Clinton Praises School’s Turnaround

President Clinton opened his nationwide “school reform” crusade Wednesday, lavishing attention on an elementary school here that--with federal funds and state initiative--has made a dramatic academic comeback.

Once plagued by what one top Clinton advisor called “miserable student performance,” Audubon Elementary School has turned itself around as a result of an array of programs proposed by Gov. Paul E. Patton for low-performing schools. The programs are aimed at improving literacy, expanding professional development opportunities for teachers and reducing class size (at Audubon, class size shrunk to 15 from 22 students).

Now many high-poverty schools in the state rank among the highest-performing schools in Kentucky. And at Audubon, the percentage of students identified as distinguished or proficient in writing has soared from 12% in 1994 to 57%.

Clinton called the results “truly extraordinary” and urged a “long-term, disciplined commitment” to replicate them throughout the country.

“There are still a lot of schools in America--hundreds of them--that fail to give children the education that you give the children here in Owensboro,” Clinton said.

Toward that end, the president signed an executive order Wednesday directing the Department of Education to compile and publish data annually on low-performing schools throughout the country and to help states fix them. Under the order, the department is to create teams of experts to conduct site visits to help and monitor local efforts.

Because of the emphasis on high standards, accountability, parental involvement and federal investments at Audubon, Principal Diane Embry said that her charges are no longer “at risk” but “at promise.”

Addressing the Owensboro community, Clinton called on Congress to support his $250-million “education accountability fund,” which would provide resources to help all states and localities turn around failing schools. That task, he said, represents “one of the great challenges this country faces in the 21st century.”

Even though two-thirds of Audubon’s 450 students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, the school now ranks 18th in the state for student performance--second in writing. Scores also have increased dramatically in science and reading.

“Income is not destiny,” said Clinton, who grew up under modest circumstances but became among the most educated presidents ever. (He holds a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University, won a Rhodes scholarship from Oxford University and holds a law degree from Yale University.)

At Audubon, officials said that reduction in class size has also been a factor in its comeback, thanks to new teachers hired under the second installment of a $1.3-billion plan designed by the Clinton administration to hire 100,000 new teachers. Nationally, 29,000 new teachers have been hired. This year’s budget provides $1.75 billion, a $450-million increase, enough to fund nearly 49,000 more new teachers, White House officials said.

During his stop here, Clinton also visited with third- and fourth-graders and led a reading comprehension exercise with them using the children’s classic “Charlotte’s Web” by E. B. White.

Later in the day, he took his campaign to Davenport, Iowa, to emphasize the need to build new schools and renovate existing ones.

At Central High School, built in 1904, Clinton spoke about “the school infrastructure crisis,” noting that the average public school in the United States is now 42 years old.

Clinton has been trying to coax out of a reluctant Republican-controlled Congress a bill to provide tax credits to states and localities to build and modernize 6,000 schools nationwide.

Clinton said that the need is critical because rising student enrollments will require an additional 2,400 new schools to be built by 2003. In conjunction with the president’s tour, the National Education Assn. released a report Wednesday saying that the cost of bringing all schools into overall good condition would cost $322 billion.

But House Education Chairman William F. Goodling (R-Pa.), in a statement from Washington, called Clinton’s “a flawed approach to school construction.” He argued instead for freeing up local building funds by increasing federal funds for special education.

Today, Clinton is scheduled to tour City Academy in St. Paul, Minn., the first charter school in America. Charter schools are public schools granted some freedoms from government regulation in exchange for a commitment to meet or exceed a state’s academic standards. When Clinton took office in 1993, there was only one such school. Today, there are 1,700 in 36 states and the District of Columbia. Since 1994, Washington has invested nearly $400 million in charter schools and the president’s latest budget proposal would provide another $175 million to reach his goal of 3,000 charter schools by 2002.

Also today, the president plans to visit an elementary school in Columbus, Ohio, where another Clinton program, peer assistance review for teachers, has led to measurable improvements in the school’s academic achievements.

Goodling joined the president in hailing the progress at Audubon. But he said Clinton’s plan would leave children in failing schools “trapped for up to three years” before their parents are allowed to transfer them to another school.