• Funds for teachers
• Make states accountable

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, January 21) -- President Clinton on Thursday proposed that Congress spend $263 million on education programs aimed at improving the standard of teaching in public schools.

The money would go toward recruiting and hiring more teachers and provide scholarships and training programs to encourage teachers to work in impoverished areas.

"Every five years, the government revisits the terms in which it invests $15 billion in our nation's schools," Clinton said at a White House briefing. "1999 is the fifth year, which gives us a golden opportunity, as well as a solemn responsibility, to invest in what works and stop investing in what doesn't."

Due to overcrowded classrooms and low pay for teachers "a quarter of all teachers in secondary schools don't have majors or minors in the subjects they are teaching," Clinton said.

"The deficit is greatest where the need is greatest," he added. "Students in schools with mostly minority students have less than a 50-50 chance of having a math or science teacher with a degree in the field."

While the country's fourth graders rank among the top in math and science performance compared with their counterparts in other leading industrialized nations, the country's 12th graders score among the bottom, Clinton said.

"It's not the students who are failing. It's the system that is failing the students," he said.

Funds for teachers

Hold the schools accountable for the performance of their teachers through teacher testing and certification programs.

Clinton said that his plan would provide support to help the states meet these requirements.

He said that the federal government should also support efforts to build or modernize 5,000 schools and continue to try to connect every school classroom and library to the Internet.

Republicans in Congress will want to ensure that states and local school districts still maintain adequate control over schools without federal interference, Rep. William Goodling (R-Pennsylvania) said Monday. Goodling is chairman of the House Education Committee.

"Americans want those common-sense education ideas -- not more regulations, nor federal tests, nor unfunded mandates, nor duplicative programs," Goodling said.

Congress never approved a previous Clinton plan to establish voluntary national testing for students.

Thursday, January 21, 1999

• Quayle announces 2000 GOP presidential bid
• Clinton defense team pleads for 'political sanity'
• Senators disagree over what's next
• Fellow Arkansan to deliver defense close for Clinton
• Transcript: Clinton attorney David Kendall
• Transcript: Former Sen. Dale Bumpers
• Clinton spells out education agenda
• Firefighters union first labor group to endorse Gore
• Holbrooke accused of ethics violations
• Monica madness: One year and counting
• Schools, libraries gets Internet subsidies
• Sen. Hollings recovers from eye surgery
• Democrats criticize proposed defense spending increase
• Archer: GOP won't touch most of surplus pending Social Security reform
• Steelworkers demonstrate in D.C.

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