US Presidency
1999

My Education Accountability Act will require every school district receiving federal help to take the following five steps. First, all schools must end social promotion. No child should graduate from high school with a diploma he or she can't read. We do our children no favors when we allow them to pass from grade to grade without mastering the material. But we can't just hold students back because the system fails them. So my balanced budget triples the funding for summer school and after school programs, to keep a million children learning. Now, if you doubt this will work, just look at Chicago, which ended social promotion and made summer school mandatory for those who don't master the basics. Math and reading scores are up three years running with some of the biggest gains in some of the poorest neighborhoods. It will work, and we should do it. Second, all states and school districts must turn around their worst-performing schools or shut them down. That's the policy established in North Carolina by Governor Jim Hunt.