Thank you, President Turner. I'm honored to be here to celebrate the opening of the Southern Methodist University School of Education and Human Development. Some of my favorite people in the world are SMU graduates. Like Mrs. Laura Bush, our country's terrific first lady. And Harriet Miers, the president's chief legal counsel, who is one of the smartest people I have ever worked with. Like President Bush, I remain grateful for Harriet's friendship and her dedication to serving our country. She would have been a great Supreme Court justice.

It's great to be out of Washington and back home in Texas. And great to be back with old friends. One of the nice things about old friends is that you start to speak the same language. You know what I mean when I talk about high standards and accountability. And when it comes to doing what works, SMU is among the best in the world. I'm confident that your new school will graduate not only some of the most talented teachers in the profession, but also some of the most prepared—for real-world classrooms.

America needs teachers who understand how children grow and develop; who not only care about their students, but know how to help if a child starts to struggle, how to monitor each student's progress, and how to diagnose problems early before they become habits—teachers who understand the value of stepping back to look at the big picture so that no child is left behind.

Fortunately, institutions like SMU are contributing every day to our knowledge of how to help all types of students succeed.

This is an exciting time to be an educator. American schools will hire 2.2 million teachers over the next decade alone. They will face new challenges, like a more diverse population, with more students who haven't learned to speak English yet. They will also face an ever-flattening world where students will need better math and science skills to keep up with global competitors. To help these students succeed, teachers will need practical tools that are proven to work.

Fortunately, thanks to decades of research, we now know more than ever before about how children learn, why some of them have more trouble in school than others, and what we can do to make sure all children are learning at grade level. And every day, researchers like those at SMU are coming up with even more effective strategies.

Your research and teacher training programs work hand-in-hand. Researchers develop practical tools teachers can use. Student teachers take those insights straight into Dallas classrooms. And as important, they also bring the needs of local schools back to the university.

SMU has a strong history of working closely with your community. That connection will prepare your student teachers to focus their efforts where they're most needed. So, if Dallas students are falling behind in math and science, SMU can train teachers in the most effective ways to raise student achievement in those subjects.

SMU has supported research-based teaching for a long time. You pioneered education reform that is helping hundreds of thousands of students in Texas and across our country. Along with other members of the Dallas community, you recognized the need for serious education reform more than 20 years ago.

In spring 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education released its clarion-call report, A Nation at Risk. It warned that our education system was being eroded by a "tide of mediocrity," and it got people's attention. Policymakers and the business community joined parents and educators in a movement to raise standards and hold schools accountable for student achievement.

I grew up doing education policy in Texas during this time. And not to be a Texas braggadocio, but Texans have long-believed in the value of measuring children's progress every year. My experience is that education down here isn't about politics. It's about standards and accountability for results for all students. And it's been a bipartisan effort for a long time.

For more than two decades, southern governors like Jim Hunt of North Carolina, Zell Miller of Georgia, Richard Riley of South Carolina, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee—and of course, my favorite, George W. Bush—raised the bar. They looked at the data and saw their schools needed improvement. And they knew that with higher standards, schools could do better.

Before education reform, we relied too much on good intentions, abstract philosophies and untested, sometimes harmful, fads. If most children were doing well in school, that was considered good enough. It didn't matter if some children were falling behind. And people were in denial—they didn't think the achievement gap was real, or that it mattered.

Accountability, assessment and disaggregated data changed all that. Researchers like those at SMU led the way in creating practical tools that teachers could use.

In the late 1980s in Dallas, the Texas Instruments Foundation got together with Head Start to raise achievement for low-income children. They created a model preschool, the Margaret H. Cone Head Start Center, for preschoolers who lived in a local housing project. It was a year-round program with full-time staff who worked long hours to help students develop the skills to succeed in kindergarten and beyond.

But after two years, the students were not making gains. Studies showed that despite the best intentions of its founders, the Cone Center project wasn't working. Its students were no more prepared than others who had not attended the preschool.

SMU's Learning Therapy Program helped turn the program around, thanks to a friend of mine who is here today—Nell Carvell. Nell, I will never forget the day we met. I knew you were a gem, and your work had to be shared with educators in Texas and across our country.

With a Texas Instruments grant, Nell developed a curriculum that helped kids learn language, math and science concepts through fun, interactive games. The Language Enrichment Activities Program, or LEAP, turned the project around. After just one year of Nell's fun, language-rich curriculum, student scores doubled. Even more important, students continued to succeed long after they had graduated preschool. Recent studies show that Cone Center students are far more likely to be reading on grade level four years later—in the third grade.

Texas Instruments was so impressed that they helped spread the program throughout the state. And by the way, they're not the only company that understands the importance of training an educated workforce. After all, they're the constituents of the education system. Education reform is producing the best results in places where the business community is actively engaged.

Of course, the government has to be actively engaged, too. And we were. Then-Gov. George W. Bush and first lady Laura Bush got behind the program, called Texas Ready to Read. And guess what happened when the governor became president? He took its principles to the national level.

With No Child Left Behind, President Bush and the Congress, by wide bipartisan margins, made a national commitment to ensure a quality education for every single child.

No Child Left Behind was born in Texas. Some of its most fundamental principles came straight out of what worked in Texas. And you know what? Those same principles are now working across the country, just as they continue to work here.

The latest Nation's Report Card, or NAEP, showed encouraging results—especially for younger students who benefited from annual assessment and disaggregating data. Fourth-graders reached historic highs in math and reading. Hispanic and African-American fourth-graders made significant gains since 2003.

As our student population has grown more diverse, scores have continued to rise. This summer's long-term report card found that scores are at all-time highs for minority students, especially in the early grades. We have made more overall reading progress in the past five years than in the previous three decades.

That is no accident. It's a tribute to the hard work of teachers, principals and local policymakers. It's also a tribute to states like Texas. You're the pioneers. Texas has one of the most diverse populations in our country, which can make educators' work even harder. And still you're making impressive gains.

The Christian Science Monitor recently called the great results we're seeing in the South "vindication" for a generation of Southern leaders. And as a Texan, let me say it feels good. We were country before country was cool.

Texas fourth-graders earned the highest reading and math scores in the history of the state-by-state report card. Eighth-graders earned the highest-ever math scores. African-American and Hispanic students reached all-time highs.

I'm as proud as anybody of the progress we're seeing in Texas schools. But we still have a long way to go to ensure every student is prepared for the future—no matter what zip code they live in, what language they speak, or what special needs they have.

That's where SMU's Institute for Reading Research comes in. Your director, Patricia Mathes, was one of the first troops on the ground when then-Gov. Bush's reading initiative got started. She's a highly accomplished researcher who has understood our country's need for reading instruction for a very long time.

As Patricia says, the institute is structured "to develop—through scientifically based research-special curricula, instructional tools, and teacher support methods to [aid] struggling readers."

Some of your biggest projects focus on students who have traditionally been left behind—like children who haven't learned to speak English yet and those with disabilities. For them, as for any student, a teacher is the first line of defense.

Thanks to insights and training from Ms. Mathes and her staff, SMU will train teachers who can recognize when a child is not catching on. They will have evidence to prove that many so-called hard-to-teach populations can learn to read very well. And most important, they will know how to help.

For example, thanks to researchers like Ms. Mathes, we now know that children with disabilities can achieve grade-level standards. Special education students can learn if they are given access to the general curriculum, taught by well-qualified teachers, and receive research-based intervention.

For example, nationally:

• In high school, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of students with disabilities who are taking challenging courses over the last 15-20 years.

• And in elementary school, about 90 percent of students with disabilities participate in regular state reading assessments.

Unfortunately, in Texas, only about 34 percent participate. I am confident that together, we can—and will—serve more students more effectively.

At the Department of Education, we will continue to help states establish more appropriate assessments for special education students who may need to be measured by modified standards. But I also encourage everyone at SMU to continue your fine tradition of challenging conventional wisdom. We must no longer underestimate the potential of students with disabilities.

Instead, we must apply the tried-and-true method of high standards, measuring progress and providing extra help when needed. These are the driving principles of SMU and No Child Left Behind. I am confident that they will continue to help students in Dallas and throughout our nation.

We all have a responsibility to ensure our education system—from K-12 through college—is preparing children to succeed in the 21st century. That's why I launched a Commission on the Future of Higher Education. One of the things they'll look at is whether institutions are focusing on the community's needs, and whether they are preparing a workforce that will meet those needs.

To see the future, we need look no further than our students. To prepare them for the 21st century, we must continue to have high expectations for them and for ourselves, and we must continue to make decisions based on reliable evidence.

The SMU School of Education and Human Development will be a model for using what works. I hope you will also continue to build successful partnerships with businesses and other members of your community. By working together to train our next generation of teachers, you'll help thousands of people whose names you'll never know.

Thank you again for the opportunity to be here today, and thank you for your dedication to our nation's children.

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