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{{Infobox BBS
| image = Archived-En.png
| file = educ.txt
| author = Unknown
| date = Unknown
| subject =
| orig_bbs = Unknown
| bbs_main_page =
| key_words = Politics
}}

<pre>

***** Reformated. Please distribute.

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.

</pre>

zen years of work
by Gore.

BBS/educ - Revision history

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