Remarks on Signing the
Augustus F. Hawkins-Robert T. Stafford Elementary and Secondary School
Improvement Amendments of 1988
Thank
you all very much, and let me get right to the business at hand. Excellence in
education is a key to the health and well-being of society. That's why when I
came into office in 1981 I brought a mandate from the American people to turn
over a new leaf in education, to rededicate ourselves to the highest standards
of achievement and excellence in our nation's schools. Over the last 8 years
we've made much progress. And working together with Congress; State and local
governments; parents; teachers; charitable, religious, and community
organizations; and business, we have begun to turn back what our education
commission 5 years ago called ``a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our
very future as a nation and a people.''
Well,
we've taken a firm and uncompromising stand against drugs in our nation's
schools. We've encouraged a return to basics and common sense in primary and
secondary education. And we have shifted authority away from distant Federal
bureaucracies and returned it to parents, principals, and school boards.
As
Secretary Bennett's report this week makes clear, much remains to be done. We
remain, as that earlier commission said, ``a nation at risk.'' But today, more
than ever before, the American people, the Federal Government, and the States
are working together, and not at cross-purposes. We all have come to realize
what is at stake: our standard of living, the cohesiveness and unity of our
society, our moral standards, and in short, our future.
The
legislation that I'll sign today is a product of that common purpose. H.R. 5,
the Augustus F. Hawkins-Robert T. Stafford Elementary and Secondary School
Amendments of 1988, reauthorizes and improves a wide variety of Federal
programs at the elementary and secondary school level. At the same time, it
recognizes a fundamental truth: that the primary responsibility for educating
these children lies with the local communities and the States, and not with the
Federal Government.
The
school improvement act will further this important but supplementary role of
the Federal Government in elementary and secondary education. It will extend
programs for the disadvantaged and other students with special needs, stimulate
education innovation and reform, enhance local control and flexibility, improve
program accountability, and focus program benefits on those with the greatest
need. I'm pleased to note that the bill reauthorizes the magnet school program
and expands parental choice. I'm also pleased to see that the bill amends the
Bilingual Education Act in ways that provide greater flexibility to local
school districts in the selection of instructional approaches. This
administration has struggled for several years to amend Federal bilingual
requirements so that we may more effectively teach students English. I'm also
pleased that the bill enhances parental involvement in programs for
disadvantaged children. Parents are, after all, our first and most important
teachers.
These
central features of the bill echo the themes that the Vice President, Secretary
Bennett, and I have been sounding, and I'm pleased that they received
overwhelming bipartisan support in both the House and the Senate. From the
beginning, we worked with the Congress, educators, and interested members of
the public to ensure legislation that would improve basic education for
I
want to note that this bill renames the Guaranteed Student Loan Program after
Bob Stafford. Bob has had a major influence on Federal education policy for
many years, and I commend him on his distinguished career.
I
urge the Congress to focus in the appropriations process on the existing,
successful programs that this bill reauthorizes. It is these current programs
that offer the greatest promise of educational opportunity and educational
excellence to our nation's children.
H.R.
5 also contains provisions making ``Dial-A-Porn'' services a criminal
misdemeanor. I commend Congress for joining the administration's longstanding
efforts to combat hardcore obscenity. I am bound to note, however, as much as
it displeases me, that current Supreme Court jurisprudence is unfriendly to
parts of this bill. And I hope that the courts and the Congress will work with
the administration to do as much as is permitted by the Constitution to enforce
the provisions of this statute.
On
balance, H.R. 5 is a solid achievement, one that deserves to be signed, which I
am about to do right now.
[At
this point, the President signed the bill.]
Now
I'm going to do what the little 11-year-old girl told me to do in a letter that
she wrote to me when I first reported here for duty. She told me all the things
I was going to have to deal with and then said, ``Now get over to the Oval
Office and go to work.'' [Laughter]
Note: The President
spoke at