national goals where appropriate. The President and the Governors challenge every family, school, school district, and community to adopt these national goals as their own, and establish other goals that reflect the particular circumstances and challenges they face as America approaches the 21st century.
*Released by the White House, February 26, l99O
Appendix II
Remarks by the President Announcing AMERICA 2000*
Thank you all for joining us here in the White House today. Let me thank the Speaker for being with us, and the Majority Leader, other distinguished members, committee heads and ranking members and very important education committees here with us today. I want to salute the Governors, the educators, the business and the labor leaders, and especially want to single out the National Teacher of the Year. I believe we have 10 of the previous 11 teachers of the Year with us here today, and that's most appropriate and most fitting.
But together, all of us, we will underscore the importance of a challenge destined to define the America that we'll know in the next century.
For those of you close to my age, the 21st century has always been a kind of shorthand for the distant future-the place we put our most far-off hopes and dreams. And today, that 21st century is racing toward us-and anyone who wonders what the century will look like can find the answer in America's classrooms.
Nothing better defines what we are and what we will become than the education of our children. To quote the landmark case, Brown v. Board of Education, "It is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education."
Education has always meant opportunity. Today, education determines not just which students will succeed, but also which nation will thrive in a world united in pursuit of freedom in enterprise. Think about the changes transforming our world.
The collapse of communism and the Cold War. The advent and acceleration of the Information Age. Down through history, we've defined resources as soil and stones, land and the riches buried beneath. No more. Our greatest national resource lies within ourselves-our intelligence, igenuity-the capacity of the human mind.
Nations that nurture ideas will move forward in years to come. Nations that stick to stale old notions and ideologies will falter and fail. So I'm here today to say, America will move forward. The time for all the reports and rankings, for all the studies and the surveys about what's wrong in out schools is passed. If we want to keep America competitive in the coming century, we must stop convening panels to report on ourselves. We must stop convening panels that report the obvious. And we must accept responsibility for educating everyone among us, regardless of background or disability.
The days of the status quo are over.
If we want America to remain a leader, a force for good in the world, we must lead the way in educational innovation. And if we want to combat crime and drug abuse, if we want to create hope and opportunity in the bleak corners of this country where there is now nothing but defeat and despair, we must dispel the darkness with the enlightenment that a sound and well-rounded education provides.
Think about every problem, every challenge we face. The solution to each starts with education. For the sake of the future, of our children and of the nation's, we must transform America's schools. The days of the status quo are over.
Across this country, people have started to transform the American school. They know that the time for talk is over. Their slogan is: Don't dither, just do it. Let's push the reform effort forward. Use each experiment, each advance to build for the next American century. New schools for a new world.
As a first step in this strategy, we must challenge not only the methods and the means that we've used in the past, but also the yardsticks that we've used to measure our progress. Let's stop trying to measure progress in terms of money spent.
We spend 33 percent more per pupil in 1991 than we did in 1981-33 percent more in real, constant dollars and I don't think there's a person anywhere who would say-anywhere in the country who would say that we've seen a 33 percent improvement in our schools performance.
Dollar bills don't educate students. Education depends on committed communities determined to be placed where learning will flourish; committed teachers, free from the non education burden; committed parents, determined to support excellence; committed students, excited about school and learning. To those who want to see real improvement in American education, I say: There will be no renaissance without revolution.
We who would
be revolutionaries must accept responsibility for our schools. For too
long, we've adopted a "no fault' approach to education. Someone else is
always to blame. And while we point fingers out there, trying to assign
blame, the students suffer. There's no place for a no fault attitude in
our schools. It's time we held our schools-and ourselves-
accountable
for results.
Until now, we've treated education like a manufacturing process, assuming that if the gauges seemed right, if we had good pay scales, the right pupil-teacher ratio, good students would just pop out of our schools. It's time to turn things around-to focus on students, to set standards for our schools and let teacher and principals figure out how best to meet them.
We've made a good beginning by setting the nation's sights on six ambitious National Education Goals-and setting for our target the year 2000. Our goals have been forged in partnership with the nation's Governors, several of whom are with us here today in the East Room. And those who have taken a leadership role are well-known to everyone in this room. And for those who need a refresher course-there may be a quiz later on-let me list those goals right now.
By 2000, we've got to, first, ensure that every child starts school ready to learn; second one, raise the high school graduation rate to 90 percent; the third one, ensure that each American student leaving the 4th, 8th and 12th grades can demonstrate competence in core subjects; four, make our students first in the world in math and science achievements; fifth, ensure that every American adult is literate and has the skills necessary to compete in a global economy and exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship; and sixth, liberate every American school from drugs and violence so that schools encourage learning.
Our strategy to meet these noble national goals is founded in common sense and common values. It's ambitious and, yet, with hard work, it's within our reach. And I can outline our strategy in one paragraph, and here it is:
For today's students, we must make existing schools better and more accountable. For tomorrow's students, the next generation, we must create a New Generation of American Schools. For all of us for the adults who think our school days are over, we've got to become a Nation of Students-recognize learning is a lifelong process Finally, outside our schools we must cultivate communities where learning can happen. That's our strategy. People who want Washington to solve our educational problems are missing the point. We can lend appropriate help through such programs as Head Start. But what happens here in Washington won't matter half as much as what happens in each school, each local community and, yes, in each home. Still, the federal government will serve as a catalyst for change in several important ways.
Working closely with the Governors, we will define new World Class Standards for schools, teachers and students in the five core subjects: math and science, English, history and geography. We will develop voluntary-let me repeat it-we will develop voluntary national tests for 4th, 8th and 12th graders in the five core subjects. These American Achievement Tests will tell parents and educators, politicians and employers, just how well our schools are doing. I'm determined to have the first of these tests for 4th graders in place by the time that school starts in September of 1993. And for high school seniors, let's add another incentive-a distinction sure to attract attention of colleges and companies in every community across the country-a Presidential Citation to students who excel on the 12th grade test.
We can encourage educational excellence by encouraging parental choice. The concept of choice draws its fundamental strength from the principle at the very heart of the democratic idea. Every adult American has the right to vote, the right to decide where to work, where to live. It's time the parents were free to choose the school that their children attend. This approach will create the competitive climate that stimulates excellence in our private and parochial schools as well.
But the centerpiece of our National Education Strategy is not a program, it's not a test. It's a new challenge: to reinvent American education-to design New American Schools for the year 2000 and beyond.
The idea is simple but powerful: put America's special genius for invention to work for America's schools. I will challenge communities to become what we will call AMERICA 2000 Communities. Governors will honor communities with this designation if the communities embrace the National Education Goals, create local strategies for reaching these goals, devise Report Cards for measuring progress, and agree to encourage and support one of the new generation of America's Schools.
We must also foster educational innovation. I'm delighted to announce today that America's business leaders, under the chairmanship of Paul O'Neill, will create the New American Schools Development Corporation-a private-sector research and development fund of at least $150 million to generate innovation in education.
The idea is simple but powerful: put AMERICA'S special genius for in innovation to work for America's schools.
This fund offers an open-end challenge to the dreamer and the doer eager to reinvent-eager to reinvigorate our schools. With the results of the Design in hand, I will urge Congress to provide $1 million in start-up funds for each of the 535 New American Schools-at least one in every congressional district-* and have them up and running by 1996.
The New American School must be more than rooms full of children seated at computers. If we mean to prepare our children for life, classrooms also must cultivate values and good character, give real meaning to right and wrong.
We ask only two things of the architects of our New American Schools: that their students meet the new national standards for the five core subjects and that outside of the costs of the initial research and development, the schools operate on a budget comparable to conventional schools. The architects of the New American Schools should break the mold. Build for the next century. Reinvent-literally start from scratch and reinvent the American school. No question should be off limits, no answers automatically assumed. We're not after one single solution for every school. We're interested in finding every way to make schools better.
There's a special place in inventing the New American School for the corporate community, for business and labor. And I invite you to work with us not simply to transform our schools, but to transform every American adult into a student. Fortunately, we have a secret weapon in America's system of colleges and universities-the finest in the entire world. The corporate community can take the lead by creating a voluntary private system of World Class Standards for the workplace. Employers should set up skill centers where workers can seek advice and learn new skills. But most importantly, every company and every labor union must bring the worker into the classroom and bring the classroom into the workplace.
We'll encourage every federal agency to do the same. And to prove no one's ever too old to learn, Lamar, with his indefatigable determination and leader-ship, has convinced me to become a student again myself. Starting next week, I'll begin studying. And I want to know how to operate a computer. Very candidly-I don't expect this new tutorial to teach me how to set the clock on the VCR or anything complicated. But I want to be computer literate, and I'm not. There's a lot of kids, thank God, that are. And I want to learn, and I will.
The workplace isn't the only place we must improve opportunities for education. Across ths nation, we must cultivate communities where children can learn. Communities where the school is more than a refuge, more than a solitary island of calm amid chaos. Where the school is the living center of a community where people care-people care for each other and their future. Not just in the school but in the neighborhood. Not just in the classroom, but in the home.
Our challenge amounts to nothing less than a revolution in American education. A battle for our future. And now, I ask all Americans to be points of light in the crusade that counts the most: the crusade to prepare our chldren and ourselves for the exciting future that looms ahead.
Our challenge amounts to nothing less than a revolution in American education.
What I've spoken about this afternoon are the broad strokes of this National Education Strategy. Accountable schools for today, a new generation of schools for tomorrow. A nation of students committed to a Lifetime of learning and communities where all our children can learn.
There are four people here today who symbolize each element of this strategy and point the way forward for our reforms.
Esteban Pagan, Steve, an award winning eighth grade student in science and history at East Harlem Tech, a choice school.
Mike Hopkins. "Lead Teacher" in the Saturn School in St. Paul, Minnesota, where teachers have already helped reinvent the American school.
David Kelley. A high-tech troubleshooter at the Michelin Tire plant in Greenville, South Carolina. David has spent the equivalent of one full year back at his college expanding his skills.
Finally, Michelle Moore, of Misouri. A single mother, active in Missouri's Parents as Teachers program. She wants her year-old son, Alston, to arrive for his first day of school ready to learn.
So, to sum it up, for these four people and for all the others like them, the revolution in American education has already begun. Now I ask all Americans to be points of light in the crusade that counts the most: the crusade to prepare our children and ourselves for the exciting future that looms ahead. At any moment in every mind, the miracle of learning beckons us all.
Between now and the year 2000, there is not one moment or one miracle to waste.
Thank you all. Thank you for your interest, for your dedication. And may God bless the United States of America. Thank you very much.
*The White House, April 18, 1991
GLOSSARY OF KEY TERMS
American Achievement Tests: The anchor for a new system of voluntary national examinations at the fourth, eighth and twelfth grades in each of the five core subjects, tied to the World Class Standards.
AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy: An action plan to move America toward the six National Education Goals through a populist crude, by assuring accountabity in today's schools, unleashing America's genius to jump start a new generation of American schools, transforming a "Nation at Risk" into a "Nation of Students" and nurturing the family and community values essential to peronal resposibility, strong schools and sound education for all children.
AMERICA 200 Communities: Communities, designated by the Governors, that meet the President's four-part challenge: (1) adopt the six National Education Goals, (2) develop a communitt-wide strategy to achieve them, (3) design a report card to measure results, and (4) plan for and support a New American School. New American Schools will open in 535+ such communities by 1996.
Better and
More Accountable Schools: A 15-part improvement package for today's school,
designed to move America toward the six National Education Goals, including
World Class Standards, American Achievement Tests, Report Cards and
school
choice.
Design Teams: Partnerships of corporations, universities, think tanks, school innovators, management consultants and others, selected through a competitive process by the New American School Development Corporation to receive up to $30 million each over three years to conceptualize and invent New American Schools.
Federal Role: While the federal government's role in education is and should remain limited, the Administration is committed to providing design, assessment and information, assuming equal opportunity and, above all, leading the nationwide effort to achieve the six National Education Goals.
535+ by
1996: At Least 535 New American Schools will be up and running in AMERCA
2000 Communities across the country-at least one in each congressional
district-by 1996, as well as in Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia and
the
U.S. territories.
From a "Nation at Risk" to a "Nation of Students": Adults-today's work force-"go back to school" for further study, to learn a new skill to help them earn their living, or to acquire additional knowledge too live a better life.
Govenors'
Academies for School Leaders: State or regional Academies launched with
federal seed money, which train principals and other school leaders in
the design and execution of school innprovement strategies, accountability
mechanisms,
and school-site managennent.
Governors' Academies for Teachers: State or regional Academies in each of the five core subjects, launched with federal seed money which train teachers in the five core subjects to ensure that they possess the knowledge, the skills, and the tools they need to help students meet the World Class Standards and do well on the American Achievement Tests.
Job Skill Standards and Job Skill Certificates: Standards to be established jointly by management-and labor for each industry, beginning with the fundamental categories and defintions developed by the Deparment of Labor's SCANS Commission, which will help workers see what skills are needed to perform a job and evaluate their own grasp of those skills. Certificates will be given (by the private sector) to those who acquire the skills and meet the standards.
New American
Schools Development Corporation: A non-profit non-governmental organization,
createPd by Amercan business leaders and other private citizens, which
will receive funds, sponsor a competition and establish, support and
monitor
three to seven Design Teams. The mission of these teams is to help AMERICA
2000 Communities invent and create their own new American schools.
New Generation
of America Schools: A major nationwide effort to invent and create 535+
schools by 1996 (and many more thereafter) that are the best in the world.
Located in AMERICA 2000 Communities, these shools will reach the
National
Education Goals at operational costs not exceeding those of conventional
schools.
Populist Crusade: A national crusade led by the President-school by school, neighborhood by neighborhood, community by community-to transform American education and to spur fundamental changes in the ways we educate oursleves and our children. This crusade also will be a restoration of what we think is important, a return to sound values and community spirit.
Report Cards: A public reporting system on the perfornce of education institutions and systems, which provides maximum information at the school, district, state and national levels.
School as the Site of Reform: The individual school is education's key action-and-accountability unit. The surest way to reform education is to give schools and their leaders the freeom and authority to make important decisions about what happens, while being held accoutable for making well-conceived efforts at improvement and for achieving desired results.
Skill Clinics: Just as health clinics diagnose health and refer people to appropriate care, skill clinics will be centers in every community and large workplace where people can go to get their own job skills evaluated, find out what skills they need to Iearn to hold a certain job or get a better one and find out where they can go to gain those skills
Skill and Knowledge Gap: Too many of us lack the knowledge-especially of English, mathematics, science, history and geography-and the skills necessary to live and work successfully in the world as it is today.
Unleash America's Genius: Bringing the best minds and creative energies from education, technology, management and other fields together in a pioneering effort to create a New Generation of American Schools that are the best in the world.
World Class
Standards: Definitions of what American students should be expected to
know and be able to do upon completion of schooling, meant to function
as benchmarks against which student and schoool performance can be measured.
