Bill Clinton: “Let me just--I'd like to emphasize what Carmen said-- the most important thing she said. Keep in mind now, here's…”

“Let me just--I'd like to emphasize what Carmen said-- the most important thing she said. Keep in mind now, here's somebody who has been teaching our children for 30 years. I am so sick and tired of people assuming on the front end that children's learning is limited because of their racial, their ethnic, or their income background or whether they live in some poor rural area or some isolated inner city. Their conditions create greater hurdles for them. We should clear away the hurdles, but we should not lower our expectations. When we lower our expectations of those kids, we're selling them down the river; we are not doing our jobs as adults. It is our job to be the shepherds for their future, to bring them into a better future. To me, the most important thing that's been said here today by anybody is a person who has been an educator for 30 years saying that ``When I have high expectations for these children, I find that they meet those expectations.'' And I think that's important. I think we ought to hear from the parent who is here, too. We have Lydia Perez-Howard, parent of a third grade daughter who attends Cleveland Elementary School in Pasadena, California. She's the vice president of the PTA and active on the school advisory council and the neighborhood strengthening project. And I'd like to ask her to talk about how she feels about this whole standards movement and her daughter's future and how it will affect it. [The discussion continued.]”