June 21, 2000

U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley

It is a great pleasure for me to join the Undersecretary at this briefing, as well as our other distinguished colleagues Bill Bader, Keith Geiger, Lee Fritschler, and Lenore Garcia. Evelyn and I are old friends and we have long history of working together, first when she worked for the President at the White House and later when she moved over to work with Joe Duffey at USIA. I am so pleased that we have another opportunity to work together as well. What I do know is that Evelyn keeps getting promoted and working wonders everywhere she goes.

I have had the good fortune to be the U.S. Education Secretary for over seven years now. In the process, I have seen a rising interest -- indeed a rising demand --for a new and stronger focus on education and greater international co-operation to improve education around the world.

When I first became the Secretary of Education back in 1993, I usually had the privilege of meeting with a foreign minister of education maybe once a month. Now, seven years later, not a week goes by without some leader from another country visiting our Department. Several months ago, the Hungarian Minister of Education was leaving my office and literally ran into the Irish Minister of Education who was waiting outside. So right on the spot we had a delightful three-way conversation.

Each year, my department hosts about 1,500 foreign visitors and we are always delighted to learn how we can work together. We have much to learn from other countries when it comes to education. Many nations have a level of rigor in their academic systems that we can only envy. And I will be the first to tell you that the United States has much to learn from other nations when it comes to teaching children a foreign language.

What I can tell you is that education is now taking its place along with trade, economic prosperity, security, and immigration on the international agenda. The growing importance of education on the international agenda is a new development and I do not see it going away.

I was in Asia in April to attend a G-8 Education ministers meeting to prepare for the coming G-8 meeting in July in Tokyo, Japan. I also had the opportunity to meet with education leaders in China and Thailand and to participate in meetings held under the auspices of APEC – the Asian Pacific Economic Co-operation group. And I have recently returned from a trip to Italy, Ireland and England.

In all of these meetings, and in the many other opportunities I have had to visit with educators from other nations, it is clear to me that we all share similar concerns. How do we improve basic literacy? How do improve teacher quality? How will technology reshape education? And how do we increase the opportunities for many more young people to go on to get a university education.

And there is growing consensus that much more needs to be done to foster international exchanges. The G-8 has adopted a goal of doubling exchanges in the next ten years. This is a goal that I strongly endorse. Last year, only 114,000 American university students took the opportunity to study abroad.

And only 10,000 American students study overseas for a semester or more.

I think we simply have to do better. We need to expose many more Americans to living abroad and learning about other cultures and build on the great success and legacy of the Fulbright program. I am strong believer in people-to-people exchanges -- what I call the power of educational diplomacy. This is one reason why my department has been increasing its support for international civic and economic exchanges. I also believe that must do much more to make sure that we also reach those university students who are not going to study overseas as well.

I also strongly believe that the growth of democracy, economic prosperity, and economic stability throughout the world is linked to the advance of education. This is one reason why I believe the United States should rejoin UNESCO.

Several months ago, Gene Sperling, the President’s National Economic Advisor, led the American delegation at the recent world education forum in Dakar, Senegal. Gene is a strong friend of education. He made a point in his address that is worth repeating, “The President” he said, “sent me here to address you out of a conviction that education truly is the closest thing we have to an answer to the universal quest for economic opportunity. And it must be at the center of any long-term strategy for economic development and poverty reduction.”

These are just some of the reasons why we are placing a new focus on international education and why the President issued his directive to encourage my department and the State Department to work together. And a great deal of work is getting done already. For the last two months, four working teams have been developing a joint agenda for the future. I look forward to receiving this joint agenda but let me suggest several areas of immediate interest.

First, I am a great believer in people-to-people connections and there are hundreds of American schools that are eager to have an international connection. This is why I would like to invite every Ambassador to participate in something we call International Education Week this coming November.

We invite you to visit at least one American school or university – all during the same week – to stress the importance of international co-operation and education. Just imagine the impact of the Ambassadors of every nation represented here in Washington speaking with one voice to the young people of America about the importance of international co-operation and education?

It would also be my hope that these proposed visits would generate classroom-to-classroom connections between American students and students from your respective countries as well. I am sure the State Department will be encouraging America’s Ambassadors to visit classrooms in your nations during the same week as well.

Second, we Americans do a less than adequate job when it comes to teaching

our children a foreign language. We start too late and we do to little to convince our children about why learning another language is so important. My Department has a long history of supporting the study of foreign languages and international expertise through our well-established Title VI in our higher education program.

I believe we must continue and increase that support but also place a greater emphasis on teaching children a foreign language in the earliest grades. This is what I call English + One or bi-literacy, and why I am such a strong supporter of dual immersion schools. There are currently 260 of these schools in the United States and I have set of goal of supporting at least 1,000.

We have proposed an $6 million dollar budget increase as a starting point and we are investigating whether we can make this a priority under our bi-lingual program. We are also intend to develop a “best practice” booklet on the success of these dual-immersion schools that we can share with educators around the country.

A third immediate focus is to begin an international dialogue on how technology is going to reshape education and particularly higher education. This is an issue that we will take up at our national technology conference this September and we welcome your ideas and advice. I have asked Assistant Secretary Lee Fritschler to lead this effort working with the Director of our Office of Technology Linda Roberts.

A fourth immediate task is to modernize our international education web site – a copy of the home page is in the packets – and create links to the many international organizations and educational groups that have been working so hard for so many years to promote international education.

Finally, and most importantly, I believe it is very important to reach out to the international community -- to listen to you, to learn from you and to create and encourage new partnerships at all levels. I am delighted to be part of this informed dialogue and I hope that it will continue after today.

Success can come in many forms. Increased co-operation between nation’s on many different educational fronts. A new awareness among America’s colleges and universities that now is the time to redouble their efforts and build new links to their international counterparts. A recognition that governments and international organizations should be hard at work creating new partnerships with international corporations to foster basic literacy and other educational initiatives.

And finally, a new appreciation by the American people that we much to learn from people around the world and that educational diplomacy is surely one way that we can foster peace, prosperity and understanding.

Thank you very much.

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