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Maryland State Legislature 2110/97
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THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
February 10, 1997
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
TO THE MARYLAND STATE LEGISLATUR
State Capitol
Annapolis, Maryland
11 :20 A.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all for that wonderful reception. Thank you, Mr.
Speaker, for what you said. Thank you, Senator Miller, for that 10-year walk down memory
lane. (Laughter.)
It is true that when I met his mother I fell in love with her, even before I found out she
had 10 kids. (Laughter.) It's not often you meet a person who can elect you if her family votes
for you. (Laughter.)
Thank you, Governor Glendening, for your leadership here on so many issues. Lt.
Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Attorney General Curran, Treasurer Dixon, my old
friend, Comptroller Louie Goldstein. I was in the first grade when he became Comptroller.
(Laughter and applause.) The walking argument against term limits, you know. It's amazing.
(Laughter and applause.)
I'd like to thank somany members of your very distinguished congressional delegation
for joining me today-- Senator Sarbanes, and Senator Mikulski; Representative Wayne
Gilchrest, your Congr~ssman; Representative Connie Morella; Repr~sentative Ben Cardin,
Representative Al Wynn and Representative Elijah Cummings ..
Now, I know that Ben was formerly the Speaker here, and that Aland Elijah and Connie
and Senator Sarbanes were all members of this body. It kind of makes you wonder how Senator
Mikulski and Congressman Gilchrest got elected to Congress. (Laughter.) It's obviously a good
training program here. (Laughter.)
I'd like to thank the President of the Maryland State Board of Education, Christopher
1
PHOTOCOPY
PRESERVATION
�Cross, for being here. When he worked for President Bush, he and I stayed up all night one
night, writing the national education goals, which began the process which bring us to this point
today. Thank you, sir, for being here. And I'd like to thank your State Superintendent of
Education, Nancy Grasmick, for being here.
Then, there are two people who are not here, who are here with us in spirit, and I would
like to ask that we all remember them today -- our good friend, Congressman Steny Hoyer and
his late wife, Judy, who was one of the finest educators this state ever had. And I know we miss
them today. Steny and his family are in our prayers, and we are grateful for the dedication of
Judy Hoyer's life to the children and the people of Maryland.
I would also like to say I'm very glad to be here with two members of my Cabinet,
Secretary of Education Dick Riley and the Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna
Shalala. They have served our administration and, more importantly, the American people,
exceptionally well, and I thank them for their presence here today. And when I finish talking, if
you want anything else, call them.
(Laughter.)
I should also say, since Senator Miller mentioned it, that my college roommate, who
lived on the Eastern Shore, Tom Kaplan, is here. And he's still my friend after all these years,
which is either a great tribute to his patience or to the roots and values of the people of Maryland.
So I'm glad he's here.
I wanted to come here today to talk in greater detail about the issues I discussed in the
State of the Union that require us to prepare America for the 21st century. It is important that we
gather here at this turning point in our history. It was, after all, in this state house that George
Washington resigned his commission as General of the Continental Army. In fact, it was right
down the hall in the Lieutenant Governor's Office that Thomas Jefferson wrote George
Washington's words of resignation.
It was here that the Treaty of Paris was prepared and ratified, ending the Revolutionary
War and beginning the greatest experiment in democracy and opportunity the world has ever
known.
Just think what began here in this building. What an experiment it has been. All the
turmoil we have survived-- the Civil War, the two world wars, the Cold ·War, the social upheaval
-- all the triumphs of our country in civil rights and women's rights, the environmental
movement, workers' rights, bringing in all the immigrants, the explosion in science and
technology, the political, the economic, the social achievements of this country. What an
incredible experiment it has been since the events of so long ago when the treaty ending the
Revolutionary War was signed and ratified here.
At each step along the way, how did we keep growing, how did we overcome, how did
2
�we work through, how did we reach higher? We always had responsible citizens. We were
always able to come together as one country. And we were always driven by a clear vision.
I would argue to you that we are at another turning point today and we need responsible
citizens, a united country, and a clear vision. We face a moment of peace and prosperity, and it
gives us an extraordinary opportunity to actually decide what kind of future we want for America
in the 21st century, and then go to work to build it. It is very important that we understand that
such moments are extremely rare in our history.
We have perhaps had only one before. After World War II, we dominated the world
economically. We were the most powerful country in the world militarily. We had some ability
to decide our future and, thank goodness, we did the right thing with the Marshall Plan and
rebuilding Europe and .Japan, our former friends and our former foes. But we were constrained
by the Cold War.
At the beginning of this century probably is the time most like this one when we entered
the Industrial Era as a powerful and wealthy country at peace. But never have we been quite like
this, as the world's only superpower, just completing four years where we produced inore new
jobs than at any other four-year period in our history, looking toward a world that is full of
troubles, to be sure, but so full of explosive opportunities.
We have an incredible responsibility-- we in America and you in Maryland. Thanks to
the leadership of your Governor, and the work that all of you have done, unemployment's at a
six-year low, things are going well for you here. Your family incomes have risen to fourth in the
nation. Your welfare rolls have dropped almost 25 percent since 1995. Student achievement has ·
risen and more schools are meeting the high standards you have set. We are well positioned.
But it is a moment of choice. We cannot afford to squander this moment in complacency
or division. That's normally what happens to people when they sort of get happy and satisfied.
They get complacent or they fall out over little things. And this is not a time for us to squander
in petty bickering or small ambitions. This is a time for us to build a new century.
We have to meet all the challenges we still have. There are still to.o many poor children
in this country and too many lives of children being lost on the streets of America every day.
There are still too many of our areas in our cities and isolated rural areas that have not felt the
uplift of the economic recovery. We still have not balanced the budget. We still have not
finished all the unfinished business of the Cold War. Not everybody who works hard is feeling
the opportunities that are available in America. We have unfinished business.
Then we have new challenges that we have to face. We have to prepare for the aging of
the baby boomers. I know I'm the oldest one; that's a self-interest plea here, I think. (Laughter.)
We have to prepare for the aging of the baby boomers. We have to make sure that we're ready
for this new worldwide competition. We have to meet the new security threats of the 21st
3
�century, in terrorism and ethnic and religious and racial conflicts. We have to meet the new
environmental challenges of the 21st century, most of which will be global in nature.
So there are challenges out there. But the most important thing is, there are staggering
opportunities. More people will have more chances to live out their dreams than any people who
ever lived in the history of the Earth if we do the right things. (Applause.) If we do the right
things. (Applause.)
We have worked for the last four years essentially to try to make sure America works
again, that we are functioning at a reasonable level of proficiency so that we can have the
freedom to do that, to shape our future. And we changed the economic course of this country
away from supply-side economics to investment economics, to move toward a balanced budget,
to reduce the deficit, the interest rates, to expand our trade around the world and to invest in our
people. The results have been good.
We've tried to move the debate over social policy in Washington away from rhetoric to
reality, centered on families and communities. You've got now five years of declining crime.
You've got the biggest drop in welfare rolls in history. You've got real efforts being made
through the family leave law and other things to help people succeed in raising their children and
in the workplace. We're in a position now to know wha.t works and to know that we can have
confidence that if we work together we can make a difference in assaulting our most profound
challenges here at home.
We've tried to define the role of government away from the old fight that's dominated
America almost ever since World War II, to say government is not the problem, government is
not the solution; government's job is to create the conditions and give people the tools to solve
their problems and make the most of their own lives. (Applause.)
So now we have this chance. And it's hard when you're not threatened by a foreign
enemy to whip people up to a fever pitch of common, intense, sustained, disciplined endeavor.
But that is what we must do, my fellow Americans. That is what we must do.
We are strong enough to shape a future that will take advantage of all this life-enhancing
technology, of these new economic opportunities, of the new opportunities we have to build a
structure of peace around the world, of the new opportunities we have to put the Information Age
at the fingertips of the poorest, as well as the wealthiest children in our country, and we had
better do this. Our children and our grandchildren will never forgive us if we blow
this chance to make their future the best future-- (applause).
It is obvious that to prepare our people for the 21st century we will need a new, more
far-reaching, deeper partnership in America. The era of big government is over, both because we
can't go on running national deficits till the end of time and because the nature of our problems
requires a different approach. But the era of big national challenges is far from over. It will
4
�never be over. And the ones we face are very big, indeed.
National leadership can point the way. It can move barriers out of the way that have
prevented our states, our cities, and our people from solving their own problems. But the real
responsibilities of building this future are ones we all must bear together. I will do my part. I
will do what I can to see that the national government does its part. But, in tum, you must work
with me and with others to make sure that we seize this opportunity while we stand strong
enough to do so.
Today I want to talk about two critical areas: giving our children the best education; and
finishing the job of welfare reform, breaking the cycle of dependency, moving millions of more
people from welfare to work. Taken together, these issues really are at the core of our national
mission to prepare America for the 21st century.
Everyone must have the tools to succeed in the knowledge economy; that means
education and training. Everyone willing to work hard with those tools must have a chance to do
so. That means finishing the job of welfare reform. Education and welfare reform are about
bringing all Americans to the starting line of the economy, then making sure all of them are
ready to run the race. Our number one priority must be to ensure that America has the best
education in the world. (Applause.)
I cannot add much to the statement we made so long ago in the National Education Goals
seven years ago now, almost eight years ago. But my shorthand statement is every
eight-year-old has to be able to read, every 12-year-old should be able to log on to the
Internet, every 18-year-old should be able to go to college, and every adult American should be
able to keep on learning for an entire lifetime. That should be our goal. (Applause.)
Because our future was at stake in the Cold War, we had a bipartisan foreign policy.
Politics stopped at the water's edge. Well, now our future is at stake, in large measure depending
upon whether we can give all of our people world-class education. Therefore, we must have a
nonpartisan commitment to education, and politics should stop at the schoolhouse door in the
21st century. (Applause.)
It is not enough for members of Congress and members of the state legislatures and
elected executives to embrace this commitment. Our businesses, our educators, our parents, all
our citizens must make the same commitment. I'm gratified that you have a number of Maryland
parents_and teachers and businesspeople committed to education here today. I thank them for
being here and I thank you for inviting them.
In my State of the Union address, I laid out a 10-point call to action for American
education, which is embodied in this booklet. And I want to say just a few words about a
number of issues today and then focus on one in particular. And I want to thank the State of
Maryland for taking the lead in doing so many of the right things. A lot of you have worked with
5
�me going back long years in the past when I was a governor on these educational issues, and I
,.
thank you for what you've done..
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First, every child has to be able to read independently by the third grade. I'm pleased \' fi1AJ ;';f ~
that the University of Maryland at College Park has already pledged more than 2,300 of its -~-~
.~".· _.,_ .
students to work as reading tutors over the next five years. That is a great thing. (Applause.) _w~...,._;
We're going to use 35,000 of our AmeriCorps volunteers to help to try to mobilize a million of
these students. We think we can get at least 100,000 out of the new work-study
~~
students approved by Congress in the last budget. Then all the schools have to make use of ,£..~
volunteers once they are trained. But we have to do this.
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You just think about it. If 40 percent of our children can't read at grade level, how in the
wide world do we expect them to learn algebra, trigonometry, calculus, physics, biology,
chemistry. It is very important. Unless we get this done, the rest cannot happen. And it is going
to take a national effort of monumental proportions to do it. But we can do it, because the
children can do it. The children can do it. They just need for us to do. our job and they then will
do the rest. So I want you to help us to finish that job. (Applause).
~~
-~
We must expand public school choice. And Baltimore City has done that through its
charter schools. We must rebuild crumbling schools. And you heard the Governor say that's a ~~
priority for him as well. We must make it possible for all of our children to have access, the ~- ~
same access, in the same time, to the same knowledge. That's what hooking up all these
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classrooms to the Internet is all about. And I thank Maryland for its commitment to that
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objective. (Applause.)
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In the last four years we have opened the doors of college wider than ever before -through the direct college loan program and expanded Pell Grants, 200,000 more work-study ~::f)- . L
positions, and the AmeriCorps program. But we have to do more. And I am very pleased,
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Governor, that you have proposed these state HOPE Scholarships to open the doors. of college: ~,.
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I just came back from Georgia-- Secretary Riley and I went to Augusta-- 230,000
4d...
people in the state of Georgia who maintained a B average have had their tuition and their
/) - .'Aschoolbooks paid for by the state HOPE Scholarship program. In a representative crowd there, I .
had person after person after person of all ages, telling me, I was a HOPE scholar; I had a chance
to go to college; I never could have done it otherwise; I wouldn't have made it otherwise.
/11.
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There is no better expenditure of our money. It will raise the per capita income of this
state more quickly, it will get over inequalities in income groups more quickly, and it will bring
people together for a stronger future more quickly than anything else.
~ •
So I applaud the proposal you have put before the legislature here, and I also tell you I
will do my best to pass our national version of the HOPE Scholarship to give a tax credit of
$1,500 for two years -- that's the typical cost of community college tuition -- and a tax deduction
6
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�of up to $10,000 a year for the cost of tuition for any education after high school. This will
make a difference. (Applause.)
We also propose making the IRA available to more savers, and then let people withdraw
from their IRA tax-free if the money is used to pay for education-- and the biggest increase in
Pell Grant scholarships for needy students in 20 years. And our G.I. Bill for America's Workers
would take the 70 different federal programs for job training, put them in one block, and send a
skill grant to an unemployed or an under-employed worker and say, here, you take it to
the nearest institution of education and get the training you need. Nearly every American lives
within driving distance of a community college or another community-based university or
educational institution that can provide the training today that all people know they need to have
a better future.
So we need to do these things together, and they will make a big difference. I also
believe we have to teach our children to be good citizens as well as good students. And I'd like
to thank the Lt. Governor for supporting the statewide program of character education you have
here, to have a statewide code of discipline, to remove disruptive students from the classroom, to
promote community curfews. And again, I thank you for being the only state in America
to require community service to graduate from high school. You have the first class of seniors
graduating today-- that's a good thing. That's a good thing. (Applause.)
on~
To give you some idea how long it takes for some of these things to catch
ago, in 1987, the then Republican Governor ofNew Jersey, and now the presidentofDrew
University, Tom Keane, and I co-chaired a Carnegie Commission study on middle school,
and one of our recommendations was that national service should be a requirement for public
school students. People should learn that they are connected to others in their community and
make it a positive, good, wholesome thing. Only Maryland has done it so far. But I certainly
hope -- perhaps my presence here will help -- I hope other states will follow your lead. This is an
important part of building a common future for America. (Applause.)
Let me say the most important thing we can do in education is to hold our students to
high standards. Children will grow according to the expectations we have of them. They cannot
be expected to know what it is they should know, or even how high they can soar until we give
them the right set of expectations. When 40 percent of our 3rd graders are not reading as well as
they should --or to put it in plain language, when 40 percent of 8-year-olds cannot read a book on
their own that they ought to be able to read, we have a lot to do.
When students in Germany or Singapore learn 15 to 20 math subjects in depth each year,
while our students typically race through 30 to 35 without learning any in depth in a given year,
we aren't doing what we should be doing to prepare them for a knowledge economy that
demands that they be able to think and reason and analyze-- in short, demands that they be able
to learn for a lifetime of working in ways that have not yet been invented, perhaps not yet even
imagined. This is impossible without a good foundation in the basics.
7
/
�Maryland is making a good start. You've developed clear standards for what children
should learn by the 3rd, 5th, and 8th grades, in particular, in reading and math, and clear tests to
measure them, school district by school district, and school by school. You're holding schools
accountable for making the grade, rewarding excellence, intervening in schools that aren't
performing. Because you have set high standards, you have seen five years of steady, sustained ·
progress towards meeting those standards.
But Maryland and all other states must do more. To compete and win in the 21st
century, we must have a high standard of excellence that all states agree on. That is why I called,
in my State of the Union address, for national standards of excellence in the basics-- not federal
government standards, but national standards representing what all our students must know to
succeed in a new century. I called upon every state to test every 4th grader in reading and every
8th grader in math by 1999, according to the national standards, to make sure they're being met.
We already have widely accepted rigorous national standards in both reading and math,
and widely used tests based on those standards. In reading, Maryland and more than 40 other
states have participated in a test called the National Assessment of Education Progress, or all of
us educational junkies call it the NAEP test. It measures a state's overall performance against a
high national standard of excellence. It's a good test. In math, tens of thousands of students
across our nation have already taken the Third International Math and Science Survey, called the
TIMSS test, a test that reflects the world-class standards our children must meet for the new era.
As I said in my State of the Union, last month Secretary Riley and I visited northern
Illinois, where 8th grade students from 20 districts took the test and tied for first in the world for
science, and second in math. We know it is the world standard, and we know the world standard
is the right standard to which we should all hold ourselves.
Unfortunately, these kinds of tests-- both the Assessment of Education Progress for the
4th grade reading test, and the Third International Survey in Math and Science for the 8th
graders -- do not provide individual scores; they only measure how an entire state is doing. What
we need are tests that will measure the performance of each and every student, each and every
school, each and every district, so that parents and teachers will know how every child is doing
compared to other students in other schools, in other states, in other countries -- not just
compared to them, but, more importantly, compared against what they need tci know.
It is a false thing to compare all kids against one another unless all children are first held
to a high standard. That's what we want to know. That's the only thing that really matters. That
is why I'm presenting a plan to help all students in all states meet these standards and to measure
them.
Over the next two years our Department of Education will support the development for
new tests for 4th grade reading based on the National Assessment of Education Progress, and 8th
grade math based on the International Math and Science Survey, to show how every student
8
�measures up to existing, widely accepted standards. These tests will be developed by
independent test experts in consultation with leading math and reading teachers. The federal
government will not require them, but they will be available to every state and every school
district that chooses to administer them. I believe every state must participate and that every
parent has a right to honest, accurate information about how his or her child is doing based on
real, meaningful national standards. (Applause.)
Now, already in the last week I have heard some people saying, sounds like a federal
power grab to me. That's nonsense. We will not attempt to require them, they are not federal
government standards, they are national standards. But we have been hiding behind a very small
fig leaf for very long, and the results are not satisfactory. Anybody who says that a country as
big and diverse as ours can't possibly have national standards in the basics -- I say from
Maryland to Michigan to Montana, reading is reading and math is math. No school board is in
charge of algebra, and no state legislature can enact the law of physics. And it is time we started
acting the way we know we should. (Applause.)
There's another thing that will be said, now, and that you will have to confront, because I
know how much -- I've been through a zillion state legislative sessions; everybody's got a new
idea and everybody wants more money and there's never enough to go around. And you will be
told -- and it is true -- that we have lots of standardized tests. That's true, there are lots of
standardized tests, but there is no national test testing the standards. That's a very different thing.
There is no national exam given to all of our children that says, here's what a good fourth grader
ought to learn.
Keep in mind we don't want Johnny to make a better score than Mary on this test. We
want 100 percent of our kids to pass this test. And then, when a lot of them don't, we don't want
to give them an F, we want to give them a hand up. We want to say, we haven't done what we
should, and we're going to do this. (Applause.)
It is amazing -- you know, we take it for granted we have the best military in the world.
Think how silly it would be if everyplace in America where we do basic training, they said, well,
you know, Louisiana is a long way from Georgia; we couldn't have possibly have uniform
standards for basic training in the military; just sort of come up with whatever you think will be
good, and we'll hope it works the next time we're in the Persian Gulf. (Laughter.) You're
laughing. That's what we do. And even if you do the very best you can, we don't know the truth.
It's wrong for these children not to know the truth. This is not a put-down, now, this is a lift-up.
We've got the most diverse democracy in the world. We have four school districts now ~
where the children's first languages comprise over 100 different languages -- in four school
~
districts in America. Who are we kidding that we're going to create the kind of country we want,
where everybody's got a chance to make it, when we haven't even taken the first elemental step to
say, here's how everyone should read by the 4th grade, here's the math everybody ought to know
by the 8th grade.
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�There is more to do after that, but let's start with something that really matters. We've
never done it. This has nothing to do with local control of education. Secretary Riley has done
more to get rid of federal rules and regulations, to give states and local school districts more
control without the rules and more flexibility than anybody has in a long time. But no matter
how much flexibility you have, sooner or later your children are going to have to face the fact
that they either can read or they can't, they either can do math or they can't, they know algebra or
they don't. And if we play around with all these games and hide-and-seek excuses, in the
end the only people that are going to be hurt are those kids, and the rest of the country will pay
the price from now on. And we've got to stop it. (Applause.)
I want to give you two pieces of good news, one of which you can be especially proud
of. You all know that the business community has been calling for this for a long time.
Governor Glendening was recently with the other governors last year at an education summit in
New Yorkwith the business community, and they were saying we have to have standards.
Today I'm proud to say that the National Business Roundtable is endorsing our call for national
tests for 4th grade reading and 8th grade math. They will join our crusade to make American
education the best in the world. And I want to thank especially Norm Ogestein, who is the CEO
of Lockheed Martin and the head ofthe Business Roundtable's education task force, and
who has done a lot to help you in Maryland with your schools. (Applause.)
Just before the speech today, your State Board of Education Chairman Chris Cross told
me that the State Board of Education intends to incorporate these new tests of national standards
into your state's program. And I thank you, sir, for that, and I thank you for that. (Applause.)
Let me say that throughout my public career I have been very interested in this whole
issue of education. There are lots of other things I'd like to talk to you about today. I hope you
will support the work that we are doing with the National Board of Certification for Master
Teachers, to certify teachers in educational excellence. Governor Hunt from North Carolina has
been working on that for years, and we certified the last teachers-- the first teachers in 1995, but
only 500 since 1995. We believe we need at least one master teacher iri every school district,
hopefully iri. every school in America -- someone who has been through the special, 'rigorous
program of training and evaluation here so that then that teacher can share what he or she has
learned with all the other teachers in the school. Our budget contains enough funds-- and it's
a relatively low-cost program -- to provide for another 100,000 master teachers in the next four
·
years. So I hope you will support that as well.
But let me say -- I guess you can tell I feel strongly about this, but I have spent a lot of
time in our schools, a lot of time listening to teachers, a lot of time listening to parents. I've
worked harder on this issue over the course of my public life than anything else because it has a
unique role in our history and an even more powerful role in our future. It is, of course, the key
to individual opportunity. It is also the key to responsible citizenship. I am convinced it is the
key to giving us the understanding we need to live together as one nation in the midst of
10
�all of our diversity. It is also the key to maintaining our world leadership for peace and freedom
and prosperity. Only if every American has the fulf use of his or her mind can our country move
forward together.
So I hope that all of you will keep this in mind. I hope that you will push this, and I
hope you will lead the way. I want to be able to take this crusade across the country and tell
people if they don't believe we can do it, call Maryland. You have the courage to do it. Stand
up. (Applause.)
Now, let me just say a couple ofwords about welfare reform, because that's very
important. For years and years and years, all the governors-- I was one of them-- said we want
more control over the state's welfare system; we want to do that. We could reform the welfare
system. We could make it work. We could end the culture of poverty and dependency. Well,
you got it. (Laughter.) And this has got to be a focus of your efforts now, because this is very,
very important.
We ended the old welfare system basically in two steps. First of all, in the last four
years, Secretary Shalala and I worked with 43 of the 50 states to launch welfare reform
experiments which, along with a growing economy and a 50 percent increase in child
support collection -- something I'm very proud of-- helped to reduce the welfare rolls by 2.25
million; that's the biggest drop in welfare rolls in the history ofthe country-- an 18 percent drop.
You can be proud ofthat and proud ofwhat you did. (Applause.)
Here in Maryland you did better than the national average. You used your waiver to
move 51,000 people off the welfare rolls, and you had about a 25 percent drop. And you can be
proud ofthat. (Applause.)
You also answered my call to revoke the driver's licenses of people who deliberately -who can and don't pay their child support. And I think that's a good thing. We're going to do
more to collect child support. We can move 800,000 more people off welfare tomorrow if
people just paid the child support they owe and that they are capable of paying. So I thank you
for that. (Applause.)
Now we come to the hard part. The new law, supported by the governors and all state
associations, says that every able-bodied person on welfare must move to work within two years;
that the states can have a little cushion fund to support those who can't move into the work force
either because they're disabled or because the economy is not so hot.
But now, think of this challenge. In the last four years, 2.25 million people moved from
welfare to work in an economy that produced 11.5 million jobs. That's a record for any four-year
administration. We have to do at least that well in the next four years. That reduced the welfare
rolls by about 20 percent, 18 to 20 percent.
11
r
�So you've got about 10 million people left and about --maybe a little more than 10
million-- and about 4.5 million of them are adults, and about 4 million, anyway, are going to be
able-bodied and able enough to physically work. And then there will be some moving in and out
of the work force. There always is, as people retire and all. But through deliberate efforts we're
going to have to create at least 2 million jobs. And if we don't do it, what will happen?
Keep in mind, this welfare reform bill has this ringing declaration: Everybody who can
work, everybody who's able to work has to take responsibility for their own lives. No more
permanent dependency. Full of moral precepts. Well, the morality shoe is now on the other foot.
Those of us who supported that, we now have a moral obligation to say, everybody we told, "you
have to go to work" actually is able to work. Because if we are not able to do that, then the law's
consequence will not be to liberate people from dependency, but to make people who are dying
to go to work even worse off just because they couldn't find a job.
This is a serious, stiff challenge. And the challenge is primarily on you and the employer
community, which is the way you said you wanted it. But it's there now. You know that great
old country music star, Chet Atkins, used to say, you got to be careful what you ask for in this
life; you might get it. So here it is. What are we going to do? Is there a way out? Yes, there is.
Can we do this? You bet we can. You bet we can. We can do it, but we have
to do it together. And we have to do it with discipline.
And we need a plan. And it needs to go down to every community. And we're going to
have to ask people to help. And you need to really closely follow your numbers and make sure
you're doing what it takes to be done.
How are we going to do it? First, we have to pass the federal program that I
recommended, which will give tax credits to private employers of up to 50 percent up to $10,000
to hire people -- only if they hire people from welfare to work. And then we have to support the
provisions of the welfare reform law which continue the health care, continue the nutrition, and
provide much more money for child care than the previous law. That's the good news.
This legislation also gives you the authority for the first time to take money that had been
used on welfare checks and give it to private employers as a wage or training supplement. Now,
this can be very important in convincing nonprofit employers, who don't pay taxes anyway, to
hire people off welfare and make an extra effort. All the community nonprofits, every church or
other religious organization in the state of Mary land, of any size, without regard to their faith,
they're all under an admonition to care for the poor. Now you can say, we'll give you a little
money to help if you will do the rest.
Missouri had a program like this in Kansas City, where they gave the welfare check to
private employers for more than a year -- they could keep it for a couple years -- as a wage and
training premium if they would hire people off welfare. I met a man who had a data processing
storage company with 25 employees, and five of his employees he'd hired from the welfare rolls,
12
�and he loved it. And they loved it.
And if we can do it, it is better to hire people in small groups or one on one, because
you're trying to lift people out of a culture of dependency into a mainstream culture of work. But
this man was willing to do that. And they have to pay about $1.75 above the minimu~ wage to
get the wage subsidy there and to give people a living income. But still it costs them less than
the minimum wage to do it.
Florida has just decided to follow suit. And I hope other states will follow that lead.
You've got to --believe me --to meet these job targets, your employer community is going to
need every last option you can give them. And somebody's got to have a plan, I mean a game
plan, that challenges every sector and every community to do what has to be done. So I urge you
to use the flexibility you have been given to do that. .
-
Secondly, I urge you to make sure that the money you have saved from welfare reform
will be used to move even more people to work. I know Maryland has taken its considerable
savings from welfare reform efforts and put them into a special rainy-day fund to create jobs and
to move people from welfare to work. And that's something other states ought to copy, because
if welfare reform is going to succeed in the beginning, all states are going to have use those
·savings on efforts like child care, wage subsidies,·employment incentives, or other ways to create
private sector jobs.
Let me just say one other thing. I hope as you do this, you will not forget sort of a
parallel population not on welfare; and those are young, single men who are unemployed who are
eligible for food stamps but not welfare. Keep in mind, their loss to the work force is an
enormous loss to our society. It leads to higher crime. It leads to fewer two-parent families. It
leads to robbing them ofthe potential ofwhat they might become. And a lot of places now are
beginning to try to -- instead of talking just about the welfare population -- the young
unemployed population so that these young single men can be treated in the right way, too.
And in Missouri, what they did, we gave them a waiver, and they actually took the food
stamp payments for the young single men and gave them to employers with the same sort of
incentive as the welfare payments for young women going from welfare to work. So I
urge you to think about that.
Finally, let me say, what is our vision? I can tell you what my vision-- why do we do all
this? Here's my vision. Here's where I hope we'll be in a few years. I hope all over America in a
few years, we will have a community-based employment family support system for people who
are out of work, and people will come into this system whether they come off the welfare rolls or
off the employment rolls through the unemployment rolls, and we won't make a distinction. It
will just be good people with kids or without kids, depending, who are out of work who need to
get back into the work force. And we'll have a system for moving them back in, and we'll
have a system of subsidies for people at the margins so that employers will be encouraged to
13
�make that extra effort to restore people to the dignity of work. And meanwhile, we'll always be
helping people support their children in fulfilling their first and most important job.
'
Now, that's my vision. That's what I hope we would get out of this welfare reform effort.
But the ~ext two years are going to be critical, because about two years from now, people are
going to start running out of their two-year time limit, and then the spotlight will shift from all of
them to all of us. And we will be asked, what did we do when the welfare reform bill passed.
What did we do to make sure that those we told you have to go to work had the
chance to go to work. So I urge you to think about this.
This is exciting, but it's bracing; because our society has never done anything like this
before in ordinary times. And I do not believe that when the bill passed, people had really
focused on the dimensions of the challenge. I had, and I was willing to make it. I'm willing to
try to-- to jump off this cliff, to hold up this high standard. I think we can do this. I think we
can develop a work-based society that does not have people trapped in permanent dependence.
But it's going to take everybody thinking about it, working on it, and doing things they had not
done in the past. And so I ask you to do that. (Applause.)
I just want to make one final point the Governor's already mentioned. I know Maryland
is considering using its own money to continue providing some basic benefits for legal
immigrants who have lost federal aid now that the federal bans have taken effect. That's the right
thing to do, but you shouldn't have to do it all by yourself. That's why every state and every
governor -- Republican or Democrat -- I hope will join with us to try to persuade
the Congress to restore just the basic health and disability benefits that used to be available until
this new law passed when misfortune strikes them. (Applause.)
'
The argument made by the majority when they passed this was, when an immigrant
comes to America, you've got to sign a piece of paper that says you're not going to take public
benefits. Now, that's an understandable policy. We shouldn't be inviting people to come here
just to get on welfare or to get on Medicaid or Medicare. But we can solve that, and did, by
simply saying that every immigrant has a sponsor, and the sponsor's income will be deemed the
immigrant's income until the immigrant becomes a citizen. That's the way to solve that.
But if you have all these immigrants coming here, and even before they can become
citizens-- suppose an Indian from New Delhi comes to Maryland to develop computer software
programs for one of your growing businesses, and stays here three years, and has a one-year-old
child and a three-year-old child. What does that person do if he or his spouse gets hit by a car, or
is the victim of a crime, or one of the children is born with cerebral palsy, and they don't have
regular health care that will take care of all these things.
So what do we say? Tough luck? You had misfortune? Yes, you've worked hard; yes,
you've paid your taxes; yes, you've been perfectly legal; yes, you've complied with every
provision of the law; yes, you didn't try to sneak in our country, you waited your turn just like
14
�..
everybody else. But I'm sorry. Yes, we took the benefit of your brain. You made us a richer,
stronger country. We wanted you in here. You had skills we needed. But I'm sorry. This
is wrong, folks. This is unworthy of a great nation of immigrants and we ought to fix it.
(Applause.)
When you get right down to it, all this business about education reform and welfare
reform, and what do we have to do to prepare our country for the 21st century, and will we have
the discipline, strength and courage to take advantage of this unique moment in history-- it really
comes down to two questions: What does America mean, and what does it mean to be an
American?
America must always be a nation becoming. We're never there; we're always becoming
-- becoming a more perfect union, full of new promise for our own people and new hopes for the
world. And what does it mean to be an American? We're the ones who have to make that
happen.
Thank you and God bless you. (Applause.)
END
12:16 P.M. EST
15
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PRESIDENT WILLIAM J. CLINTON
MARYLAND STATEHOUSE, ANNAPOLIS, MD
Monday, February 10, 1997
Acknowledgments: Gov. Parris Glendening; Lieutenant Gov. Kathleen Kennedy
Townsend; Speaker Cas Taylor; President of the Senate Mike Miller; Sen. Barbara
Mikulski; Sen. Paul Sarbanes; Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (represents Annapolis); Rep.
Ben Cardin (served as Speaker of this body); Rep. AI Wynn and Rep. Elijah
Cummings (both served in this body); President of Maryland State Board of
Education Christopher Cross; State Superintendent of Education Nancy Grasmick.
I'm pleased to be here today, in the building that served as our nation's first peacetime
capitol, to talk about one of the greatest challenges in our peacetime history: preparing America
for the 21st Century, and ensuring that all Americans have the tools to make the most oftheir
lives.
It is appropriate that we gather here today, at an impOiiant turning point in our history. It
was in this statehouse that George Washington resigned his commission as General of the
Continental Army-- in fact, it was right down the hall in the Lieutenant Governor's office that
Thomas Jefferson wrote General Washington's words of resignation. It was here that the Treaty
ofParis was prepared and ratified --ending the Revolutionary War, and beginning the greatest
experiment in democracy and opportunity the world has ever known.
a
As country, once again, we face a moment of peace, prosperity, and extraordinary
opportunity-- having won the Cold War, reversed the tide of crime and welfare and budget
deficits, and built the strongest national economy in a generation. Thanks to Governor
Glendening's leadership, there is much to celebrate in Maryland as well: unemployment is at a
six-year low. Family incomes here have risen to fowih in the nation. Maryland's welfare rolls
have dropped almost a quarter since 1995. Student achievement has risen, with more schools
meeting the high standards Maryland had the courage to set.
But today's peace and prosperity is not something we can rest on-- it is something we
must build on. That is why l stood before the Congress last week, and issued a call to action. For
the first time in decades, we are strong enough to truly prepare ourselves for the 2 l st Century -~
to help all our people seize the promise of the global economy, the Information Age, and
life-enhancing new technology. But if we do not all take responsibility, and rise to this challenge
-- if we do not summon the energies of all our people, from our statehouses to our schoolhouses,
from our homes to our houses of worship-- we could lose this opportunity to shape our future.
That is why l am here today -- with a message I will carry not just to this state legislature,
·but to other state legislatures, communities, and forums in the months to come. To prepare
America for the 21st Century, I am asking for a new kind of partnership -- with the people in this
chamber, and people all across America. The era of big government is over. But the era of big
national challenges is not. And while national leadership can point the way -- while national
leadership can remove some of the barriers that had prevented our states and our people from
P8.9~ I·
�solving their own problems -- the real responsibility is one we all share. As President, I am
prepared to point the way -- to shine a light on what is working -- and to leverage the efforts of
all Americans to meet our challenges. But you must be prepared to work with me, to seize this
moment of opportunity while America stands strong enough to do so.
Today, I want to talk about what we must do in two critical areas: giving our children the
best education, and breaking the cycle of dependency by moving millions from welfare to work.
Taken together, these issues are at the core of what we must do to prepare America for the new
Century. We must help everyone have the tools to succeed in this knowledge economy-- and
that means high-quality education and training. And we must make sure everyone willing to use
those tools-- everyone willing to work hard and take responsibility-- has a chance to do so.
Education reform and welfare reform are about bringing all Americans to the starting line of this
new economy, and then making sure they are ready to run the race.
Our number-one priority-- the high threshold of the future we must cross-- must be to
ensure that all Americans have the best education in the world: that every 8-year-old can read;
every 12-year-old can log on to the Internet; every 18-year-old can go to college; and every adult
can keep learning for a lifetime.
Education has always been the hea11 of opportunity in this country. As we prepare for
unimagined new work and careers, the best investment we can make is not in land or factories or
equipment, but in our minds -- the one asset we can carry with us no matter what the future holds,
so we can make and remake our lives at every turn
We must never forget that one of the greatest sources of our strength throughout the Cold
War was a bipartisan foreign policy. Because our future was at stake, politics stopped at the
water's edge. Now we need a non-partisan commitment to education-- because education is the
critical national security issue for our future, and politics must stop at the schoolhouse door.
That is why America's states and businesses, parents and teachers must work with us, above and
beyond the old divisions, to renew our schools -., and 1 am pleased that a number of parents,
teachers, and business people could join us today.
In my State of the Union address, 1 laid out a ten-point plan, a Call to Action for American
Education [hold up booklet], that describes the steps we must take-- and the State ofMaryland is
already.doing many of the right things. We must help every child to read by the third grade-- and
I am pleased that the University of Maryland at College Park has already pledged more than 2,300
students to work as reading tutors over the next five years. We must expand public school
choice -- as Baltimore City is doing through its new charter schools. We must
rebuild crumbling schools -- a priority for Governor Glendening as well.
We must open the doors of college wider than ever before -- and I am
pleased that the Governor is proposing state HOPE scholarships to open the doors to
college. They will complement my national HOPE Scholarships to make the first two years of
college as universal as high school -- a $1,500 tax credit for the first two years of college and a
$10,000 tax deduction for all college costs, plus expanded IRA's to save for college and the
�largest increase in Pell Grants in 20 years. We must give more of our workers the ability to learn
and to earn for a lifetime through my G.I. Bill for Workers-- transforming the tangle of federal
training programs into a simple skill grant that goes directly into workers' hands.
We must teach our children to be good citizens as well as good students-- and thanks to
Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, you have begun a comprehensive, statewide
program of character education. You have developed a statewide code of discipline, and are
removing and helping disruptive students, so all our children have a chance to learn. You have
heeded my call to promote community curfews, as part ofyour plan to prevent youth violence.
Again under the leadership of the Lieutenant Governor, Maryland is the only state in America that·
requires community service to graduate from high school, with the first class of those seniors
graduating this year.
My education plan is a comprehensive one. But any education plan can only be as strong·
as the things our children learn each day. That is why our success·depends upon holding our
students to the highest standards -- making sure they learn the basics that will be the foundation of
success in the 21st Century. When 40% of our fourth graders do not read as well as they should
--when students in Germany or Singapore learn 15 to 20 math subjects in depth each year, while
our students often race through 30 to 35 without really learning them at all --we are not doing
what we should to prepare our children for a knowledge economy.
Let's understand why these basics are so important. The point is not merely to teach our
children facts and figures, but to teach them the ability to think and reason and analyze -- to give
them the tools and skills that will serve them in jobs and careers we cannot even contemplate
today.
Maryland is making a good start. You have developed clear standards for what our
children should learn by the 3rd, 5th, and 8th grades, in particular in reading and math, and clear
tests to measure them, school district by school district, and school by school. You are holding
schools accountable for making the grade, rewarding excellence, and intervening in schools that
are not performing. Because you have set high standards, Maryland has seen five years of steady,
sustained progress in meeting those standards.
But Maryland, and all states, must do more. To compete and win in the 21st Century, we
must have a high standard of excellence that all states can agree upon. That is why, in my State of
the Union address, T called for national standards of excellence in the basics-- not federal
government standards, but national standards, representing what all our students must know to
succeed in the 21st Century. I called on every state to test every 4th grader in reading and every
8th grader in math by 1999, to make sure these basic standards are met.
We already have widely-accepted, rigorous national standards in both reading and math-and widely-used tests based on those standards. ln reading, Maryland and more than 40 other
states have pa11icipated in a test called the National Assessment ofEducational Progress --which
measures the state's overall performance against a high national standard of excellence. In math,
tens of thousands of students across the country have already taken the Third International Math
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and Science Study -- a test that reflects the world-class standards our children must meet for the
new era. Last month, I visited Northern Illinois, where 8th grade students from 20 school
districts took that test, and tied for first in the world in science and· came in second in math. We
know it is the right standard-- and we know our children can meet it ifthey are challenged to do
SO.
Unfortunately, the current tests don't provide individual scores; they only measure how an
entire state is doing. What we need are tests that will measure the performance of each and every
student, and each and every school. That way, parents and teachers will know how every child is
doing compared to students in other schools, other states, and other countries.
That is why 1 am presenting a plan to help states meet and measure the highest standards.
Over the next two years, our Department of Education will support the development of new tests
for 4th grade reading and 8th grade math to show how every student measures up to the existing,
widely-accepted standards. The tests will be developed by independent test experts in ·
consultation with leading math and reading teachers. The federal government will not require
them, but these tests will be available to every state that chooses to administer them. I believe
that every state must participate, and that every parent has a right to honest, accurate information
about their child's performance.
To anyone who says that in a country as big as America, we can't possibly have
common national tests in the basics, I say: from Maryland to Michigan to Montana,
reading is reading and math is math. We have plenty of standardized tests in America
today; what we ireed are tests that reflect standards -- and they are two very different
things. If we are sedous about holding our childi·en to the highest standar·ds, every state in
America must take up our challenge, and test our children in the same rigorous way.
If anyone understands the importance of high standards, it is the businesses that will
depend upon our children in the 21st Century. They know that only by ensuring that we"have the
best-educated, the best-trained, the best-skilled workforce in the world can we compete and win.
Today, I am pleased to announce that National Business Roundtable is endorsing our call
for national tests in 4th gr·ade r·eading and 8th grade math. Together with America's
parents, teacher·s, and lawmaker·s, they will join our crusade to make American education
the best in the world. 1 want to offer a special word of thanks to Nornian Augustine, CEO of
Lockheed Martin and head of the Business Roundtable's Education Task Force, who has done so
much to help reform Maryland's schools.
To reach high standards, we must also have the best teachers. For years, educators have
worked to establish nationally accepted credentials for excellence in teaching. Just 500 of these
teachers have been certified since 1995. My new budget will enable 100,000 to seek national
cettification as master teachers. We should reward and recognize our best teachers-- quickly and
fairly remove those few who don't measure up -- and challenge more of our finest young people
to consider teaching as a career.
Raising standards will not be easy. Some of our children will not be able to meet thein at
�first. But good tests will show us who needs help, what changes in teaching we must make, and
which schools need to improve. We're not doing right by our students when we set low
expectations. For too long, too mnay students have moved through our schools who could not
read and write at the most basic levels. That is why, in addition to the 4th and 8th grade national
tests we are urging, states should develop their own comprehensive benchmarks of what student
should know to move up in school, and to graduate from high school. It's time to put an end to
social promotions, and make sure a high school diploma really means something -- not to put our
children down, but to lift them up.
Throughout my career in public life -- as a Governor, and as President -- I have worked
harder on education than on any other issue. That is because renewing education, raising our
standards, and lifting up our schools is the embodiment of everything we must do to prepare for
the 21st Century-- to promote opportunity, demand responsibility, and build community.
Nothing will do more to open the doors of opportunity to every American. Nothing will do more
to awaken a sense of responsibility from every American, as they work to make the most of their
education. And nothing will do more to build a strong, united community of all Americans -- for
if every American has the tools to succeed, we can move forward together, as one America.
When it comes to providing the tools to succeed, our other great challenge is helping to
move the pernianent imderclass into our growing middle class. Working together, we ended the
old welfare system. Over the past four years, we worked with 43 states to launch welfare reform
experiments, moving a record 2.25 million people off our nation's welfare rolls. Here in
Maryland, you used your waiver to move 5 I, 000 people off the welfare rolls in the past two years
alone -- placing a special focus on teen parents by linking benefits to school attendance, breaking
the cycle of dependency and making responsibility a way of life, not an option. You have
answered my call to revoke driver's licensesfrom those who don't pay child support, to deniand
responsibility from all parents. Now we have enacted landmark national welfare reform, to make
responsibility a way of life all across America.
That legislation brought an end to the old welfare system -- but it was really a new
beginning. Now that we have demanded that those on welfare take responsibility, we must all
take responsibility to see that the jobs are there, so people on welfare can become permanent
members ofthe workforce. Our goal must be to move two million more Americans offwelfare by
the year 2000.
I have challenged the nation's businesses to join in this effort, and I have a offered a plan
to help them: Tax credits and other incentives for businesses to hire people offwelfare; incentives
for job placement firms and ?tates to create more jobs for welfare recipients; training,
transportation, and child care to help people go to work. l urge Maryland's businesses,
non-profits, and religious organizations -- large and small -- to heed this important call. Each and
every one of us must fulfill our responsibility -- indeed, our moral obligation -- to make sure that
those who now must work, can work. 1 am especially pleased that Maryland's religious
community is playing a strong role in providing child care, transpoiiation, and job placement, and
working closely with the State to make sure that welfare reform succeeds here.
�The most direct and effective steps must be taken by the states. The legislation we passed
gives states the authority, for the very first time, to take the money that had been used on welfare
checks, and subsidize private sector paychecks. Missouri began doing this under one of our
waivers-- and it is working. Now I challenge every state to follow their example. Use the new
flexibility you have been given. Turn those welfare checks into paychecks. There is no better
way to find jobs for welfare recipients, or to keep them employed.
Second, I urge you to use the money saved from welfare reform to make sure that even
more people can move from welfare to work. I know that Maryland has taken its considerable
savings from its own welfare reform efforts, and put them into a special "rainy day" fund to create
jobs and move people from welfare to work. If welfare reform is to succeed, all states should use
those savings on efforts such as child care, wage subsidies, employment incentives, and other
ways to help create private sector jobs for welfare recip_ients.
I also applaud Maryland tor using its own money to continue providing benefits for legal
immigrants-- even after the federal bans have taken effect. That's the right thing to do, but you
shouldn't have to bear that burden alone. That is why every state and every Governor,
Republican or Dernocrat, should join with me to get Congress to restore basic health and
disability benefits when misfortune strikes immigrants who came to this country legally, who work
hard, pay taxes and obey t,he law. To do otherwise is simply unworthy of a great nation of
immigrants.
We passed historic welfare reform-- giving states the authority and flexibility they had
asked for for years. We were right to do it. Now states must live up to their responsibility, and
help us finish the job.
On education reform, on welfare reform, on all our major challenges -- let us build new
partnerships across old lines of responsibility. Preparing tor the 21st Century is not a job for any
one level of government alone. Many of our greatest challenges do not fall under the authority of
Washington, nor should they. The power to solve our problems rests with all levels of
government, and all sectors of society -- and that is where we must forge our solutions as well.
Together, we must seize this moment of opportunity, and prepare our people for the
changes and challenges of a new century. Together, we must renew our basic bargain of
opportunity, responsibility, and community, and give everyone the tools to make the most of their
own lives. If we rise to that challenge, we will enter the 21st Century full of new promise and
possibility, for all who share a stake in the American dream.
Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.
�l MARYLAND.SP7
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PRESIDENT WILLIAM J. CLINTON
MARYLAND STATEHOUSE, ANNAPOLIS, MD
Monday, February 10, 1997
Acknowledgments: Gov. Parris Glendening; Lieutenant Gov. Kathleen Kennedy
Townsend; Speaker Cas Taylor; President of the Senate Mike Miller; Sen. Barbara
Mikulski; Sen. Paul Sarbanes; Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (represents Annapolis); Rep.
Ben Cardin (served as Speaker of this body); Rep. AI Wynn and Rep. Elijah
Cummings (both served in this body); President of Maryland State Board of
Education Christopher Cross; State Superintendent of Education Nancy Grasmick.
I'm pleased to be here today, in the building that served as our nation's first peacetime
capitol, to talk about one of the greatest challenges in our peacetime history: preparing America
for the 21st Century, and ensuring that all Americans have the tools to make the most of their
lives.
It is appropriate that we gather here today, at an important turning point in our history. It
was in this statehouse that George Washington resigned his commission as General of the
Continental Army-- in fact, it was right down the hall in the Lieutenant Governor's office that
Thomas Jefferson wrote General Washington's words of resignation. It was here that the Treaty
ofParis was prepared and ratified --ending the Revolutionary War, and beginning the greatest
experiment in democracy and opportunity the world has ever known.
As acountry, once again, we face a moment of peace, prosperity, and extraordinary
opportunity-- having won the Cold War, reversed the tide of crime and welfare and budget
deficits, and built the strongest national economy in a generation. Thanks to Governor
Glendening's leadership, there is much to celebrate in Maryland as well: unemployment is at a
six'"year low. Family incomes here have risen to fow1h in the nation. Maryland's welfare rolls
have dropped almost a quarter since 1995. Student achievement has risen, with more schools
meeting the high standards Maryland had the courage to set
But today's peace and prosperity is not something we can rest on-- it is something we
must build on_ That is why I stood before the Congress last week, and issued a call to action_ .For
the first time in decades, we are strong enough to truly prepare ourselves for the 21st Century -to help <all our people seize the promise of the global economy, the Information Age, and
life-enhancing new technology. But if we do not all take responsibility, and rise to this challenge
-- if we do not summon the energies of all our people, from our statehouses to our schoolhouses,
from our homes to our houses of worship-- we could lose this opportunity to shape our future.
That is why I am here today -- with a message I will carry not just to this st~te legislature,
but to other state legislatures, communities, and forums in the months to come. To prepare
America for the 21st Century, I am asking for a new kind of partnership -- with the people in this
chamber, and people all across America. The era of big government is over. But the era ofbig
national challenges is not. And while national leadership can point the way -- while national
leadership can remove some of the barriers that had prevented our states and our people from
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solving their own problems --the real responsibility is one we all share As President, I am
prepared to point fhe way -- to shine a light cm·wliat _is working -- and to leverage the efforts of
all Americans to meet our challenges. But you must be prepared to work with me, to seize this
moment of opportunity while America stands strong enough to do so.
Today, I want to talk about what we must do in two critical areas: giving our children the
best education, and breaking the cycle of dependency by moving millions from welfare to work.
Taken together, these issues are at the core of what we must do to prepare America for the new
Century. We must help everyone have the tools to succeed in this knowledge economy-- and
that means high-quality education and training. And we must make sure everyone willing to use
those tools-- everyone willing to work hard and take responsibility-- has a chance to do so.
Education reform and welfare reform are about bringing all Americans to the starting line of this
new economy, and then making sure they are ready to run the race.
Our number-one priority-- the high threshold of the future we must cross-- must be to
ensure that all Americans have the best education in the world: that every 8-year-old can read;
every 12-year-old can log on to the Internet; every 18-year-old can go to college; and every adult
can keep learning for a lifetime.
Education has always been the heat1 of opportunity in this country. As we prepare for
unimagined new work and careers, the best investment we can make is not in land or factories or
equipment, but in our minds -- the one asset we can carry with us no matter what the future holds,
so we can make and remake our lives at every turn.
We must never forget that one of the greatest sources of our strength throughout the Cold
War was a bipartisan foreign policy. Because our future was at stake, politics stopped at the
water's edge. Now we need a non-partisan commitment to education-- because education is the
critical national security issue for our future, and politics must stop at the schoolhouse door.
That is why America's states and businesses, parents and teachers must work with us, above and
beyond the old divisions, to renew our schools -.., and I am pleased that a number of parents,
teachers, and business people could join us today.
In my State ofthe Union address, I laid out a ten-point plan, a Call to Action for Amertcan
Education [hold up booklet], that describes the steps we must take-- and the State ofMaryland is
already doing many ofthe right things. We must help every child to read by the third grade-- and
l am pleased that the University of Maryland at College Park has already pledged more than 2,300
students to work as reading tutors over the next five years. We must expand public school
choice -- as Baltimore City is doing through its new charter schools. We must
rebuild crumbling schools -- a priority for Governor Glendening as well.
We must open the doors of college wider than ever before -- and I am
pleased that the Governor is proposing state HOPE scholarships to open the doors to
· college. They will complement my national HOPE Scholarships to make the first two years of
college as universal as high school -- a $1,500 tax credit for the first two years of college and a
$1 0, 000 tax deduction for all college costs, plus expanded IRA's to save for college and the
�largest increase in Pel! Grants in 20 years. We must give more of our workers the ability to learn
and to earn for a lifetime through my G.l. Bill for Workers-- transforrriirigth·e tangle offederar·-----~~
training programs into a simple skill grant that goes directly into workers' hands.
We must teach our children to be good citizens as well as good students-- and thanks to
Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, you have begun a comprehensive, statewide
program of character education. You have developed a statewide code of discipline, and are
removing and helping disruptive students, so all our children have a chance to learn. You have
heeded my call to promote community curfews, as part of your plan to prevent youth violence.
Again under the leadership of the Lieutenant Governor, Maryland is the only state in America that·
requires community service to graduate from high school, with the first class of those seniors
graduating this year.
My education plan is a comprehensive one. But any education plan can only be as strong ·
as the things our children learn each day. That is why our success depends upon holding our
students to the highest standards -- making sure they learn the basics that will be the foundation of
success in the 21st Century. When 40% of our fourth graders do not read as well as they should
-- when students in Germany or Singapore learn 15 to 20 math subjects in depth each year, while
our students often race through 30 to 35 without really learning them at all --we are not doing
what we should to prepare our children for a knowledge economy,
Let's understand why these basics are so important. The point is not merely to teach our
children facts and figures, but to teach them the ability to think and reason and analyze -- to give
them the tools and skills that will serve them in jobs and careers we cannot even contemplate
today.
Maryland is making a good start. You have developed clear standards for what our
children should learn by the 3rd, 5th, and 8th grades, in particular in reading and math, and clear
tests to measure them, school district by school district, and school by school. You are holding
schools accountable for making the grade, rewarding excellence, and intervening in schools that
are not performing. Because you have set high standards, Maryland has seen five years of steady,
sustained progress in meeting those standards.
.
But Maryland, and all states, must do more. To compete and win in the 21st Century, we
must have a high standard of excellence that all states can agree upon. That is why, in my State of
the Union address, I called for national standards of excellence in the basics -- not federal
government standards, but national standards, representing what all our students must know to
succeed in the 21st Century. I called on every state to test every 4th grader in reading and every
8th grader in math by 1999, to make sure these basic standards are met.
We already have widely-accepted, rigorous national standards in both reading and math-and widely-used tests based on those standards. In reading, Maryland and more than 40 other
states have pariicipated in a test called the National Assessment ofEducational Progress --which
measures the state's overall performance against a high national standard of excellence. In math,
tens of thousands of students across the country have already taken the Third International Math
�and Science Study -- a test that reflects the world-class standards our children must meet for the
i1ew era .. List month, I visited Northern llliJ1ois-:-wnere 8th grade students fiom-10" scfiool
districts took that test, and tied for first in the world in science and came in second in math. We
know it is the right standard-- and we know our children can meet it ifthey are challenged to do
SO.
Unfortunately, the current tests don't provide individual scores; they only measure how an
entire state is doing. What we. need are tests that will measure the performance of each and every
student, and each and every school. That way, parents and teachers will know how every child is
doing compared to students in other schools, other states, and other co~ntries.
That is why I am presenting a plan to help states meet and measure the highest standards.
Over the next two years, our Department ofEducation will support the development of new tests
for 4th grade reading and 8th grade math to show how every student measures up to the existing,
widely-accepted standards. The tests will be developed by independent test experts in
consultation with leading math and reading teachers. The federal government will not require
them, but these tests will be available to every state that chooses to administer them. I believe
that every state must participate, and that every parent has a right to honest, accurate information
about their-child's performance.
To anyone who says that in a country as big as America, we can't possibly have
common national tests in the basics, I say: from Maryland to Michigan to Montana,
reading is _reading and math is math. We have plenty of standardized tests in America
today; what we iteed are tests that reflect standards -- and they are two very different
things. If we are serious about holding our children to the highest standards, every state in
America must take up our challenge, and test our children in the same rigorous way.
'
If anyone understands the importance of high standards, it is the businesses that will
depend upon our children in the 21st Century. They know that only by ensuring that we have the
best-educated, the best-trained, the best-skilled workforce in the world can we compete and win.
Today, I am pleased to announce that National Business Roundtable is endorsing our call
for national tests in 4th grade •·eading and 8th grade math. Together with America's
parents, teachers, and lawmakers, they will join our crusade to make American educatio,n
the best in the world. I want to offer a special word of thanks to Norman Augustine, CEO of
Lockheed Martin and head of the Business Roundtable's Education Task Force, who has done so
much to help reform Maryland's schools.
To reach high standards, we must also have the best teachers. For years, educators have
worked to establish nationally accepted credentials for excellence in teaching. Just 500 of these
teachers have been certified since 1995. My new budget will enable 100,000 to seek national
certification as master teachers. We should reward and recognize our best teachers-- quickly and
fairly remove those few who don't measure up -- and challenge more of our finest young people
to consider teaching as a career.
Raising standards will not be easy. Some of our children will not be able to meet them at
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first. But good tests will show us who needs help, what changes in teaching we must make, and
--------whiCh schools need to--iiTIPfOVe.--We'·re·not doitig r~igllfb-y-Oiir-stu-denrs··when we set low
------------------expectations. For too long, too mnay students have moved through our schools who could not
read and write at the most basic levels. That is why, in addition to the 4th and 8th grade national
tests we are urging, states should develop their own comprehensive benchmarks of what student
should know to move up in school, and to graduate from high school. It's time to put an end to
social promotions, and make sure a high school diploma really means something -- not to put our
children down, but to lift them up.
Throughout my career in public life -- as a Governor, and as President -- I have worked
harder on education than on any other issue. That is because renewing education, raising our
standards, and lifting up our schools is the embodiment of everything we must do to prepare for
the 21st Century -- to promote opportunity, demand responsibility, and build community.
Nothing will do more to open the doors of opportunity to every American. Nothing will do more
to awaken a sense of responsibility from every American, as they work to make the most of their
education. And nothing will do more to build a strong, united community of all Americans -- for
if every American has the tools to succeed, we can move forward together, as one America.
When it comes to providing the tools to succeed, our other great challenge is helping to
move the permanent underclass into our growing middle class. Working together, we ended the
old welfare system. Over the past four years, we worked with 43 states to launch welfare reform
experiments, moving a record 2.25 million people off our nation's welfare rolls. Here in
Maryland, you used your waiver to move 51,000 people off the welfare rolls in the past two years
alone -- placing a special focus on teen parents by linking benefits to school attendance, breaking
the cycle of dependency and making responsibility a way oflife, not an option. you have
answered my call to revoke driver's licenses from those who don't pay child support, to demand
responsibility from all parents. Now we have enacted landmark national welfare reform, to make
responsibility a way of life all across America.
That legislation brought an end to the old welfare system -- but it was really a new
beginning. Now that we have demanded that those on welfare take responsibility, we must all
take responsibility to see that the jobs are there, so people on welfare can become permanent
members ofthe workforce. Our goal must be to move two million more Americans offwelfar~ by
the year 2000.
I have challenged the nation's businesses to join in this effort, and I have a offered a plan
to help them: Tax credits and other incentives for businesses to hire people off welfare; incentives
for job placement firms and states to create more jobs for welfare recipients; training,
transportation, and child care to help people go to work. I urge Maryland's businesses,
non-profits, and religious organizations -- large and small --to heed this important call. Each and
every one of us must fulfill our responsibility -- indeed, our moral obligation -- to make sure that
those who now must work, can work. I am especially pleased that Maryland's religious
community is playing a strong role in providing child care, transportation, and job placement, and
working closely with the State to make sure that welfare reform succeeds here.
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The most direct and effective steps must be taken by the states. The legislation we passed
gives shitestneiutnorify: for the very first time, to rake"" the money that had'oeen usea onwelfare
checks, and subsidize private sector paychecks. Missouri began doing this under one of our
waivers-- and it is working. Now I challenge every state to follow their example. Use the new
flexibility you have been given. Turn those welfare checks into paychecks. There is no better
way to find jobs for welfare recipients, or to keep them employed.
Second, I urge you to use the money saved from welfare reform to make sure that even
more people can move from welfare to work. I know that Maryland has taken its considerable
savings from its own welfare reform efforts, and put them into a special "rainy day" fund to create
jobs and move people from welfare to work. If welfare reform is to succeed, all states should use
those savings on efforts such as child care, wage subsidies, employment incentives, and other
ways to help create private sector jobs for welfare recipients.
I also applaud Maryland for using its own money to continue providing benefits for legal
immigrants-- even after the federal bans have taken effect. That's the right thing to do, but you
shouldn't have to bear that burden alone_ That is why every state and every Governor,
Republican or De1nocrat, should join with me to get Congress to restore basic health and
disability benefits when misfortune strikes immigrants who came to this country legally, who work
hard, pay taxes and obey the law_ To do otherwise is simply unworthy of a great nation of
immigrants.
We passed historic welfare reform-- giving states the authority and flexibility they had
asked for for years_ We were right to do it. Now states must live up to their responsibility, and
help us finish the job_
On education reform, on welfare reform, on all our major challenges -- let us build new
partnerships across old lines of responsibility. Preparing for the 21st Century is not a job for any
one level of government alone. Many of our greatest challenges do not fall under the authority of
Washington, nor should they. The power to solve our problems rests with all levels of
government, and all sectors of society -- and that is where we must forge our solutions as well.
Together, we must seize this moment of opportunity, and prepare our people for the •
changes and challenges of a new century_ Together, we must renew our basic bargain of
opportunity, responsibility, and community, and give everyone the tools to make the most of their
own lives. If we rise to that challenge, we will enter the 21st Century full of hew promise and
possibility, for all who share stake in the American dream
a
Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.
�
Dublin Core
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Terry Edmonds
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Office of Speechwriting
James (Terry) Edmonds
Date
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1995-2001
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<a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/36090" target="_blank">Collection Finding Aid</a>
<a href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7763294" target="_blank">National Archives Catalog Description</a>
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2006-0462-F
Description
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Terry Edmonds worked as a speechwriter from 1995-2001. He became the Assistant to the President and Director of Speechwriting in 1999. His speechwriting focused on domestic topics such as race relations, veterans issues, education, paralympics, gun control, youth, and senior citizens. He also contributed to the President’s State of the Union speeches, radio addresses, commencement speeches, and special dinners and events. The records include speeches, letters, memorandum, schedules, reports, articles, and clippings.
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Clinton Presidential Records: White House Staff and Office Files
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William J. Clinton Presidential Library & Museum
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635 folders in 52 boxes
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Maryland State Legislature 2/10/97
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Office of Speechwriting
James (Terry) Edmonds
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2006-0462-F
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Box 20
<a href="http://www.clintonlibrary.gov/assets/Documents/Finding-Aids/2006/2006-0462-F.pdf" target="_blank">Collection Finding Aid</a>
<a href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7763294" target="_blank">National Archives Catalog Description</a>
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Clinton Presidential Records: White House Staff and Office Files
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12/9/2014
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7763294