Bill Clinton: “I'd like to leave everyone with this one final point--and then I'd like to call on the Vice President to close the…”

“I'd like to leave everyone with this one final point--and then I'd like to call on the Vice President to close the meeting--to tie something together that Secretary Riley talked about and what Lydia Perez-Howard and what Carmen Cortez said about the students, and obviously what Delaine said earlier, and going back to something Jim Barksdale said about how everything that he's involved in, he has to meet standards. I think it's important to make a distinction over and over again about what the difference is between what we propose here and what tests are in the classroom normally. We are striving for what you would call in manufacturing a zero-defect result, which means we want to set high standards that will guarantee 100 percent of the children, whether they graduate at the top of their class or at the bottom or somewhere in the middle, that they'll still have what they need to go on with their lives and make a success of it and to make our country strong. Which means that, in a given class, a student could make the highest grade in the class, but if the student doesn't achieve the standards, it's still not good enough. And in another class, even a student who might have the lowest grade in the class would still be a good, successful, performing learner and know that he or she can have a good future and has been given a good education. That is the important thing. Furthermore, these examinations are not being given to label anybody a failure but to give everybody a benchmark on which they can build to success. Of course, not everybody will do well the first time they're given, but we have to know what the benchmark is. We have to know what the roadmap is. But I just want to emphasize that again. If parents have the attitudes that we heard from Lydia, if teachers have the attitude we heard from Carmen, and States have the leadership that we heard from Delaine, from John Doerr, from all the folks out in San Jose today, we can achieve virtually a zero-defect society from an educational point of view and give our children the future they need. And especially States that are on the cutting edge of the future, both in terms of being highly pluralistic and having those new jobs of tomorrow, places like California, will be the greatest beneficiaries. So I think it's important that we go out there and talk about this, so that everyone understands exactly what we mean. These are different from what most people think of as classroom tests, and we need to hammer that home. We believe all these kids can clear the bar, and we're determined to see that they do it.”