(00:00:00) I'm deeply touched that all of the students are here voluntarily with no academic coercion involved. And I do wish to say that it's a profound honor. To be asked to present this Memorial lecture Charles Lindbergh was one of the most outstanding Americans who ever lived this remarkable man had a rare combination of great humility. and great courage He was and is one of the truly authentic Heroes of the nation. Charles Lindbergh was for me a Boyhood Idol. And he has remained so all my life and I am deeply touched to be speaking in his honor. I'm also pleased to be here because st. Cloud Minnesota is so far from Washington DC. I discovered during my days in government that my mental health was directly proportionate to my distance from the from the Potomac River and that conditioning lingers on when I was catapulted rather unceremonious Lee and without morning into the federal bureaucracy. I called a friend who had worked in Washington for many years and I asked him what it was like to work in Washington DC. He said it was much like the man who was who was lost in the jungle and add to his misery. He was being chased by a lion and so he recalled his early religious upbringing and in desperation. He gasped a prayer. He said oh God, please convert this lion into a Christian. Well, lo lo and behold a miracle occurred the lion. Dropped instantly to its knees and folded its paws and look toward heaven and said, oh God bless this food of which were about to protect. My friend was prophetic. I was devoured every day, but I can't for the life of me. Remember anyone ever saying grace before the meal as everyone in this room must certainly know by now. It's been Just one year plus 60 days since the national Commission on excellence in education said this nation was at risk and declared that academically at least we had unilaterally disarmed and then 12 months later right on schedule. The president of the United States went on National Television to assure us that suddenly the nation's schools were being fixed happily before the national election. I'm deeply touched by this defining of the problem and by the Wizardry of the response. But I have to say in Candor in the clear air of this beautiful and enlightened setting that our schools were never as bad as the hyperbole would suggest indeed after completing our own study of the American High School and after having spent nearly 2,000 hours in schools from coast to coast. And having visited many institutions in this state which incidentally ranks near the top on any academic pole you choose. I became convinced that the nation's schools deserve not just FS but days as (00:03:47) well (00:03:49) and further. I became convinced that most School critics could not survive one week in the very classrooms. They so elegantly condemned I also became convinced that in most communities at least the public schools is the most stable not the least stable institution to be found. We're constantly being told that starting in the 1960s the SAT scores catapulted downward and incidentally the SAT is probably the least reliable measure for Effectiveness in the classroom. But what we're not told is that during the same period if my memory serves me correctly every institution in this nation was being battered and abused. What is it that causes us to pull out one institution in the public sector and give it a report card without asking contextually what's been going on around it. During the 1960's of as you've just heard I happen to have been in higher education during that time. I was locked in and out of office. I was shouted down by students. I was trying to control riots on the campus. I was reflecting on whether to call the State Police and I must confess to you that in The Quiet Moments Before Dawn. It did not occur to me to check the SATs. indeed looking back on higher education I wish I had an SAT score to report the circumstances academically on many campuses all across the nation and having spent some time in Washington. I wish I had an SAT score on the Congress or on the families or on the nation's courts. I take no comfort in what I am suggesting here. I happen to believe that America is the best nation in all the world. I happen to believe that our institutions are enormously resilient. I'm only suggesting that the public schools in my in my judgment have been perhaps the most stable and most resilient institution trying to cope with dramatically shifting circumstances and constantly changing signals and I'm here to suggest that at least we should have to cheers for public education. In order to be honest and accurate in the report cards we present. I'm also suggesting that a report card on the school's is in very large measure a report card on the nation and in a fundamental sense, I believe that our schools can be no stronger than the homes and the parents and the communities of which they are a part. We investigated 15 high schools in great depth. We spent one month in each of those institutions. We visited classes spent time with parents ate in the cafeteria went to teachers meetings and for of AR-15 quite by chance proved to be outstandingly strong secondary institutions and without fail the one ingredient that seemed constant in these succeeding schools that spanned the coast was the commitment of the community and the engagement of the It's to see that they would make this a partnership of achievement for their children. I put it to you simply. We cannot have an island of excellence in a sea of indifference and confusion and if we want strong Public Schools, we must have a commitment in the communities and in the hearts of minds of people that surround the (00:07:50) institution Still (00:07:54) public education in my view cannot be taken off the hook. If I thought there were no strategies for school renewal. We would not have written our report and so in the remaining moments you've assigned to me this morning. I should like to focus on five key qualities for school renewal that I believe are absolutely crucial. (00:08:17) First (00:08:18) We Begin The Carnegie report by suggesting that every school must have a clear and vital Mission quite frankly as we went from school to school. I was deeply troubled by what can only be described as the ambiguity and confusion regarding the purposes of secondary education and indeed within each school. There was confusion among the people who were there and in some instances contradiction to Oversimplifying perhaps when we talked to principles their major objective was to make it through the day and to get there keep order in the school and to get their reports in good form to the central office. The teachers goals were to cover the material and frankly do it in Splendid isolation very much very often unconnected to the teacher down the hole and for students almost without exception. They said they came to school because it was the law orbit because it was where they can meet their friends or perhaps secondarily because it would get them a job or to a college later on rarely. If ever did we hear high school students talk about the high school as having an inherent educational mission that they understood or seriously pursued. And so putting it as simply as I can the high schools of the country frequently have no Transcendent Vision as to what they are collectively seeking to accomplish and that's because over the years the secondary schools in this country have accumulated Barnacles like a weathered ship responding to every special interest group that wants to use the school to a suit to achieve their own self-centered ins as Penance for our high school study. We read the education laws in all 50 states. And if you have an inclination toward vertigo or nausea, it's a process. I would not recommend to what your appetite. However, I would cite chapter 4 in our report, which I assume is on the coffee table and every person in this room. The state of Maine says That the public schools must teach virtue and morality for not less than 1/2 hour every week one sort of Wonders what goes on up there the rest of the rest of the time and then to just nail it down. They said that this shall include teaching a sacred regard for truth. Love of country Humanity a universal benevolence sobriety industry frugality Chastity moderation temperates, and then just to be sure the state code says and all other virtues that ornament human society and all of that in one half hour every week State of California has a Humane streak. It says that all schools shall teach American citizenship including kindness toward domestic pets. I can only feel sadness toward the foreign pets and their day be beaten and abused as all foreigners should. I think my dog has read this code, but if I don't pat him when I come home, he looks to me as if I'm somehow subversive and he'll report me your neighbor, Wisconsin. However, a presents a model of boosterism for us. All the state code says there that every public and private Elementary and high school shall give instruction in the true and comparative item and content and food value of dairy products. You get the you get the picture now, I'm as you are both amused and deeply troubled the truth is that the education codes in some states now number more than 1,000 pages and we've just begun if I had one suggestion, it would be that we would somehow bury all the education laws in every state and start again. Write a few simple comprehensive expectations of what we want our schools to be accomplishing and then give Authority and credibility to the local districts into the local principles and to the teachers to get on with education. We have however been accumulating purposes asking the schools to achieve what the home and the community and the churches have not been able to accomplish. And I think it rather ironic that at the very time that the national commission urges that we get back to something called the new Basics which incidentally include math science and the like we've had the National Congress debating for over two weeks the issue of prayer in public schools, which is more time than they've devoted to World Peace. Without getting into the particulars of Prayer in school. I can only say that it's again a symbol of the ambivalence of this nation where we would like to see the schools become engaged in the character building and morality and even in the piety of our children while at the same time, we're talking about the issue of purposes and goals that are more academically focused. I conclude then that the time has come for us to think carefully about what our schools can and cannot do and how they must somehow be supported by the other institutions in the culture who also have an obligation to fulfill as a first crack at Clarity of goals in the Carnegie report. We say that every high school should give top priority to the Mastery of (00:14:54) language. (00:14:56) And if I had any one wish that would be the centerpiece of all public education. The national commission urged that we stress Math and Science in order to compete in the high-tech race and no one can quarrel with that objective this nation must maintain its competitive Advantage. I only suggest that that's confusing A specialized with a generalized problem in education. Not every child is going to be a scientist or engineer, but every child is going to have to use language in order socially and educationally to succeed now happily, of course the schools do not have to do it all alone. God gives us tremendous help language is the basic of the basics. It's not just another subject. It's the means by which all other subjects are pursued. And it is that one unique skill that's imprinted in the jeans and I believe makes us truly human and sets us apart from all other forms of life. Indeed my my my wife who was a certain certified nurse Midwife and delivers babies including five grandchildren of our own insist that language begins in utero. When as The Unborn infant begins to monitor the mother's voice and then after birth turns the she insists reflexively to see the face behind the voice. Well, I happen to believe my wife is right, but for the Skeptics in the room, I must insist that language certainly does begin with the first breath of birth. And now that I'm a grandfather and can observe that process more objectively unencumbered by dirty diapers and burping late at night. I have to tell you that I'm absolutely in all of this process this god-given process that starts to Bubble Up in the early moments of the human life where the I think with the first gurgles and then the phonemes that are crudely formed and then the utterances we happily call words. Never mind that God God is not dead dad, but Dad insisted is and then sentences that conveyed subtle shades of meaning and all of this happening in the early dawn of human existence for each human being on this Earth. Not with formal training often with bad models from adults, but it somehow starts to Bubble Up and Define the nature of our Humanity for ourselves and for others to and I'm convinced that (00:17:47) this the (00:17:48) obligation of the public school then is to build on the profoundly successful symbol system that already is in place when the child first marches off to school. Because in my opinion every child who can speak and listen can also read and write because speaking and listening demonstrates the symbolic the symbol capacity of the child and the ability to deal with words and subtle Shades and meaning and reading and writing then is adding visual squiggles to a process already well in place and while in our report incidentally we talked for three hundred plus pages about high school. I have to say for the record that the most important issue in education overwhelmingly is the early years and I'm enthusiastic about the prospects of the days ahead precisely because I think we're going to become smarter about developing language in the early days of education and if that's achieved then I believe will have profound. Success is later on but failure of language in the early years in my judgment means remediation and frustration in the upper grades of formal education here. I must pay tribute to miss rice my first grade teacher about a hundred years ago. I walked off to first grade with my mother in Southwest Ohio and on the way to school. I asked my mother if I learned to read that day and I've often thought of that incidentally I think children go to school to learn to read you want to you want to break that adult code and find out what all those secrets are about. My mother quite wisely said no, you won't learn to read today, but you will before the year is out. Well, my mother did not know Miss rice my first grade teacher. I walked in the classroom door and there she stood half human half Divine. In fact, in fact, four months. I thought in the evening, she just ascended into heaven and then each day came down to teach the class. I mean, she was absolutely beautiful and Angelic as well. Indeed to add them is to the Mystique missed. Rice was was called a maiden lady. She was against the law in Dayton Ohio to teach and be married at the same time at it had something to do with not mixing business and pleasure. I never fully understood. But in any event Miss rice, and if you'll forgive the term after a pregnant pause look to the class and said good morning class today. We learned to read first words I ever heard in school. Not one student said no, not today. Let's string beads. I mean if if Miss rice says you learn to read you learn to read and we spent all day on forwards I go to school. We Trace them we recited them we sang them and and God forgive her we even pray they prayed them. She had a little prayer worked out. Thank you. I go to school. Incidentally. I have heard that the one prayer that's acceptable to all faiths is dear God. Don't let her call on me today. But in any event that night I ran home ten feet tall and I announced proudly to my mother that I'd learned to read. I hope the crumpled piece of paper from my pocket as proof of my achievement truth is I learned to memorize but miss rice had taught me something much more essential. A message that frankly has nagged me for over 50 years and that's the simple insight and the profoundly important judgment that the search for excellence begins with the Mastery of language. And in that regard in the Carnegie report, we give top priority to writing to as a result of our school visits. I became convinced. It was the most important in the most neglected language skill. It's not that we spend all of our life writing messages to each other. In fact, we talk each other all the time. How long has it been since you've written a thank-you note. We almost always call our thank yous anymore. No, I stress writing because it's frozen thought it's the means by which we can find out what is or is not in our heads and it's through clear writing that clear thinking can be taught. And I happen to believe it should start in the first days of formal schooling and continue every day throughout. And we say in our report that every student before he or she graduates from high school should be asked to write a thoughtful coherent statement on at on a consequential topic. I'm often asked how can you judge the quality of any school? There's only one way I know that is ask the students to write an essay. I'll take them home on the weekend and I'll bring them back and grade the school because it's through that means students are not to be measured by x's on a paper or something called T's and Fs. Even chimpanzees can be trained to jump through those hoops. Education is for thinking and that means taking subjects from across the disciplines applying them to an issue of great consequence. That's why we spend billions on our schools. And that's what we should measure and if after 12 years of formal education students cannot write English prose with Clarity and conviction then I suggest we lock the doors and start again. As a footnote, I do have to say that in our report. We also urge that students learn we communicate not just with words but a nonverbal ways as well. I'm convinced the Arts are not a frill their the means by which he civilization is defined. The earliest forms of life I think had Grunts and groans and sticks and stones but as we became more enlightened and more imaginative, we stretched the symbol systems to capture the nuances in our heads and hearts. And anyone who wants to abandon the Arts in my judgment is dismantling civilisation and taking us back to Sticks and Stones and Grunts and groans. Here then is my conclusion education is to achieve excellence and is should be measured not by the SATs but by the Mastery of language and by the ability of each student to communicate with with care, and if I had one wish in our search for school school renewal, it would be that every child during his or her first day of school would hear some teachers say good morning class today. We learn to read and the Carnegie report searching for goals. We also call for a core of common learning for all students and we say the two thirds of the high school program should be required not to preserve the academic disciplines but to promote a common discourse in our culture. In the Carnegie report we say that education is for civic understanding not just for national competition. And that all students should study not just mathematics and science, but the human Heritage our social institutions literature and the Arts. And in our report we insist that all students study a non-western culture to so that their Vision be not just National but Global and frankly. I am deeply troubled that in a in a in a world in which we are increasingly interdependent our vision may become more parochial and our actions based on ignorance not understanding of our fellow humans on God's Earth. During our study of the American High School. I was startled to discover that only two states Mandate, of course in non-western studies. And a new story from California several months ago reported that a large percentage of community college students and that state could not locate either Iran or El Salvador on a map. For decades, we have pushed individualism in our schools, and I'm all for individual judgment. But in the process we have ignored the fact that while we're all alone were also all together. And while we're in the independent were also dependent to and an educational experience in my view should remind our students of both sides of that equation. Certainly, we need electives for all students as we say in our report, but we also say that students cannot ignore their connections to each other. Several years ago my wife and I flew from JFK Airport in New York to see our son and his Mayan wife in a Belizean jungle. We had quite literally traveled not just a thousand miles but a thousand years as well. And as we said around the open fire with our new daughters family, I wondered if we had anything in common. but as the Embers died I discovered that we could indeed send messages to each other although Primarily visual to be sure we could recall the past and anticipate the future which so far as we know is a capacity. That's uniquely human. We share laws and mores and traditions with other cultures. We can enjoy the Arts together. And at the profound lists level all people on this Earth share love and Faith and Hope. The arrogance of suggesting that we are so independent that we have nothing in common with our fellow humans to me is an active ignorance and self-righteousness that will destroy us if we do not understand the implications of existence. Dr. Lewis Thomas of the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York wrote on one occasion that if this Century does not slip forever through our fingers it will be because education will have directed us away from our Splinter dumbness and we'll have helped us see our common goals. I'm suggesting that to achieve Excellence. We don't need more Carnegie (00:28:40) units (00:28:42) ignorantly assigned. What does one more quote English unit mean are one more science unit unit. Let's start thinking about the substance behind the labels. And asking the areas of common encounter that we share both in this nation and abroad. So that all students can in fact discover their connections to each other. I'm not wise enough to Define in detail that course of study but I do bring the conviction that the search for our interrelationships must be vigorously pursued and one hopes thoughtfully understood. By great teachers and this brings me then to the heart of our report priority number three in the Carnegie report. We say that excellence in education is not to be found just in the con in language, which is the tool of learning and not in the core which is the content of learning but in the process, which is the teacher in the (00:29:47) classroom. (00:29:50) And we focus especially on what we call in our report the working conditions of the teacher the truth is that Americans love education, but were ambivalent about the teachers when I was Commissioner of Education one of the last and most enjoyable actions was a seminar I convened in Washington with students from all across the country and near the end of that day long conversation. I said how many of you have had a teacher who's truly changed your life and every hand went up and then I said how many of you have ever thanked a teacher and not one hand was raised and then I said and then one of the young women said somewhat embarrassed fashion. Well, you see it's not the thing to do. I said what a comment on our culture you've just told me that someone has absolutely changed your life. And yet you've suggested to me that it's cool to not suggest a thank you or to give even a signal of respect. And then I said how many of you could go and classrooms every day have 30 people stare at you as if your brontosaurus warmed-over and walk out day after day week after week and never give a signal that says thank you very much. Especially when that pertinent person has given everything he or she has to try to help you to live a better (00:31:13) life. The (00:31:15) truth is that in the Carnegie report? We found that the basic problem among the teachers was not salary. Although it's far below what I think it should be it's not Merit pay the president notwithstanding the basic problem among the teachers was the day-to-day discouragements and distractions and by that. I mean too many students in Given day off and a hundred and thirty-five 242 little time for Preparation very often even the lunch hour is assigned to the cafeteria. So your stomach is still in one great big not too much paperwork, which has exponentially increased. We're in some schools 15 to 20 percent of the teachers time is devoted just to the paperwork involved and then quite frankly too many mindless interruptions that suggests the indignity of the job or students Wonder in and out with late slips or leave early so they can cheer the home team on or my pet peeve quite frankly is the PA system. I think the public address system is a symbol of all that's gone wrong in public education. I was in a class where three different times forgive the indelicacy that idiot box Bellow. Stop. It's inane announcement. John Curtis is lunch money has just arrived from home or they'll be a pep rally on Friday and we have to beat the Niskayuna lions. And here's the teacher trying to cover the material that is judged important while the trivia keeps rolling in that's the rising tide of mediocrity that troubles me and I must tell you that at the end of that class if the teacher would have put down her papers in distress and said to the class we're going to March to the central office and find the person behind the voice my pacifistic inclinations notwithstanding. I had to join the March and would have delighted to watch him twist slowly in the Wind. I just think we can have. Or what image comes to mind? (00:33:46) I saw (00:33:47) conditions that I would not have endured 10 minutes spending all my time and universities. There isn't a college professor. I know who would not have walked out in 30 seconds and said clean this place up or I quit and he'd have gotten action or she'd have gotten action and yet teachers are expected to carry on with the smile pasted on their faces without any sense of dignity telling the students every day that when we get all the logistics of this place worked out. There may be a few minutes left to teach I was talking to a group of teachers about the PA system coming on without any warning and afterwards one teacher came up and said, well that's not true. She said at my school the principal goes before he makes the announcement. And what really bothered me I discovered that in many schools. The PA system is to way did you know that so that the central office can turn the switch and monitor the classroom and their actual occasions were there will some voice will say little little little noisy down there scolding the teacher in front of students. I am absolutely serious when I say that the road for improved quality begins with the teacher and the classroom and what I think is almost a sacred I'll use the term reverential Understanding of the power and the significance of that role and if we in this nation do not honor teachers we will get precisely what we pay for and so it is in the Carnegie refer report. We suggest that among other things. We think every school should have a small discretionary grant program to give teachers a little money to support a good idea it maybe $50 $100 if the idea is absolutely worthy. Why not say to the teacher. Hey, that's terrific. We're going to invest in you today instead of that. We're building up an enormously elaborate education system without understanding the vitality and the excitement of the people who need to be encouraged at the local school. And to me the simple. Thank yous to outstanding teachers. I'm often asked by the media. Well, how can we get rid of bad teachers? I say wrong. Question first question is how can we reward? The good ones? You could never make an institution healthy by being preoccupied with what is bad. You have to start by affirming what is good that applies to our life and applies to schools as well. I'm saying all of this not out of mere sentiment because the truth is great teachers can change a life forever. I mean little did Miss rice know what she did to me that day in 1930 X I was finishing a television program in Los Angeles and at the end the cameraman came around and said I want to tell you about my first grade teacher. He said she went on a Christmas holiday and she sent me a picture postcard. He said I don't remember the picture on the card and I don't remember the message that she sent but he said I'll never forget the fact she had rested. Mr. Andy Johnson. And then this guy's I his eyes glazed over. He said she called me mr. She thought I was somebody and first I worried about this old Duffer who after 50 years still basking in the glow of a picture postcard, but then I thought no that's precisely what the debate is all about. some teacher perhaps unwittingly had called him mister and for an entire life the signal of respect that that conveyed to a little kid had been used to give him a sense of confidence and a definition of who he was and what he could become and that's precisely the influence of great teachers and I only say the Excellence in education means excellence in teaching and that's Begins by reaffirming our regard for those who shape the lives of the coming generation and I would like to say then just a word about the students which We talked about in our report at least modestly. It's interesting that in the great debate and all the reports the word student hardly can be found. And yet, of course, that's the end of the enterprise we call education. And I have to say that as a result of our study I concluded that we have not just a school problem but a youth problem in this nation and so it is that in our report. We propose a new Carnegie unit a term of voluntary service for every High School service student a service term that would occur on weekends or evenings or in the Summers and we didn't invent this out of whole cloth. We found high schools both public and private where this service term had become a part of their tradition where young people worked in nursing homes or hospitals or art galleries or at the school itself in the library's the cafeterias are tooting other students who need help. Want to get sentimental but I did see a strapping high school student in St. Louis who had volunteered at the emergency room with a hospital the preceding summer and he looked at me with steady stare and said last summer they brought in a little three year old girl and the next morning. She was dead of meningitis and then he looked at me like a very grown-up person and said have you ever seen a little kid died. He was trying to teach me something about the realities of life and I felt quite frankly. He had learned something at the age of 17 that I had not learned for many years thereafter. That's not a romantic view. The issue is when do we allow our young people to feel that? They are needed and that there is responsibility beyond the rigidity of the academic program. I do believe we cannot have healthy schools with pathology among the young and I'm convinced that our students urgently need a sense of mission. One of my favorite authors is vachel Lindsay. Who wrote on one occasion that it is the world's one crime? It's babes grow dull. Not that they so but that they sell them reap not that they serve but have no God to serve not that they died, but that they died like sheep. The tragedy of life is not death. The tragedy is to die with visions unfulfilled with convictions Undeclared with service unpursued and I asked you not to accept the new Carnegie unit. If that sticks like a bone in your throat. I asked you however to reflect on what we can do in this Society to build a connection between the altruism and the energy of the young And the obligations that urgently should be met. So this brings me then to a kind of benediction during our study of American High School. I became convinced that quality cannot be dictated by legislators are National commission's the nation's schools will not be saved by experts on leave from Mount Olympus improvements will not come by more direct is from the central office in the end. The key to Excellence is the classroom and the local school the teacher and the student and I am deeply troubled that in our push for Quality the local institutions may be bypassed after all education is a human Enterprise. And if we have more mandates without giving more Authority and more recognition, I think education will be harmed not helped when all the dust is settled how many of you you've probably all seen the book in search of Excellence. It's sold over a million copies. I guess the best selling book in recent history. It's a statement by corporate leaders on how they can increase the productivity and education business and it's intriguing in case you haven't spent the money. I'll save you 1995. The book says two things really if you want to revitalize a corporate world a have clear goals and be give more Authority and recognition to the people who do the work and what I worry about very much that in public education will perhaps do it just the other way around and try to fix it from the top. And fail to understand that in the end School renewal is people renewal and find a way to give recognition and status to the actors last fall the Carnegie Foundation as a sequel to our report announced a school grant program and the idea was to give small discretionary grants to the principal and the local school. These were measly grants $3,000 each. I thought no one would be interested. Well within one month over 10% of all the principles in this nation applied to get a little extra money to help them pursue an idea that they considered worthy and next fall will announce a larger grant program to a fewer number of principles that will range 25 to 30 thousand dollars each the purpose of this program symbolic perhaps as it is is to underscore the point that while we're pursuing more requirements we also Must understand the human Enterprise and the need to revitalize the people. Well, I conclude then that in our search for excellence for the future. We must clarify the goals. We must give priority to language. We must reaffirm the core of common learning. We must reward excellence in teaching. We must reawaken a sense of service within our students and we must have leadership with both Authority and vision. And above all during what I think is the most interesting time in American Education in my memory for more exciting than post-sputnik when our judgments were simple and naive perhaps. I believe we must reaffirm our commitment to serve all students and not just the privileged few what a tragedy if we would quotes tighten standards and see increased failure among our students tighten standards to be sure but extend the quality of our teaching to I don't know how many of you saw Bill Buckley Firing Line about three months ago when he interviewed Mortimer Adler who was discussing Padilla proposal and interesting essay of its own and Mortimer was I arguing for excellence for all students and mr. Buckley was clearly impatient and unconvinced so near the end of the program just before they went off the air Buckley turned to Adler and said Mortimer what makes you think all children can learn and Mortimer Adler never at a loss for words turned to Bill Buckley and stuck his finger in his eye and said, well listen Billy said, I'm not confident all children can learn but on the other hand. He said you're not absolutely confident. They can't so he said I'd rather live by my hope and by your doubt and I thought Sikkim in the end. I can't be absolutely confident that we will achieve both the quality and excellence. In our schools, I only know. That the moment we start shaping public policy Biltmore on doubt than hope that's the moment the future of this nation is imperiled. James Agee one of the most outstanding 20th century authors wrote on one occasion that with every child who is born under no matter what Circumstance the potentiality of the human race is born again. And as we went from school to school we found. Teachers who are less than competent and principals who were burned out but we found overwhelmingly teachers and principals who every day were reaffirming their conviction to the potentiality of the children and I concluded our study of the American High School with a profound respect for the teachers and the principals who are working with children every single day. Thank you very much. (00:47:15) I would particularly like to affirm what you said about the empowering of teachers. You didn't use that word. But that's what I would take it when you talk about the dignity that the teacher needs and you talked about that the very essence of teaching learning is that relationship and the substance that goes on between teacher and learner? My question would be in regard to what you said in the very opening remarks that you made where that you said this that the schools are coping with a dramatically shifting Society. I believe that also I think that we are in the in a major transformation in society and I believe that the technology is driving that transformation you use the word renewal this morning. I use the word restructuring when I talked about the educational system and others talk about reform or talk about Improvement or changes. I'd like Have you if you are willing to comment on the use of technology in the educational system and I'll just leave it that broad. But how are you see that as we are in this dramatically shifting society and in regard to those five areas that you talked about. Hello. (00:48:36) Hello three quick comments Ruth one. I believe the technology Revolution is as profoundly important as any other we've had in human history. Clearly as important as the industrial revolution of the last century. It's an awesome breakthrough in the coding decoding transmitting of information, which is now the new source of power and control. I believe the first implication for technology is to have in the Core Curriculum a course on the technology Revolution. Why do we need to wait a hundred years to have students discover the importance of this change? I think they should understand what's going to happen. What's happening to our world right now for better and potentially for worse that it seems to me should be understood by every student and I would make it a part of the core of common learning that is science and technology technology being at least one application of the science study. That's number one. Number two, I believe that as I hinted in my remarks that some of the programming that's now occurring in the early years regarding language teaching offers enormous promise for empowerment in language through technology by a generation that feels comfortable and excited rather than awkward as some of the rest of us who are Beyond Redemption. Do I have been an advisor to IBM's program called writing to read in which they have very systematically selected phonemes and built them in different positions within a basic vocabulary. And I've seen the results of ETS studies of evaluation that make it clear to me that the use of Technology is an early teaching tool for children who enjoy it and see it almost playfully available to them will allow our children. I think exponentially to improve their early language capacity and there are other commercial firms that are equally successful. I only happen to have seen this one in the last two weeks third and here I get a little grumpy I do think that our school visits confirmed the fact that in the upper years of schooling schools haven't purchased equipment with little thinking as to why they and how they intend to use it technology has been by now planned later in many schools. And I think a lot of wasted effort and momentum that may lead to the same kind of disillusionment that is followed technology Revolutions in the past 30 years, the two elements that have caused as we say in our report. We have a chapter called technology the two elements that have caused the movie projector the television the teaching machine the language Labs. These are the the excitement's that were and even the talking typewriter. I mean, we've had our little technology flurries for the last 30 years, but as I analyzed why they came and most especially why they went it was the fact that we Had the hardware that was better than the material. That is we had form without substance and very often. We bypassed the teachers in the process. And in the end the technology should be a support for teachers. Not a replacement. It should supplement not supplant as we used to say in Washington but in my butt so that's I think a transitional condition. I'm urging that the materials for the technology computer programming in like should run very happy fast to catch up with what seems to me almost a daily Improvement in the equipment final point. I do believe however that if we could get the traditional classrooms and the non-traditional teachers together I mean by that the technology teachers that are frankly influencing our children more than traditional teachers if we could get those two teachers together. I believe that we've had the best educated generation in a decade. No, no, no reason. Why not the sources of information that are now available are stunning. I mean when I grew up in Ohio, we didn't even have a silvertone radio until I was 12. I didn't even see TV until our high school class visited Radio City in New York and I study stood there with my girlfriend and I said nothing will ever come of this and she thought I meant our romance and walked off in a half Sun. She was she was a nice girl too. But so I've had my disappointments about this technology thing, but I do believe I do believe my prediction is this if the technology could reinforce the school goals and could help provide materials more excitingly often than teachers and Yours could be interpreters and explore values in the Socratic method that Mortimer Adler talks about there'd be no reason why a generation couldn't it seems to me become enormously well informed but right now we're at odds with one another we're not working together. So I'm an optimist on the long-term about technology momentarily grumpy that we're buying Hardware without asking how we intend to use it (00:54:35) my question. I has to do with the teaching profession and primarily the (00:54:41) future of the teaching (00:54:42) profession given the problems that you've discussed today the (00:54:49) indignities that we suffer in the classroom in the low entry-level salaries and the General Lee negative attitude of society toward teaching at this time. (00:54:59) How can we attract top students into the teaching profession? (00:55:07) Each of these occurs is tantalizingly a speech and I'll try to be very brief or than I was last time first. Let me say that I do think Tom that one of the most exciting Changes in the past 24 months has been this nation's attitude toward teachers. I don't mean it's a love-in. I only know that three and four years ago people had a very grumpy and negative mood and if they talked about teachers at all, it was in terms of some strike they had read about I'll tell you as I go around the country from coast to coast when I talk about teachers now, I find a much more empathetic climate people are beginning to think and listen about this profession and ways that I can't remember so I'd say at least two cheers for getting it on the agenda and getting it on the agenda in a positive and not a confrontational way. I worried a bit when the national commission report came out in the president got into this shootout over Merit pay again, it was around contentious issues, but I find a softening of that in the best sense. So I'd say take some heart that that the nation is thinking more carefully. About it many states are looking for ways to increase salary base, but it'll never get to the point where you're paid. So will you go into teaching to get rich? Therefore we have to look at the third element namely, how can we provide the personal rewards and benefits some lemon as simple as thank you others as simple as a little discretionary Grant we suggest travel funds for teachers. We suggest occasional sabbaticals after five years for summer term. I mean for enrichment and clearly beefing up the quality of our continuing education program where teachers have a lot more say about their own development. I could go on and on but I guess I'm talking about the human qualities of this as being even more important than the salary but I do take a lot of heart that teachers are being thought of in a much more respectful way than they were in the past now on recruitment. I think we should identify students in high school and say hey, you're good enough to be a teacher. Give them some work in high school as Raids perhaps Scholarships in the summer to come to st. Cloud University as a future teacher fellow put a little investment in recruiting teachers the way we do science and math to scientists and mathematicians in the culture. Also, I think the President should announce tomorrow if he's listening a national teacher scholarship program in which the top 10% of the nation's high school graduates would get a national scholarship with the understanding that it would be forgiven if they taught three years in the public schools. I mean, we send them to priest core and everything else why not see them two great students teaching for several years in the public schools. We did that when we had a shortage of medical doctors incidentally we said if you will pay your scholarship if you work for several years and a health National Public Health Center and we got a terrific response. Why not if we're if the nation is at risk for goodness sake he didn't say a state or a local District. I think we might have at least modestly a national response and that would be One suggestion. I do believe in the end in certain fields. At least we're going to have to expect that some students will teach some teachers will teach for shorter terms rather than a lifetime and I don't find that discouraging. I would rather have a an outstanding person for several years than a less than adequate person for a lifetime. So changing the pattern of teaching in the profession is an observation we make in our report, but I'm encouraged on balance the mood has changed.