Remarks at Sophie B. Wright Middle School in New Orleans, Louisiana

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Oct 4, 1999

September 27, 1999

Thank you. Thank you so very much. My good friend Congressman Jefferson - I want to say more about him in a minute - and to his wonderful wife, Dr. Andrea Jefferson. Senator Landrieu, thank you for your friendship and support. Mayor Morial, you were very kind to talk about the role that we play in helping to lower the crime rate in New Orleans, but it never could have happened if we hadn't-had a visionary mayor down here who made the most of the policies that were there.

Colonel Davis, thank you for taking on the challenge of educating the children of this parish. To Gail Glapion, thank you very much for what you said. And Scott Shea, thank you. And Brenda Mitchell, the leader of our teachers, and especially to our principal, Charlotte Matthew, thank you for leading this school and for making me feel so welcome here.

And I want to say a special word of thanks to all the people of Louisiana. As Congressman Jefferson said, in 1992 and 1996 you gave your electoral votes to Bill Clinton and Al Gore, and we are profoundly grateful, and we've tried to be worthy of them.

I also want to thank the McDonogh High School Band. I want to thank them for being here. The rest of you are hot - they're in those band uniforms. I used to be in one, and I know how hot they are. And I want to thank them for being here.

One other thing I'd like to say about this school, I want to compliment this school on your school uniforms. I like them, and I'm glad so many schools in this parish have them. I've been trying to promote them all across America for years now, and I thank you for that.

You know, folks, I may have visited more schools than any President in history. I've certainly tried to. And I have never met a child that couldn't learn or a school that couldn't do better and be turned around. There is a student standing behind me, and I don't want to embarrass her, but I want her to raise her hand - named Nonya Grove, who scored at the 95th percentile on the science portion of the Iowa basic skills test. Good for you.

Let me tell you, too, I have been in schools in all kinds of places - I've been in schools - I went to a junior high school in Chicago in a neighborhood with the highest murder rate in the city, which was, therefore, the highest murder rate in the State. But there was no violence in the school; there were no weapons; there were no problems. Hundreds of parents came to the school every week, and there were no dropouts, and almost all the kids went on to college. Why? Because they had a good plan, and they worked it hard. And they believe that all kids could learn.

Now, the Federal Government does have an obligation to help you. And I want to thank Senator Landrieu and Congressman Jefferson and Senator Breaux and the others in your delegation and our party who have supported what we have tried to do to help the States, to help the States adopt higher academic standards in the Goals 2000 program, to help them crack down on drugs and gangs and violence. And last fall we fought to get a downpayment on 100,000 new highly trained teachers to lower those class sizes in the early grades, as Congressman Jefferson wants to do.

Already 108 more teachers have been hired in this parish. And your parish got $12 million under the E-rate program that the Vice President developed - have cut the cost of hooking up every classroom in America to the Internet by the year 2000.

Now, what we've done in education is a part of an overall strategy to bring America back. We balanced the Federal budget and have a surplus of $115 billion this year.

When I took office, we were deep in debt 7 years ago, and we had high unemployment rates, high welfare rates, and high crime rates. We were committed to economic reform, welfare reform, reform of the criminal justice system, and education reform. Now we've got the longest peacetime expansion in history, over 19 million new jobs, the lowest unemployment rate in 29 years, the lowest welfare rolls in 32 years, the lowest crime rate in 26 years, the first time we've had two budget surpluses in a row in 42 years, when I was young enough to be in this school.

The question is, what are we going to do with our prosperity? You know we've got a lot of challenges out there. And you know as well as I do that the modern economy requires more education from all people. We've got the largest student population in the history of our country, and we will never do what America ought to do until every child in America can live up to his or her God-given potential.

Last week the congressional majority in the other party in the House unveiled an education budget that was $3 billion below what I asked for - no money to finish hiring the 100,000 teachers; no money to help modernize or build 6,000 schools - I know you need that now. We need - it can be hot out here, but every school ought to be air-conditioned in Louisiana, and I know they're not. It would deny access to hundreds of thousands of children to after-school programs, so important to improving learning and keeping that juvenile crime rate down - keep kids in school, off the street, and out of trouble - that's very important - and many other programs.