textfiles-politics/politicalTextFiles/educ.txt

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             CLINTON/GORE ON EDUCATION



Government fails when our schools fail.  For four
years we've heard a lot of talk about the Education
President but we've seen little government action
to invest in the collective talents of our people.
It's time for a change.

Millions of our children go to school unprepared to
learn.  The Republicans in Washington have promised
but never delivered full funding for Head Start, a
proven success that gives disadvantaged children
the opportunity to get ahead.  And while states
move forward with innovative ideas to bring parents
and children together, Washington fails to insist
on responsibility from parents, teachers, students
or from itself.

Putting people first demands a revolution in
lifetime learning because education today is more
than the key to climbing the ladder of economic
opportunity; it is an imperative for our nation.
Bill Clinton and Al Gore will invest in our people
at every stage of their lives.  They will put
people first by dramatically improving the way
parents prepare their children for school, giving
students the chance to train for jobs or pay for
college, and providing workers with the training
and retraining they need to compete and win in
tomorrow's economy.

Parents and children together

*    Inspire parents to take responsibility and
     empower them with the knowledge they need to
     help their children enter school ready to
     learn; help disadvantaged parents work with
     their children to build an ethic of learning
     at home that benefits both.

*    Fully fund programs that save us several
     dollars for every one spent -- Head Start, the
     Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program and
     other critical initiatives recommended by the
     National Commission on Children.

Establishing tough standards

*    Work with educators, parents, business leaders
     and public officials to create a set of
     National Standards for what students should
     know.

*    Create a National Examination System to
     measure our students' and schools' progress in
     meeting the National Standards.

*    Achieve the 1989 Education Summit's "National
     Education Goals" by the year 2000: every child
     should begin school physically and mentally
     ready to learn; our high school graduation
     rate should rise from 71 percent to 90
     percent, the current international standard;
     and students should be knowledgeable in math,
     science, language, history and geography when
     they graduate high school.

Reforming our schools

*    Reduce the education gap between rich and poor
     students by increasing Chapter One funding for
     low-income students and giving schools greater
     flexibility to spend money in ways they think
     most effective, such as reducing class sizes
     in early grades.

*    Grant expanded decision-making powers at the
     school level -- empowering principals,
     teachers and parents with increased
     flexibility in educating our children.

*    Support better incentives to hire and keep
     good teachers, including alternative
     certification for those who want to take up
     teaching as a second career and differential
     pay to attract and retain educators in
     shortage areas like math and science, in urban
     schools, and in isolated or rural areas.

*    Help states develop public school choice
     programs like Arkansas' with protection from
     discrimination based on race, religion or
     income.

*    Promote bilingual education programs that
     teach substantive subjects in a child's native
     language while at the same time teaching
     English. Such efforts improve English fluency
     and recognize the value of a child's native
     language and culture.

Making our schools safe again

*    Get drugs out of our schools: work with states
     and local communities to bring parents,
     educators, students, law enforcement personnel
     and community service workers together to
     provide comprehensive drug education,
     prevention, intervention and treatment
     programs.

*    Support a Safe Schools Initiative, which will
     provide funds for violence-ridden schools to
     hire security personnel and purchase metal
     detectors, and help cities and states use
     community policing to put more police officers
     on the streets in high-crime areas where
     schools are located.


Alternative and continuing education programs

*    Help communities open centers that give
     dropouts a second chance through a Youth
     Opportunity Corps.  Teenagers will be matched
     with adults who care about them and who will
     help them develop self-discipline and valuable
     skills.

*    Bring business, labor and education leaders
     together to develop a national apprenticeship
     program that offers non college-bound students
     valuable skills training, with the promise of
     good jobs when they graduate.

*    Maintain the Pell Grant program but scrap the
     existing student loan program and establish a
     National Service Trust Fund to guarantee every
     American who wants a college education the
     means to obtain one.  Those who borrow from
     the fund will pay it back either as a small
     percentage of their income over time, or
     through community service as teachers, law
     enforcement officers, health care workers, or
     peer counselors helping kids stay off drugs an
     in school.

*    Invest in worker retraining programs that
     require employers to spend 1.5 percent of
     payroll for continuing education and training
     for all workers, not just executives.

Preparing children for school

*    Governor Clinton established the first
     statewide Home Instructional Program for
     Pre-School Youngsters.  HIPPY helps
     disadvantaged parents work with their children
     to build an ethic of learning at home that
     benefits both parent and child.

*    Introduced programs to provide low-income
     women with access to comprehensive maternity
     and infant care.  Arkansas infant mortality
     rate has dropped almost 50% since 1978.

*    Initiated the Better Chance Program, which
     provides $5 million this fiscal year and $10
     million the next for early childhood programs
     for at-risk children ages 3-5.

*    Senator Gore supported expanded full funding
     for Head Start and other successful pre-school
     programs.

Reforming the schools

*    Clinton set higher standards for all Arkansas
     schools: they must provide intensive
     instruction in basic skills, offer a much
     broader range of advanced courses, strictly
     limit class size, and regularly test student
     performance.

*    Directed the state to issue a yearly report
     card on the schools.

*    Permitted parents to choose the public schools
     their children attend as long as an acceptable
     racial balance is maintained.

*    Provided a $4,000 average salary increase for
     Arkansas teachers in 1991-- the highest
     percentage increase in the nation that year.

*    Senator Gore voted for the Neighborhood
     Schools Improvement Act, which provides
     assistance to school based management efforts,
     increases parental involvement, improves
     teacher training and aids dropout prevention.

*    Supported innovative programs for
     disadvantaged children, including expanded
     Chapter One and Two funding and the Star
     Schools program.

Demanding responsibility

*    Governor Clinton required eighth graders to
     pass an exam to go to high school.

*    Required teachers to take a basic competency
     test to keep their jobs.

*    Revoked drivers licenses of students who drop
     out of school for no good reason.

*    Authorized fines for parents who refuse to
     attend a parent-teacher conference or allow
     their children to be chronically truant.

*    Senator Gore supported legislation to create
     National and Community Service programs.

Getting results

*    Governor Clinton improved Arkansas math and
     reading test scores.  Between 1981 and 1991,
     the average state percentile rank for 4th
     grade students rose from the 46th to the 61st
     percentile in reading and from the 44th to the
     69th percentile in math.

*    Helped Arkansas achieve the highest
     high-school graduation rate in the region.

*    Increased the percentage of Arkansas seniors
     attending colleges by 34 percent from 1982 to
     1991.

Creating opportunity for all

*    With help from business, Governor Clinton
     created a Youth Apprenticeship program to
     motivate non college-bound students to stay in
     school and do well.

*    Created Arkansas Academic Challenge
     Scholarships to provide college scholarships
     to middle income and poor students who achieve
     2.5 GPAs in high school taking the college
     core curriculum, score 19 on the ACT, and stay
     off drugs.

*    Established a college bond program allowing
     parents to buy short- or long-term college
     bonds, not taxed in Arkansas, to help finance
     their childrens college education.

*    Helped develop the Arkansas Industrial
     Training Program, which provides customized
     training to potential workers at new plants,
     expanding companies, or companies which are
     upgrading technologically.

*    Established the Governors Dislocated Worker
     Task Force, which identifies possible plant
     closings and layoffs, develops an appropriate
     plan, and offers retraining, placement, and
     other supportive services.

*    Senator Gore voted for Higher Education Act
     amendments to expand the Pell grant program.

*    Supported vocational education training
     efforts that go beyond high school.

*    Wrote the Information Infrastructure and
     Technology Act of 1992 to more quickly move
     the new technologies developed under the High
     Performance Computing Act into schools,
     hospitals and businesses to improve education,
     expand health care and provide jobs.

*    Introduced and steered into law the High
     Performance Computing Act of 1990 to create a
     national high-speed computer network linking
     schools, research centers, and universities to
     the nation's most powerful computers, and
     making those computers accessible to people
     who otherwise would not be able to take
     advantage of their power and speed.  It was
     the result of more than a dozen years of work
     by Gore.