Bill Clinton: “Well, as you know, back when you and I were both Governors, we spent a lot of time working on our public schools, and we…”

“Well, as you know, back when you and I were both Governors, we spent a lot of time working on our public schools, and we tried to be very candid with our people in saying that a lot of these things were going to take some time to materialize. I had a hand in writing the national education goals that the Governors drafted, along with representatives of President Bush's administration back in 1989. And what we're going to try to do this year with your leadership is to introduce legislation in Congress that will actually define the things that the National Government ought to do to try to help the local schools and the children of this country and the adult learners, too, meet those goals: making sure that by 2000, people show up for school ready to learn; that we get a 90 percent on-time high school graduation rate; that children at the 4th, 8th, and 12th grades are confident in the subjects they're supposed to know; that they are second to none in math and science; that our schools are safe, disciplined, and drug-free. And of course, the fifth goal--I took them out of line to say this the last--is that we have a system of lifelong learning in this country. And each one of those goals, there's a national role, a State role, a school role, school district role, and a private sector role. And what you've attempted to do in this bill you're going to introduce with me in the next few weeks is to define what our job is and then to give the rest of America a way of defining what their job is and seeing whether we're actually meeting the standards of quality that we need to meet. It's very exciting. So far as I know, nothing quite like it has ever been done in the form of Federal legislation before. Not mandating and telling people what they have to do with their money, but actually setting up a framework for excellence and partnerships so that we can do our job. I'm really excited about it. [Secretary Riley and Secretary Reich discussed the development of national skills standards. Mayor Bruce Todd of Austin, TX, then asked a question via satellite about Federal initiatives for school-to-work transition programs.] Secretary Riley. Mr. President.”