Remarks to the community at Jackson Mann Elementary School in Allston, Massachusetts

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Feb 8, 1999

And one of the things that I want the American people who aren't here to know and understand is that every single problem in American education has been solved by someone somewhere. And that many of these problems have been solved in schools where, if you didn't know anything about education, you could hardly believe it. Sometimes they're in the toughest neighborhoods; sometimes they have the most limited financial base. But with good principals, good teachers, a good culture in the school, high values, high standards, it is astonishing what I have seen in places where you wouldn't believe it.

The great trick and difficulty in American education is, and the thing that we have not solved, we have not yet figured out how we can accelerate the pace by which all schools do what works in some schools. And I think every teacher here, everyone who has ever been across the country or across the State or maybe even across the city and had experience from school to school would say that that is sort of the nagging challenge.

Part of it, of course, is that all schools are different, all kids are different, all classes are different, all circumstances are different. Part of it is that there are internal resistances to doing what the mayor is now trying to do citywide and the Governor is now trying to do statewide.

That's why this year, our continuing effort to promote educational excellence will be of special importance, because this year we're going to try to do something the National Government has never done before. Every 5 years, we have a great debate in Congress on how we should spend the Federal contribution to our public schools. What are the terms under which the States and the school districts get this money. It is called a reauthorization act, and we're going to have that debate this year.

This year, I am going to ask the Congress, for the first time, to invest more money than ever before in our schools but to invest only in what the schools and the teachers and the parents have told us works and to stop investing in what doesn't work. [Applause] Now, I don't think we should subsidize inadequate performance; I think we should reward results. And sure enough, more people will follow the lead of schools like this one, if it happens.

Now, this may seem self-evident. You all clapped. Believe me, this will be very controversial. After all, there are some people in Congress who don't believe we have any business investing in more - more in public education, because it is a State constitutional function, and in every State most of the money is raised either at the local level or at the State level, but only nationwide about 7 percent of the money comes from the national level, But it's a lot of money. I mean, $15 billion - $15 billion is not chump change. It's real money, and it can make a real difference.

There's more than ever before. Last year we got bipartisan agreement in Congress, after a big debate, to make a big downpayment on 100,000 more teachers in the early grades to help you deal with the problem of more teachers retiring as more kids come in. And the plain evidence is that smaller classes in the early grades make a special difference.