Commencing  A New Era As the Century Turns

When President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton made the commencement rounds at the nation's colleges and universities this year, they included speeches at a couple of minority-laden institutions.
The President, for the second time in three years, spoke at a historically Black university's commencement ceremony. He used his address to the graduates of Grambling University to announce an executive-mandated change in the sick leave policy for federal workers that will allow them to take up to 12 weeks of paid leave to care for an ailing relative (see Black Issues, June 10, 1999).
The First Lady, speaking to the graduating class at the City University of New York, talked about the damaging effects politics can have on serious attempts to raise standards and improve people's lives.
Although Rodham Clinton is expected to make a run for a U.S. Senate seat, representing New York, she did not mention by name Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, her likely opponent for the Senate seat. Giuliani is the man most responsibile for eliminating remedial education from the system's four-year schools by 2002 (see Black Issues, June 11, 1998).
The following are excerpts from their speeches:

Hillary Rodham Clinton
"One of the most important questions facing this university and public schools across the country is this: How do we make sure that all students, all teachers, all schools meet ... high standards. How do we ensure that students receive the education that will lift them as far as their aspirations and ambition will take them? How do we make sure that we fulfill the vision of making it possible that any student, regardless of where you came from, can walk out of this and other public colleges with an education that prepares you for the challenges of the new global economy.
"No one wins, especially our children, if our schools are plagued by poor test scores and performance, by low expectations and social promotion. No one wins, especially our children, if politics takes up much-needed seats in the classroom. We have to be willing to demand high standards and accountability, but we have to pursue strategies that work, that actually lift up the performance of students, enabling all schools to do better, not just score political points.
"We can never lift up our public schools by tearing them down. We can never ensure the economic future of this city or state — or our nation — by undermining the public education system that is at the very foundation of the American dream. And we cannot succeed in educating the children of the whole people if we breech the promise of affordable, quality education. But the fact is that we have to fulfill that promise long before a student reaches this college. Even long before that student enters high school, or junior high school, there is enough responsibility to transform our public education system to go around to all of us."