Bill Clinton: “First of all, I just signed a few weeks ago, a couple of weeks ago, the elementary and secondary education act, which…”

“First of all, I just signed a few weeks ago, a couple of weeks ago, the elementary and secondary education act, which changed rather dramatically the way we give Federal money to school districts. And there are a lot of things that it did, but it did three things that may relate to your concerns. First, the bill now says that in seeking to serve educationally disadvantaged kids, that the teachers and the principals at the local school can decide how best to serve them. They don't have to be served by Federal rules and regulations. They don't have to be separated out in a class. You can decide what the best way is to do it. Secondly, there is a special emphasis in this bill on the whole idea of the involvement of parents in education and what has to be done to help the parents do a better job with the students, which I think is important. The third thing it does is to encourage local schools--not the Federal Government, local schools--to decide what basic values of citizenship they want to teach the children, to articulate them, to write them down, and then to teach them, instead of feeling that they can't do that, that they can't build character in their students. But I'd be curious to know--and maybe we don't have time on this program--but I'd be curious to know what things you think we could do to help the parents do a better job who would like to do a better job and aren't sure that they, themselves, know enough to do what they ought to be doing. Mr. Gordon. If I can step in, perhaps we can get someone in your education office that Sheila can speak with, and we'll do that before you leave.”