Clinton touts success of public charter schools

President voices support for home schooling option, with standards

May 4, 2000
Web posted at: 6:11 p.m. EDT (2211 GMT)

ST. PAUL, Minnesota (CNN) -- President Bill Clinton took his education reform tour to Minnesota on Thursday, heralding the rapid expansion of public charter schools during his seven years in office and announcing additional federal grants to help ensure their continued success.

President Bill Clinton spoke Thursday at the City Academy in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Clinton toured City Academy in St. Paul, which became the nation's very first public charter school when it opened its doors in 1992. Today, there are approximately 1,700 in the United States.

"Schools like City Academy have the flexibility to reach out to students who may have had trouble in ordinary school experiences," Clinton told an audience of teachers, administrators and parents.

"I'm here today because I want all of America to know about you, and through you to understand what might be done in other communities with the charter school movement," he added.

The president detailed White House plans for $16 million in new grants and the continuation of $121 million in previously awarded grants for public charter schools nationwide.

"We have invested almost half a billion dollars since 1994 to help communities start charter schools ... my goal was to at least fund 3,000 (charter schools) or more by the time I left office and I believe we are going to meet that goal."

Clinton announced that the Education Department will develop national guidelines designed to increase participation by businesses and religious organizations in charter schools.

"While charter schools have to be nonsectarian, there is a role, a positive role, that faith-based groups can play and we find that employers in America increasingly are willing to provide space and other resources to help charter schools get started," Clinton said.

As he did during stops in Iowa and Kentucky the day before, Clinton called attention to his $250 million Education Accountability Fund -- which would provide resources for states to use in improving failing schools.

"We should build the level of accountability you find here in the charter school system in all the schools in our system," said Clinton, who stressed the need to "invest more money to what we know works and stop investing money in what we know doesn't work."

After his speech, President Clinton participated in a "cyberchat" with students around the country, where he voiced support for home-schooling, which has grown in popularity over the past decade among conservatives and others who oppose classroom learning on a variety of social and religious grounds.

"I think that states should explicitly acknowledge the option of home schooling because its going to be done anyway. It is done in every state of the country and therefore the best thing to do is to get the home schoolers organized," he said.

"But if you're going to do this, your children have to prove that they're learning on a regular basis and if they don't prove that they're learning then they have to go into a parochial or private school or a public school," he said.

Clinton said that home schooling was not a widely available option when his daughter Chelsea was younger.

"But if it had been I wouldn't have done it," he said. Clinton told the chat audience he preferred that Chelsea be exposed to a wide range of students and experiences in school.

Stymied in the Senate

Clinton's tour comes as Democrats and Republicans in the Senate remain deadlocked over how to spend $20 billion in federal public school aid included in the 35-year-old Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), a law that must be reauthorized every five years.

By a party-line vote of 54-45 on Wednesday, Senate Republicans defeated a Democratic proposal that sought to continue White House efforts to hire 100,000 new teachers, build and modernize more public schools, and direct more federal dollars to specific programs for poor children.

"Unfortunately this week the majority is trying to pass legislation that neither puts more money or more accountability into the system, but I'm still hopeful that we'll be able to pass a good bill that really works," Clinton said Thursday.

The GOP-sponsored version of the reauthorization bill includes measures aimed at helping disadvantaged and poorer students achieve higher standards, expanding after-school and student enrichment programs, ensuring safe and drug-free school zones and improving literacy.

But Republicans argue that the federal aid should be given to states and localities in the form of block grants with as few restrictions as possible.

"My constituents overwhelmingly believe that local control and local flexibility are the better course for American education," said Sen. Tim Hutchinson (R-Arkansas), who lamented that there's "too much Washington control" over federal education dollars.

Senate Democrats say the measure should come with more specific spending guidelines, arguing that block grants are tantamount to handing state governors -- most of whom are Republican -- blank checks.

"What will happen is the money will go to whomever the governor wants to take care of without tough accountability, and these needy children will be left high and dry," said Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Massachusetts).

Clinton tour winds down

President Clinton was expected to wrap up his four-state tour Thursday afternoon with a visit to a public school in Columbus, Ohio, where building renovations are underway with the help of federal grants.

On Wednesday, he visited the Audubon Elementary School in rural Kentucky, which has credited a dramatic turnaround in reading and proficiency tests to higher state standards implemented in conjunction with federal aid programs.

Clinton signed an executive order Wednesday that directs the Department of Education to establish a "federal report card system" on the nation's schools. The department will compile and publish data on failing schools, as well as provide recommendations for improvements.

"These actions will help us spread the lesson we have learned in the last seven years. In education, investment without accountability can be a waste of money, but accountability without investment is a waste of effort. Neither will work without the other," he said.

The president also visited a century-old high school in Davenport, Iowa, where he met with students in an old science room -- with decades-old anatomy drawings on the wall, including one from 1919. He used the visit to urge Republicans in Congress to adapt his proposal to build and modernize schools.

"I want every single school in America to be a school of the future. You need it, you deserve it, and if the Congress will pass my proposal, we will help you get it," Clinton told a crowd of over 1,000 students and parents packed into the school's gymnasium.

CNN's Dana Bash and The Associated Press contributed to this report, which was written by Mike Ferullo