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

                        ********************                         REMARKS PREPARED FOR                           RICHARD W. RILEY                      U.S. SECRETARY OF EDUCATION                      ***************************               GEORGIA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION CONFERENCE                           ATLANTA, GEORGIA                      WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 10, 1994                       IMPROVING AMERICAN EDUCATION                     ****************************        "THE OPEN DOOR TO AMERICAN SUCCESS AND GOOD CITIZENSHIP,             THE AMERICAN WAY TO ACHIEVEMENT AND FREEDOM" 

A few months ago I had the opportunity to visit with your Governor and Superintendent as they inaugurated a very comprehensive distance learning effort, which was important to all of Georgia, but especially important to rural Georgia. Their efforts and yours to increase the wealth of the mind using the best of modern technology is a clear sign that Georgia educators are not sitting still when it comes to improving American education.

I am impressed by your commitment to creating a challenging and solid quality core curriculum -- to raising math and science requirements -- and just last month, the State Board changed your high school graduation requirements so that entering freshmen in 1995 will have to opt for either College Prep diploma or a Vocational diploma. No more general track through high school -- no more just drifting through.

Your commitment to pushing forward is one more indication that Southern educators clearly recognize the value of education and its connection to economic growth and prosperity. The South, you see, as a region, has been a national leader in this regard and I remain encouraged that so many thoughtful people remain committed to our education agenda.

It was not too long ago that I was a member of the Southern Regional Education Board along with the First Lady, Hilary Clinton, and this fine group headquartered here which made a major effort to look down the road and make the connection between education and long term economic growth.

Many of the ideas first proposed by the SREB -- lowering the dropout rate -- having all children ready for first grade -- improving our academic effort in math and science -- and good, solid professional development for our teachers -- have gone on to be national models of what states and local communities can do to reach for excellence.

I want to emphasize to you that a good education is still the best way to get ahead in America and we should be very strong in making that case to the general public.

Sometimes we get so caught up in the process of reform. . . in the details. . . that we lose sight of what the American people think is important and how they think about American education. We all seek the same goals, but we become disconnected in the process.

My friends, you don't have to win the Georgia lottery to get ahead. . . you don't even have to get on an airplane and go to Las Vegas to try your luck. You simply need a good education. Parents need to know how what we teach their children makes the "connection" with the real world -- with the jobs at Delta, at Home Depot, Coca Cola, at Bell South. They need to understand the importance of our emphasis on hard content.

Now, a good education, to my mind, is more than just extra dollars in the wallet or pocketbook. Our children need to know the history of this great country -- to be proud of who they are as Americans - - to appreciate our traditions -- to learn basic American values -- and to have some sense of citizenship.

I want to tell you that an education that doesn't give our children a sense of citizenship and responsibility is no education at all. Our schools have to be havens of order and learning... institutions that build character.... that teach our children basic American values: honesty, hard work, self-reliance and respect for others.

Our children should be "living report cards" of what we have all done -- parents and teachers and the community-at-large -- to build their character. I was at a conference two weeks ago at the White House that brought together many thoughtful people who are concerned about how they can work together to make sure we teach our young people good character.

One of the most impressive stories I heard was from a teacher who every summer went to visit the families of his future elementary school students. He wanted to understand the parents' values and expectations, to understand what he could do to help their children learn. I think this is so important.

Parents are the first and remain the best teachers of character. And, they are also the most important ingredient to the success of a child in the process of learning. A child that is taught a love of learning early on by a parent, regardless of that parent's station in life or income, is a child that will do well in their studies.

Now, there are a great many things that we can do to make public education in America better and we have to begin by making our schools safer. We must have safe schools. Our children need good discipline and every parent has the right to expect that when their child walks to school or gets on the bus to go to school, they will come home safely at night.

This is why the President has placed so much emphasis in the anti- crime bill on prevention, making sure that young people who could get in trouble, stay out of trouble. This is why we passed the Safe Schools Act and why we are working to support after-school programs run by local communities that will make a positive difference in the lives of many young people.

People often ask me why I am so determined to raise standards and improve American education. I tell them the fastest way I know to create an unthinking, angry 19-year-old, who is spiritually numb is to give that young person a watered-down curriculum from first grade on. This is why your efforts to improve the Georgia curriculum are so vital and essential.

One of the most disturbing facts I know is the fact that over 80 percent of the inmates in our prisons today are high school dropouts. If we Americans want to end the violence, we have to make the case to the American people that good schools that can challenge and connect up with students and families can be a real help in stopping crime.

You may say what you will but in all of my years as an elected official, I have yet to visit a jail or a prison and meet any National Merit Scholarship winners. America needs to put her house in order and there is no better place to start than in our schools -- to make them havens of order and learning and bastions of excellence.

Now, what else can we do to help you make sure your child gets ahead and lives a safe and productive life? We can begin by making sure every child comes to school ready to learn, that they are healthy, and that they have learned their ABC's.

The child who falls behind in school is all too often the child who is unhealthy. They have a hearing problem that went unnoticed or they suffer from dyslexia and nobody caught it, or they didn't get their shots on time. The result is that they come to school and they aren't ready to learn. So good health has to be part of getting children ready for school.

This is why the President is so committed to universal health coverage for all Americans. We've all seen a lot of that ad that stars Harry and Louise. Two actors. But there are around 9 million children in this country without any basic health insurance and many of those children are in your classrooms and you know them. 306,000 Georgia children have no health care coverage. They are often the children who drop out.

I want to tell you that universal health coverage is pro-family, pro-child, pro-education, pro-middle class and good for this country.

Now, it is my very strong belief that those of us who are working hard to improve education have to help parents regain their role in the learning process. One of my greatest concerns is that educators, teachers and parents too often seem to talk past each other. Parents don't understand all the education jargon and they sometimes don't even feel very comfortable going to a school to ask a question about their child.

Here I want to make an important point. Educators have to talk the language of the people. We can talk curriculum reform all we want -- and it is important -- but if a father is worried about his son going to the bathroom safely, he is not going to listen.

So we have to reach out to the skeptical parent, the religious minded parent and take it one step at a time. You have to go to them and not the other way around. Just like that teacher who visited with the parents of his future students.

So one of my major efforts this Fall will be to reconnect parents and families to education, whether that family is a traditional family, a grandparent raising a child, or a guardian or single parent that is doing all he or she can to hold down two jobs to make ends meet. As educators, we simply have to find ways to help parents slow down their lives to help their children grow and learn.

Now, our schools and teachers have to do their part as well. Children get smart the same way they learn to shoot a three-pointer or dance a graceful ballet. They have to practice, to recognize that if they want to stretch their minds, they have to work at it.

Every child in America deserves a first-class education and a world-class education. Our children need to know great literature -- Shakespeare, Emerson, Maya Angelou, and Faulkner -- and they need to understand the astonishing and unfolding discoveries of science.

American science is the best science in the world and it is the best science in the world because our high schools and colleges and our great research universities are doing something right. But to stay the best, our high schools must have help and keep up with all the advances of science. You can't teach 1970's science in the 1990's. Too much has happened.

This is why we support the new national science standards, which will come out this Fall, as a model of what young people should be learning in the years ahead. Doesn't it make a lot of sense to have the best scientists and teachers in America coming together to figure out the best way to teach science?

That is the central and motivating idea behind our efforts to create voluntary national standards in the core academic subjects. We want people who are the best in their field thinking hard about the skills and the knowledge that young Americans need as they prepare to find their way in the new Information Age.

Think of what a help it will be for every local school board, school and PTA to know that the best ideas are available to them on how they should be educating students in science, math, history, civics, English, geography, the arts and foreign languages. That is the whole purpose of our new Goals 2000 law, to give every school, working with parents, the opportunity and the support they need to improve teaching and learning in the classroom.

Every young person in this country can learn more. They may learn at different speeds and at a different pace but all children can learn more. This is why we want more parents involved in helping their children learn -- why we want every student taking the tough courses like Algebra II and Geometry ... and being part of the Information Age.

We also want all those young people who don't go directly on to four years of college to take the extra courses that they need so they'll be financially secure. There are literally hundreds of thousands of technical jobs going begging because we haven't done a very good job matching up what we teach our young people and what they need to enter the job market.

This is why we have worked so hard to create the new School-to-Work program. It's a very exciting initiative and it has broad bipartisan support. And that's the way it should be when it comes to education.

The history of this Country is the history of public education opening doors and opening minds ... giving every American a chance at the American Dream. Public education in America is a national treasure and we ought to stand up for it.

The American middle class -- where everybody has a shot at a house in the suburbs and a child in college -- exists because of public education. Take away free public education and what will you have? -- A small group of elite Americans making sure their children get ahead -- while the rest of America's children fend for themselves. That is not acceptable in our free democracy.

The President's Education agenda has one overriding purpose -- to make public education what it has been for generations of Americans -- the open door to American success and good citizenship.....the American way to achievement and freedom.

Everything we have done in Washington -- and we have passed more good education legislation in the last year than any time since the 1960's -- all of this effort-- our direct lending program to make college costs easier -- our school-to-work initiative -- the Safe Schools Act -- The Goals 2000 Act -- Reform of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act now in Conference, and the very important Chapter 1 program -- all this has been done for one purpose -- to prepare this generation of young Americans for coming times. We cannot run away from the future. We have to get these children ready.

This is the core of my education agenda and with your help we can, working together, make sure this generation of young Americans is the best educated and best prepared, that they have a deep and abiding sense of good citizenship -- a sense of what it means to be part of the great American experiment in democracy.

Thank you.