In front of a standing-room-only crowd last night in Hinman Forum in the Rockefeller Center, former Tennessee governor Lamar Alexander outlined the challenges America faces today.
His speech, titled "Education: We Know What To Do," was part of the 1998 Senior Symposium "Challenging the Status Quo."
Alexander opened by praising the selection of "Challenging" as the Symposium topic, and said "Challenging our country to be at our best is what we should all be doing as we enter a new millennium."
Alexander, Secretary of Education under George Bush, said he originally intended to focus exclusively on education, but then while writing his speech, it evolved into an address of greater social ills.
Alexander said the three worst societal and moral problems America faces today are the "inadequacy of our schools, the epidemic of illegal drugs and the absence of parents in the lives of their children." Statistics measuring these problems make up a "new misery index."
America must elect leaders who will address these problems, Alexander said, since if they are left unattended, they could "bring our country to its knees in a generation."
"Americans deserve real leadership who take pride in our prosperity but also tell the truth about the new misery index," he said.
"At a time when we should be alarmed, we have leaders preening for history."
Alexander delineated several responses to the problems of schools, drugs and poor parenting.
Alexander said the United States has a "political problem, not an educational problem" with its school systems, and that reforms must be on a local, not national, level.
In addition, educators must be held accountable for their successes by increasing pay for good teachers or changing tenure laws so ineffective teachers can be fired.
Alexander also said he supports school choice for parents.
To fight the drug problem, Alexander suggested "the quintessentially American solution" of drug-free workplaces. He also urged national implementation of Iowa's law allowing random workplace drug testing and Michigan's law that welfare be contingent on passing a drug test or accepting treatment.
Alexander said unmarried parents are a contributing factor to people who wind up "AWOL in the lives of their children."
"For a variety of reasons, we have a nation of parents that are too busy to care for their children at a time when the children need us more than ever," he said.
To remedy this problem, Alexander said the government should "stop giving financial incentives to couples to not marry," cut taxes to "make it easier for parents to stay at home" and create "flex-time" work and school schedules to help parents who do work.
He suggested schools stay open beyond the "disaster" 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. schedule as well as in the summer, and called for the strengthening of organizations and institutions that encourage volunteer work.
Alexander concluded by saying the most important thing facing America at the start of a new millennium is the task of raising "good, decent children."
"We can decide as a nation and as a people that we can take responsibility for our own children," he said.
