Remarks in a discussion at Parkersburg south high school in Parkersburg, West Virginia

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, May 17, 2004

And we're making progress. The reading scores in West Virginia are up. That's really good news. It means the teachers are doing what we expect, and they're working hard, by the way. Being a teacher is a difficult profession, and we need to praise our teachers and thank our teachers.

The test scores are up. That must make everybody feel better. It should. And the reason I can say that is because we're measuring. See, if you don't measure, you say, "I think the test scores are up," or "Maybe the test scores are up." You don't know unless you measure. We're measuring, and the results are good.

But let me tell you a statistic that troubles me: 68 of 100 ninth graders nationwide, only 68 will go to college. We ought to have a goal that says every child, every high school student, finishes high school and is capable of finding a job or capable of going on to college. That ought to be the goal.

And so what we're going to talk about today is not how to make sure elementary school children can read but to make sure that the high school programs raise the bar, intervene when necessary, make sure that money is spent wisely, so that we're educating children that have got the capacity to take over the jobs of the 21st century. And there's some practical things we can do.

First, there needs to be intervention programs for junior high and high school kids who have been shuffled through without the capacity to read. And we've got a program called Striving Readers Initiative, which is an intervention program based on a curriculum designed out of the University of Kansas, by the way, and it works. And I would urge the good folks of the--the planners here in West Virginia to access the Federal monies that I'm asking Congress to spend on making sure that at the very minimum, a kid has got the capacity to read before they get out of high school.

See, if you can't read, these jobs of the 21st century are going to go begging. If you don't have the capacity to at least read, it's going to be impossible for you--not totally impossible, nearly impossible to get the high-paying, high-productivity jobs that are now being created in America.

Secondly, we need to make sure we get more math and science graduates. It's really important that we emphasize math besides literacy, math and science--and we're going to talk a little bit about that here in a minute--because math and science programs will be necessary to make sure the skill level is good enough for these new jobs that are being created, that people will be able to fill those jobs as well. And so I've got a plan that provides Federal grants to develop teaching programs, in other words, help schools develop effective math teaching programs.

Thirdly, we need an adjunct teacher program to encourage professionals and experts from math and sciences to teach in other words, once somebody has finished their career or maybe is looking for a career adjustment, to allow them and encourage them to get in the classroom to spread their skills. We need engineers teaching in high schools. We need scientists teaching in high schools. We need people who have been in the military that have had some engineering experience to come out and teach in high schools. And we--I'm asking Congress to pass a $40 million program to encourage the recruitment and training of such teachers.