Remarks to the UNITY: journalists of color convention and a question-and-answer session

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, August 9, 2004

August 6, 2004

The President. Thank you, Ernest. Thank you for having me. I appreciate the invitation. It's good that--Ernest tells me that there's nearly 10,000 members of your organization. I congratulate you for reaching out and including a lot of people. You represent a very important profession. It's one that I'm quite familiar with. [Laughter]

I appreciate the chance to--I deal with my press corps on a regular basis. It's a beneficial it's a mutual beneficial society, see. I need them to get the message out, and they need me to be a messenger. And we're working hard to make sure that our relationship is cordial and professional. And that's how I feel about coming here too--to establish a cordial and professional relationship with people who help spread the news.

You believe there ought to be diversity in the newsroom. I understand that. You believe there ought to be diversity on the editorial pages of America. I agree. You believe there ought to be diversity behind the managing editor's desk. I agree with that too. I also believe there ought to be diversity in the political parties in America, and that's why I'm going to work hard to tell people my message, to tell people what I believe. And I believe that Government should stand side by side with people and help them gain the tools necessary to realize the American Dream, not just some people but everybody.

I believe those of us who have been given the high honor of representing the people must work to reform parts of Government that are stagnant and don't stand side by side with people to give them the tools necessary to perform. I believe it's more important to be a doer than a talker. I believe it's important to say to people, "Judge me by my results." And so today I want to talk about some of the results of this administration, and then I look forward to answering some of your questions.

First, I want to thank the board of directors of this august organization. Thank you for having me. Thank you for greeting me behind stage. I want to thank the sponsor for providing the opportunity for people from all around the globe to come here--all around the country--to come here to talk about important issues.

I think one--you know, look, you can't read a newspaper if you can't read. And so one of the most important initiatives of this administration was to challenge the soft bigotry of low expectations. You know what I mean by that. If you lower the bar, guess what happens? You get lousy results. And that's the way it was in American public schools 3 1/2 years ago. That's why you had kids just shuffled from grade to grade, year to year, without learning the basics of education. That's the way it was, because there was no accountability. See, we weren't measuring.

If you believe that every child can learn to read and write and add and subtract, which I believe, then you must be willing to measure to determine whether or not the children are learning to read and write and add and subtract. No, here in this Capital there's a lot of focus on funding but very little focus on the result. We increased for funding for K through 12 by 49 percent since 2001. We increased funding for Title I by 52 percent since 2001. But now, in return for increased funding, we're saying to local districts, show us whether or not a child can read, early, before it's too late. We're measuring.

And when there are schools that aren't teaching, there's extra help to make sure the children learn early, before it's too late. We've raised the bar. We believe in local control of schools, and we're insisting on accountability. And you know what? It's beginning to work.

There is a reading gap in America. We can play like there's not a reading gap in America, but there is. Too many of our African American kids cannot read at grade level by the 3rd and 4th grade, and that's not right for America. Too many Latino youngsters can't read. And one of the reasons why is because it's so easy to quit on a classroom full of inner-city kids and kids whose parents maybe can't speak English as a first language. It's easy to walk in and say, "These kids are too hard to educate, let's just move them through." We've stopped the practice in America, and the schools are better off for it.

I'll tell you one other thing we've done, which I think is important, is we've started the process of giving parents more choice in schools. If your public school fails after a period of time, you ought to be allowed to move your child to another school. Why should a parent have their child trapped in a school that won't change? That doesn't make any sense to me.

Here in the District of Columbia, we've given $7,500 scholarships to the parents of low-income children so that they can move their kid from school to school--to another school if the public school is failing. I appreciate working with the Mayor of this city. See, my attitude is, if public--or school choice is good enough for the middle class and the upper class, it ought to be good enough for low-income Americans. And this is going to make a difference in Washington, DC.