Secretary Spellings testified before a joint committee session of Florida's Committee on K-12, Schools and Learning Council and the Committees on Education Innovation and Career Preparation, 21st Century Competitiveness, and Postsecondary Education. Following are her prepared remarks.

It's an honor to join you today on the sixth anniversary of No Child Left Behind. This is an exciting time for education, and a vitally important one. Just yesterday, I was in Chicago with President Bush, and he talked about how regardless of whether Congress acts on NCLB reauthorization, our schools are still open for business. Our children can't wait, so we need to keep moving forward on education policy in sound, sensible ways.

In light of this, the President gave me an important assignment. In the upcoming months, I'll be visiting as many states as I can to discuss how we can continue to work together and move ahead with what is, in my opinion, our nation's most important business—ensuring that every student receives a quality education.

Florida is the first stop on my tour, and rightly so. States like Florida elevated this movement from an ideal into reality, pioneering the use of data, standards, and accountability systems. Not because Washington said so, but because it was the right thing for students in Florida and for the state of Florida. You knew that for your state to remain a leader in the aerospace industry, in agriculture, in software and health technology, you needed to equip all students for success. You're also on the front lines of figuring out how to best serve a changing American population.

Six years after NCLB changed the education game in this nation, we can be proud of where it has brought us.

The law's core principles, based on tried and true efforts in places like Florida, now guide our conversation on education. Things like:

• All students working on grade level by 2014. It's not unreasonable to ask that a third grader read at a third-grade level. Parents want their kids on grade level today, not six years from now. I know that's what I want for my daughter, and I know those of you here who are parents want the same.
• Annual assessments
• Disaggregating data to make sure we focus on all students, including the poor, minorities, and those with special needs
• Better use of resources. Instead of just talking about how much we're spending, we're finally focused on how well we're spending, and most importantly, how well we're serving students.

This education revolution had its roots in states like this one, and it depends on you in the states for continued progress.

I've been in your shoes before—as you may know, I started out in the education policy world at the state level in Texas, working for then-Governor George W. Bush, for the Texas legislature, and on behalf of local school boards. I know that state and local leaders understand better than anyone the needs and priorities of their constituencies.

When I became Secretary three years ago, I asked the states, what issues matter most? Where do we need to improve? From growth models to students with disabilities and English Language learners, we have used your input to drive reform and improve our implementation of NCLB. You in Florida have participated in all the programs that grew out of those conversations.

While states do the primary work in education, the chief commitment of the Federal government has always been and continues to be serving our neediest students. This job has always been important, but it's become much more urgent in today's global knowledge economy and in light of the changing face of our student bodies.

As a nation, we've made important strides. Most fundamentally, all states now have accountability systems and annual student assessments. This is a sea change from before 2005-06 when only about half of all states had yearly assessments, and before 2001 when only 11 states had approved assessment systems.

All states are now collecting better information...

• To help the parents of 50 million students make the best decisions for their children
• To help educators focus their efforts in the areas that need the most attention
• To help students who lag behind their peers get help right away
• To help policymakers like us know what's working and what's not

We've given parents, teachers, and schools more and better tools to help students improve and achieve their potential

• Free tutoring has helped over 500,000 students
• Public school choice is helping around 120,000 students
• Resources for teachers have helped nearly all become highly qualified
• Reading First helps 1.6 million students increase fluency and comprehension
  • Though sadly, Congress has drastically cut this effective, locally run program

Because Florida embraced reform, you've made tremendous progress in many areas.

• Strong and longstanding record on accountability—Florida's A+ system grades schools and holds them accountable.

You've pioneered an incredible K-20 data system, allowing you to make important strides in preparing students for college and the workforce.

• Strong business community involvement and support
  • The Council of 100 has played an active role in Pre-K through higher education
• Can follow a student's progress from kindergarten through college
  • I brag on Florida's leadership in this area all the time
• Good alignment between K-12 and college—critical for workforce development

You can take great pride in the principles you've stood by, and not surprisingly, in the results you've achieved. According to the most recent Nation's Education Report Card:

• Florida fourth-graders achieved their highest math and reading scores in the history of the test. Eighth-graders also achieved their highest math scores.
• Achievement gaps have decreased significantly in many categories, such as between low-income fourth graders and their peers and between White and Black fourth graders in reading and math.

Of course, you know that your great accomplishments don't mean that it's time to slow down. Far from it. Armed with better information, Florida and every other state needs to focus on the hard work ahead.

Six years has given us the perspective to see what we've accomplished, and the experience to improve on what we're doing. As we've debated NCLB reauthorization over the past year, we've begun to develop a consensus on the areas we must address now.

• Growth Models to allow schools to measure individual student performance over time, giving teachers and schools more credit for progress. Florida is already helping to lead in this area as one of nine states participating in the growth model pilot.
• A more nuanced accountability system to distinguish between schools missing performance goals across the board and those who come close to meeting their goals.

In both of these consensus areas, it's critical that we guard against any strategy that makes flexibility a synonym for loophole and allows schools to hide the truth about student learning. No parent, no policy maker, no taxpayer should accept a proposal that says some students can't learn or that some don't matter as much as others.

• High School graduation rates continue to be a pressing issue. While younger students in Florida and many other states continue to improve, high school students have failed to make the same progress. We must take more aggressive steps to deal with what some call our nation's silent epidemic.
• Raising Standards. It's a competitive world and our students continue to fall further behind many of their European and Asian peers. We need to hold them to higher standards if we expect them to be prepared for success.
• Improving SES so that more eligible students are taking advantage of free tutoring to improve their achievement.

And of course...

• Great teachers are critical to all this and to improving student learning. We need to do a better job of recruiting and preparing good teachers and getting them to where they're needed most. Florida is helping lead the way on this, with four districts receiving Federal grants to develop performance-based teacher compensation programs.

I look forward to hearing from you about the best ways to tackle these pressing issues. I also understand as we move ahead that Florida has it's own set of unique challenges. For instance, you have some of the nation's largest schools and, like my home state of Texas, you have many English language learners.

The contours of your education landscape are not the same as Kansas or Massachusetts or Hawaii. I look forward to working with Commissioner Smith, Governor Crist, and all the leaders in this room to address Florida's specific challenges and get every child in this state on grade level.

As we discuss how to move ahead, we must remember that education policy all comes down to one question: is it good for students? That's the bottom line. Not what's good for adults or unions or Washington bureaucrats like me or Democrats or Republicans, but what will help raise student achievement.

NCLB has been part of a movement—an historic grassroots movement that brought together a unique alliance of individuals: parents and policy makers, civil rights leaders and the business community, Democrats and Republicans. The movement began before this administration arrived in Washington and with your help it will be carried on long after I clean out my desk and head home.

It's about equipping every child with a high quality education. It's an American Imperative that will determine how successfully we respond to every challenge we face in the years ahead. It's time to move ahead with confidence and prepare our students for success. I look forward to our continued work together to push this movement forward and serve all our students well.

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