George H.W. Bush: “Thank you, Dr. Walker, and all of you for taking your time. But what I wanted to do is just say a couple of brief…”

“Thank you, Dr. Walker, and all of you for taking your time. But what I wanted to do is just say a couple of brief remarks and then listen to you. Tomorrow there's a report coming out on the schools. It's an NAEP report. I think it will be announced by the Education Department. And it's got some troubling statistics in it, conclusions in it about kids: too much television; not enough reading, parents reading to the kids, kids doing reading. And I just wish Barbara were here because she spends a great deal of her life encouraging families to read together and teachers and kids to read together. But this report is going to say that we've got a long way to go. Having said that, I am told that this school sets a pretty darn good example for the rest of the State, community, and Nation really in terms of parental involvement, which we think is absolutely funda- mental, and also in terms of teacher-kid relationship. So what I want to do is to hear from you as to how you think it's working. We think in America 2000 we have a good, strong education program. It puts emphasis on school choice. When I got out of the Navy a jillion years ago--it's on my mind because I was at the Naval Academy graduation today; did not go there, but when I got out of the service we had the GI bill. You could choose whether you wanted to go to whatever school. Similarly, in some of the grant programs for higher education you can choose. We think choosing public, private, religious schools makes all schools better. Competition never hurt anything. And we think it is a good way to go. So choice is a part of our America 2000 program. And then part of it is simply, in a revolutionary way, redesigning American education. But not dictating from Washington: Say here's a community; you come up with what you think is best for your community. Here's an urban area, and you all decide what you think is best. And so this is our approach, and we've got a great Secretary of Education, Lamar Alexander. Dr. Roger Porter, over here, is with me in the White House, is an expert on not only what we're trying to do but I think on American education. So if you ask me questions I can't answer later on in the question-and-answer period, I'll just simply turn to Roger. But I'm told that it works for you, that you're getting good results. And I'd like to know from all of you, board members, students, whether that conclusion is correct, and if so, why. Jim--I met your headmaster down there. I don't know whether we have an order here, but maybe he's a good one to start it off. [A participant said that competition is good for education, as demonstrated in Japan.]”