Thank you, Marcus.

And thank you to Patty Hobbs for organizing this excellent conference, and the two that preceded it. I would also like to thank Steve Brockhouse of the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education and Michele Rovins of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services. Congratulations, Patty and staff, on a job well done.

Yesterday, the Senate passed the final version of President Bush's No Child Left Behind plan for comprehensive education reform.

The House passed it last week, so when the president affixes his signature to the landmark legislation at the start of next year, the No Child Left Behind plan will become the No Child Left Behind Act. This bill represents an educational consensus between President Bush and congressional leaders in both parties, and it signals not just a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, but a new day in education in America.

To quote Republican Congressman John Boehner, the chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, "These landmark reforms will bring purpose to a federal law that has lost its focus and never met its purpose."

Listen also to the words of Congressman George Miller, ranking Democrat on the committee and longtime leader on education issues, "We can no longer accept the level of failure that we have in the past, and this legislation says that we won't."

Thirty-six years ago, another Texas President, Lyndon Johnson, signed the first Elementary and Secondary Education Act, establishing a federal responsibility for meeting the specific needs of disadvantaged students. We've learned so much about children and education and federal programs since then, and in a few weeks the third Texas President will put those lessons to work.

No Child Left Behind involves looking at schools and governance and the federal role in a different way. It reminds us that the goal of schools is not a person with a diploma, but a person with an education. It assures us that the responsibility for student performance lies not just with educators, but also with communities. It changes the federal role in education from funding to investing.

With the No Child Left Behind Act, education reform grows up. Reform is no longer about access or money. It is no longer about compliance or excuses. It is about improving student achievement by improving the quality of the education we offer American students.

Instead of paying for services, we will be investing in achievement. When federal spending is an investment, it gives the federal government leverage to demand results. And demanding results is what the Department of Education will do.

Congressman Miller summed it up well last week when he said, "This bill will help return our school system to the original goals of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act -- to ensure that all children have an opportunity to learn regardless of income, background or racial or ethnic identity. But unlike the laws on the books over the past 35 years, we will back up our commitment with a set of unambiguous expectations, timelines, and resources."

Every child's education should be a voyage of discovery, and the No Child Left Behind Act is all about discovering and disseminating information. Under the act, federal and state governments will find out what works, find out who needs help, and give more information and control to the people closest to the action: the parents, teachers, administrators and communities.

One reason institutions like schools have trouble is because the people who care the most are not the people in control. It's time to recognize that the people who care the most about neighborhood schools are the people of the neighborhood: the teachers, parents, administrators, and business and community leaders.

It's time to empower these people and harness their energy to help the children they know and love best.

Our system educates some of our children very well, and their success is a testament to many excellent teachers and administrators, especially many in Texas. We need to help our whole system identify, honor, and emulate these great people.

We need to branch out from these strong but isolated trees and grow a whole forest of achievement.

Some say the ground is uneven, and that more trees grow in the fertile ground than in the rocky ground. But look around you. Look in our urban centers. There are schools across America who face all the major challenges and still succeed. If they can do it, all of us can do it. Once we know that trees can grow in rocky ground, we have no excuse for not planting them.

I know firsthand that trees can grow in stony ground, because I saw them growing in Houston when I was superintendent. Not just in the suburbs, not just in the nice parts of town, but everywhere that a good principal and committed teachers used a good curriculum and helped students to reach high standards.

We also saw this happen recently in Los Angeles, when one of the largest and most diverse school districts improved and standardized its reading curriculum. The results stunned America, and the results can be replicated anywhere in America.

Educating some children well is a start, but President Bush will never be content with a system that only serves some children. None of us should be content with that system. That system is un-American. Our presence at this conference shows that we are not content, and that is good news. We must look our system's flaws in the face and be encouraged to correct them.

The winter of our discontent can clear the ground for planting higher standards and better teaching, which will yield a harvest of new citizens with broad imaginations and versatile skills. If we have higher expectations for our students and ourselves, in this season of hope we can ring in a new year of universal achievement.

In this new year, as in every year, there will be some who say that our teachers should be respected more and celebrated more, and they are right. But the only way to improve conditions for our teachers is to turn our children into educated adults every time. Success by some teachers, with some children, has not made teaching the honored career it ought to be.

But we must be courageous enough to say that some of our teachers are poorly trained, and that as a result, too many children slip through the cracks. If we can show the American people that we have accounted for every child-that every child is learning and growing and maturing-then more Americans will respect teachers and honor teachers and reward teachers and dream of becoming teachers.

And we can do this. No Child Left Behind shows us the way. It provides three billion dollars for teacher quality to ensure there is a highly qualified teacher in every classroom.

When we embrace the president's goal of no child left behind, our students will see it in our expectations. And our expectations will change the course of many lives. Some young people have big dreams, and the expectations of the adults around them can make all the difference. Some, like the young Malcolm X, want to be lawyers. Others want to be doctors. One man I know wanted to be a doctor and was encouraged to pursue that dream. Today he is the world's greatest Siamese twin surgeon, Dr. Benjamin Carson. He was not left behind, and countless families have thanked God for his education.

In this region, Henry Bonilla achieved success in two careers, broadcasting and politics. Because of the high expectations people had for him, he was able to cast a vote last week for No Child Left Behind.

A few days earlier, Senator Ted Kennedy said it was "a landmark. . . whose proven reforms mean that all the nation's students will have a much greater opportunity than ever before to succeed educationally, do well economically, and participate fully in American society. It contains much-needed and long-overdue reforms that will help the nation's schools provide a much higher quality of education for all students."

Some of us know less about his brother Robert Kennedy's work on the first Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1965. Senator Robert Kennedy announced that his support of ESEA would be conditioned upon the addition of a "good faith administration effort to hold educators responsive to their constituencies and to make educational achievement the touchstone of success in judging ESEA."

He also insisted on adding testing. He said, "I do not think money in and of itself is necessarily the answer. I have seen enough school districts where there has been a lack of imagination, lack of initiative and lack of interest in the problems. . . My feeling is that even if we put money into those school districts, then it will be wasted."

Senator Kennedy called for "some testing system that would be established [by] which the people at the local community would know periodically as to what progress had been made."

A year later, as a former Office of Education official recalled, Senator Kennedy began to demand results for the federal investment. Let me describe a bit of the dialogue in a committee hearing, in which Senator Kennedy questioned the commissioner of Education:

Senator Kennedy: "What have you accomplished with the billion dollars that you got for elementary and secondary education last year?"

Commissioner of Education Howe began listing the number of books that had been purchased, the amount of money that had been expended for teachers, the amount of money that had been used for the purchase of equipment and materials, and so on.

Senator Kennedy: "What happened to the children? Do you mean that you spent a billion dollars and you don't know whether they can read or not?"

Commissioner Howe: "You know this program has been operating for less than a year and it is just like planting a tree; you don't plant it one day and then pull it up every week and look at the roots to see if it's growing."

The commissioner had a point in 1966. One year is a short time for a reading program to have complete success. On the other hand, one year of a child's life is too precious to waste.

Today, more than 35 years after the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was first passed, public spending per pupil has more than doubled, from $2,853 in 1965-66, to $7,086 in 199-2000, adjusted for inflation. Today, it is not too soon to ask again Robert Kennedy's question, "What happened to the children?" And it is better late than never that we can finally answer, "We will find out which children can read and which cannot. We will make sure that all of them get the help they need."

When we educators go back to work tomorrow or next week, I'm sure we'll hear many questions from our colleagues about how our work will be affected. At this conference, you've heard many fine speakers talk about various parts of the bill in some detail. I want to take some time with you today to discuss some of the objections and questions that you can expect to hear about the bill in the coming year.

Some will ask, "How is our flexibility increased and federal red tape decreased if states are now required to demonstrate results through reading and math assessments in grades 3-8?"

The answer is that focusing on student achievement will mean a reduction in requirements that have nothing to do with results. Decisions about your schools should be made locally, but your president and the Congress strongly support accountability in every school for the benefit of every child. When states use federal dollars, they should be held accountable for achieving good results.

Some will argue that giving parents of children in failing schools the opportunity to choose a better public school for their child could hurt the public school system.

You should answer that the goal of education should not be to serve the system, but to serve the children.

The administration is committing significant resources to improve the public school system, and where that involvement does not reap results, parents must have more options, or their children will be condemned to be left behind.

Some will say that annual testing encourages teachers to "teach to the test."

You can easily answer that reading and math, the subjects in which the new act calls for annual tests, are basic skills that every child needs. You can't learn about the solar system, or Greek and Roman history, or music or chemistry if you can't read.

Right now, the problem of illiteracy among our schoolchildren is a problem that, as Reid Lyon said, "rises to the level of a major public health problem." That's why President Bush's Reading First program will spend a billion dollars a year to ensure that every child can read by the third grade.

Some will suggest that testing and accountability are distractions from teaching.

You should reply that the mechanisms in No Child Left Behind will help districts and principals know which teachers and which students need help so they can intervene.

Some will say they need more money for IDEA. Some will call it an unfunded mandate.

And you can say, IDEA is up for reauthorization next year, and the administration plans a major review. President Bush has already requested the largest funding increase in the history of the program.

Educators from rural districts will say, "Urban schools-like the squeaky wheel- get all the grease. My district is rural, and our schools should be high performing too. How will President Bush's education bill serve my district?"

President Bush's education plan is designed to include all students-No Child Left Behind. The No Child Left Behind Act contains new flexibility provisions especially designed for rural districts, as well as a program designed to supplement their federal program dollars to ensure they have adequate resources to meet accountability requirements and the needs of their students.

Some will say, how can teachers be accountable for everything that happens in their communities?

And the answer is, they will not be asked to reform any child's community, but only to improve the academic performance of every child in their classes.

You will hear many questions, and the Department of Education will work with you to explain the answers. As you explain these answers to your colleagues, think about how you can apply their principles to your own work. Think about incorporating the philosophy of accountability for results, local control and flexibility, expanded parental choice, and doing what works based on scientific research.

The number of skeptics is shrinking, but there are still some. Let's show them that we can do it. Let's exceed their expectations, so they will have higher expectations in the years to come. Let's join together and share our discoveries about what works: city to city, state to state, neighborhood to neighborhood and school to school.

This will be a busy year for all of us, but the goal of educating every child makes it worth our time, worth our effort, and worthy of America.

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