Contact: Lindsey Kozberg (202) 401-3026

Speaker Frequently Deviates from Prepared Text

Welcome to Washington, everyone, and welcome to the first Learning Disabilities Summit ever held. I thank you for your shared concern about the way our schools identify and educate our children with learning disabilities, and I want to thank you for coming here to begin working with us on improving those services.

Bob and I look forward to learning from the papers presented at this conference and from your feedback. The work the researchers here are doing on the identification of learning disabilities is critical to our understanding of and ability to help those children who have special education needs.

We have convened this summit because we want to hear from you. We want to listen to your ideas, hear your examples, understand your data, and know your concerns. We want to make sure that your voices are included in the formulation of policy and rules and assure the quality and usefulness of our research in the future.

I am very gratified that President Bush appointed Bob Pasternack as Assistant Secretary of Education for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services. Bob's experience with and commitment to children with learning disabilities will be invaluable to me and the Department, and I think his selection speaks eloquently about where the President's priorities lie.

Even more important, Bob is a good listener. He is always open to new ideas.

I would like to talk briefly about President Bush's education agenda as a whole, and then about how children with disabilities fit into that agenda, which is right at the center.

Back in January, President Bush made education his highest priority and laid out his education agenda, called No Child Left Behind. It has four principles: accountability for results, local control and flexibility, expanded parental options, and doing what works to improve student performance.

The first stage in this agenda was President Bush's plan to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which was overdue for reauthorization. Under his leadership, both parties in Congress came together in a comprehensive review of the Act. They passed his bill by overwhelming bipartisan majorities of ninety-one to eight in the Senate, and 384 to 45 in the House of Representatives.

A conference committee is currently working to resolve the differences between the Senate and House versions of the bill, and President Bush will sign it into law. It has been a lot of work, and it's not over, but it will be worth it for our children.

The second stage in the No Child Left Behind agenda is the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which is up for reauthorization next year. This Administration has worked closely with the Congress to map out a comprehensive reform of ESEA this year. The President and I will continue to work with Congress next year as we seek to bring about a comprehensive reform of IDEA. Children with disabilities served through IDEA deserve the same thorough review, the same deliberate attention, and the same significant reform.

President Bush and I will apply the same four principles to IDEA that we did to ESEA. Accountability for results is just as important for all students with disabilities, including children who have learning disabilities. Flexibility and freedom from federal red tape can help school districts tailor their services to the needs of their students—something that has often eluded our special education policy under the current IDEA. Expanded parental options will help the parents of disabled children choose a format for services that fits their child's needs.

Finally, supporting teaching methods and procedures based on scientific research will ensure that we are doing what works for our children with disabilities. And that is why we have convened this summit and why your presence here today is important in bringing together experts in the field and in research to guide policy and improve results for all children with disabilities.

My expectation is that every child—every one of our children—should grow up to lead a happy, productive, fulfilled life as an adult. Being a productive member of a family and a community is what gives people satisfaction, and every American deserves a chance to do that.

In addition to legislation like ESEA and IDEA, these values also guide our work and our policies at the Department of Education. In rulemaking, grant-making, interpretation of statutes, and every other activity, we are committed to ensuring that no child in America is left behind by a failing system.

One reason for this attention is that children with disabilities are among the children most in danger of being left behind. Indeed, they are the children most often left behind by our current system. Thus, they deserve our careful attention.

President Bush means No Child Left Behind quite literally. I've worked with him for more than six years, and I understand his thinking and his actions on this. You see, President Bush is committed to the bold proposition that every child can learn. This doesn't mean that after you siphon off the children who have learning disabilities, were never properly taught how to read, never learned English, or disrupted their classrooms, that most of the rest can learn. It means that all of our kids, the ones our system calls "hard to teach," can learn, too.

We should focus not on process but on results…not on compliance but on performance. We should measure success not by how many children we identify, but by how much they—and all children—learn. All parents have the right to expect high standards in education for their children. We can accept no less. This also means excuses are not good enough: we need results. It means orderly classrooms are not enough: we need results. It means rising average performance is not enough: we need to look at all children to ensure that they are learning.

No Child Left Behind doesn't mean setting up a parallel system for some segment of our children. It means providing real services and a real education to every child. Making sure we include kids who have often been excluded is the whole point of No Child Left Behind: the idea, the phrase, the legislation, the mission.

In 1965, Congress created a significant federal role in education, and specifically focused that role on helping the children who needed help the most. We need to restore that focus to the federal role, and to our culture of education.

The passage of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) enabled us to make substantial strides during the past 25 years in ensuring that no child with a disability is left behind. This law has ensured access to public education for millions of children who were not welcome in our public schools.

Thanks to IDEA, children who were previously excluded from our schools are now sitting in classrooms alongside non-disabled peers, graduating from high school, and pursuing postsecondary education or productive employment. These are notable accomplishments. Yet, notwithstanding the progress we have made, there are still significant gaps between children with disabilities and their peers on such key indicators as graduation and student achievement.

We need to make sure teachers identify and address the abilities and disabilities of every child as early and accurately as possible. Evidence suggests that we know more about how to prevent reading problems. Tailoring our approach to children in kindergarten and the early grades is much more effective than trying to remediate later. Your research will help us with identification and with reading instruction.

When I talk about reforming IDEA, I am not speaking theoretically I am speaking as a practitioner. I have experience with IDEA from my years as superintendent in Houston. I've seen how it often works against itself. I know there is no silver bullet that will suddenly make the system work smoothly. I know that substantial improvement will take substantial work. But I am committed to doing it right.

And after the bill is finished, Bob and I will immediately start working on turning the bill into practice and using what works, based on input from experts like you, to improve results for all students with disabilities.

Because he was a governor, President Bush already understands the importance of additional funding for our IDEA services. That's why his budget includes a $1 billion dollar increase for IDEA, the largest increase ever requested by a president.

In IDEA, as with ESEA, President Bush realizes that money is ineffective if it is not tied to accountability. Money alone will not improve student performance. Reform needs money, but money also needs reform.

If he just wanted money, he wouldn't have bothered to ask a superintendent to be his Secretary of Education. He asked for me because he wanted reform, and reform is what he will get. We will take a systematic look at issues like discipline, finance models, disproportionate placement of minority students, over-identification, and late identification.

We all agree now that learning disabilities are a real and debilitating handicap that place children at considerable risk for academic failure and other problems. Because of this it is essential that we develop a genuine science of learning disabilities.

Let us commit ourselves to ensuring that students with learning disabilities—and, in fact, all students-will not be subjected to programs and policies that are based upon beliefs rather than data; on philosophies rather than proof of what works; on politically expedient policies based on flawed evidence. Let us commit ourselves to gathering the most accurate and useful data and bringing it to bear on our programs and methods.

I hope that during this summit, as you discuss the research and findings being presented here, you will let Bob and me know your concerns, ideas, questions.

Perhaps most important, we want your suggestions for more and better scientifically sound research to help us identify and address learning disabilities as early as possible. As we prepare for a major review of IDEA, we want to have the benefit of the latest science, the latest statistics, the latest impressions from parents and teachers and people who grew up with learning disabilities. We won't make everything perfect, but I am convinced we can make major improvements, in the law and the Department, and I intend to do everything we can.

In closing, I would like to enlist all of you in helping to examine how we think about children with learning disabilities. They are not burdens to our system, but fellow Americans. All students deserve to be held to the same high standards. They deserve our respect and our commitment to ensure they have improved opportunities. Respect for children means always asking more than we did yesterday. Respect for children means letting them risk failure. Respect for children means introducing them to reality.

By working together, by drawing on your research, by improving our legislation and our department and our practices, we can ensure that we hold all our students to the same high standards and that all of them produce the same positive results.

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