August 5, 2002
Contact: Carlin Hertz
Melinda Malico
(202) 401-1576
Paige: "All the Reforms in the World Won't Mean a Thing If We Don't Have Safe Classrooms for Students to Learn and Teachers to Teach"
U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige today delivered the following remarks at the U.S. Department of Education's safe schools conference in Washington, D.C. More than 700 school leaders, superintendents, school security specialists, and experts on school safety and drug and violence prevention are in Washington for the Leaving No Child Behind: Results-Based Strategies For Safe and Drug-Free Schools conference.
The prepared remarks follow:
Thank you, I want to welcome you all to our nation's capital and thank you for coming. I hope that while you're here, you get a chance to visit some of our national treasures.
Every day I'm reminded what an honor it is to serve as secretary of education and to be part of implementing President Bush's vision for education for America. Since Sept. 11, he has been an unyielding force against terrorism.
He has proposed a new Department of Homeland Security whose primary mission is to ensure our communities are safe through better preparedness and a nationwide network of first responders.
This is the most significant transformation of the U.S. government in over a half-century. And it is one more key step in the president's national strategy to protect the American people where we live.
I have seen his steely resolve to protect America and bring terrorists to justice. Yet never once—never once in this whole ordeal—has the president lost his laser-beam focus on the things that matter most right here at home:
- Creating jobs;
- Expanding opportunities to save and invest and own a piece of the American dream; and
- Educating every single child.
Even while building an international coalition to fight terror, President Bush was building a bipartisan coalition in Congress to improve our nation's schools.
The result was the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Now the historic education reforms it embodies are the law of the land.
They provide not only the funding but also the framework for real change: local control and accountability, insistence on results, early reading, quality teachers in every classroom and research-based instruction.
These reforms are fundamentally changing the way we educate our children in America. They are going to help us close the achievement gap between those who have and those who don't.
But you know and I know that all the reforms in the world won't mean a thing if we don't have safe classrooms for students to learn and teachers to teach.
So No Child Left Behind reauthorized the Safe and Drug-Free Schools program—to help ensure greater security and vigilance in our schools.
That's Job No. 1. And that job got even harder after Sept. 11.
I stood at Ground Zero right after the attack. And it became clear to me that the paradigm had shifted.
This grave new world we're living in calls for new approaches to how we go about protecting our schools and the children in them. And that means we need to do a few things:
First, we must create a comprehensive, coordinated national strategy for greater school preparedness.
Notice I said national, not federal.
Most schools have emergency plans already in place. Others don't, and they need to develop strategies. The midst of a crisis is not the time to first start figuring out who ought to do what. At that moment, everyone involved—from top to bottom—should know the drill and know each other.
The recent tide of events demands greater preparedness for schools. And we are here to help.
I sent a letter to all the chief state school officers in February, providing guidance in assessing their schools' preparedness.
We have access to experts and data to which local districts do not. So we are working to create a model crisis plan that schools can use as a diagnostic tool—to evaluate whether their own plans are comprehensive and complete.
This model plan will address everything from shootings to suicides—from accidents to large-scale emergencies like we saw on 9/11. It will encourage districts to form partnerships with local law enforcement and other emergency responders. Close coordination at the local level is key to the president's national strategy for homeland defense.
Something we've found is that school crisis plans don't always address critical issues like recovery and mental health. Our model plan will include the latest research on both.
We've put some of those findings to use in a new guide for schools to help them as they prepare for the first anniversary of 9/11.
Teachers and principals are the ultimate first responders.
As news of the tragedies unfolded live on TV, millions of moms and dads looked up from their work and their first thought was: My kids!
That day and every day since, teachers and principals in thousands of schools nationwide have been a reassuring source of strength and courage for our children.
And that has not been easy. I think of the elementary school teacher I met from a school near the World Trade Center. She and others like her worked valiantly to shield their young students from the horror around them. As they fled for their lives, one little boy holding her hand glanced up and—not recognizing the falling body for what it was—said: "Oh look. The birds are on fire!"
I know I speak for the president when I say that our teachers and principals are the quiet heroes of 9/11. Their hazard duty hasn't ended. And we owe them our gratitude and our support.
In that regard, we are also putting the finishing touches on a guide we're developing with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. This guide will help schools develop strategies for preventing and responding to bomb threats.
Because we know we don't have a monopoly on good ideas, we sought the input and wisdom of key educators from 10 countries that have had first-hand experience with terrorism—countries like Israel—that saw its first attack last week on the one place everyone thought was safe: Hebrew University.
We heard from countries like Northern Ireland, Spain and Turkey.
You don't hear much about Turkey—but we got an earful: Over a 13-year period, they saw 146 teachers killed by terrorists and 370 schools destroyed by terrorists.
It takes your breath away. But we all need to hear it.
This gathering to talk about terrorism in the context of education was a first in the history of the Department of Education. Another conference is in the works, because what they had to say is what we as a nation need to know. Their lessons inform all of our efforts to help schools better prepare for today's grave possibilities.
And we are committed to learning all that we can so we can communicate that to our schools.
Soon the Department of Education and the Secret Service are going to repay the favor and provide school-safety training in Germany.
Our expertise lies in the day-to-day challenge of managing domestic threats to schools. And we now have a lot to share with our friends in other countries.
Our two agencies—Education and Secret Service—recently released some interesting findings on student-instigated school violence.
The report is called: Threat Assessment in Schools: A Guide to Managing Threatening Situations and to Creating Safe School Climates.
I recommend you get a copy. Call toll free at 1-877-4ED-PUBS. Or log onto our Web site at www.nochildleftbehind.gov
This report is based on interviews with kids responsible for school shootings. It sheds new light on why they turned to violence and what schools can do to prevent history from repeating itself.
We learned that these were not impulsive acts. These kids didn't just snap.
They seethed. They planned. They dropped hints. They told friends.
And their friends never breathed a word to the grown-ups.
Using what we learned—and the investigative techniques pioneered by the Secret Service—we created a guide to help schools detect signs of trouble, conduct a school threat assessment, and prepare a strategy for managing threatening situations.
And one of the keys to prevention we learned is my second point: We as adults—in our homes, our schools and our communities—must do a better job of listening to kids, paying attention and connecting on a personal level.
The children in the study said they felt isolated and hopeless. Some tried suicide. Some couldn't cope with a relationship or peers. More than two-thirds said they felt persecuted, bullied, threatened, attacked or injured by others.
These are the seeds from which violence springs.
Luke Woodham, a teenager who killed his mother and two students at his high school in Pearl, Miss., was asked this question: "What would it have taken for a grown-up to know?"
Luke said: "Pay attention. Just sit down and talk to me."
Teenager Evan Ramsey is serving 200 years for killing his principal and another student at his school in Bethel, Alaska.
Investigators asked Evan: "If the principal had called you in and said, 'This is what I'm hearing,' what would you have said?"
Evan replied: "I would have told him the truth."
We as adults need to wake up and pay better attention. We need to listen and connect so kids will reach out to us or ask for help.
Some schools in San Juan, Calif., have a unique way of making that connection.
They do it like this: During training before school opens, they post the name of every child on the walls and ask the teachers to put a mark by the names of the kids they know well.
The children nobody knows—those with no marks by their names—get assigned a silent mentor.
That mentor is a caring adult who makes it his or her business to get to know that child and help in any way possible—a sort of guardian angel who's available to play basketball, offer homework help or just listen.
School officials surveyed the children who took part in this program last year and found that two-thirds had improved their grades. And most of the kids reported feeling a greater sense of belonging at school.
Another program in San Juan is called eConnection. It pairs students with carefully screened adult mentors who provide encouragement, homework help and concern.
One child developed such strong trust in her e-mentor that she revealed a secret history of abuse at home. That led to help for her and her family.
These and programs like them in schools all around our country are making a profound difference. They are fostering an environment—not only for learning—but for respect and compassion as well.
And that's my final point today: We must change the culture in our schools to a culture that says every individual has worth—everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.
Only then can we break the code of silence that has allowed school violence to flourish.
Recently, I taped a program with Court TV in which students were asked if they knew a friend had a gun at school, would they tell. One after another said "No."
I turned to the girl next to me and said: Would you tell? And she said, "No."
That just blew me away, because that response wasn't just a fluke. That's the same attitude of the kids in the research.
The Secret Service asked friends of the shooters in our study why they never told an adult. One said: "Calling someone would have been a betrayal. It just didn't seem right to tell."
Stopping a murder didn't seem right?
Clearly, we have much work to do.
One place to start is by finding some answers to why some kids choose to be bystanders and refuse to be engaged. We are teaming with Harvard University researchers to study these and other questions and will share what we find out.
We are committed to safer schools. And as we approach this new school year, we must all redouble our vigilance in classrooms and on campuses nationwide.
This is a huge challenge. And piecemeal planning alone is not enough.
Educators—at the local, state and federal levels—must be included at the table at every step of the emergency planning process.
We must all approach protecting our schools with the seriousness and solidarity that the situation demands.
It is my intention—prior to the start of the upcoming school year—to consolidate all of our school safety and drug interdiction efforts into one office that reports directly to me.
Our president is as serious as he can be. This administration is going to do everything it can to make our children safe from those who wish to do them harm.
And I thank you for what you are doing to help achieve that goal so every child learns and no child is left behind.
Keep up the great work. And enjoy the conference.
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