Bill Clinton: “Thank you very much. Give Carlotta another hand. Didn't she do a good job? [Applause] She was nervous. I told her there…”

“Thank you very much. Give Carlotta another hand. Didn't she do a good job? [Applause] She was nervous. I told her there was nothing to it. She did a great job. Thank you, Carlotta. Thank you, Mr. Poles. I'm very, very glad to be here. I wanted to come here the day after I gave the State of the Union Address last week, but I lost my voice. And as you can hear, I haven't quite gotten it back. But I think I can at least say what I came to say and hopefully answer some of your questions. Every year the President gives the State of the Union Address to report to our whole country on the accomplishments and goals of the country and of the Government. But I came to Kramer this morning because I wanted to say something else. And that is that the future of our Union depends not just on the President and the Congress, on what I do or don't do, it also depends on you, every boy and girl in this school and every person like you all across this country, in the biggest cities, in the smallest towns and all the places in between, on how well you prepare for your life and how well you're able to lead it. That will shape what kind of country America is, and it will affect all the rest of us as well. I think all of you know this, but this school has produced two graduates who are now part of what I do at the White House. And I want to formally introduce them. First, the Assistant Agent-in-Charge of my Secret Service detail, a person in charge of protecting me, Mr. Danny Spriggs. Stand up, Danny. He graduated from this school, went on to the University of New Mexico, and played football for the Dallas Cowboys, and then came back to the Secret Service and progressed through the ranks to his present, very important position. Second, I'd like to introduce one of my very talented White House photographers, also a graduate of this school, Ms. Sharon Farmer. Sharon, where are you? There she is, down in front. She graduated from this school, went on to Ohio State University where she was elected president of the student body, then became a photographer, and is so good at what she does that she is on the staff of the President. I'd also like to tell you that the head of our Secret Service detail, Rich Miller, grew up in this neighborhood. So there was a lot of interest in Kramer. The Secret Service agents every year who protect the First Family give the President and the First Lady a Christmas gift. I don't know what those gifts have been in the past, but this year I got a letter from my Secret Service detail saying that because I had emphasized service so much and worked so hard to pass a national service bill, which gives young people like you the chance to earn some money to go to college by serving in their community, that they wanted their gift to me to be the adoption of this school. They wanted the people on the Secret Service detail to come into this school, to work with the young people, to try to make it a healthy, safe, growing place where you could learn more and where you could have contact with them, some very good people who have led very interesting lives. I can tell you, for my money, it was the best Christmas present I got this year. And I am very, very grateful for it. When these two people who work for me went to this school years ago, our country had some problems then, too; the bigotry, the racism that then existed in our country was more overt than it is now. And they had some hills to climb to achieve what they have achieved in life. In the years since, some of that open injustice has gone away, but all of you know now we have a whole set of new problems, our problems that were maybe there then but are worse now. There are too many neighborhoods where it seems that nobody has a job, too many places where families don't stay together, and too many places where kids are literally at risk of being shot or beat up going to and from school and sometimes in school. To correct this problem we've got to work together. I've got to do my part, and you've got to help, to create safe schools where learning occurs and to make sure that we have the kind of neighborhoods and the kind of futures that all of you deserve. I know that a lot of you have lived with violence. I know you've seen it up close. I imagine some of you have people in your own family who have been hurt. And maybe you know people who have given up on themselves and given up on our country, who've dropped out and are just angry all the time, doing their best to live from day to day, not thinking much about the future. The first thing I want to ask of you is not to give up. Don't give up on yourselves, and don't give up on your country. I very much want you to go to school in safety, where you learn things and can look forward to a brighter and richer future. I want you to feel that you should and that you must stay off drugs and graduate from high school and go beyond. I want you to believe that you can do as much with your life as Danny Spriggs and Sharon Farmer have, or for that matter, that if you work hard and you really care enough about it, you might someday be in the United States Congress like Eleanor Holmes Norton or maybe even be running for President. I came here, more than anything else today, to say I don't want you ever to give up on yourselves. I don't intend to give up on you as long as I am President. I'm going to keep working for better education, safer streets, and a brighter future, but it's for your life. And no matter what I do, I can't live your lives for you. No matter whether we do the right or the wrong things in public life, we can't live your lives for you. You have to do that. Every day you have to decide whether you're going to be here on time with a good attitude, learning as much as you can. Every day you have to decide whether the future is what happens to you 30 minutes from now or what happens to you 10 or 20 years from now. Every day you have to decide what you believe, what you care about, and what kind of person you're going to be. I'm doing what I can to make the future better for you. Even as we are here today, the United States Congress is debating a bill that the Secretary of Education, Secretary Riley, introduced with my administration called Goals 2000. It embodies some ideas I have been working on for years and years, ever since I was a Governor. And I think it's fair to say that I have probably spent more time in public schools like this one all over America, as well as in my own State, than any person ever elected President. I have listened to teachers, I have listened to principals, and I have listened to students, not for just a year but for more than a decade. What this legislation that Congress is debating does is to try to establish what kind of education every child needs in every school. It sets out some goals that will guarantee that if we reach them, all of our young people, wherever they are, whether they come from poor families or middle class families or wealthy families, if their schools work right, they'll be prepared to compete and to win in the 21st century. One of those goals says by the year 2000, every school in America will be free of drugs and violence and will offer a disciplined environment conducive to learning. No one should have to go to school afraid, and no school should operate in a way that makes learning impossible. But the truth is that while we have some legislation up there to make our schools safer, you have a lot to do with what goes on in this school and whether the environment is good for learning. Another goal says that by the year 2000 the high school graduation rate will increase to at least 90 percent. That's the international standard. Another says that every adult should possess the knowledge and the skills needed to get and keep a good job, a job as good as people have in other countries. When I drive up and down streets in some neighborhoods in this country and I see grown people standing on the street without work, it breaks my heart. And I know a lot of them would like to go to work, and I know a lot of them don't get work in part because they don't have a good education. These goals, all of these goals, are critical to your future. I want to start with the last one. When I was your age, the unemployment rate in this country was 3 percent, more or less. When I graduated from high school, I knew a lot of people who dropped out of high school. I mean, that was a long time ago, lots of folks didn't finish school. But I didn't know a soul, black or white, with or without an education, who wanted a job who didn't have one. That's the literal truth when I was 17. That's the economy we had then. That was the reality then. Everybody I knew who was willing to work could find work. Now, that's not true anymore, is it? It's just not true. Today, more than ever before, whether you have a job or not and how much you can earn at the job and what your future is depends upon how much you can learn, not just what you know, but how much you can learn. People who graduate from high school make twice as much as those who don't. Those who get training after high school make more. Those who graduate from college make twice as much again. And those who are willing to learn for a lifetime can deal with the hard truth that the average 18-year-old today will change work seven or eight times over the course of a lifetime. Now, that can be a good deal. You might, if you do it right, live in the most exciting time America has ever known, because the world is changing so fast. You'll get to know people all over the world. By the time you're my age, you'll be routinely calling people around the world with a television screen along with your telephone, you'll be talking to people and there will be instantaneous translation. It will be an exciting time. But it will change so fast that you'll have to be able to learn new things all the time. And you have to decide whether you're going to do that, just like we have to decide whether we're going to give you the tools to do that. I also think that we've got to say, all of us, there's something wrong. I heard the Vice President went to one of the schools here in DC last week, and I don't know if you saw it on television, but one of the students asked him, said, ``How can we send a person to the Moon, and we can't make our schools safe?'' Pretty good question, isn't it? What kind of country is it that can send somebody to the Moon and can't make our schools safe? Well, we've got some legislation in Congress today designed to do that, designed to take guns out of the hands of people who shouldn't have them, to restrict semiautomatic and assault weapons, designed to provide more security for our schools, and designed to give our schools the tools they need; in high violence areas to teach young people to find other ways, nonviolent ways, to resolve their differences, to stop people from thinking about the future as what happens 5 seconds or 30 minutes from now and start thinking about what happens 4 years and 10 years and 20 years from now, building a life, not acting on a violent impulse. We're working on that. What the Secret Service did in adopting this school is also a wonderful thing because, you know, you can see me today and you can ask me questions. And then these good folks in the media, they'll report it all over the country. And a lot of young people like you will identify with what happened. They'll say, ``Well, he didn't come to my school, but at least he came to a school like my school and talked to kids like me.'' But the President can't see everybody. So I hope that my Secret Service detail, by adopting this school, first of all, will make a difference in your life. I hope it will make your education more rewarding, more interesting, and I hope you'll get to know these people because they're good people. And secondly, I hope they will set an example, and all over America now more people will say, ``Well, maybe I ought to go out into the schools. Maybe I ought to help. Maybe I ought to do something for these kids.'' And if that happens, Kramer will have done a great service for young people all across the United States. I want to ask you all, before I open the floor to questions, to think about what I said today. Yes, we need to do a better job in making the streets safer and the schools safer. Yes, we've got to do a better job of creating more jobs so you have some opportunity out there. Yes, we've got to do a better job of giving your schools the tools they need so that you can get the best possible education. But you've got to decide what happens to you. You have to decide whether you're going to give up on you or whether someday you're going to play football for the Cowboys and be in the Secret Service or go off to a fine school like Ohio State and come back and have a job at the White House. You have to make that decision. No President, no politician can make that decision for you. I haven't given up on the young people of this country. I think you are as smart and as good as any generation we have ever produced, and you deserve better, than you are getting. And I am going to try to make your streets safe, your schools better, and the job future better. But you also have to say, ``I am going do the most I can with my life. I'm going to be what God meant for me to be.'' I'll try to keep up my end of the deal, and I want you to keep up yours. Thank you, and God bless you all. Principal Ray Poles. Thank you, Mr. President. At this time, we will have some questions from our student body before the President comes--I would also like to take the opportunity to introduce to you our school board president, Ms. Linda Moody. It was an oversight on my behalf. Thank you, Ms. Moody. We will proceed with the questioning period. You have a mike, okay.”