Full text of 2001 address before Congress

A budget’s impact is counted in dollars but measured in lives. Excellent schools, quality health care, a secure retirement, a cleaner environment, a stronger defense: These are all important needs, and we fund them. The highest percentage increase in our budget should go to our children’s education. Education is not my top priority— education is my top priority, and by supporting this budget, you’ll make it yours, as well.

Reading is the foundation of all learning. So during the next 5 years, we triple spending, adding $5 billion to help every child in America learn to read. Values are important, so we’ve tripled funding for character education to teach our children not only reading and writing but right from wrong. We’ve increased funding to train and recruit teachers, because we know a good education starts with a good teacher.

And I have a wonderful partner in this effort. I like teachers so much, I married one. Laura has begun a new effort to recruit Americans to the profession that will shape our future, teaching. She will travel across America to promote sound teaching practices and early reading skills in our schools and in programs such as Head Start.

When it comes to our schools, dollars alone do not always make the difference. Funding is important, and so is reform. So we must tie funding to higher standards and accountability for results.

I believe in local control of schools. We should not, and we will not, run public schools from Washington, DC. Yet when the Federal Government spends tax dollars, we must insist on results. Children should be tested on basic reading and math skills every year between grades three and eight. Measuring is the only way to know whether all our children are learning. And I want to know, because I refuse to leave any child behind in America.

Critics of testing contend it distracts from learning. They talk about teaching to the test. But let’s put that logic to the test. If you test a child on basic math and reading skills and you’re teaching to the test, you’re teaching math and reading. And that’s the whole idea. As standards rise, local schools will need more flexibility to meet them, so we must streamline the dozens of Federal education programs into five and let States spend money in those categories as they see fit.

Schools will be given a reasonable chance to improve and the support to do so. Yet if they don’t, if they continue to fail, we must give parents and students different options: a better public school, a private school, tutoring, or a charter school. In the end, every child in a bad situation must be given a better choice because, when it comes to our children, failure is simply not an option.

Another priority in my budget is to keep the vital promises of Medicare and Social Security, and together we will do so. To meet the health care needs of all America’s seniors, we double the Medicare budget over the next 10 years. My budget dedicates $238 billion to Medicare next year alone, enough to fund all current programs and to begin a new prescription drug benefit for low-income seniors. No senior in America should have to choose between buying food and buying prescriptions.

To make sure the retirement savings of America’s seniors are not diverted into any other program, my budget protects all $2.6 trillion of the Social Security surplus for Social Security and for Social Security alone.

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