Remarks on signing the Education Flexibility Partnership Act of 1999

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, May 3, 1999

April 29, 1999

Thank you. Let me say, first of all, I thank Dr. Metts for being here, for giving us a first hand and concrete expression of what this bill will mean to the States of our country and to the local school districts. I thank the Members of Congress who have spoken: Senator Wyden, Senator Frist, Congressman Roemer, my old colleague, Congressman Castle.

We're delighted to have the Vermont education commissioner here, Marc Hull, along with Senator Jeffords and Senator Kennedy and a very large delegation of Republicans and Democrats from the United States Congress from the Senate and the House. I'd like to ask the Members of Congress just to stand so the rest of you will see how many people here worked on this bill.

You know, there have been days in the last few years when I'm not sure we could have gotten this many Members of Congress to agree that today is Thursday. [Laughter] This was a truly astonishing effort, and I want to thank them all.

I want to say, too, a special word of appreciation to Governor Carper, and a very profound thanks to Secretary Riley. He and I started, as I have told many people, working on education reform together 20 years ago this year. And over the last 20 years, we have done our best to sort out what we ought to do and how we ought to do it and where the responsibility for what particular action ought to lie.

And I suppose, if I could put it into a sentence, I would say that insofar as possible, when it comes to the education of our children in kindergarten through 12th grade, the beginning of what should be done, should be done by the States. And "how" should be decided by the local districts, but basically, whenever possible, by the local principals and teachers and parents involved in the schools. That the Federal Government is called upon to meet the needs that States can't meet on their own, the needs of poor children, children with special needs, or to fill in the gaps when there are crying national needs unmet, and that when substantial Federal dollars are involved, it's okay for the Federal Government to say "what," too. But we should all be singing out of the same hymnal insofar as possible, and we should all remember that all education, in the schools at least, occurs in the classrooms, in the libraries, on the schoolyards, among the students and parents and principals.

I think it is quite remarkable to see the places where you're really seeing a turnaround, now, where you have high expectation, high standards, discipline, and genuine accountability for the students and the teachers and the principals. You also see a dramatic attempt to cut the cost of education where the money's being wasted and to increase the investment in education where more is needed.

One of the things I'm very proud of that Secretary Riley has done is, independent of this bill we're signing today, is to slash the paperwork burdens on State and local officials by well over 60 percent since he has been the Secretary of Education, while putting an even more ambitious agenda before the educators of America.

Now, the Founding Fathers understood that this would be a big debate; we'd always be having this debate. Thomas Jefferson once said, "Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want for bread." I may have liked that even more when I was Governor, but it still sounds pretty good to me. [Laughter]

But the Framers understood something else, too. They understood that the country had a right to decide and had to decide from time to time what we were going to do, maybe not when and how but what. They believed, for example, in 1787, that education was an important national purpose and declared that all new territories must put aside land for public schools, thereby establishing the fact that education, though a State and local responsibility, must be a national priority.

This Education Flexibility Partnership Act exemplifies, I think, the Founders' vision of how a properly balanced Federal system of government can work, providing freedom from Federal rules and regulations. This new law will allow States and school districts not just to save administrative dollars, with less headache and redtape, but actually to pool different funds from different sources in the Federal Government. But by demanding accountability in return, it will make sure States and school districts focus on results.

Now Doctor, you mentioned one example. I'll give you an example from my own life that made me so strongly for this bill. In 1990 or '91 when I was Governor, the Department of Education under President Bush gave us permission in a very small, very poor rural school district to take all of our Federal funds at elementary schools, including the Chapter I funds and some of the special ed funds, and put them together and take class size down to 15 to 1, in a district where the test scores were low and the learning was tough.

And this little district had a formula - they also actually had an idea that even 6-year-olds could be used to teach other 6-year-olds to read and to learn their alphabet and do basic writing.