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Thank you, John, for your introduction. It is clear from the performance we've just enjoyed by the Fabulous Flying Fingers that kids are capable of great things and that the art of achieving great things is simply fun. I am reminded of the contagious enthusiasm for thinking and learning which burst forth from the Scarecrow character in "The Wizard of Oz" when he exclaimed, "Oh joy! Rapture! I have a brain."
The arts standards I am receiving today bring us one step closer to the not too distant future when children all over America will have the same sense of enthusiasm and joy for dance, music, theater and the visual arts.
Five years ago, the effort to raise our national educational standards began in earnest when the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics issued new guidelines about how math should and could be taught. Today, approximately 40 percent of all math classes are following these voluntary guidelines.
The consortium of arts education organizations represented here today have taken the second important step in defining what we mean when we talk about national standards of excellence. They have given us a goal ... something to measure ourselves against.
These standards are very high standards and that is the whole point of standards. They tell us to aim high, to have high expectations and to encourage our children to make the effort. Now, some people may believe that these standards will be too hard to reach but I think that just the opposite is true.
Every day I walk down the hall to my office and see a hallway filled with wonderful art done by children for an exhibit called "My Dream" -- a collection in which they wrote and then illustrated their dreams. Some of the art from this exhibit is here with us today.
It is, as you can see, art that is full of zest and imagination. One child has dreamed of a family reunion and another about happy people. One child drew a dream about what it would feel like to be both black and white, another about the life of an Indian chief, and two of them have even dreamed about being artists.
One of my favorites ... and they are all very good ... is an oil pastel called the "Great Warrior" by Steven Powell, age ten, from Anchorage, Alaska. It is, as you can see, a forceful portrait of a great warrior, all orange and fiery. The attached inscription of Stephen's Dream reads, "to be a good artist and to sell my paintings."
Well, there you are ... here is a young man who already knows his several purposes in life. And that is how it should be ... for if the United States has any claim to greatness as a nation, it is the power, creativity and imagination of our people.
We seem to be ... to the rest of the world ... a nation consumed by a passion for expression be it through film, theater, music, or the elegance of the dance. Arts in education elevates and gives structure to that passion for expression and connection.
Indeed, the process of studying and creating art in all of its distinct forms defines, in many ways, those qualities that are at the heart of education reform in the 1990's -- creativity, perseverance, a sense of standards, and above all, a striving for excellence.
This is why we took special pains to include the arts in our GOALS 2000 legislation. It tells the world that we believe in excellence -- but leaves the responsibility with the communities and states to define what specific standards should be achieved and how to achieve them.
These voluntary standards should be a welcome resource for concerned state and local educators, parents and communities who are interested in giving their children something they themselves never had -- a rigorous, sequential study of the four arts disciplines (dance, theater, music and the visual arts).
In our multi-media world where the visual is of such importance to our children, the arts should also be seen for their rich potential to captivate and engage our young people in the process of learning. Learning does not have to be boring, and an education in the arts can be a fine way to keep young people "hooked" into education.
The Duke Ellington School for the Arts here in Washington, D.C., for example, has the highest attendance record of all the District schools. It graduates 99 percent of all of its students and sends 95 percent of all these students on to college. Here, the arts have replaced fear and the threat of violence -- and that alone should tell us something about the value of arts in education.
Setting high academic standards -- in essence, telling all of our children, "We know you can do this!" -- is the whole purpose and meaning of education. The arts help us send that message to our children and it is a message that needs to be sent in every possible way.
A few weeks ago, I received a letter from the father of a fourth grader back home in Greenville, South Carolina. He wanted me to know how pleased he was by the work of his child's teacher, and that his son and his classmates were already performing poetry before civic groups and senior citizens.
I would like to get more letters like that one on my desk. But what caught my eye was a line in the letter of this proud parent. He wrote, "In every class in every school there is gold buried just beneath the surface." I believe arts education in music, theater, dance and the visual arts is one of the most creative ways that we have to find the gold that is buried just beneath the surface.
For children, as we all know, are not dull. They have an enthusiasm for life, a spark of creativity and vivid imaginations that need training ... training that prepares them to become confident young men and women.
Because the act of getting on one's feet and stepping forward to accept a role or committing a vision to paper is the difference between passivity and participation. It is an act that gives children a sense of themselves ... the confidence to connect to the world around them. It is an experience every child should have over and over again. This is why I am so pleased to accept the arts standards.
I want to thank the American Alliance for Theater and Education, the National Art Education Association and the National Dance Association together with Music Educators National Conference for their collective effort in bringing together and supporting so many knowledgeable and committed artists and educators to develop these guidelines.
Thank you.