Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to testify on the President's 2007 education budget. Let me begin by thanking all of you for your work on behalf of the victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

After you passed the Hurricane Education Recovery Act in December, we sent more than $250 million in immediate aid to Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and Alabama to help re-open schools in the region. That was in addition to the $20 million we sent to help open or re-open charter schools for affected students in Louisiana and the more than $200 million we sent to help colleges and students in the region.

We'll be sending another $500 million in aid to these states, hopefully in the coming days. We've been consulting with experts at the federal, state, and local levels and reviewing records from tax data, property loss data, and insurance claims to make sure this money is allocated fairly.

We'll also be providing $645 million to reimburse districts all around the country for the cost of educating displaced students. We've been working with states to help accelerate this process and identify the number of displaced students, so we can begin sending this money to schools.

But today, I'm here to talk about the President's budget. It's more important than ever that we spend taxpayer dollars wisely and well.

Since taking office in 2001, the President has worked with you to increase funding for education by about 30 percent. The new budget would increase education spending in key areas but not across the board. I know this committee has a very tough job ahead. The programs you make funding decisions for are discretionary, and you don't have much room to maneuver. And it's only getting harder to fund priorities and reduce the deficit because of the rising cost of entitlement spending.

At the same time, as policymakers, we must focus on results. We've looked at data to see what policies are working for students and where we can save taxpayers money or work more efficiently by eliminating and consolidating less effective programs. Raising student achievement must be our bottom line.

The President's new American Competitiveness Initiative would devote $380 million to strengthen K-12 math and science education. Overall, the Department of Education will increase funding for its programs in these critical fields by 51 percent.

The President has asked me to form a National Math Panel of experts to help us bring together the best research on proven strategies for teaching math just as we have done for reading. And his budget includes $250 million for a new program called Math Now that will help elementary and middle school students develop the academic foundation to eventually take higher-level math classes in high school, such as Advanced Placement courses.

The trouble is that more than a third of high schools offer no AP classes. And that needs to change ...especially when we know that our students are going to need these skills in a world where 90 percent of the fastest-growing jobs require postsecondary education. President Bush has called for $122 million to prepare an additional 70,000 teachers to lead AP and International Baccalaureate classes in math, science, and critical foreign languages. The budget also includes $25 million to help recruit 30,000 math and science professionals to become adjunct high school teachers in these critical areas.

I know there are some concerns about resources, but in reality, we have resources available for our priorities. Currently, 13 different government agencies spend about $2.8 billion on 207 different programs for math and science education. The problem is these programs are in their own little silos with no coordination between them or linkage to No Child Left Behind's goals for raising student achievement. It's a thousand flowers blooming and maybe a few weeds throughout our government.

We should align all these efforts with the principles of No Child Left Behind—by continuing to hold schools accountable for getting all students to grade level in reading and math by 2014 and by giving local policymakers and educators the resources, authority, and research-base to do what's best for their students.

Thanks to No Child Left Behind, we've reached a point where we have the data to see what's working in our schools and what needs to work better. We're proposing a new $200 million School Improvement program to help states use what we've learned to turn around schools in need of improvement.

Now we must build on the foundations of this law—which is working in grades 3-8—to extend the benefits of annual assessment and accountability for results to our high schools with the President's $1.5 billion high school reform proposal. There's a wide and growing consensus that we have a problem with our high schools. And we must work together to address these issues. A high school diploma must be a record of achievement, not merely a certificate of attendance.

If we raise the bar, our students will rise to the challenge ...just as they always have. But we must give them the skills to compete.

Thank you, and I'd be happy to answer your questions.

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