 the president of the United States in recognition of your special day the National Association of Secondary School principals wants to present you with this birthday cake which this depicts this depicts an essential element of our society obviously a schoolhouse mr. president we also know that your days as a student at Dixon High School in Illinois were very important to you we have done a little investigating and discovered that a national honor society chapter did not exist at Dixon High School when you were there our investigators also tell us that if there were an honor chapter there you would have been inducted today today we want to make up for that by presenting you with a membership certificate for the National Honor Society mr. president may I now present to you the board of directors and some 8,000 members of the National Association of Secondary Principles whose membership is broadly responsible for the education of 18 thank you thank you very much thank you very much and for a very warm reception although in my past I've had some warm receptions from principles I I'm really taking a bet I'm glad there wasn't a knife I wouldn't have known where to start with that first good luck or good wish slice of that cake it's just magnificent very beautiful and I must say with regard to that honorary membership you have now given me a new sense of guilt because about 25 years after I left Eureka College graduated from there they gave me an honorary degree and that only compounded a sense of guilt that I had nursed for some 25 years because I thought that the first one they gave me was honorary but I'm delighted to join the National Association of Secondary School Principles here in Las Vegas for your 68th annual convention you know nothing is younger they're older than I am and a special welcome to the principles that I met with at the White House in September it was a pleasure to be with you then and to give awards on behalf of your outstanding schools but I have to admit I have mixed emotions when I was a boy going to see the principle men I'd done something wrong and today the principles are coming to see me I don't know whether I can handle that or not but by the way did some of you have training as math teachers because on the way in I thought I spied a few of you at the machines doing field work in probability before I say anything else I'd like to recognize three outstanding gentlemen Robert Howe the president of this association Dale Graham your president-elect and Scott Thompson your executive director secretary Bell has told me how much assistance these men have given us and as we've worked to improve our nation schools and I want to thank them and all of you for the help that you've already given and ask you to keep the help coming it means a great deal to those of us in Washington but more important it means a great deal to America's sons and daughters you know principles and presidents have jobs that are very much alike both of us have to keep a lot of people happy you have school boards I have the cabinet you have the PTA I had the voters you have unruly children well I'd better not name any names but if you're fine representative and senators won't mind I'm gonna be out of here let me put it this way when Congress leaves town it's no accident that we call it recess but I am honored to be with you today every man and woman in this room could rightly follow President Truman's example and keep a sign on his desk that says the buck stops here education is one of the most important issues facing our country and that makes you principles among the most important people in America all of us remember all too painfully the crisis our country faced just a few years ago big taxing and spending had led to soaring interest rates and inflation and our defenses had grown weak all over the world America had become known not for strength and resolve but for fascination and self-doubt our schools to showed unmistakable signs of crisis from 1963 to 1981 scholastic aptitude test scores underwent a virtually unbroken decline science achievement scores of 17-year-olds showed a similar drop and most shocking the National Commission on Excellence in Education reports that more than one tenth of our 17-year-olds can be considered functionally illiterate in the face of all this bad news our free and hard-working people began for a time to feel almost helpless it seemed as though our nation or schools included was undergoing a protracted and inevitable decline well on this earth there's no such thing as inevitable only men and women building our nation's destiny one day at a time the American people decided to put a stop to that long decline and in the past few years our country has seen a rebirth of energy and freedom a great national renewal and as I said in my state of the union address just two weeks ago America is back standing tall looking to the 80s with courage confidence and hope we've knocked inflation down and we can keep it down the prime rate is about half what it was when our administration took office all across this vast land of ours a powerful economic recovery is gaining strength morale in the military a sword and once again America is respected throughout the world as a force for peace and freedom just as our schools were in decline during the bad days today they're playing their part in the national renewal since our administration put education at the top of the American agenda we've seen a grassroots revolution that promises to strengthen every school in the country from Maine to California parents teachers school administrators state and local office holders and principles like you have begun vital work to improve the fundamentals not fancy budget structures not frills in the curriculum but basic teaching and learning in the words of secretary bell there is currently in progress the greatest most far-reaching most promising reform and renewal of education we have seen since the turn of the century when our administration took office only a handful of states had task forces on education today they all do in addition 44 states are increasing graduation requirements 42 are studying improvements in teacher certification and 13 are establishing master teacher programs with school reform as with so many other challenges again and again in our nation's history the American people are showing it can be done we've traveled far in improving our schools but I don't believe there's one principal in this room who wouldn't agree that our journey has just begun now some insist there's only one reform that would make any real difference more money but that's been tried total expenditures in our nation schools this year according to the National Center for Education and Statistics will total 230 billion dollars that's up almost 7% from last year about double the rate of inflation and more than double what we spent on education just 10 years ago so if money alone were the answer the problem would have been shrinking not growing and those who constantly call for more money are the same people who presided over two decades of unbroken education decline James Coleman a top education expert argues in his recent book high school achievement that we need to focus on the factors that truly matter he states and I quote characteristics of schools are related to achievement can be divided into two areas academic demands and discipline well I think he's right and I'd like to talk to you a day about these two school characteristics academic expectations and discipline on academic expectations is clear that we must expect our students to perform to higher standards our children need to do more work and better work and that includes homework indeed in her well-known study Barbara Lerner found that the amount of homework assigned in a school is the single most reliable predictor of how well the students in that school will perform on national tests now none of this is a prescription for gloomy students we've learned that when students know their parents and teachers have confidence in their abilities the students gain self-esteem enjoy their work and live up to those high expectations we must also expect our students to learn the basics too many are allowed to abandon vocational and college prep courses for general ones so when they graduate they've prepared for neither work nor higher education stories abound of students who leave school unable to read and write at an adult level in 1980 35 states required only one year of math for a high school diploma 36 required only one year of science compare that to the case in other industrialized countries in Japan specialized study in mathematics biology and physics starts in sixth grade in the Soviet Union students learn the basic concepts of algebra and geometry in elementary school so it's not surprising that Japan with a population only about half the size of ours graduates from college more engineers than we do while the Soviet Union graduates from college almost five times more engineering specialists than we do we cannot allow our children to continue falling behind instead we must insist that all American students master the basics math science history reading and writing that have always formed the core of our civilization if I could interject there is an article recently put out by benjamin stein and it seems that he has made contact with a number of young not only high school graduates but now enrolled in some of our better universities and has regular contact with them and it was almost horrifying to read his article when he found that most of those students as high as juniors in universities did not know when world war two was fought or who was the enemy who we were fighting there were other examples that were equally glaring of a lack of knowledge of our nation's history but no learning can take place without good order in the classroom and that means restoring good old fashioned discipline in too many schools teachers lack authority to make students take tests hand in homework or even quiet down in class and in some schools teachers suffer verbal and even physical abuse according to a 1978 report by the national institute of education each month over two million secondary school children were victims of in school crime not ordinary hijinks crime in 1981 during a five month period in california there were at least one hundred thousand incidents of violence a study of boston high school showed that during 1982 more than one sixth of female students and more than one third of male students carried weapons to school and a 1983 survey of michigan schools shows that one in five michigan teachers has been struck by a student as long as one teacher is assaulted one classroom is disrupted or one student is attacked then i must and will speak out to give you the support you need to enforce discipline in our schools but for too long courts and others have concentrated on protecting the rights of the disruptive few well it's high time we paid some attention to the rights of the belby well behaved students who want to learn i can't say it too forcefully to get learning back into our schools we must get crime and violence out now i'm not talking about establishing thank you would talking about establishing order only in our classrooms and hallways but in our students hearts and minds we're training our children for life in a democracy so we must teach them not only discipline but self-discipline and if it's sometimes difficult to assert rightful adult authority we must ask who should correct the child's arithmetic his math teacher or years later his boss who should teach the child respect for rules his principal or someday law officers we must teach our sons and daughters a proper respect for academic standards for codes of civilized behavior and for knowledge itself not for the sake of those standards not for the sake of those codes not even for the sake of that knowledge but for the sake of those you young human beings now the federal government can support these reforms and do so without recycling still more tax dollars or imposing still more regulations and our administration is doing just that we're working to restore our nation's parents state and local officials teachers school administrators and principals to their rightful place in the educational process our administration has replaced 29 narrow categorical education programs with one broad-block grant to give state and local officials greater freedom and in the budget I submitted to Congress last week I called for that grant to be increased by 250 million dollars we've instituted major regulatory reforms to dig educators out from under mountains of red tape and because parents should have the right to choose the schools they know are best for their children we've proposed education vouchers and tuition tax credits concepts the American people support overwhelmingly in October I signed a proclamation that named this school year the national year of partnerships in education the proclamation urged businesses labor unions and other groups of working people to form partnerships with schools in their communities since then partnerships in education have increased around the country dramatically and in December I announced a new program to recognize outstanding students the president's academic fitness awards to promote good order in our schools the Department of Education is studying ways to combat school violence and the department is continuing its joint project with the National Institute of Justice to find better ways for localities to use their resources to prevent school crime the Department of Justice is establishing a national school safety center to inform teachers and other officials of their legal rights and to provide a computerized national clearinghouse for school safety resources in addition the Justice Department will file friend of court briefs in appropriate cases to support the rights of school administrators to enforce discipline and right now the Department of Justice is studying possible amendments of federal law that would help principles and others reestablish good order in our schools now there's one more effort that we're making at the federal level that I want to mention and I'm absolutely determined to see it through even though it may be sneered at in some supposedly sophisticated circles the God who blessed us with life gave us knowledge and made us a good and caring people should never have been expelled from America's schools you don't know how happy I am to hear that from you as we struggle to teach our children the fundamental values we hold so dear we dare not forget that our civilization was built by men and women who placed their faith in a loving God if the Congress can begin each day with a moment for prayer and meditation so then can our sons and daughters I'll try hard now not to be tempted to tell the story of the father and son in the gallery of the Congress one day and the son asked who that was and it was the chaplain and the father explain and the boy said he's praying for the Congress he said no he's praying for the people despite the importance of these initiatives at the national level the main responsibility for education rests with our states and communities and they're moving ahead state by state the success stories are mounting Indiana has increased high school graduation requirements and initiated a basic skills program for early grades in Iowa the state is putting together a program of incentives for students who take upper-level math and science courses states from Tennessee to Florida have begun work on pay incentives for instructors because they know that to promote good teaching we must reward good teachers and polls show that merit pay for teachers has the support of 61% of the NEA teachers 62% of the AFT teachers and 70% of independent teachers at the local level parents have begun to give schools new support in ways that range from helping out on field trips to raising money for special projects school boards have begun to write stricter discipline codes and rewrite curriculums to stress the basics and in community after community principles have turned schools around I don't have time to tell you all the stories I've heard about principles who've made a critical difference but there is one that I want to share just five years ago George Washington high school suffered from all the ills that afflict so many inner city schools drugs violence gangs the school had a 28% absentee rate and one of the lowest academic ratings in Los Angeles County then George McKenna became principal he designed this compact for both applicants and their parents to sign it states in part defiance of the authority of school personnel either by behavior verbal abuse or gestures is not permitted homework is given every day and students are expected and required to complete all assignments parents are expected to participate in workshops conferences meetings and cooperate with the school in supporting specific activities today the absenteeism rate at Washington high school has been cut to 11% and enrollment has risen from 1700 to 2600 plus a waiting list five years ago 42% of Washington high students said they might go on to college last year 80% did go on to college and all this but because of one determined principle a hero with faith in the common sense values which have never failed us when we've had the courage to live up to them as principles you have an enormous responsibility perhaps more than any other Americans you hold our nation's future in your hands I know that you're determined to go on with the great work of making certain our schools give our sons and daughters the quality education they deserve and I'm convinced that with your help America's future will be right beyond our dreams thank you God bless you all