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PRESIDENT CLINTON VISITS KENTUCKY TO ANNOUNCE ACCOUNTABILITY
STRATEGY FOR TURNING AROUND LOW-PERFORMING SCHOOLS
May 3,
2000
Today, in Owensboro, Kentucky, President Clinton will visit
Audubon Elementary School to kick off his School Reform Tour and to highlight
the Clinton-Gore agenda of investing more in our schools and demanding more
from them. Audubon Elementary School is an award-winning school in the Daviess
County School District. Although two-thirds of its students are in poverty,
Audubon ranks 18th in the state in student achievement. The President will
highlight Audubon to illustrate how an agenda of high standards, real
accountability, and proven investments can raise student achievement and turn
around failing schools across the country. In a speech to Kentucky educators
and policymakers, the President will announce that he is directing the U.S.
Department of Education to take new executive actions to help states and
localities turn around failing schools. The President will also call on
Congress to enact his $250 million Education Accountability Fund, to help
communities turn around failing schools or shut them down. And citing the
success of Audubon and other schools in Kentucky, he will remind Americans that
with the right tools and expectations, every child can learn.
PRESIDENT SIGNS EXECUTIVE ORDER ON TURNING AROUND FAILING
SCHOOLS. The President will announce he is signing an Executive Order that
directs the Department of Education to compile and publish key data on
low-performing schools across the country and help states fix those schools.
The Order directs Secretary of Education Richard Riley to: 1) help states and
districts turn around low-performing schools, by providing technical assistance
and disseminating research; 2) make federal education programs more responsive
to low-performing schools; 3) submit an annual education accountability report
that identifies trends in low-performing schools, the resources they are
receiving to turn themselves around, and what strategies are most effective;
and 4) send teams of monitors into up to 15 states each year to make sure
states are complying with accountability requirements and help them get
results.
PRESIDENT HIGHLIGHTS KENTUCKY’S ACCOUNTABILITY STRATEGY
AND REFORM RESULTS. Speaking ten years after Kentucky’s landmark
education reform legislation was passed, President Clinton will praise the
state for its leadership on standards-based reform and accountability. Kentucky
has successfully intervened to improve many of its low-performing schools, by
providing critical resources to offer extended learning, teacher training,
expanded technology and literacy initiatives. After having been identified as
performing below expectations on state assessments, Audubon Elementary today
ranks 18th statewide in student performance among elementary schools. Since
1994, even with two-thirds of its students in poverty, Audubon has boosted the
percentage of students scoring at a level of "proficient" and "distinguished"
on state assessments from 12 percent to 57 percent in writing; 5 percent to 70
percent in reading; and 0 percent to 64 percent in science. All across
Kentucky, some of the state’s highest performing schools are high-poverty
and former low-performing schools.
AN AGENDA OF STANDARDS, ACCOUNTABILITY AND INVESTMENT.
Since taking office, President Clinton and Vice President Gore have made
accountability and investment in proven strategies the core of their education
reform agenda. In 1994, the President made standards a core part of federal
education policy, through Goals 2000 and the Elementary and Secondary Education
Act. Since the President took office in 1992, the federal investment in
elementary and secondary education has nearly doubled. Last year, the President
also proposed and Congress enacted a $134 million Accountability Fund, which
provides funds to states and school districts to turn around failing schools
and gives students in a failing school the right to choose a higher-performing
public school. Today, the President will call on Congress to send him a true
reform bill that includes the education accountability measures he has proposed
– require states and school districts to turn around failing schools or
shut them down, make sure teachers know the subject they’re teaching, end
social promotion by giving students the help they need to meet high standards,
adopt sound, fair discipline codes, and give parents school report cards. He
will also call on Congress to pass an education budget that invests in reducing
class size, strengthening teacher quality, expanding after school and summer
school, repairing and modernizing schools and other key priorities. Only by
investing more and demanding more, the President will point out, can we make
school reform work for all our students. |
