Bill Clinton: “Before I go, I just want to talk about the standards issue. You should all understand, the good news is schools are…”

“Before I go, I just want to talk about the standards issue. You should all understand, the good news is schools are getting better. They're getting better. The troubling news is they are not getting better uniformly, and the United States is the only major country that has no national academic standard--not Federal Government standard, not federally enforced but just a national measurement--so that every parent, every teacher, every school can know how kids are doing. The more diverse we get within our country and the more we compete with people around the world, the more we need some common standard. And that's the biggest fight we've got going in Washington right now in terms of what will really affect our children's future. So I hope you'll all talk about this. Governor Romer is not only in better voice, he knows more about it than I do. But we've been fighting for this for 10 years, and it's crazy that we haven't done it. So I hope we can rally our party behind it. Thank you.”