Bill Clinton: “I think there are two major barriers, from what I've heard. The first is a political one; the second one is a deeply…”

“I think there are two major barriers, from what I've heard. The first is a political one; the second one is a deeply personal one, almost. The political one is sometimes when people say ``national standards''--and Secretary Riley and I have to deal with this all across America--when people say ``national standards,'' they say, ``I don't want the Federal Government setting standards for my school.'' That is not what this is about. All the Federal Government proposes to do is to fund the development of the tests to measure whether the standards are being met. The National Assessment of Education Progress tests, which you participate in, was developed by educators, academics, and other experts. The Federal Government is not running this test. We are not telling you that you have to participate in it. The whole thing is voluntary. But I believe every State will want to be a part of it when it is obviously a process that has integrity, that will help our children. So the first thing is we have to tell people, this is not some attempt of the Federal Government to take over your schools. We have done a lot in our administration to get rid of a lot of the Federal rules and regulations associated with grant programs, to try to give local school districts more flexibility as long as they were developing academic standards that they could hold themselves accountable for. That's the first thing. The second thing--big problem, I think, is it's scary. It's personal. You're afraid. What happens if you take it, and you don't do very well? And I think the important thing there is that we are not--we want all of our children to take it, but we're not necessarily trying to identify the specific score of every student, but we want the schools and the classes to see how they're doing so they can lift the students up. I don't want anybody's score published in the paper or anything like that. This is not an instrument of failure; it's an instrument of accountability and a pathway to success. But I can tell you, when you look at other countries with which we're competing for the high-wage jobs of tomorrow--huge issue in West Virginia, now, for years--I was looking at the topography of West Virginia, which looks like about half of Arkansas, you know, all these mountains and how beautiful it is. For years, it made it hard for you to diversify your economy. You had coal in the ground, but it was hard for people to get here and do other things, and it slowed up the diversification of your economy and kept your wage levels too low. The explosion of technology will mean that many kinds of work can be done anywhere in America and anywhere in the world. And it both gives you an enormous new opportunity but a much higher responsibility to lift your education level. So we've got to get people over the idea that they have to be scared of how this thing comes out. No matter how bad it is, once you get a roadmap, it will be better next year, and it will be better the year after that. And all the evidence is that children do better with higher expectations. To me those are the two things. If you can confront those two things head on, go out here and tell the citizens of West Virginia the Government is not trying to run a testing program and take over your schools, number one; and number two, don't be scared of how it comes out, because it's going to make us better in the long run. Mr. Kittle. Okay. Time for the next question. Let's take one from this group over here. [A participant asked if schools would receive increased funding for reading specialists at the elementary school level.]”