Repository: UIHistories Project: Dedication - Library Sixth Stack [PAGE 4]

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No sooner had I switched off the Presidential debates the other day, than I switched to a channel which had an instant poll. I didn't know we were all wired and sitting there pushing the button as the debates progress, but apparently so. And so it's appropriate that we ask the pollsters what the people of America think about education. Ninety-five per cent of our people, a pretty good percentage as polls go, thought it was important for America to have the best educational system in the world. I don't know where those other five per cent are, but we ought to find them and start working on them. You and I know that. And it's just not just because of some overconfident sense of patriotism or parochial pride in America. The link between education and our ability to perform economically in the world is so strong that I think most Americans today understand it. As a parent, in addition to being the Governor, I know that the quality of the education that my daughter receives as she begins her grade school life in first grade, along with the nurturing of education that she'll receive in our home, will mold her future more than any other factor. And so I am no different in that sense than the millions of Illmoisans who hold the same hopes and have the same dreams for their daughters and their sons and their grandchildren. Just as I share this common dream, I also share the general concern of our citizens that we quickly take steps in Illinois to assure that we will give our children and grandchildren the very best education available in the world. And I recognize that education, at both the elementary and secondary levels as well as at the college and university level, faces significant challenges in the decades ahead. The reports, the commission documents, task force results, are piling up and they all said basically the same thing. And they ought to be a source of grave concern to us if we are not content to rest upon the achievements of the past but are striving to achieve the best educational system in the world. For example: — Studies of student achievement suggest declining, not in* creasing, levels of proficiency in our elementary and secondary schools across America. 3