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Thank you, Gary. And thank you to the talented staff at the National Center for Education Statistics for preparing this excellent report. I would also like to welcome Deborah Paulson to the Department of Education and thank her for joining us today to talk about this important report card for our nation's schools.

One thing that every NAEP report shows is the importance of measuring the progress of our students. Like many other assessments, NAEP provides valuable, objective information about what our students know.

In today's world, where a new technological advance seems to appear daily, math is second only to reading as a critical skill everyone needs to learn.

We must prepare our students for the reality of the technology age by giving them fundamental math skills. NAEP helps us see where we are succeeding in this charge, and where there is work to do. This information, in turn, allows teachers, policymakers, and parents to identify problem areas and create strategies for improvement.

Without scores -- and people to study and analyze them -- we would not know where to begin.

We have just seen an update about student achievement in math across the country and across grade levels. As I said, the picture is moderately positive: over the past decade, the average math scores of fourth- and eighth-graders -- and, to a lesser extent, 12th-graders -- have improved.

Despite this improvement, it is clear that with only a quarter of our fourth- and eighth-graders performing at or above proficient levels on this exam, we are not doing well enough.

Earlier this year, we learned from the NAEP reading results that our students' reading skills demand serious attention. Although the math scores give us some reason to be encouraged by our students' progress, we need much more improvement in our math classrooms as well.

States and districts around the country have paid closer attention to math instruction than reading over the past decade, and these results give us reason to believe that we're on the right track. Yet they also make it clear that we have more work to do to make sure our children have enough math skills to lead their communities and expand our economy throughout the 21st century.

Although Gary focused his presentation to us on our national results, the NAEP math report card released today also breaks down student results by state. When we look at the data this way, we see that we have good reason to believe in the foundations of the president's education reform plan: high standards and accountability. States that take accountability seriously, and use assessment data to improve student achievement, are seeing positive changes in student achievement. For example, in fourth-grade math, the two states that posted the greatest gains from 1992 to 2000 were Texas and North Carolina, both of which use strong accountability systems. Since 1990, in eighth-grade math, students in Ohio, North Carolina, and Texas made the greatest achievement gains.

In these states -- along with Maryland and Georgia, which I will mention in a moment -- a story of progress and reform is unfolding. Achievement is up at all levels and among all races. While there is a national racial achievement gap in fourth-grade math, when you look at the percentage of children at or above the basic level, you find that North Carolina, Texas, and Georgia made statistically significant progress since 1992 in closing the white/black gap. In eighth-grade math, looking at the basic level, Texas and Maryland made significant progress in closing the white/Hispanic gap. All four of these states are members of the Southern Regional Education Board, which has been leading the way in standards-based reform for a long time, which might explain why white students, black students, and Hispanic students in these states are improving. When states commit to using assessment data -- and by this I mean breaking down results and holding schools accountable for the performance of all of their students -- they see real improvement in student achievement. President Bush and Congress can lay the groundwork for reform, but state standards and assessments are the real mechanisms for improving student achievement.

Although the signs in mathematics show modest improvement, not all of the results in this report show progress. The 12th-grade math scores have declined since 1996, and a closer look at those scores reveals that the biggest drop occurred within the two lowest levels of achievement. These are the students who most need our help, and who can least afford to lose ground. And despite admirable work done closing the math achievement gap by states like North Carolina, Maryland, Georgia, and Texas -- nationally and at all levels -- there is still a gaping separation in student achievement between minority students and their peers.

Some of the information in this report should encourage us, some of it should startle us, and some of it reinforces what we already know. But all of it arms us with valuable data about student performance as we look to implement the president's education reform plan, No Child Left Behind. Today's report card also underscores the importance of having data on performance both within and across states. I look forward to more opportunities to discuss more results with you in the future.

Thank you.

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