To: AllPolitics
From: Jill Dougherty/CNN
In: Lansing, Mich.
Posted: 3-6-97

Subject: Clinton Speaks On Education

Addressing a special session of the Michigan Legislature, President Clinton will promote the need to adopt national school standards.

In his State of the Union address last month, the president called on states and local school districts to participate in a new, voluntary national test for individual students in fourth-grade reading and eighth-grade mathematics, beginning in 1999.

The president today will direct the Department of Education and the National Science Foundation, working with other agencies, to develop a strategy for using federal resources to help states to meet those standards, as well as raise achievement in science.

That strategy is to be completed in 90 days and will include recommendations to improve teaching, upgrade the curriculum and integrate technology into the classroom.

Republicans have criticized the Clinton Administration's educational initiatives, saying they would dramatically increase and expand the federal government's role in education.