Bill Clinton on School Choice

Expand public school choice and public charter schools

The FY 2000 budget provides a $134 million accountability fund to help turn around the worst performing schools and hold them accountable for results through such measures as overhauling curriculum, improving staffing, or even closing schools and reopening them as charter schools. This year, the President is proposing to double funding for this fund to turn around the nation’s failing schools to ensure all children receive a quality education.

The Clinton-Gore Administration has worked to expand public school choice and support the growth of public charter schools, which have increased from one public charter school in the nation in 1992 to more than 1,700 today. More than 250,000 students nationwide are now enrolled in charter schools in 30 states and the District of Columbia. The President won $145 million in FY 2000 -- and has proposed $175 million in his FY01 budget -- to continue working toward his goal of establishing 3,000 quality charter schools by 2002.

Source: WhiteHouse.gov web site Jul 2, 2000

Reward best public schools; redesign failing ones

We should reward the best schools, and we should shut down or redesign those that fail, and especially those that are unsafe. That’s one reason why I have supported expanding school choice and charter schools-creative new schools started by parents and teachers and licensed by school systems. And it’s why I have announced a new $5 billion program to renovate and modernize school buildings badly in need of repair-in inner cities, suburbs, and one-stoplight towns. Source: Between Hope and History, by Bill Clinton, p. 44 Jan 1, 1996

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