'Number One Priority Is Education'

Following is the transcript of Staff Writer Joetta L. Sack's April 11, 2000 interview with Vice President Al Gore about his education platform and presidential bid. This is an expanded version of the interview that appears in the print edition of Education Week . The interview took place in Columbus, Ohio, after Mr. Gore spent the day at Avondale Elementary School.

Q. During your 24 years in office, you've tended to concentrate much more on issues such as the environment, health care, and technology, than on education. Why are you spending so much time talking about education and schools now, and why should educators take you seriously?

A. I have worked for seven years on proposals to get 100,000 new teachers in schools, bring accountability, and reform, and higher standards, along with the additional resources that are needed. I have worked to expand Head Start, HOPE Scholarships and other forms of tuition assistance, and I have said from the very beginning of my campaign for president that my number- one priority is education. And furthermore, I believe we've come to a time when education has to be seen not just as additional help that produces incremental progress, but we need to revolutionize education. We're in an information age where 60 percent of our businesses have high-paying jobs that they can't fill due to a shortage of highly educated people in the workforce. We have the largest generation of students in history, and the record will be broken each year for 10 years to come. Families are under more stress, schools are being asked to pick up a larger, heavier burden, and for all of those reasons-including one more, in order to live a fulfilling life in the 21st century—learning...