Former President Bill Clinton and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush will speak at the University of New England this month, the George and Barbara Bush Foundation announced Wednesday.

Clinton and Bush will be the featured speakers at the university’s annual George and Barbara Bush Distinguished Lecture Series on Sept. 27 and focus on the 30th anniversary of the 1989 Education Summit.

Bush’s father, former President George H.W. Bush, convened the summit on Sept. 27, 1989, to focus on education and all 50 governors committed to developing a set of national education goals. Clinton and Jeb Bush will assess where the country stands in relation to the national benchmarks laid out during the 1989 summit.

The discussion will be moderated by Harvard professor Roger B. Porter, who served as President Bush’s chief domestic and economic policy adviser from 1989 to 1993.

Clinton was governor of Arkansas during the Education Summit and helped lead the event as co-chairman of the National Governor’s Association education task force. He later championed the summit’s objectives as president through his Goals 2000 initiative and with the 1994 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

During his two terms as Florida governor, Jeb Bush focused on raising academic standards, required accountability in public schools and created a school choice program, the foundation said. Since leaving office, he has served as chairman of the Foundation for Excellence in Education and the Foundation for Florida’s Future.

“There are probably not two more qualified experts on the recent history of education policy than President Clinton and Governor Bush to tell our audience about the importance of the 1989 summit and its aftermath,” Bush Foundation CEO David Jones said in a written statement. “Their passion for this all-important issue – which President Bush shared very clearly – makes them an ideal duo to delve into this historical occasion and its legacy.”

The lecture will be held in the Harold Alfond Forum building on UNE’s Biddeford campus.

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