US Presidency
1981

What I am asking you to consider requires not so much a leap of faith, but a realization that the Federal Government alone is just not capable of doing the job we all want done for you or any other Americans. In the months ahead, as the administration is free to turn attention from the economic program to other needs of America, we'll be advancing proposals on a number of issues of concern to this convention. The inner cities, for example, should be communities, neighborhoods, not warehouses of despair where children are bused out and ineffectual Federal funds are bused in. I believe that with the aid of commonsense government assistance and the use of free enterprise zones, with less reliance on busing and more reliance on better, basic education, and with an emphasis on local activism, such as you represent, communities can be reinvigorated. Certainly, we're all inspired by the wonderful example of Marva Collins in Chicago, the gallant lady who has the educational grit to make Shakespeare admirers out of inner-city children.