CHICAGO--(Business Wire)--Horace Greeley Elementary School
10:46 A.M. CST
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all. Please be seated. Thank you very
much for coming. I am so honored to be at Horace Greeley. People say,
why would you want to come to Horace Greeley? Because it's a center of
excellence. It's a place for this country to realize what is possible
when you have a good principal, that's supported by the community,
when you've got teachers who work hard and students willing to learn.
Coming with me today is the Secretary of Education, Margaret
Spellings. Madam Secretary, I'm honored you're here. She's -- she and
I share the same philosophy. It starts with our refusal to accept
school systems that do not teach every child how to read and write and
add and subtract, and our firm belief that local folks can figure out
the best way to chart a path to excellence.
I'm proud that Congressman Rahm Emanuel is here. Mr. Congressman,
thank you. As you know, we're from different political parties.
(Laughter.) But we share a common concern, and that is doing what's
right for America. Both of us understand that educational excellence
is not a partisan issue; it is an issue that is important for the
future of this country. So, Congressman, I'm proud you're here.
I'm also proud to be here with His Honor, Mayor Daley. I've come
to know the Mayor over seven years of being your President. The first
thing I learned about him, it's better to have him for you than
against you when you run for office. (Laughter.) He loves his city,
and he's, in my judgment, one of our nation's best mayors. He also has
taken advantage of a reform that gave mayors the capability of setting
the tone and the pace for education in our big cities. Some of the
best reforms in America have taken place when the mayor has taken the
lead and, Mr. Mayor, you have certainly taken the lead.
And I'm proud of your passion. I can remember visiting with you
earlier on about education, before No Child Left Behind came into
being, and the Mayor had this strong sense and strong feeling that
this country needed to do something differently if we wanted to make
sure every child got a good education.
I'm proud to be here with Rufus Williams. He's a Chicago Board of
Education man. I appreciate you being here, Rufus. And I also want to
thank Arne Duncan. These two men are very much involved in making sure
that if something is working, it is enhanced; and if something is not
working, it is changed for the sake of our children. Every good
school-- every school that succeeds -- by the way, it's a Blue Ribbon
School. So I asked Margaret -- like, I remember coming up, everybody
was a blue ribbon school. I don't know if you remember those days. It
was kind of a feel-good era. Just say, okay, you're a blue ribbon
school, and everybody feels better about education.
There's less than 300 Blue Ribbon schools across America this
year. I think -- what did you say, thirteen --
SECRETARY SPELLINGS: Two hundred and thirty nine public.
THE PRESIDENT: Two hundred thirty nine public schools are Blue
Ribbon Schools, and maybe a dozen here in the state of Illinois. This
is one of the Blue Ribbon Schools. It's a Blue Ribbon School because
it's excelling. It's meeting standards. And one of the reasons is,
it's got a fine principal in Carlos. I'm proud to be with you, Carlos.
Carlos understands that we have got to set high standards for our
children and work with the teachers to achieve those standards.
I was honored to go to some of the classes. It was -- it's
exciting to go back to the classroom. One of my messages is to the
teachers: America can't thank you enough for teaching. It's truly
important to -- for our teachers to be thanked. It's also important
for parents to be involved, and for those of you who are parents,
thank you for being here today.
Tomorrow is the 6th anniversary of the day that I signed the No
Child Left Behind Act into law. And since that day we've come a long
way, fewer students are falling behind. People are beginning to get
used to the notion that there's accountability in the public school
system. Look, I recognize some people don't like accountability. In
other words, accountability says if you're failing, we're going to
expose that and expect you to change. Accountability also says that
when you're succeeding you'll get plenty of praise.
I think it's -- I know No Child Left Behind has worked. And I
believe this country needs to build upon the successes. The philosophy
behind No Child Left Behind was in return for money there ought to be
results. It's pretty commonsensical it seems like to me. That's what
the Mayor asks when he is running his city. That's what corporations
ask -- if we're going to spend money, are we going to get a return on
the money? That's what our schools ought to be asking, too.
In other words, in return -- and I -- you know, I was -- I was an
old governor of a state. I didn't particularly like it when the
federal government got involved with my business. I felt Texas could
pretty well handle it on her own. On the other hand, I recognize that
if we're spending federal money, that we ought to be held to account
for that money. And there's some federal money involved in education,
and it makes sense for those of us in Washington to say, sure, we'll
spend it, but we want to make sure that that money is being spent for
a good reason. And there's no better reason than to teach every single
child how to read, write and add and subtract.
And so we have set standards; expectations. And by the way, I
believe if you have low expectations, you're going to get lousy
results. As a matter of fact, I know that's what's going to happen.
But if you have high expectations, it's amazing what can happen.
This school, Horace Greeley, set high expectations. It's easy to
set low expectations, you know. It's easy to consign a whole group of
students to mediocrity. That's the easy way out. What No Child Left
Behind says is that we're going to take the hard way. We're going to
set high standards, and then we're going to measure to determine
whether or not those standards are being met. It's really important to
measure. It's also important to disaggregate results, which is like a
fancy word for we want to know whether or not each student is
learning. We want to make sure that no child is left behind.
Horace Greeley measures, and they measure for a reason. They want
to know, first of all, whether or not the curriculum is working,
whether or not the instruction is working. And they also want to know
whether or not they can -- they need to tailor specific programs to
meet the needs of specific children. One reason this school is a Blue
Ribbon School, it is not afraid of accountability. It views the
accountability system as a tool to enhance excellence. And so do I.
Now the other thing that's important is, is that the
accountability system allows each school to know where it stands
relative to another school. You know, from my time as governor, I can
remember parents saying, oh, my school is doing just fine; I like my
school, Governor. And then all of a sudden, the test scores came out
-- sometimes a school wasn't doing just fine. Sometimes -- not
"sometimes," all the time, accountability lays out the truth. There's
nothing better, in my judgment, to making sure that we have a educated
workforce, and everybody has a hopeful future, than to just lay out
some simple truths.
And one of the simple truths is, can this child read at grade
level at the appropriate time. That's a simple truth. Another one is,
can the person add and subtract at the appropriate time, and if so,
we'll say thank you. And if not, the system ought to say, we better
change early, before it's too late.
I found too often that in some schools, like in my state, it was
just easy to move them through, you know; let's just shuffle people
through. That's why -- I can remember somebody standing up and saying,
No Child Left Behind Act is really one of the civil rights -- it's a
civil rights piece of legislation, because this person was sick and
tired of the day when people were just moved through the school
system, without wondering whether or not the child could read and
write and add and subtract.
Test results are all a part of making sure we achieve a great
national goal, and that is, every child be at grade level by 2014. The
other thing it does is, as you measure, it lets us know how we're
doing as a nation. There's an achievement gap in America that's just
not acceptable. That means Anglo students are more proficient at
reading than Latinos or African Americans; it's just not acceptable
for our country. It's an indication to me that there is something
wrong, and it needs to be addressed now.
And so -- but we measure for that reason. We want to know whether
or not this nation is going to be competitive, and whether or not it's
going to be hopeful. And the achievement gap said, here's a problem.
But the good news is, is that because of high standards and
accountability throughout this country, the achievement gap is
closing. We have what's called a National Report Card. One of
Margaret's jobs is to herald the successes or failures of the National
Report Card. Eighth graders set a record high for math scores last
year. Our 4th graders are -- more and more 4th graders are learning to
read at grade level. Scores for minority and poorer students are
reaching all-time highs in a number of areas, and the achievement gap
is closing. If we didn't measure we wouldn't know, we'd be just
guessing, and it's not worthwhile to guess when a child's future is at
stake.
The other thing that's interesting about measurement is that when
you find a problem there will be resources like after-school tutoring
to help a child address those problems. And it's important to do this
early, rather than late. People who have been involved in education
can tell you that a school system that doesn't test and doesn't
measure oftentimes wakes up at the end of the process and says, we
need remedial education as the child heads into high school, or out of
high school. That's just not acceptable anymore. The world is too
competitive to have a lax system in place. And we don't now, with No
Child Left Behind.
And so now is the time for Congress to reauthorize it. I'm sure a
lot of people look around the country and say it's impossible for
Congress and the President to work together. I strongly disagree. We
worked together to get the bill written in the first place, and I
believe we can work together to get it reauthorized. If it's not
reauthorized, then I've instructed our Secretary to move forward on
some reforms or to analyze reforms that she can do through the
administrative process. If Congress passes a bill that weakens the
accountability system in the No Child Left Behind Act, I will strongly
oppose it and veto it, because the act will continue on -- in other
words, this act isn't expiring, it just needs to be reauthorized.
And what are some of the things we can do? Margaret has been
listening to members of Congress, but equally importantly, she's been
listening to governors and local school boards. We need to increase
the flexibility for our states and districts. We don't want the No
Child Left Behind Act to be viewed as something that hamstrings
innovation. There ought to be flexibility in the system. We're going
to provide help for struggling schools -- extra help. We want to make
sure that a high school degree means something. We don't want people
getting out of high school and it's not meaning something.
She's been talking with members of Congress to give schools credit
for growth and achievement that individual students make from year to
year -- in other words, flexibility in the accountability system
without undermining the core principle of accountability. We're going
to implement a more accurate system for measuring high school drop-out
rate, and make it easier for our students to enroll in the tutoring
programs. There are things we can do, and must do, by working
together.
I am optimistic about the country because I come to places like
Horace Greeley Elementary School: a little center of excellence; a
place where, you know, some might say, well, these kids can't possibly
achieve such high standards. But, in fact, they are. This is a school
that's got a significant number of Latinos who families may not speak
English as a first language. This is a school where there's some newly
arrived to our country here. This is a school that is exceeding
expectations because of high standards and using the accountability
system as a tool to make sure that no child is left behind.
It is my honor to be with you. Thank you for letting me come and
share our philosophy about how to achieve educational excellence for
every student. God bless. (Applause.)
END 11:01 A.M. CST
White House Press Office
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Copyright Business Wire 2008
