Thank you, Howard. It is great to see you again.

It is good to be here in Philadelphia. This city is the shrine of American liberty and American independence, and there is no better place to celebrate the liberty and independence that educational options give to American families.

Liberty and independence are what the Black Alliance for Educational Options is all about. Your passion for parental choice is sincere, and when you talk about it, people listen.

You understand that in order to have authentic school reform, you need options.

Choice is not some experimental idea. In the 21^st century, it is an expectation. It is the way we run our lives. When people see a monopoly these days, they're surprised. They quickly look for an alternative.

Americans don't want some big bureaucracy making decisions about their lives or their children's lives. A corporation that tried to tell them what products they wanted would never survive. A politician that tried to tell them what to eat for dinner or what time to serve it would be thrown out. A restaurant that only served one dish would have very few customers. Instead, people demand and get exactly the products and services they want. Even customized products are affordable thanks to technology.

Free choices make our economy and our country work. They encourage companies to develop better products. They gave us the wonderful technology in the first place.

Americans control their environments through choice from the moment their favorite radio station wakes them up, through a day of reading and driving and eating what they choose, until they watch a video movie of their choice before going to bed that is just the right size.

The glaring exception for most people is when they send their kids to school. The parents picked out their clothes and book-bags and haircuts and doctors, but they march off to a school that some bureaucracy chose for them. The parents aren't excited about it, and many of them don't understand it. Some of them are rich enough to buy choices. Others want to change the system to give everyone choice, and that's why you're here.

While America enjoys a voyage of choice and freedom, our education system missed the boat. It's surprising that a country that says it values education hasn't powered it up with the energy of choice. But it's not just a surprise. It's a disgrace.

On behalf of America's children, I want to thank you for reframing the debate about their education. Before you came along, many people were asking the wrong questions.

Questions like: How do we increase the resources that go into the system? How do we make people content with whatever results we get? How do we protect the status quo?

But they forgot that their sacred duty was not to the system but to the children.

They should have been asking: How do we improve student performance? How should we change our thinking to improve student performance? Have we questioned our assumptions? Who cares more about a child's future, the system, or the parents? And, how do we give real power to parents?

And you, the Black Alliance for Educational Options, are asking these questions. You are getting other people to ask these questions. And you know the answers, too.

Today, a commission is looking at Philadelphia's school system, trying to decide how to make it work. Like our founders in 1776, the commission faces a rare opportunity to ask new questions.

I encourage the members of the commission to think creatively and act boldly.

They should not be afraid to think seriously about private management — making sure to look at several competitors. Charter schools, greater community involvement, and other innovative ideas.

Rarely does a city have a chance to rethink the education of its children from the ground up. I hope Philadelphia seizes this opportunity.

Philadelphia can bring us closer to the founders' declaration that all of us are created equal. Philadelphia can blaze a new path for America again.

When I led the Houston Independent School District, I appreciated and used the flexibility I had to give our parents more choices. I created a system of charter schools even before the state did. I started a program that let children in low-performing schools take their share of tuition— $3,750 a year—to a private school. I didn't care about protecting the status quo. I wanted the kids to learn.

My support of choice surprised some people because I was in charge of a huge system of public education. But I knew what you know: that giving parents greater choices and kids more chances does not hurt public education, it strengthens it. It brings us closer to equality.

President Bush understands this. As you know, on his second day as President, he made education his highest domestic priority and laid out a plan to change the culture of education in this country.

I want to thank BAEO for supporting this change. Thanks to you and many other advocates of choice and reform, the turn of the century for America's children came on January 8, when the President signed the No Child Left Behind Act into law.

From now on, parents can repair the system instead of resenting it. The law is not a Republican law. It is not a Democratic law. It is an American law.

I know this organization knows the value and power of bipartisanship. I know Pennsylvania officials like Senator Anthony Williams and Representative Dwight Evans are friends of choice and bipartisanship, and I thank them.

As you know, the new law strongly supports charter schools, and gives disadvantaged children trapped in failing schools transportation to other public schools or supplemental services such as tutoring.

Think about how significant this change is: federal funds will be attached to children and will follow them to the tutor or the after-school program their parents choose. That's a huge step for Congress.

President Bush's tax cut also gives families more control over their children's education by giving them more control over their money. The tax bill doubled the tax credit from $500 to $1,000 per child.

Another support for parents is an expansion of education savings accounts. This provision quadruples the amount of money a family can invest each year in special tax-free accounts from $500 to $2,000. For the first time, families can use this money not only for college, but also for tuition at private and religious schools.

The next step in encouraging choice is the education tax credit the President included in his budget earlier this month. This refundable tax credit would cover half of the cost of tuition, books, computers, transportation, and supplies, to allow children currently trapped in failing schools to attend a school of their choice.

Parents can use this tax credit for the cost of a private school, a parochial school, computers and supplies for a homeschool, a different public school, or a charter school.

Instead of handing over more dollars to the system, this tax credit would allow families to use their own money to make their own decisions. The tax credit is refundable, which means it even helps families too poor to pay taxes.

President Bush's budget also includes $50 million for a new Choice Demonstration Fund to support research projects that develop, implement, and evaluate innovative approaches to giving parents more options, including private school choice.

So you have the tax cut, the education tax credit, education savings accounts, support for charter schools, the choice demonstration fund, supplemental services, and transportation for public school choice.

The reason these and other steps for choice are so important is that they give accountability some teeth. Parents won't just know which schools are failing; they will be able to do something about it.

The new annual tests and school report cards that are required by this law will provide parents with much more information about the quality of their children's schools. But, if parents can't act on that information, they can't really hold their schools accountable, and the schools will not have a real incentive to improve. We all know where true accountability leads.

When a school's record is public, parents know which schools are succeeding and which schools are failing. When they know their children's schools are failing, and they have the power to do something about it, they can control their family's own destiny.

This Administration is dedicated to improving all public schools. But we must open our worst schools, to let the light in and the kids out. The time for patience is over.

This battle is being waged on every level, from school boards to Congress to the Supreme Court. And speaking of the court, I want to thank you for your impressive display of support during the Cleveland case last week.

As you know, the Bush Administration filed a brief in favor of the Cleveland choice program. You stood with us on the side of the children of Cleveland, who deserve a real choice. And I think and pray they will get it.

I know why you stood there and why you work for choice.

You stand with the children because you know that a school's mission is not to provide jobs for teachers but skills for students.

You stand with the children because you know that every child trapped in a failing school is one child too many.

You stand with the children because you know our goal is the quality of education not the quantity of diplomas.

You stand with the children, and you work nationally and locally every day, because you want to harness the power of parents and communities to give every American child an excellent education.

You stand with the children because you share the urgency of parents who desperately want a good education for their children—now.

You stand with the children because you agree with the President that a good education is the new civil right.

Here at the birthplace of American liberty, let us renew our commitment to American liberty, especially liberty in education. One thing we know about liberty is that when people get it, however high the price, they never want to give it back.

The more liberty we give to parents, the more they will understand and value it. The more we tell people about freedom, the more they will demand it. You are the prophets of parental choice. You have a great American message. Preach it boldly.

America has already seen the fruits of this faith. America already has created greatest voucher program in history. It was stupendously successful. No one minds its support for private and religious schools. It is called the GI Bill.

Choice for parents shouldn't start when the kids reach college. It should start at the beginning.

Every year, my Department's budget includes funding for college students—Pell Grants—and funding for K-12 students—such as Title I. They're in the same budget. College students who get this federal aid have choices, and there is no reason in the world why first-graders who get this federal aid are denied those choices. It simply makes no sense.

The next time you see a supporter of the status quo, ask some tough questions.

• "Are you opposed to the Pell Grant system?"
• "Do you think the Department of Education should pick a college for every college student?"
• "Shouldn't everyone go to the college closest to home?"
• "Isn't it unfair to help a student go to a private university?"
• "If the university has a chapel, and its students get federal Pell Grants, doesn't that violate the separation of church and state?"
• "Aren't Pell Grants a way to abandon the state university system and drain money and bright students away from it?"

Choice is all around us—even in federal aid for college students—and it is time to bring it to the children.

One of the greatest of the founders and patriots was Samuel Adams. He knew the value of education and praised the teachers of his time. He said teachers "diffuse among the individuals of the community, the principles of morality, so essentially necessary for the preservation of public liberty. …No people will tamely surrender their liberties, nor can they be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and virtue preserved."

Samuel Adams understood that freedom and education, choice and opportunity, are linked. He understood that no government can be preserved without an educated, enlightened, and empowered citizenry.

For more than 200 years, we Americans have worked to fulfill the hopes and aspirations that Samuel Adams and Thomas Jefferson began here in Philadelphia. In our drive to make sure no child is left behind, we will make sure every child has an option, a hope, and an equal opportunity to build upon the dreams of freedom.

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