Remarks at the City Academy in St. Paul, Minnesota

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, May 8, 2000

May 4, 2000

Thank you very much. Well, after Tom and Milo talked, I don't know that I need to say much of anything. I thank you for what you said and for the example you have set. And I want to say a little more about Milo and this school in a moment. I'd like to thank my friend Bruce Vento for not only doing a superb job in representing the people of his community and, indeed, the people of Minnesota in the United States House of Representatives but also being a wonderful friend and adviser to me these last 7 years and a few months. You should be very proud of Bruce Vento. He's a very, very good man. Thank you.

When Lieutenant Governor Schunk told me that she was going to visit every school district in Minnesota, I was wishing I were the Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota. That sounds like a good job to me. I thank you. And Mr. Mayor, thank you for being here today. It's good to see you again, and it's good to be back in your community.

There are a number of other people I would like to acknowledge, and doubtless I will miss some, but I'd like to thank Education Commissioner Jax for being here; and Superintendent Harvey; Majority Leader of the Senate Roger Moe. The mayor of Minneapolis I think is here, Sharon Sayles Belton; former Attorney General Skip Humphrey. I'd like to thank State Senator Ember Reichgott Junge, a longtime friend of mine, and former State Representative Becky Kelso, who were the original cosponsors of the charter school legislation. The Charter Friends National Network director, Jon Schroeder, who drafted the original Federal charter law, which we adopted. The Center for School Change director, Joe Nathan, a longtime personal friend of mine with whom I worked for many years.

And I'd like to acknowledge some people who came on this tour with me, some of whom who have been very active in the charter school movement for a long time: the president of the Progressive Policy Institute in Washington, Will Marshall; the president of the New Schools Venture Fund, Kim Smith; the policy director of the National Urban League, Bill Spriggs; and a longtime friend and city council member from New York City, Guillermo Linares. And they're over here to my right. They've come a long way to be with you, to see this first charter school in the United States. So I hope you'll make them--[applause].

When I was listening to Milo Cutter and Tom Gonzalez talk first about this school, how it got started, what its mission is, and then hearing Tom talk about his life and how his then-girlfriend and present wife got him into this school, it reminded me of all the struggles that I have seen the charter school movement go through throughout the United States and reaffirm my conviction that every effort has been worth it.

There are a lot of people here in this room who have devoted a lot of their lives to trying to help young people in trouble. I was delighted to hear Milo mention Hazel O'Leary's support for this school. She was my first Energy Secretary. And I want to thank, in particular, one person who's made an extraordinary commitment to helping young people lead the lives of their dreams and avoid the lives of their nightmares, my good friend Supreme Court Justice Alan Page, who's out here. Thank you, Alan, for everything you have done.

The idea behind charter schools is that not all kids are the same. They have different needs. They have different environments. But there is a certain common level of education that all kids need, no matter how different they are. And that it would be a good thing to allow schools to be developed which had a clear mission, which could reach out to kids who wanted to be a part of that mission and who could achieve educational excellence for children who otherwise might be left behind or, to use Tom's phrase, might fall through the cracks.

It is true that when I ran for President in 1992, Minnesota had the only public charter school in the country, this one. And so when I went around the country talking about charter schools, most people thought I had landed from another planet, because most people hadn't been here. Most people still haven't been here to this school. But I knew it was an idea that had enormous promise. And some of the people involved in this enterprise have been working with me for years on educational matters when I was the Governor of Arkansas.

I also knew that if Minnesota was doing it, there was a pretty good chance it was a good idea, since the State already had some of the best performing schools in the United States. And I think the State and this community deserve a lot of credit for the general direction of education reform and rising test scores. Minnesota really is about to become Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average. [Laughter] And that's good for you. Good for you.

I'm here today because I want all of America to know about you, and through you, to understand what might be done in other communities with the charter school movement, to give all of our children the education they need and the education our country needs for them to have in a 21st century information economy.