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Tuesday Keynote Luncheon
Secretary of Education
Richard Riley
1999 Charter Schools National Conference
March 14-17, 1999
Denver, Colorado
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Please note, some inaccuracies may have been introduced in the transcriptions of the tape recorded sessions. If you are a presenter and read inaccuracies in the transcript please contact us so we can correct it. The content of this document does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Department of Education, nor does mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.
My name is Judith Johnson, and I am currently serving as the acting assistant secretary for the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. And let me join the others who, before me, have welcomed you to this, our second National Charter School Conference. I have the delight of introducing Bob DeBour who will introduce the secretary. So I’m going to take just a few minutes to tell you a little bit about Bob.
In selecting a theme to frame the introduction of Bob, I settled on the following -- Against all odds. When you read his life story, you are struck by his determination to view the challenges he faced as opportunities to exist and to exert human and moral will, to overcome obstacles that could diminish the quality of one’s life. And everyone fortunate enough to work with Bob benefits from his energy and his optimism. Bob comes from a family of educators. His parents and his sisters are teachers. His life and the experiences he had in his early childhood were interesting and unusual, and they portray the mosaic of experiences Bob has had, both overcoming obstacles and helping others to overcome their obstacles. Stricken with polio at the age of one, Bob spent his early years in schooling receiving a half hour of tutoring while in a hospital ward. Undeterred, he entered college. And during his college years, supported by scholarships, he was offered the opportunity to see first hand how poverty robs people of their potential. The stage had been set for his career, so he thought until the birth of his daughter, which set him on a 15-year journey to learn how to improve the lines and lives of children who were brain injured and learning disabled.
That journey brings us to this moment. Bob is the Director of the New Vision School. The New Vision Charter School in Minneapolis, Minnesota. What children accomplish every day there can be charted and defined as against all odds. This is a school that sets high standards and high expectations for all of its children, particularly those who come with learning problems, as do most of the children who enter those doors. And the children respond to those high expectations. Students attending the New Vision School improve their reading scores every year by a year plus several months. In other words, they are playing catch up very quickly. And those reading scores cannot be desegregated in terms of or you don’t see learning gaps in terms of ethnicity or socioeconomic standards. In Bob’s school, all children reach high standards. And he has validations studies and documents that demonstrate this success. And the curriculum he’s developed, based on the mission of the school, called "A Chance to Grow," is being used in systems across the Country. And everyone who works with Bob, whether they adopt his curriculum or whether they learn to work directly with him, are committed to his belief. There is no compromise when it comes to equity and excellence. "We make all children successful," Bob said, "against all odds." Join me in welcoming Bob DeBour.
I have a couple of announcements. I’m assuming most of you are, in one capacity or another, people who are working in the trenches in charter schools. And those of you who have done that realize that some days it can be a very lonely experience. Very exhilarating, very tiring but sometimes you may feel alone. So I’ve always been a little uncomfortable in our different meetings in Minnesota when we use the word "the charter school movement." Well today, you, all of us are a group of 1,400 people here today. I think do now finally constitute a movement, at least in Denver. I think it’s apropos now, at least for the next few days, to call ourselves a charter school movement.
25 years ago I had the good fortune of working at the Southeast Alternative Free School, which was an experimental school. It was one of the early Federal experimental projects. And it was a very exciting time. We did everything that was politically correct. I took a group of kids to work, to see the Chavez in California. The women taught the girls care mechanics. I taught the boys how to sew us some mean shirts. And it was really politically correct. But when I step back and look at that experience from the perspective of today, it’s very clear to me that we failed those kids. The children who came to the school who were behind in reading, they left the school still behind in reading. And so there’s a lesson I learned from that, that I brought to the process of starting New Vision School. And that is that lesson is very important for all of us. And that is -- Good intentions are not enough. Good intentions are not enough. Results are the only acceptable answer for children.
Today, society is faced with tremendous challenges and our schools mirror those same challenges, which puts the pressure on teachers and education systems of enormous proportions. On the way out here Sunday, I was reading some research. And there is a study published by the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Agency. And they were documenting how in 1990 there were 500,000 children in America diagnosed as ADD. In 1998 there are now four million children in America diagnosed as ADD, ADH students, a 600% increase. There’s many reasons to go into that, but it’s another one of those new issues or problems teachers face, educators face. The traditional way is not working any more. Many children are being failed. About ten years ago, the National Commission of Adult Literacy published this study documenting that 99 Americans were unable to read functionally, literally. They were functionally illiterate, unable to read and write to fix a credit card problem. I know I’m preaching to the choir but, obviously, that lack of quality control is part of brought us here today.
We need new ideas. We need new models applying what we know about the development of the human brain. We need new levels of commitment to guarantee that all of our children will reach their greatest potential. We’ve been blessed in America by having an educational leader up to the challenge. I am honored to introduce this great leader to all of you. The Christian Science Monitor refers to Richard Riley as one of the great statesman of education in this century. The Washington Post has called him one of the most decent and honorable people in public life. He’s led the way in raising academic standards, expanding Head Start, increasing funding for pell grants and, of course, expanding Federal charter funding from six million dollars years to 100 million dollars and more. And obviously, we’re here because of his great effort today. He gets his way though not by brute force but by persistence and persuasion. Helen Keller once said, "There is no greater tragedy than a person who has sight but no vision." Ladies and gentlemen, I am honored today to introduce to you a man of vision and passion and commitment, U.S. Secretary of the United States of America, Richard Riley.
Thank you all very much. It’s a great honor to be here in this lovely city in this lovely crowd. I woke up this morning. I know you joined me in hearing the tragedy of the train crash near Chicago. And I know all of us have those people and their families, in our prayers. And also, there was a wreck here in Aurora but, fortunately, it was a school bus but no children were on the bus, but a number of people were hurt that were on a city bus. So we’ll be thinking about them. But I thank you, Bob, for the wonderful, kind introduction. And I should say that I would like to salute you, as Judith did, for being a role model for all of your fellow educators here, for your students. I visited Bob in the New Vision School in Minneapolis in 1996 at a time when many schools were developing character education programs and they are today in their curriculum. Bob’s students got a good dose of character education from his example every single day. And that makes me proud to see education leaders out there that you can say that about. I’m so pleased to have many of my staff people here. I’ve got a wonderful staff, and I hope all of you have had a good chance to interact with them and will during the rest of this conference.
I am reluctant to get into a grandchild story because everybody kind of puts the heat on me, and I feel like I must because last week my tenth grandbaby was born. And I’m very proud of that. Elizabeth Duvall Riley. They’re calling her Lilly. And she, like I say, she looks like Lilly. I haven’t even gotten down to see her, and I’m dying to get down there but I’m so proud of having the tenth grandchild. How many of you all have ten grandchildren or more? [Laughter] Let me see a hand. There’s one. Not many. So I’ll tell you, I’m in the top five or see, I think, in this giant crowd. The only story I’ll share with you, and it happened. I’ve shared it with a couple people since Halloween. But my grandson, Hugh, is in kindergarten in Arlington, Virginia, in a public school there, fine school. And he was writing his first book around Halloween time and, of course, the subject was Halloween. And he did this book. He was very proud of it. And six or seven pages and it had pictures about trick or treat and all of the Halloween things. And in the last page my daughter, Ann, was going over it with him and telling Hugh how proud she was of his book. And on the last page at the very bottom at the end, it had DN. And she said, "Hugh? What does this mean, the letters DN?" He said, "Well, you know Momma, every time we tell a story when it’s over we say, ‘DN.’" And I’ve been trying to figure out whether Hugh was into phonics or whole language. I don’t know what he’s into.
I say that this conference proves the old truism that success begets success. And there are like 1,400 people here. I’ve had to change this in my speech every time a draft came down. It started at a 1,000, 1,100, 1,300 and now, I understand it’s 1,400 people here. Certainly more than we expected. I think that is a great, in itself, that’s a great sign of success. And I hope this conference leads you to strive for improvements together, to work to help each other, to work from each other’s strengths, reinforce the commitment that first led you to launch a charter school. When you consider that charter schools only came into being a few years ago, we really have an amazing turnout here. Through your dedication, your diligence, this movement has grown now to include more than 1,100 schools in 29 States and the District of Columbia, enrolling more than 250,000 students. That’s 1,100 schools around the Country where educators and parents, leaders of businesses and not for profit organizations and others have put their passion for quality public education to the test. This outpouring of involvement is truly a testament of the American ideal of quality public education for all, community service, the power of grass roots efforts to bring about change.
Your leadership if fueling the continued growth of charter schools elsewhere. New York State recently enacted a charter school law. And New City Schools’ Chancellor, Rudy Crou, plans to create ten charter schools and convert two Brooklyn Districts into charter districts. New Jersey will add another 15 charter schools over the next year and a half. Your hard work and innovation are bearing fruit, not only on your campuses but in other public schools as well. Just last month the front page headline in the Wall Street Journal said, "Charter schools begin to prod public schools toward competition." The article showed how the success of some charter schools is prompting leaders of mainstream public schools to reach out to parents and redouble their efforts to improve.
And I want to say this to you. This is very different in concept from the concept of vouchers. As you know, my feeling is that taking taxpayer dollars away from their public school for private school vouchers undermines the very essence of quality public schools, and that is wrong. And unlike vouchers, accountable public charter schools will prove to be a healthy development, in my judgment, for all of public education. Your efforts are right in line with the ongoing efforts at every level of American education to rethink how we teach our children, how we organize our schools, how we recruit, prepare, support teachers for the challenges of the 21st Century classroom.
During my State of American Education Speech last month in California, I described the spirit that infuses this trend by turning to the words the great theologian, Ryan O’Nebor, who said that we should look to the future with realism that is mixed with hope. In my travels around the Country and my hundreds and thousands of conversations with educators at all levels, I’m finding a new realism mixed with hope for our schools too. I see a willingness to begin to take a very honest accounting of the performance and the condition of our schools. And that’s the realism he spoke of. And I see the new resolve then to meet these challenges and give all of our children real hope for the future. And that’s the kind of realism mixed with a new kind of hope. These desires are part of what is fueling the amazing growth of charter schools. That growth caries with it a higher profile and a heightened sense of public expectation. Indeed, I believe it’s no accident that charter schools are rising at a time when the public is focused on higher achievement levels and more accountability in public education.
This conference comes at a time of a turning point, I think, in the life of America’s charter schools. And although some of your schools may be in the first year of operation, the charter school movement that was referred to by Bob has moved beyond its infancy. It has gained critical mass, as the signs of this gathering clearly shows. And in the current environment, scrutiny of all public schools is growing. But I know that the spotlight of scrutiny is shining a little brighter on many of you. In fact, all of you. You see, the higher expectation that the public and your States may place on charter schools really stems from the same advantages that you all value so much, flexibility, creativity, the chance to build an incubator for new ideas. The challenge that I see before you is to accept this outside examination as an integral part of your mission. Help us find better ways to teach, to organize schools and to help all students achieve. Your colleagues in other public schools can benefit from your successful innovations. This goes right to the heart of the charter school concept, to serve as idea labs that help lead America’s public schools in new, positive directions.
I’ve seen how it happens at Bob DeBour’s school, for example, in Minneapolis. Bob and his staff take the school’s name New Vision to heart. New Vision employs several different methods to teach reading. A preliminary review of each student determines which method he or she will use. And if it works, great. And if it doesn’t then they try something else, but they never give up. Bob’s staff takes this a step further by sharing what it learns with educators at other public schools. And they have real credibility because they truly serve all students in his school. The metaphor that New Vision is an incubator for new ideas does not mean that the ideas stay bottled up within the school. But by disseminating their findings throughout the community, the New Vision staff defines its mission as serving not only its own students but all of the students in the Twin Cities who are learning to read. So I urge you to build partnerships with other public schools in your area.
The same thing applies to the steps that you take to build a faculty and work with your teachers to enhance their skills. Teacher quality is particularly important now because America’s public schools will need to hire more than two million well prepared teachers over the next decade. That’s a responsibility that all of us must pay attention to. And yet, reliance on emergency certificates and teachers who are teaching out of their field is growing rapidly. We can’t expect our children to learn to have standards unless they study in classrooms led by teachers who meet high standards. Of course, many of your schools already have outstanding teachers who were attracted by the flexibility that your environments offer. But I believe charter schools provide us with an opportunity to enhance teacher quality nationwide. Charter schools can develop new and innovate ways to bring talented individuals into teaching, while also ensuring that all teachers have the necessary knowledge and skills to be effective.
Just up the road from here in Boulder, you can find a wonderful example of two charter schools taking on this kind of leadership role. Teachers at two charter schools there, the Summit Middle School and the Horizon K through 8 charter school serve as mentors for professionals in the Boulder Public Schools for working toward their certification. One interesting aspect of this program is that Horizon and Summit are driven by different educational philosophies, but when it comes to teaching though, their common link is excellence. More broadly, they’re showing all of us how their flexibility enables them to find strategies that can potentially benefit all of Boulder’s schools. They’re creating a pathway into teaching for people who would not necessarily be able to enter a traditional school setting. I just visited this morning P.S. Charter School here in Denver and was very, very impressed with it. It’s a small downtown school, and I still have the button here since I’m an honorary member of the school. But their director, Rex Brown, was an outstanding innovate research person with ECS, Education Commission of the States, and he left this very comfortable job that he loved to put his research into implementation, to see it work for children. And I’m very proud of this school and many, many examples like that all across this Country. But this downtown school calls the city its campus. And the Denver Public Library is it’s library. And the museum, its museum. And it really is interesting to see this real heart right in the middle of Denver, serving a very wonderful purpose and providing excellent education for the children there.
But because charter schools are held accountable for student achievement, their experience with alternative routes to teaching can really help inform State and local policy makers. I’m encouraging each State to begin its own dialogue about teacher licensure in order to make its current system more rigorous and more flexible. I hope every State can find ways to create a higher standard for teachers. And I hope every State can find ways, also, to see that their system that allows for flexibility while ensuring that every public school, including every charter school, is served by high quality teachers.
I’ve touched on just a couple of the matters that you will address during this conference. And one of the things that impresses me about the conference is the vibrancy that I see and that I sense. You know, you can go into a conference if it’s a dull one, you can tell it. And if it isn’t, you can tell it. I know that these issues are tough to manage. And I know that progress doesn’t come without a lot of hard work and some risk. And I know that you want schools to look like America, your schools and other schools and to be open to all people. And that’s why your work is important not only for your own students but for all of the American schools. And that’s why this Administration strongly supports the charter school movement. President Clinton, I know, spoke to you in the beginning of this conference, and Vice President Gore, have come together and asked Congress for a 30% increase in start-up funds for new charters and continuing awards to many existing charter schools. We are committed to fostering the creation of almost 2,000 additional charter schools over the next few years. And I hope you’ll find strength in your steadfast support of your work.
Now let me mention, quickly, three other appropriation requests of Congress that may be of interest to you. We’ve proposed a six-year authorization to help reduce class size in grades 1 through 3. For the coming school year, we’re requesting a 200 million dollar increase. A total of one billion, 400 million for the second year installment to move toward a class size of 18 to 1 over this six-year period. Another major budget request to Congress is to greatly expand our after school and Summer school opportunities. The President and Vice President are asking this Congress for a 400 million dollar increase for schools and school districts to expand after school and Summer programs. This is a safe and smart alternative for many young people who are falling behind and who really want extra help. Another major need across America is for modernizing and building schools. Many of America’s public schools are run down. Many are overcrowded. We are asking Congress to provide 25 billion dollars of interest free bonds, so the Federal Government paying the interest on the eligible bonds for modernizing our schools. The quote I like from Plato is, "That which is honored in a Country is that which will be cultivated there." If young people see us honoring our schools and they see the biggest need for infrastructure in this Country is school infrastructure. And if they see that happening as we go into this new millennium, what a wonderful statement it would make all across this Country, that we honor education. And you see it. You can see it in new schools, you can see it in renovated schools. And I’ll tell you then that is what will be cultivated here.
We welcome your support of these initiatives to give our students the first class opportunities to learn that they deserve. I know many of you struggling in the beginning to fund with the start-up costs, and I hope that our support has helped in some degree with that. And I’m sure it has. And I know you continue to struggle in all of these areas, school buildings and the funding costs that are out there. But I urge you to continue with your belief in what you’re doing. It’s important. And all us need to work together to see it continue in a very positive way. I urge you to keep up your good work and maintain the atmosphere of creativity that makes so many of your schools a magnet for excellent teachers. See the challenge for a greater accountability as an opportunity and not a problem. Most of all, please do not lose sight of the fact that educators in other public schools can truly benefit from your experiences and can be your partners in moving forward all of public education across America.
Let me close with a short passage from Frank McCort’s wonderful autobiography Angela’s Ashes. I had the pleasure of presenting Frank with the Irish American of the Year Award last year. Of course, my name is Irish also. And tomorrow, as you know, is St. Patrick’s Day, so I want to invite all of you to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day whether you’re Irish or not. But I think it would be especially appropriate to talk a little about that book. And I close with it, Angela’s Ashes. And many of you read it, I’m sure. Sensitive memoir of Frank McCort’s childhood in Ireland, which was scarred with terrible poverty. And many of you are working now with children who are poor, and you know the heavy burden they carry in terms of reaching high standards. And that all of us need to make sure we continue to help them. Frank grew up in the most poverty stricken area during that era that you can imagine. And the way he describes it from week to week and in the hunger and the sores and the filth and all of the disease and sickness day after day after day as a young child growing up. And he was in about the 5th grade. In that, he’s a very witty person, by the way, and he has enormous humorous parts to it among the tragedy.
But in there he’s in about the 5th grade, and he’s in a school and a Mr. O’Halloran is his teacher. And imagine these 5th grade students sitting there in this terrible condition of poverty, trying to just hold life together. And this teacher stands before them and says this. "You have to study and learn so you can make up your own mind about history and everything else. But you can’t make up an empty mind. Stock your mind. Stock your mind," he says. "It’s your house of treasure. And no one in the world can interfere with it. You might be poor. Your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace." I mention that passage because I think it speaks the same kind of passion about learning that infuses this charter school movement. And if you hold on to that spark, we will enable all of America’s children to achieve their dreams. As my grandson Hugh would say, "DN."
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