Bill Clinton: “Good for you. Okay. The answer is yes, but most of them don't. And let me tell you why--the answer is yes, they do. We…”

“Good for you. Okay. The answer is yes, but most of them don't. And let me tell you why--the answer is yes, they do. We emphasize more funds and more efforts in math and science education, for example. And I have asked the Congress to give the Education Department some funds that will enable us to target learning strategies in elementary and jun- ior high and high school that work, and try to get schools to repeat them. Do you know that every problem in American education has been solved by somebody, somewhere? I mean, this is not like looking for a cure for some disease we haven't found a cure for yet. What we are not good at in American education is taking what works in one place and putting it in place another. So the two major things are, we're trying to repeat education strategies that have given young people in the sixth grade great performance in some places; we want to try to put them in all the schools in the country. And secondly, we're going to make a special effort on math and science education. Now, let me answer the other question. Most of the funds that I have recommended in education, most of the effort will be going to try to make sure kids get off to an equal start in school: fully funding the Head Start program, supporting schools and their preschool programs, trying to make sure that child nutrition and child health care is good, and then when children leave school, trying to make sure that they have a vocational program, a job training program, a college program to go to. Why? Because over 90 percent of the cost of the public schools, kindergarten through 12th grade, comes from the State and local level. I can have an impact on your education only if we focus on a few issues where we can really help, like how do you get more computers in schools, how do you do better with math and science. But most of the money comes from the State and local level. Whereas, a lot of what we have to do for children before they start school and after they graduate from high school has to come from the national level, and that's why we do it that way. Thank you very much. You were great.”