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Special Event

Gore Delivers Education Speech in Bradenton, Florida

Aired October 10, 2000 - 11:29 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: On the eve of the second presidential debate, the polls show Al Gore gaining strength after the first confrontation. But then, George W. Bush has since picked up steam.

Live to Bradenton, Florida, the vice president now talking about college tuition. We will pick it up live and listen in now.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

VICE PRES. AL GORE (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Renise (ph) and I talked for a short time before coming in here, a very short time. But it was long enough for me to be plenty impressed with her story. And you can tell by how well-spoken she is for a freshman in college that she's a very special person. And she has made her own way for the last three years, working full-time and getting a scholarship, getting some financial aid, and doing it all herself. I predict a very bright future for this young woman.

And MCC is providing the opportunity for lots and lots of young people to have a bright future. And Dr. Pappas, I'd like to thank you and all of the MCC family for hosting me here today. I've been looking forward to this, and I look forward to your comments and questions.

I'm going to start off with some comments myself about the importance of education from pre-K all the way through post-grad, but I'm going to focus on the importance of access to college.

I want to start with pre-K because we know from the new scientific studies that many of you have read about that they have now established beyond a shadow of a doubt that the right kind of educational stimulation for a young child can cause that child's brain to grow smarter and bigger when they're little. And most learning takes place in the first few years of life. So these findings are seen by the educational experts, I'm told, as being especially important and especially persuasive.

And that's why I've proposed a series of ideas to create partnerships with local communities and state governments and the private sector to establish a universal high quality pre-school all over the country for every child and every family, so that every child can then arrive at school ready to learn on day one. It involves expanding and improving Head Start, but going beyond that as well. When you get to the elementary and secondary schools, where the bulk of education takes place, I think that it's critically important to set our sights high. And instead of being satisfied with just gradual incremental improvements, I think we need to strike out in the direction of major changes in education, to make it a much higher priority. I think it's time to recruit 100,000 new well-trained teachers to -- and start treating teachers like the professionals that they are...

(APPLAUSE)

... and give them lower class sizes.

(APPLAUSE)

I think the debate in this election year on education has yielded some useful agreements. I actually agree with Governor Bush on a couple of points. We both are in favor of having new accountability for schools, new performance measurement, new accountability that will enable us to decide as a country when we're heading in the right direction and when we're losing ground.

I also agree with Governor Bush on the importance of maintaining local control of the schools; curricula may differ from one part of the country to another.

But here is the main difference in our approaches: My plan starts with new accountability, but it doesn't end there. By itself, new accountability is not enough. That's why I'm proposing that we recruit 100,000 new well-trained teachers, and why I'm proposing that we extend the idea of accountability farther than my opponent has gone, by requiring teacher testing of all new teachers, including testing in the subjects that they're supposed to be teaching.

HEMMER: Vice President Al Gore speaking to a group in Bradenton, Florida. The topic there is education. Later this afternoon, we will pick things up with his rival, Republican Governor George W. Bush in Al Gore's home state of Tennessee, now slated for 1:00 Eastern, 10:00 a.m. on the West Coast.

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