President Bush Discusses No Child Left Behind(2009-1-8)

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you for the warm welcome. And Laura and I are thrilled to be here at Kearny School. We have come because this is one of the really fine schools in the city of Philadelphia. We bring greetings from the Nation's Capital, but more importantly, we bring appreciation for those who are working so hard to make sure that every child can learn.

 You know, seven years ago today, I had the honor of signing a bill that forever changed America's school systems. It was called the No Child Left Behind Act. I firmly believe that thanks to this law, more students are learning, an achievement gap is closing. And on this anniversary, I have come to talk about why we need to keep the law strong. If you find a piece of legislation that is working, it is important to make sure the underpinnings of that law remain strong.

I do want to thank Laura for joining me. She has been an awesome wife and a great First Lady. (Applause.) Our journey together in Washington has been fantastic, and I thank her very much for her love.

I am proud to be here with Arlene Ackerman. Thank you for your introduction, Arlene, and thank you for being -- (applause.) Arlene is a reform-minded leader. And by that, I mean you have a Superintendent here who is willing to challenge the status quo if the status quo is unacceptable. Sometimes that's hard in public life. You see the status quo, and people are saying, oh, let's just leave it the way it is; it's too hard to change. And you have a Superintendent here that says, if we're finding failure we're going to change. And I want to thank you for taking on this important assignment.

I'm proud to be here with my buddy. I guess it's okay to call the Secretary of Education here "buddy." That means friend. And she has been our friend for a long time. She is a great Secretary of Education. And, Margaret, I want to thank you for being here. (Applause.)

I want to thank the senior Senator -- I guess it's okay to call you "senior" -- Arlen Specter. He is a good friend, and he cares a lot about the state of Pennsylvania and the education systems in the state. So thank you for coming, my friend. (Applause.)

Jerry Zahorchak is with us, the Pennsylvania Department of Education Secretary. Jerry, thank you for being here, and thank you for serving.

I want to thank all the state and local officials, particularly the state representative from this district has kindly come by to say hello and participate in a roundtable we just had.

Roy Romer, former governor of Colorado, and an education reformer, has just spoken. I want to thank Roy. He happens to be the chairman of Strong American Schools. It's got a nice ring to it, doesn't it? Strong American Schools. That means schools that actually teach people how to read, write, and add and subtract. At least that's my definition of strong American schools.

 I want to thank very much the Reverend Al Sharpton. Now, some of you are probably about to fall out of your chair -- (laughter) -- when you know that Al and I have found common ground. And by the way, it's on an important issue. See, he cares just as much as I care about making sure every child learns to read, write, and add and subtract. And I want to thank you for your leadership on this issue, and I appreciate you -- (applause.)

I want to thank the teachers who work here. I particularly want to thank Principal Spagnola for her leadership. (Applause.) And the thing about educators -- first of all, every good school has got a principal who is a good principal. That's generally the key ingredient to success, somebody who can set high standards and motivate. And this principal can do just that.

And for the teachers, thank you for taking on a noble profession. Laura and I are proud to report that one of our daughters is a teacher, and it makes us feel just incredibly great to know that we've raised a child who is willing to take on an important task of teaching a child to be able to have the skills necessary to succeed in life.

There are a lot of reformers here, and I welcome the reformers. These are people from society who say, I want to help the school system succeed. When I got off Air Force One today, I met Adam Bruckner. I mentioned to some kids, have you ever heard of Adam Bruckner? And they said, "You're talking about Mr. Adam." I said, that's who I'm talking about. He is volunteer. He's a mentor. He happens to be a professional soccer coach, which means he knows how to play soccer, and he is willing to lend his skills, and more importantly, his heart, to teach a child the beauty of being a sports person, and the lessons of life that come from good competition.

And so I want to thank you very much, Adam, for being here, and representing all the folks who volunteer at this program. (Applause.)

At the end of the presidency, you get to do a lot of "lasts." I don't know if you saw on TV, but I pardoned my last Thanksgiving turkey. (Laughter.) This is my last policy speech. As President of the United States, this is the last policy address I will give. What makes it interesting is that it's the same subject of my first policy address as President of the United States, which is education and education reform.

I hope you can tell that education is dear to my heart. I care a lot about whether or not our children can learn to read, write, and add and subtract. When I was a governor of Texas, I didn't like it one bit when I'd go to schools in my state and realize that children were not learning so they could realize their God-given potential. I didn't like it because I knew the future of our society depended upon a good, sound education.

 I was sharing this story with people that Laura and I just met with, and at the time I went to a high school in my state, one of our big city high schools. And I said, thanks for teaching -- I met this teacher. I think his name is Brown, if I'm not mistaken.

SECRETARY SPELLINGS: Nelson Brown.

THE PRESIDENT: Nelson Brown. And he taught geography and history, if I'm not mistaken. I said, "How is it going, Mr. Brown?" He said, "It's going lousy." I said, "Why?" He said, "Because my kids cannot read and they're in high school." You see, the system was just satisfied with just shuffling kids through -- if you're 14 you're supposed to be here, if you're 16 you're supposed to be there. Rarely was the question asked: Can you read? Or can you write? Or can you add and can you subtract?

And so we decided to do something about it. We said such a system is unacceptable to the future of our state. And that's the spirit we brought to Washington, D.C. It's unacceptable to our country that vulnerable children slip through the cracks. And by the way, guess who generally those children are? They happen to be inner-city kids, or children whose parents don't speak English as a first language. They're the easiest children to forget about.

We saw a culture of low expectations. You know what happens when you have low expectations? You get lousy results. And when you get lousy results, you have people who say, there's no future for me in this country.

And so we decided to do something about it. We accepted the responsibility of the office to which I had been elected. It starts with this concept: Every child can learn. We believe that it is important to have a high quality education if one is going to succeed in the 21st century. It's no longer acceptable to be cranking people out of the school system and saying, okay, just go -- you know, you can make a living just through manual labor alone. That's going to happen for some, but it's not the future of America, if we want to be a competitive nation as we head into the 21st century.

We believe that every child has dignity and worth. But it wasn't just me who believed that. Fortunately, when we got to Washington, a lot of other people believed it -- Democrats and Republicans. I know there's a lot of talk about how Washington is divided, and it has been at times -- at times. And it can get awfully ugly in Washington. But, nevertheless, if you look at the history over the past eight years, there have been moments where we have come together. And the No Child Left Behind Act is one such moment.