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.  North Carolina made the biggest gains in test scores in the nation last year.  Our budget includes $200 million to help states turn around their own failing schools.

Third, all states and school districts must be held responsible for the quality of their teachers.  The great majority of our teachers do a fine job, but in too many schools teachers don’t have college majors or even minors in the subjects they teach.  New teachers should be required to pass performance exams, and all teachers should know the subject their teaching.

This year’s balanced budget contains resources to help them reach higher standards.  And to attract talented young teachers to the toughest assignments, I recommend a six-fold increase in our program for college scholarships for students who commit to teach in the inner-cities and isolated rural areas and in Indian communities.  Let us bring excellence to every part of America.

Fourth, we must empower parents with more information and more choices.  In too many communities it’s easier to get information on the quality of the local restaurants than on the quality of the local schools.

Every school district should issue report cards on every school.  And parents should be given more choices in selecting their public schools.

When I became president, there was just one independent public charter school in all America.  With our support on a bipartisan basis, today there are 1,100.  My budget assures that early in the next century, there will be 3,000.

Fifth, to assure that our classrooms are truly places of learning, and to respond to what teachers have been asking us to do for years, we should say that all states and school districts must both adopt and implement sensible discipline policies.

Now let’s do one more thing for our children.  Today, too many schools are so old they’re falling apart, or so overcrowded students are learning in trailers.  Last fall, Congress missed the opportunity to change that.  This year, with 53 million children in our schools, Congress must not miss that opportunity again.  I ask you to help our communities build or modernize 5,000 schools.

If we do these things—­end social promotion, turn around failing schools, build modern ones, support qualified teachers, promote innovation, competition and discipline—­then we will begin to meet our generation’s historic responsibility to create to 21st century schools.

Now, we also have to do more to support the millions of parents who give their all every day at home and at work.

The most basic tool of all is a decent income.  So let’s raise the minimum wage by a dollar an hour over the next two years.

And let’s make sure that women and men get equal pay for equal work by strengthening enforcement of the equal pay laws.