You were in there, werent you . Yeah. You didnt get to ask your question. Whats this . Okay. Shoot. How are you . Do you have any skim milk . Thank you. Whats your name . Glad to know you. Im bill clinton. Glad to see you. Hello. Whats your name . Teresa. Its nice to meet you. Its nice to see you. Appreciate you. Good luck. Thanks. Hello. How are you . Whats your name . My names annie. Good to see you. How long have you worked here . Ive worked here a long time. Taking care of the kids . Yes. I know. Come on. You come with me and well do it. Where are we going . Ive got to ask her a question. Go ahead. With all the political changes and unrest, do you think its important for a president candidate to have a background in Foreign Affairs and military defense . I think its important for a president ial candidate to demonstrate a clear vision for what our National Security and Foreign Policy ought to be to keep america safe and strong. I dont think that you should have to have a lot of Foreign Policy experience before. President reagan had no Foreign Policy experience when he became president. President gorbachev had no experience in Foreign Affairs when he became president in russia. Im the longest serving governor in america. I think i should be required to demonstrate an understanding of where our country is and what it keeps to take us safe and strong in the postcold war era, but i dont think we should say only people who have Foreign Policy experience should run for president , because theres too much evidence that weve had too many good president s that have no Foreign Policy experience. Thats not the most difficult part of the job. The most difficult part of the job is what to do at home. I think its pretty clear in what we should do in dealing with the soviets. I think in the debates that are to come up everybody will be given an opportunity to say what do you think the Foreign Policy is. When is it appropriate to use force . How do we keep america safe and strong . How should we relate to the soviet union . But weve had too many great president s that came out of domestic policy, but who understood our country and what its interests were. President reagan had better experience in Foreign Policy than domestic policy. So youre relying on your help. You trust them . Not just that. When i graduated from the school of Foreign Service with a degree in International Affairs from georgetown university, i would be the only president ever elected who studied Foreign Affairs in college. I worked for the Foreign Relations committee of the United States senate, and i spent 11 years working on Global Economic affairs. Im very involved in a portion of this, but i think the more important thing is do you know what to do and do you have good judgment and whats your policy going to be. Okay. Thanks a lot. I didnt think i was going to catch. Thats an excellent question. Im sorry i didnt get to answer that out there. I would like to wish you good luck in the future. Thank you. I hope youll support me. Whats your name . Good to meet you, shane. Hello. Bill clinton. Whats your name . Sarah. You teach here . Yes. What do you teach . Physical science. Good for you. Thats good. I have a daughter who longs to be a scientist. Really . She has a mother who is a lawyer and a father who is a lawyer politician. She doesnt want a life in it. Shes a scientist. In our junior high schools, she just started seventh grade in the little rock Public Schools. They have a program in math and science. She entered the math and science track. We have a program like that also. Im hoping for her. Hi. Hi im jennifer. Good to see you. Is that where i just was . Yes, thats where you just were. Thanks for letting me use the room. You balance the books . I hope so. This gentleman was in the meeting. Pleased to meet you. Whats your name . Don gray. What do you teach . Biology. Very nice to meet you. Thank you. Good to see you. I want to ask you some questions. Super. I thought it was supposed to be the other way around . You can ask me questions too. Im an english journalism teacher. Had a couple of my kids tracking you down down there. They did a terrific job. Where am i supposed to be . Where do you want me to sit . Come on. Lets sit down, please. Where are you going to sit . Oh, i see. I dont know if youve made it special or not. You told me to sit facing the coke machine. I just do what im told. Thank you. Well, arent you proud of your students . Very proud of them. Theyre a great group of kids. They really are. Discussing issues and the questions are theirs, so it was nice to see. Tell me about the are you the only counsellor . No, theres two. Whats the size of the school . About 425. Do you have state standards on that . We do have state standards. What are they . So many counsellors per 100 to 200. Do you have any elementary standards . Yes, we do. Whats that . I believe thats [ inaudible ] the middle school is about the same. We have two elementary schools. We require back in 83 we rewrote our school standards. It was the first time we required elementary counsellors. We wound up hiring 1400 extra counsellors statewide. Boy, it was a good investment. You in missouri have been doing that. Really . See, weve got all these kids, though, who have come into grade school with really troubled families. Even where parents are doing a good job, they may be very poor and have no formal education. One of the things thats really good is we can get more male counsellors in the earlier grades. Thats really enriches the kind of interactions these kids can have. How are you schools financed in arkansas, by the state or local communities . Almost the reverse of New Hampshire. Not surprising. Theres a 50 state continuuc. On one end is New Hampshire. On the other end is hawaii. In hawaii 100 of the Public School costs is paid for at the state level. Hawaii only has one School District and the property tax is a state tax. About 2 3 of the kids in hawaii go to Public Schools. So you have New Hampshire, which is almost completely local, hawaii which is completely state. All others are in between. My state is up there close to hawa hawaii. Were about 62 state financed right now. Maybe slightly more than that. 8 federal and the rest local, and were probably in the top before our last funding increase, we were 13th from the top in state funding. Now were probably ninth, eight, Something Like that. Two is the south has a much higher percentage of kids living below the poverty line. A lot of them tend to be concentratists. If you dont have a high proportion of state funding, you dont get anything like school equalizati equalization. You dont get close. Even though we have a majority of state funding, its a never ending struggle because of the movement of student population and the wide disparities of wealth. What are your taxes in arkansas . Do you have a sales tax . We have a sales tax and an income tax. The property tax is 49th in the country. Not only in dollars but as a percentage of income. What percentage of your budget goes to education . State, over 70 if you count higher ed. Public schools alone its one of the highest in the country. The Public Schools alone in arkansas take about half the state budget. Now thats what we call the Public School fund, which is what we send back to the school in aid is a little under half. Then you add the cost of the Public Education and the school for the blind and the deaf youre over half the budget. We spend between vocational and Community College and Fouryear College education probably another 22 . I havent run the numbers since the latest funding went in, but it was 70 before. So it probably is about 73 now. You know, its interesting because in the 1980s we were still in spite of the fact we had two school tax increases and two road tax increases, we were still one of the top ten states in overall state spending increases. We still were in the bottom five states in the percentage of income going to state and local taxes. But we have just the reverse that you have high local taxes and low state taxes. We have high state taxes and w local taxes. We have the state setting the standards and the local people expect to pay it. Therefore the cities with the smaller property base pay a higher tax rate and dont get equalized schools as a result. And even if you pay a higher tax rate, you may not have as much money per kid, right . Right. Exactly. Maintain approval of the schools and accreditation. And our equalization with the Foundation Aid is 7 . Our community was in the top five citizen towns tax wise in the state, yet were down at the bottom in expenditures per state. I think the fear is and it is justified fear is if you add another layer of taxation that doesnt give immediate relief, then you perhaps have just increased the taxes. Good to see you. May i play . What . What . Are we playing a game . What . Oh. Who is on what side . Senior citizens against the kids. No, i missed. Let them have it. This guys on the varsity. Ill cover him. Number 2. Pick him up. Pick him up. Be careful. Its ours. Highball. Bruce. Oh they won. These guys are going to the state tournament. As part of his tour of Franklin High School in New Hampshire this past week, governor clinton met with students for a question and answer session. Franklin high school is located north of concord in a community of about 800 residents. Okay. If i can have your attention. With great pleasure today that Franklin High School is able to host a democratic president ial candidate. I would like to thank our principal for ranging this visit in our class time. Governor clinton was born in arkansas. He was educated at the Georgetown School of Foreign Services. He was a very distinctive roads scholar at oxford university. He is married and has one daughter. And we are very privileged to have the governor here today. Before the governor speaks, however, i would like to introduce the president of franklins student council. On behalf of the Franklin High School student body, i would like to welcome governor clinton here to our school today. I believe this is a great opportunity for the students of franklin to meet and hear the views of a president ial candidate. I would like to thank governor clinton for taking the time to come and speak to us, and i wish him the best of luck. Thank you. Thank you very much. [ applause ] thank you very much. Id like to thank your principal and my friend, the mayor, for accompanying me here. I want to say a word for the student body president here. Its a better politician than i am, i think, but he reminded me this is homecoming week. If he makes a few more touchdowns, he might get another term even after he leaves the high school, so we need to give him a hand. He did a good job up here. Its not easy. [ applause ] thank you. Let me tell you first of all i want to just talk for a few minutes and then allow as much time as we have for questions. So if you have any questions, you might be thinking of them. When im home in arkansas, i spend a lot of time in schools like this. I come from a family like most of your families, an average middleclass family. I came up through the Public Schools. If it werent for the Public Schools, i wouldnt be standing here today as a candidate for president. I decided to run in large measure because i have worked for 11 years in my state to try to improve the economy and to try to improve educational students for people like you. And i believe there are limits to how much any governor can do without national leadership, national vision, and a National Partnership to open up Economic Opportunity for you. I grew up in a very different time than you did. And i want you to think about this. When i was your age, we were in the middle of the cold war. The war between the soviet union and the United States for the hearts and minds of people in the world, the contest between democracy and communism which was symbolized by huge arsenals of nuclear weapons. When i was a young boy, we used to go to School Assemblies and watch movies about what it would be like if atomic bombs fell on us. We used to have people coming around all the time saying youve got to make sure you have a bomb shelter near you so if there is a nuclear war, you can run to a bomb shelter. You dont think about that much, do you . I hope you never have to think about it. President gorbachev and president bush have announced theyre going to reduce nuclear weapons. Were in a disarmament race. Youll be able to raise your children in a world in which you never have to think about that. On the other hand, the world i grew up in had one thing that everybody took for granted, americas economic supremacy. When i graduated from high school in 1964, we had virtually no unemployment in america. We had a very high rate of economic growth. Everybody who wanted to work had a job. We had only 6 of the worlds people. We controlled about 40 of the worlds wealth. Well, today weve got a little less than 5 of the worlds people. We still have over 20 of the worlds wealth, but its dropping fast. The German Economy growing more rapidly than ours, the japanese economy growing more rapidly than ours. Our most urgent task and you can see it here in New Hampshire is to restore the Economic Leadership of the United States so you are not the first generation of Young Americans to grow up in a world where you didnt do as well as your parents did. But even if we great new economic opportunities, they can only be seized by young people who are educated to do it. And so the main thing i want to say to you today is to ask you to believe a few basic things. Youre growing up into a world in which what you can earn depends on what you can learn, in which just graduating from high school will not be enough. We need 100 of the people to get a high school diploma. Then you must find some way, even if you dont go to college, to get at least two years of education and training to be competitive in the world we life in. The average 18yearold going to work will change work seven or eight times in a lifetime, even if you never change employer. It is not only important what you learn in high school. Its important that you take out of here the ability to continue to learn in your lifetime. And our job, those of us in politics and is to create a structure of opportunity for you, to give you good schools and good teachers, and to give you some way of keeping score so you know if youre learning what you need to know. When you leave high school, i think we need a National Apprenticeship system so those who dont want to go to college can get continuing training programs. All the countries we compete with do that. If you want a college education, i think our country owes you, every one of you, no matter what your family background, the right to borrow money to go to college. If you in turn will pay it back either as a small percentage of your income over several years after you get out of college or with a couple of years of service to your country here at home in areas where we need your help. More teachers, policemen, nurses, other things that need to be done. Thats what we owe you, but i want you to believe, too, is that you owe something to yourselves and your families and your future. One of the biggest problems we have in American Education today is that there are too many students and parents who dont believe that all children can learn. Basically determined by what iq you were born with and what your Family Income is. I dont mean to be boring, lots of exciting things going on in Education Today to make learning fun, but what i hope you believe is that you have a responsibility to yourselves and to your future to learn more and no matter how much opportunity we put out here, the effort you make will determine as much as anything else what you learn. Let me just close with this example. A few years ago, in 1987, i think, a Representative Group of korean and American High School seniors took a math test. And the koreans did much better than the americans. Now that should not surprise you, because they go to school about 220 days a year, we go to school about 180 days, so by the time they are High School Seniors theyve been to school two years longer, so they should win the math test. Unless you believe were inherently superior to them, which is not true. Theyve been there longer. But the really interesting thing was, before the kids took the test the koreans were asked are you good in math and 26 said yes. The American Kids were asked are you good at math and 70 said yes. But the koreans won the test. Just because they work hard and longer. Your teacher and principle are trying to create opportunities, but you have to believe that you can learn what you need to know to succeed and that its largely related to the effort you make, not the iq or income you were born with. So i ask you to think about that. I want you to know i dont want to be part of the generation that leaves their children worse off than they are. I want this to be the most exciting period in American History and believe it or not, it should be. You should grow up in a world where you have more opportunity, more choices, more exciting life than any group of americans before you but it depends in large measure on your commitment to your own education. I hope youll make this commitment and in this campaign ill make it a commitment to make it as good as it can be. Thank you very much. Questions . Yes, you and then you and then well go along. Go ahead. Ill repeat the question in case you cant hear it. What steps do you intend to take in the first year of your presidency . What steps do i intend to take to reform education at the local level. Thats a good question for you to ask me, because i was one of the principal authors of the education goals that the president achieved in late september of 1989. And let me run through those goals real quick. First goal, every child should be ready to start school by the year 2000, mentally and physically. That means that there needs to be a partnership with the National Government to guarantee the very best medical care for pregnant women and their children up through age 5. We should have universal coverage for preventive and primary care. Secondly, every child who needs it should have access to a preschool program with strong parental involvement. A lot of kids come to school, by the time they show up for kindergarten dont know their colors, shapes, numbers, dont even know how to properly pronounce or spell their names, and its very difficult for the teachers to take account of all those differences if they havent had access to a good preschool program. Second thing, we should raise the High School Graduation rate to the international standard, 90 . Third, we should define what every child needs to know in math, science, history, language, and social studies as a minimum and devise National Standards to measure that. Fourth standard, we should rise to the leadership of the world in math and science education. Take all those together, i think the federal government, the president , the congress, has a responsibility to offer incentives to all math and science teachers in the country to upgrade their skills and to improve their ability to teach according to the latest available teaching skills and technologies and methodologies. I think we need a program to help with the best equipment and to our schools, i think we need National Standards for what you should know and a National Examination system that really measures it instead of all the bureaucratic gobblely gook weve got today, which your teachers can probably explain to you better than i. Not to punish you, but to give you a road map to see if youre getting what youre supposed to get. And i think we need incentives, which should come largely from the state and local level for young people to stay in school. The federal responsibility there primarily is to establish this National Apprenticeship network i talked about so when we identify kids that wanted to stay in school but dont want to go to college if they thought it was in their interest, we can do that. In other countries, lets suppose youre a junior in high school and dont want to go to college, or you think you might not go to college but know you need to work and need a good job. Germany, for example, you could go into an apprenticeship program, continue to go to school, but work a few hours a week. The difference is, your employer would promise to hire you when you got out of high school and continue your education for another two years minimum on the job. The governments job would be to put these partnerships together and pay part of the cost of education and training, even after you got out of high school, so then your employer would acquire a real interest in seeing you took hard courses, not easy courses, and do well in high school and you would have an interest in staying in, because even if you didnt want to go to college, you knew that was a way to get a good job in a way that would be interesting to you because it would relate to what you do all day. The fifth goal is to establish safe discipline and drugfree schools. I think that that almost exclusively has to be done at the local level, but there are some National Things that ought to be done there. One is to provide drug treatment on demand. We have too much delay for drug treatment for young people trying to get it. Second is to provide more police so we could have innovative solutions. The third is to encourage alternative kinds of punishments for people who are first time offenders. We dont need to spend a lot of nonviolent offenders to prison. They should be kept in community and do Community Service work or military boot camp like programs, so those are the things i think should be done. The last goal is beyond you now, but its to create a system of lifetime learning and basically what we need to do is to have institutions like the Community College i visited last night here in New Hampshire where young people can, and not so young people, can go back over and over and over again. Keep in mind, you will probably change what you do seven or eight times in a lifetime. Next question back here. What are your views on the situation in the middle east . Situation in the middle east . First of all, with regard to iraq and saddam hussein, i think we have got to keep the pressure on him to honor the United Nations resolution that he signed off on, to basically remove his capacity to wage biological chemical or nuclear war. You remember president bush put the airplanes on alert a few days ago because we have reason to believe that the International Inspection team was not being given full cooperation over there. We know the guys a liar. A thug, and a bully. Dont have to be a genius to know that. We cannot leave him with biological, chemical, or Nuclear Capacity in violation of International Law and i support what the president did in putting the planes on alert. With regard to the situation in israel, i look forward to the Peace Process unfolding. I hope we can have this peace conference. I hope the last remaining procedural issues can be resolved, and i hope we can work out a situation in the middle east where we finally bring peace to that region by giving israel genuine security in returning for resolving as many of the differences we can between the israelis, native palestinians, and other arab states. I do not believe well ever get there now that the borders have been proved to be insecure because of missiles, until we have a plan to demilitarize the middle east. The arms race in the middle east is still going on unabated and is deeply troubling to me. Other questions . Yes . What is the substance of your promise to help get ahead in todays world . To help families get ahead . I think we need to help families in the following ways. First of all, lets look at the condition of families today. The average middle class family has a parent or parents who are spending more hours on the job, less time with their children, bringing home a smaller paycheck to pay more for education, health care, and housing than they were ten years ago. So the first and most urgent job is to get incomes up. The only way to get incomes up is to increase the growth rate in america. That means we have to invest more money in this country and give people incentives to invest in this country in products and services that produce good jobs. If we can talk about that for an hour, but thats the first thing. Second thing we have to do to help American Families is to help them deal with the costs that are eating them alive. Primarily health care and education. Youve already heard what i think should be done to give all of you a chance to finance college education. We also need a plan for universal, affordable, Quality Health care coverage. Ill bet a lot of you in this room have heard your parents talk about how worried they are about paying for health care. If theyve got health insurance, i bet you anything youve heard them talk about how premiums going up, copays going up, deductible going up, coverage is going down. You may have heard them talk about whether if your grandparents get sick they dont know how theyll take care of them. These are Serious Problems in america. Next thing that needs to be done is we need a tax system thats fairer to middle income people, especially those who are raising children. And there are mechanisms in the tax code now which will give tax relief to middle income people, especially those with children. In the 1980s, middle class Family Incomes went down but the tax burden went up. The wealthiest went up, but tax burden went down. We need more tax fairness. Bill clinton became the sixth democrat to enter the race, announcing on thursday, october 3rd, in little rock, his states capital. The Governors Campaign manager is bruce linsey. This is the first time mr. Linsey has worked on a national campaign. Stan greenburg of the washington, d. C. , polling is consultant to the campaign and frank greer is serving as a media adviser. Hello, this is hillary clinton. I want to thank you for letting me speak with you about an issue that is central to our childrens future and critical in our fight to restore this nations economy. Solving our Nations Health care crisis. There is no prescription or role model or cookbook for being first lady. Future is created every day, the future is not something thats out there waiting to happen to us. The future is something that we make. Well, i have said and i believe that theres a good possibility that sometimes in the next 20 years we will have a woman president. Hillary clinton experienced many firsts in her role as first lady. She and husband president bill clinton have been Political Partners since law school. Shes endured several scandals, including his impeachment, as she considers a second bid for the white house, her story is still being written. Hillary clinton, this sunday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspans original series first ladies influence and image, examining the lives of the women who filled the position of first lady and their influence on the presidency, from march thmartha washington to Michelle Obama on American History tv on cspan 3. Each week until the 2016 president ial election, American History tv will bring you archi archive coverage. Next we look back to the 1988 campaign of Vice President george h. W. Bush. He speaks here at the Florida RepublicanParty Convention where hes introduced by his son, jeb bush. Vice president bush won the florida primary in 1988 on his way to the republican nomination, defeating Michael Dukakis to become the nations 41st president. Wheres george . Come on up. Also introducing the next candidate is my brother george bush and my daughter noelle bush. Our next speaker is a man of tremendous coe,