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This Committee has always had a strong bipartisan commitment to improving education. I want to assure the Chairman and committee members that I will continue to work with you in this spirit of bipartisanship. We are not educating our children as Republicans, or Democrats, or as Independents. Our children are learning as Americans, the future of our country.
Education is a national priority but a state responsibility under local control. I believe strongly in state and local decision making. I have been there as a governor. At the same time, I believe education must be part of our national purpose. Our economic prosperity, our national security, and our nation's civic life have never been more linked to education than they are today as we enter the Information Age of the 21st century.
I am a believer in education. As a governor and now as the U.S. Secretary of Education, I have worked to improve this nation's education system. There is nothing more important to the future of this country. In the decade since the release of the report, "A Nation at Risk," we have come a great distance in redesigning American education for the 21st century. We are not there yet, but we are moving forward. We are making steady progress.
In the last two years, this Committee has demonstrated creative leadership in working to put excellence back into American education. "Far reaching," " unprecedented," and "historic" are some of the words that have been used to describe the bipartisan legislative effort of the last two years.
The Goals 2000 Act; the creation of a new school-to-work opportunity initiative; our new direct lending program; our substantial new investment in technology; refocusing our research arm; and the Safe Schools Act are all part of the federal effort to help state and local decisionmakers move their classrooms forward.
This committee has set a very high standard. I urge the committee to stay on course even as we continue to work with you to improve federal support for local and state reform. We can always do better. I believe if we stay on course we will be doing the right thing for our children and this nation's future.
The American people may be angry or anxious about many things, but they still place a very high value on education. The American public is pro-education. The American people know instinctively that education is the future. Peter Drucker makes this critical point in an ATLANTIC magazine article entitled "The Age of Social Transformation." I cannot emphasize his point enough. In the new, emerging "knowledge society," he writes,
"Education will become the center of the knowledge society, and the school its key institution."
Mr. Drucker's point helps to explain the result of a recent national poll on a proposed balanced budget amendment -- the NEW YORK TIMES/CBS poll published on December 15th. In this poll, people were asked whether they favored a balanced budget amendment. The sentiment in favor of such an amendment was favorable by a very large measure -- 81 percent.
But when the people polled were asked a follow up question -- about whether they favored cuts in education spending for the purpose of balancing the budget -- public support headed South -- to use a phrase. Only 22 percent of the people polled favored balancing the federal budget by cutting spending on education, a drop of 59 percent.
The American people know that we are in a unique time of economic and social transition. If the locus of power in this society is ultimately the self-reliant American and not the government, we ought to recognize that our self-reliance comes largely from education -- and even more so in this new knowledge-driven age in which our children are growing up. I know the American people are prepared to invest in education.
I want to underscore the fact that our future is one of crowded classrooms. We are in the midst of a second baby boom that has gone largely unnoticed and unreported. We anticipate that by 1996, elementary and secondary school enrollment will surpass the previous high set in 1971 by the baby boomers. In the next ten years, an additional 5.9 million children will enter classrooms all across this nation.
Increasingly in the future, high-paying jobs will require both more skills and more knowledge, and different kinds of knowledge and skills -- analytical skills, problem-solving skills, and the ability to use modern technology. Every child must know his or her basics. But in an era where information is exploding all around us, the skills people need will change rapidly; thus, the need for what Mr. Drucker calls the "habit of continuous learning," and what the President has called a "culture of learning."
This is a critical time for American education. Not only are we on the threshold of a new economic age, but we are already under enormous pressure to educate millions of additional children, to teach them not only the basics, but to help them grasp the technology of the future. How we meet these two challenges will determine the future prosperity and economic security of this country.
The passage of the G.I. Bill in 1944, which sent 2.2 million veterans to college, was a clear national recognition that this nation's future economic success was linked to giving as many Americans as possible access to a higher education. Between 1948 and 1973, for example, one-fifth of our nation's GNP was related to access to education.
In the 1990s, the link between education and our nation's future economic competitiveness is just as clear. In 1992, the average annual earnings for those with a bachelor's degree were almost TWICE those of people with only a high school diploma, and more than two-and-a-half times greater than those who had not graduated from high school (Chart 1). In this decade, 89 percent of the jobs being created require some form of post-secondary training.
------------------------------------------------------------------- Chart 1: Average Annual Earnings by Level of Education: 1992 +---------------------------------+ Professional | XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX | $74,560 Doctorate | XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX | $54,904 Master's | XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX | $40,368 Bachelor's | XXXXXXXXXXXXX | $32,629 Associate | XXXXXXXXXX | $24,398 Some College | XXXXXXXX | $19,666 H.S. Graduate | XXXXXXX | $18,737 Not Finish H.S. | XXXXX | $12,809 +---------------------------------+ Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census (1994) -------------------------------------------------------------------
Today, we have a national and international economy, and we live in a truly mobile society. Almost one of ten Americans moves across state lines every five years. A young person educated in Ohio may go to college in Michigan, get married in California, and find a job in Texas. The local quality of education has national implications on employment and economic growth.
Our nation's armed forces also place a higher premium on a quality education. This year, the armed forces will recruit 180,000 young Americans to serve their country. Our military has learned from long experience that having recruits who are highly educated means higher retention rates, reduced training time, and increased productivity -- all of which ensure unit readiness.
Two key facts suggest a powerful rationale for giving every young person access to a high-quality education: about 44 percent of those on welfare are high school dropouts; and 82 percent of all the people locked up in America's prisons and jails dropped out of school as well. If you want to end welfare, and if you want to end the violence and spiritual numbness that grips some of our young people, then I urge this Committee to continue its investment in education.
Responsible citizenship begins with the family. The American family remains the rock on which a solid education can and must be built. Thirty years of research support this conclusion. This is why I have spent much of my effort in the last year encouraging parents to reconnect to the learning process through our "Family Involvement Partnership for Learning."
The national commitment to supporting parents who want their children to be part of the American Dream has led the federal government to make access to a quality education, at all levels, a center point of its support for American education. In many respects, the American middle class is what it is today because of this federal support. This is particularly true with regard to higher education. In the last 20 years, 40 million Americans have received a federal student loan.
At the same time, we also recognized the economic implications of this continuing inequality. An American denied an equal opportunity to a first-class education had little chance of boot-strapping his or her way out of poverty. The 1965 Elementary and Secondary Act (ESEA), especially Title I, sought to raise the academic achievement of poor and disadvantaged students. Since the 1970s, the achievement gap between black and white students has narrowed substantially. Laws to remove gender and disability barriers to educational opportunity are also a reflection of our national commitment to equal opportunity in education.
The national interest in supporting and encouraging the advancement of American education has always been governed by a clear recognition that education is a state and local responsibility. I am a firm believer in the 10th Amendment.
As a former governor, I know first-hand the enormous effort that has been made, and is being made, by our nation's governors and state legislatures, community and business leaders, educators and parents to improve this nation's schools and colleges.
The governors of this nation have been at the forefront of the bipartisan and national effort to improve our schools and to raise academic standards. The process to establish a set of national education goals began at the historic Charlottesville Summit of the nation's governors hosted by then President Bush in 1989.
I am not an advocate of a national exam or the intrusion of the federal government into state and local decision making regarding curricula or, for that matter, any other area of responsibility that can best be done at the state and local level. The great strength of American education, and here I include higher education, is the American tradition of decentralization, public, private and parochial schools existing side-by-side.
Last year, this Committee went to great lengths to pass the Goals 2000: Educate America Act, which is a model of how the federal government can encourage effective local and state reforms without burdensome regulations. We seek to support and encourage; we do not dictate or determine local or state policy.
Massachusetts, for example, is already using its state planning money to support the creation of fourteen charter schools. Kentucky is using its money to encourage parental involvement in Kentucky's on-going reform efforts. Oregon is using its Goals 2000 money to support the OREGON BENCHMARKS, the citizen-based vision of education for the 21st century.
We have made significant reforms in many federal education programs in the last two years -- reforms that were, to my mind, long overdue. I believe in increased flexibility from federal regulations and the broad use of waivers. We have done a great deal of streamlining of this Department's programs, and we will certainly do more.
We have moved away from the 1960s categorical, top-down approach and placed a strong emphasis on flexibility, giving local decisionmakers the power and responsibility to achieve the basics and advanced skills geared to high standards in return for accountability. We believe this shift from "remedial" education to high academic standards is long overdue.
The Goals 2000 Act is a case study of thinking and designing a federal program differently. The short-easy-to-read grant application is a total of four pages. No regulations will be issued for Goals 2000 state and local reform grants. And, in the second year, 90 percent of all funding flows directly to local school districts.
Our new direct lending program is another example of redesigning a federal program to deliver services in new ways to our customers. A financial aid officer at the State University of New York in Brockport said in September that this new program is so much simpler that they have completed awarding aid to 800 more students than at the same time the previous year. I have seen first hand the surprise of students when a school can process a loan, produce a promissory note for them to sign, and transfer funds to them in the same day.
In the last two years, we have worked very hard to improve the management of the Department to respond to Congressional concerns and serious criticisms about our operations. In 1993, the General Accounting Office (GAO) issued a report sharply criticizing the Department's inattention to crucial management issues. We are two years into the process of streamlining how this Department functions. For the first time in our history, we have a strategic plan with clear performance measurements.
I am not averse to change or new thinking, and I look forward to working with new Committee members to understand their concerns and priorities. Our children and the education of students of all ages are too important to be stuck in the same old way of doing things. I believe in public school choice, encouraging charter schools, and supporting experiments in privatization if local school boards feel that is the right way to go.
But I am also aware that the siren call of the new fad -- the hot "silver bullet" solution that will solve all of our problems -- is all too often the great stumbling block to improving American education over the long term. The paradox of education reform is that if we want to "jump start" our young people into this new Information Age, we can really only succeed by taking a step-by- step approach to making our schools and colleges better.
Like the students we are trying to educate, our Nation's schools and colleges need continuity and stability as they push forward toward high standards. This does not imply rigidity, or an adherence to old ways of thinking, or burdensome regulations, but it does imply clear goals, a focus on the essentials of teaching and learning, and a willingness to allow progress to be achieved.
The federal government has a particular obligation to undertake activities that are clearly national in scope. It also has an equally important role in addressing areas of critical national concern. Today those concerns are ensuring our economic and national security and a responsible citizenry. We fulfill these two defining roles in a number of ways.
First, through our statistics, research and dissemination activities, we act as a clearinghouse of good ideas and a catalyst for sound solutions. Second, we support access to college and other post-secondary education to create the middle class of the future -- a truly national activity that also addresses our critical national interests.
Third, we seek to respond to the critical national needs of today by creating partnerships with state and local communities to help students learn to challenging standards. Finally, we are a national voice for excellence and high standards.
In the last two years, with the support of this Committee, we have moved energetically to fundamentally refocus our research capacity to narrow the enormous gulf that sometimes exists between best research and practice -- to understand its customer's information and service needs -- and by connecting our customers to new research through the advanced technology.
In this regard, we have piloted state of the art technology in the award winning AskERIC program and the soon to be released PATHWAYS. PATHWAYS exemplifies the way we are ready to place state of the art knowledge about best practices into the hands of teachers across the country who have access to the Internet.
The Technology for Education Act - Title III of IASA - authorizes $40 million for these efforts. Specifically, $27 million is given over to a Challenge Grant program which funds pathbreaking efforts to use technology in schools and build partnerships between schools and communications and software companies.
We are at a critical juncture in the development of a national telecommunications policy that will have an enormous impact on how we educate children in the coming years. This Congress will, in all likelihood, define this nation's telecommunication policy for the 21st century.
We must guard against a future in which some schools and school districts become islands of excellence because they have access to vast technological resources while others do not. A recent survey of teachers suggests that today, fewer than four percent of classrooms have connections to the Internet. This will surely increase in the years to come, but I am deeply concerned that rural schools and inner-city schools not be left out as we move rapidly into the Information Age.
My ability as the U.S. Secretary of Education to work with the Congress in redesigning this nation's telecommunication policy, and my continuing dialogue with Reed Hundt, the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, have been and will continue to be, in my opinion, one of my most important responsibilities.
Another example of using our research capacity to find solutions worthy of national attention is a new five-year effort working with John Hopkins University and Howard University to determine just how we can help put an end to the cycle of student failure among at- risk youth.
The creation of the American middle class, as I said earlier, reflects a sustained commitment by the federal government, now dating back 50 years, to supporting the American quest for a higher education. The Higher Education Act of 1965 and the creation of the Pell Grant program in 1972, like the 1944 G.I. Bill, have served as springboard to the middle class for millions of Americans.
Between 1964 and 1993, college enrollment nearly tripled (from 5 million to 14 million), the percentage of high school graduates attending college has increased by one-third (from 48 percent to 63 percent), and college enrollment rates for minority students increased by nearly two-thirds (from 39 percent to 62 percent).
Charges at public post-secondary institutions rose from 10 percent of median family income to 14 percent between 1980 and 1991. Charges at private post-secondary institutions rose from 23 percent of median family income to 37 percent between 1980 and 1991. As a result, there has been a substantial increase in student borrowing.
Total borrowing in the Student Loan programs increased by 29 percent between FY 1993 and 1994. The number of loans increased by 19 percent during the same period of time. Seen in that light, the President's proposal in his "Middle Class Bill of Rights" to allow a tax deduction for college tuition makes a great deal of sense for hard-pressed middle-income families that seek the American Dream for their children.
The President's Middle Class Bill of Rights is a sensible and future-driven initiative. The President's plan seeks to hold down the national deficit and encourages us, at the same time, to invest in America's future through education. I urge the Committee to see this positive initiative as a logical extension of our bipartisan efforts of the last two years.
At the same time, we continue to place a strong emphasis on access to higher education through the $6.2 billion Pell Grant program that provides financial aid to 4 million disadvantaged young people. Most Pell recipients are from families earning less than $20,000 a year. Two-thirds of students from families earning less than $10,000 a year and almost half of those with family incomes between $20,000 and $30,000 benefit from student aid. (Chart 2)
------------------------------------------------------------------- Chart 2: Percent of Full-Time Postsecondary Students Receiving Federal Aid by Family Income Percent of Full-Time Students | 60% 56% 47% 33% 26% 21% 13% 8% 80% | | xxx 60% | XXX xxx | XXX XXX xxx 40% | XXX XXX XXX xxx | XXX XXX XXX XXX xxx 20% | XXX XXX XXX XXX XXX XXX xxx | XXX XXX XXX XXX XXX XXX XXX XXX 0% +-------------------------------------------------- <$10,000 | $20- | $40- | $60- | | 30,000 | 50,000 | 70,000 | $10- $30- $50- | 20,000 40,000 60,000 >$70,000 Source: National Postsecondary Student Aid Survey (1990) -------------------------------------------------------------------
I am also encouraged by the support we are receiving from the higher education community for streamlining and improving the federal college loan program. The federal student loan program was badly managed for many years with little accountability to taxpayers. At times, the default rate exceeded 20 percent. In contrast, we believe that when fully implemented, the Direct Student Loan program will save taxpayers a minimum of $4.3 billion and save students $2 billion in interest by 1998.
The task of local educators in the 1990s is to reinvent the American high school, to recognize that a high school diploma is no longer a final end point, but an essential, intermediate step, before moving on to other forms of post-secondary education. The School-to-Work Opportunities Act responds to this need by providing federal funds to state and local partnerships to create a new model of education that links academic programs to work-based learning in high schools and post-secondary institutions.
The creation of the national education goals by our nation's governors and the passage of the Goals 2000 Act last year by the Congress marks, in my opinion, a decisive turning point in the national effort to improve American education.
These two historic acts define education as part of our national purpose in a new and fundamental way. They recognize that the advancement of American education depends on a new partnership between our national government and the various states. They suggest that each level of government -- local, state and federal - - has an important and proper function to play in advancing teaching and learning for this nation's children.
They also recognize that the challenges today are both quality and equality. In today's competitive economy it is essential that every child learn to high standards. Access, equality and excellence are all part of the same piece. They go hand in hand.
I believe that in the past the federal government has been far too prescriptive in dictating to states and local school districts how they should run their schools. The Goals 2000, the reformed Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and the School-to-Work Opportunities Act are based on a new partnership with states and communities that develops a framework to help all students learn to challenging standards.
This new partnership is based on just a few key principles. Our focus must always be on challenging standards and improving student achievement for all students. We must promote flexibility for states, school districts and schools, while ensuring accountability for results.
Broad waiver provisions, whole-school approaches, a Department-wide emphasis on fewer regulations, charter schools, and investing in teams of teachers, parents and school and community leaders to find quality solutions are all elements of a new flexibility. And we seek to invest in those areas that we know are critical to success, such as ensuring that teachers have the skills they need to help children learn to high standards, and ensuring that students have access to technology in the classroom.
The need to do this is most critical in our nation's distressed inner cities and high poverty rural communities. We know, for a fact, that people at the lowest level of literacy are ten times more likely to be in poverty than persons at the highest level of literacy. We also know that the sheer drag of poverty can have a detrimental effect on even the brightest young person in a high poverty school.
More importantly, we now know that changing our expectations of what poor and disadvantaged children can achieve is central to helping them to learn their way out of poverty. Two decades of research tells us that disadvantaged students can learn far more then we generally expect of them. In the 1990's equality and excellence must be seen as one and the same. One cannot happen without the other.
This is why we have made a significant effort to fundamentally shift the direction of Title 1 of the Improving America's School Act, which targets federal support to school districts with high rates of poverty. This is one of our largest programs, close to $7 billion a year, that supports the education of 6 million children.
This is also why we remain committed to working to improve the educational results of the nation's five million students with disabilities. The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, major portions of which will be reviewed by Congress this year, allocates $3 billion through three state grants to support efforts to provide appropriate learning experiences for children and youth with disabilities.
First, the clarion call for raising high school graduation requirements helped inspire and gear our South Carolina effort to substantially increase high school graduation requirements and college entrance requirements. Both resulted in substantial increases in the number of young people going to college and fewer students needing remedial work once in college.
Second, we applied to a one-time federal funding source to develop our statewide partnership and grassroots effort to involve parents, teachers, and education, business and community leaders in both crafting and implementing the actions to improve education in the state. As a result, the support from parents, education organizations, and the public for the South Carolina reform in the 1980s was the highest in the nation.
Third, the Title I program of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that provides extra help to students in the basics served as a model for the development of the South Carolina Basic Skills program for students and schools not served by Title I.
In the decade since Terrel Bell did his good deed for the nation, a new awareness have taken hold of education's central and increasing role in defining our future economic prosperity. Between 1982 and 1990 the percent of high school graduates who completed the core curriculum recommended in " A Nation at Risk" rose from 13 percent to 40 percent. (Chart 3)
------------------------------------------------------------------- Chart 3: Increased Percentages of High School Graduates Who Completed the Core Curriculum Recommended in A Nation At Risk Percent of High School Graduates 60% | | 50% | 13% 40% | 40% | XXXXXXXX | XXXXXXXX 30% | XXXXXXXX | XXXXXXXX 20% | XXXXXXXX | xxxxxxxx XXXXXXXX 10% | XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX | XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX 0% +------------------------------------------------- 1982 1990 Source: National Center for Education Statistics, "The 1990 High School Transcript Study," Washington, D.C., 1993 -------------------------------------------------------------------
Education leaders also have come to recognize that new linkages must be forged between the American business community and every level of education; and that breaking down institutional barriers between secondary education and higher education has to be seen as one of the key ways to increase the pace of reform and change.
The Goals 2000 Act reflects this new awareness that education is a national priority and a new partnership between all levels of government and all levels of education. Sustaining this new partnership ought to be seen as the single most vital task of any Secretary of Education, Republican or Democrat.
To be a national voice for excellence and high standards does not require a Secretary of Education to dominate the debate about the direction of American education. There are many voices in our national education community and they all must be heard. But a Secretary of Education can play a positive role in keeping that debate focused on the essentials and linking the discrete parts of our broad education community to the larger national purposes -- economic success, national security, responsible citizenship, and supporting the basic civil rights of Americans who want to get an education.
The American people know that we are in a new time in the life of this nation. The Industrial era that we grew up in is giving way to something new. If we hold fast to rigid ways of thinking, or if we believe that we can return to a simpler time when education was less important to our economic prosperity we will surely miss the mark altogether.
We need as a nation to commit ourselves to high standards, make our schools havens of order and discipline, recognize that teachers are at the heart of our effort to reach for excellence, reconnect the American family to learning, and find new concrete ways to make sure every student who can make the grade can find a way to pay for college. That, in a nutshell, has been and remains the education agenda of President Clinton.
Thank you.