Following is the 10-point plan for education that President Clinton announced in his State of the Union Address last week:
- Promote national standards reflecting what all students must know to succeed in the 21st century and create voluntary new national tests of student achievement in math and reading.
- Provide funding to help the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards meet the goal of certifying 100,000 teachers as masters in their profession.
- Help more children learn to read through the America Reads initiative, which calls for 1 million volunteer tutors to make sure every child can read by the end of 3rd grade.
- Expand Head Start to 1 million children by 2002.
- Create 3,000 charter schools by 2000.
- Teach character education and support school uniforms, curfews, and zero tolerance for guns and drugs in schools.
- Provide $5 billion to help communities pay for $20 billion in school construction over the next four years.
- In an effort to make 14 years of education universal, give federal tax credits and deductions for post-high-school study, allow expanded IRAs that can be tapped tax-free for education, and increase Pell Grants for needy students.
- Pass a “GI bill’’ for American workers to promote skills training.
- Connect every classroom and library in America to the Internet by 2000.
