Wrong turns
President Clinton might never have showed up at the schools selected for his tour through the Midwest this month if he had used the map posted on the White House World Wide Web page.
That map, which Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., displayed on the Senate floor last week, put the president’s first stop, Owensboro, Ky., in Tennessee. Further, it showed Kentucky’s western sliver as part of Illinois.
Sen. Bunning blasted the president’s proposals for new federal education programs as well as his knowledge of geography.
“There is one new federal program that is desperately needed: a geography class for this White House,” he said.
The map, which proclaimed, “Invest more, demand more: reforming America’s schools,” was corrected early last week.
Mr. Clinton ran into another blunder while speaking about charter schools in Minnesota, where he nearly reversed his initiative to hire 100,000 new teachers.
“Here in St. Paul, our movement to put 100,000 teachers on the streets—in our schools, I mean—has led, I think, to 23 more teachers being hired,” he said May 4.
Perhaps Mr. Clinton was thinking of another of his initiatives—hiring 100,000 new police officers.
The Department of Education is usually recognized for producing data and statistics, but recently it made news for producing art as well.
The National Endowment for the Arts gave the agency top honors in graphic design for its 1998 redesign of the publication “Growing Up Drug Free: A Parent’s Guide to Prevention.”
The NEA gives Federal Design Achievement Awards every four years. This year, 35 winners were announced, out of 338 entries from 71 agencies.
The Education Department’s publication includes 38 illustrations by children portraying their visions of a drug-free world. For a copy of the guide, go to www.ed.gov/offices/OESE/SDFS /parents_guide, or call (877) 4ED-PUBS.
—Joetta L. Sack federal@epe.org
