Thank you, Gerri [Elliott], for inviting me here today. It's really so fun to be in a room with women who are part of an organization that really believes in the same things that are at the heart of No Child Left Behind, and that is that everybody in this organization can and does contribute to the mission of this organization and to our country. And what a thrill, what a treat—how lucky you are—to be able to work in an organization with that kind of philosophy, and in a country that has that as its kind of rock-bottom philosophy of what it takes to be successful in America; and that the best idea can come from anybody in the organization. And we have expectations that those best ideas will.

So you all are very lucky people. I hope you know that.

I also want to talk a little bit about Gerri and how we got to know each other.

I asked Gerri, earlier last year, to serve as a member of a higher [education] commission that I appointed recently, which is kind of a new vista in public policy in America, and I'll talk a little bit about that. But she is an outstanding leader and her intellect, and her good sense, and her observations from around the world, as well as being a mom herself, really added great value to that enterprise.

I do think it's kind of funny, and I will say this in a room full of women, that I'm the first person, first secretary of education, to actually be a mother of customers of the system. And so that real-time experience about what's going on in schools, what No Child Left Behind means, you know, every day to teachers and principals, and what parents of kids who are in college are struggling with, with respect to affordability and accessibility, and the confusion of the application process and all that, really does, I think, give me a perspective that is important and a little unique because I'm a customer of the system.

I also want to recognize, before we get started, and I don't know if she's here yet, the deputy prime minister of the Bahamas. I hear she is a mother. Mother Pratt, Cynthia Pratt, are you here?

I hear she is tremendous, and you all are lucky to have the opportunity to visit with her.

As you may or may not know, your boss, Bill Gates, and my boss, George Bush, have a lot in common.

What's so funny about that? Here's my thought: I've known President Bush for a long time—about 11 years or so—and [he and Bill Gates] both have a lot of strong women around them. As Gerri said in the introduction, just last week Secretary Rice and I cohosted a summit for university presidents to talk about language, foreign language and global competitiveness, and what that issue means for us: that we have far fewer people who have [achieved] proficiency and competency in foreign language than our country needs, with respect to economic development or national security or a whole lot of other things. And so it was really fun to cohost with Condi and Karen Hughes, and [for me], the opportunity. And the president came over and "laid hands" on this initiative, which I'll talk a little bit about later.

So lots of good women around these smart men. Obviously, this room testifies to the commitment that your organization has to developing women leaders, and that's very, very important and I think that's one of the reasons why you all are so successful, if I may say.

I've had the opportunity to meet with your boss, Bill Gates, last spring I guess it was, and we started to think about and confer on some of the things that we have in common. Your boss is a powerful, powerful voice and leader in education reform in America and has the luxury of saying some things that need to be said and that are difficult sometimes for people in politics to say.

So I love that. Talk about somebody who puts his money where his mouth is! You know, congratulations to them, to Bill and Melinda Gates, for their "person of the year" designation.

[Applause.]

And I am especially thrilled that one of their passions is education policy and education reform. So we're very lucky to have them as investors in the system and committed to reforms that are so desperately needed.

I want to talk a little bit, because I know you all struggle with this. You all have families and children, maybe, some of you, and some of you look a little young for children.

And some of you don't look a little young for children. Some of you look like you have adult children in fact.

Anyway, I know I do. Anyway, I want to talk a little bit about some of the aspects of working and being successful professionally as well as, you know, successful as a mom and as a wife, and all of that, and I want to tell a little story that illustrates some of the struggles that I went through before I got into policy.

When President Bush was elected, it took a while, as you all know, and we were struggling. I was a single mother at the time and trying to think about, well, should I go to Washington or not, and what would I do, and so on and so forth.

And Andy Card, who had just been named the president's chief of staff, called me and asked me to be the domestic policy adviser, but he said, "You're never going to be able to see your kids." You know, it's a huge commitment, and he scared me to death, and so—Karen Hughes had the same conversation with him—we were scared to death.

So we started chatting, and we were saying, well, we can't do it, there's no way; I mean, there's no way that we can, you know, be good moms and carry out those responsibilities, and, you know, as much as we love the president, there's just no way.

So the president actually got wind of this and called Andy, and said, "Andy, are you running off all the mothers?"

And as you can see, clearly, he's not running off the mothers, and I am glad that I have the opportunity to work for somebody who understands the value and importance [of parenthood]. And I think this is why so many of us have worked for him for so long, that we have to have this balance in our lives, and we have to have the capacity to be flexible on some things. In the early days of his term, while my children were finishing out the school year, as I said, I was a single mom. I commuted back and forth to Austin, Texas, at least every other weekend, if not every weekend, and I missed a Friday.

You know, the White House is a place that operates just like this place does, 24/7, and we met every morning at 7:00 o'clock for a senior staff meeting, come hell or high water. So I [would] race in, do my 7:00 o'clock meeting, and then get to the airport.

But I think to work in a place where you feel that you can be successful at both is really a lucky deal too, and so I'm glad that you all have opportunities like this in this organization to find ways—I looked at your agenda—to balance your professional opportunities as well as your own personal lives.

Okay, now the policy wonk. Education is the most important issue to women, every time, always. It gets right up there. I mean, health care is a close second usually, but when you ask women what they care about, they care about education and schools, and we know that obviously, that was the heart, not only of our children's opportunities, but also the opportunities that this country provides; and, you know, one of the things I also know, because I live this every day too, is that women are still the primary interfacers with our schools, with the public education system. Women are the ones who are calling the teacher, e-mailing the principal, you know, volunteering at the Halloween carnival, you know, whatever. You all still have Halloween carnivals up here.

Anyway. They're a dying breed. But anyway, they're [called] fall festivals, now, I think.

Anyway. You know, we are the people that are the users of the system; we're the customers of the system, and as you all know, education is still a profession that is largely dominated by women—some of our best and brightest women who are committed to serve.

I think women choose education because it's a place where they can make a difference. One of the values that we collectively seek in our lives, in our professional lives, in particular, is a place where we can make a difference, a place where we can add value and leave a legacy.

And we need to encourage more girls to take courses in subjects like computer science and physics.

In computer science—advanced placement computer science classes all over the country—85 percent of the students in those classes are male and 15 percent are female. We need to change that or our opportunities are going to be limited.

There's a survey out today that the Business Roundtable conducted that is really troubling, and we need a commission, you know, and ambassadors or warriors in the cause. That only 5 percent of parents will encourage their students, their children, to pursue fields of study in math, science, technology and engineering [is] kind of scary. We need to build an appetite for change. I mean, if nobody wants math education, then we're not going to have it.

And, you know, we hear a lot of talk about the subject. The World Is Flat has been on the best-seller list for a year, and so forth, but it's time for us to go from the rhetoric down into the reality of what is happening in our schools today.

Guess how many states, today, in 2006, require four years of math and science in high school? One.

And you're not living in it. You know, I'm from Texas. We don't either. And so we've got to start getting some policy alignment between what we say we want and what the opportunities are, and what is happening in our school system.

Now I'm not saying that as a matter of local control; it's happening that some high schools do offer four years of math and science. But as a matter of state policy, only one requires that to occur.

The other thing that I think is troubling, and as the primary consumers of education I want you all to start asking questions about this, particularly those of you who live in urban school districts. Let's look at how we allocate the opportunities, how we allocate rigorous course work.

I talk about McLean, Virginia—fabulous school—right in the heart of Fairfax County, you know, a good, growing school district. They offer around 20 advanced placement courses at McLean. So those kids can, you know, basically complete their freshman year of college while they're in high school.

Inner-city Ballou High School in Washington, D.C., offers around four: four advanced opportunities for those students. The president calls it, you know, "the soft bigotry of low expectations." I mean, we all know you can't do what you haven't been taught, and so we really, we need to start looking at how we ration opportunity, rigorous course work and math and science around our country, in states and local school districts. And we're working on a checklist, actually, for moms and dads to be able to ask some of these questions.

Now one more thing before I open the floor for questions. I want to talk about "math phobia." You all are on the front line of being able to combat this, because you're adorable, you're good looking, you're highly successful, and I think people think, oh, I don't want my daughter to be an engineer, she'll be a freak.

And of course that's not true. She'll be successful, and she'll be adorable, like lots of you all are in this room. All of you are in this room.

And I became a politician. And we hear mom from the soccer field say, "You know, I don't want my kids to be stressed out; they're not developmentally ready to take algebra yet." This sort of thing, that kind of thing, is insidious. You know, that doesn't add up to building demand for vigorous course work, math and science competency, and so forth.

So I want you all to be a part of the demand for change at the grassroots level for the kinds of things that we must do, if your company is going to be successful and if our country is going to be successful.

I want to talk real quickly about one other thing that I mentioned, and this is this new initiative the president launched last week called the National Strategy Language Initiative. And as we talk about math and science as requisites for our global competitiveness, it's clear that language—foreign language instruction—is clearly one of those things, and, you know, in a nutshell, we basically do it wrong in America.

Typically, if you find foreign language at all, it's in high school, and frankly, the most critical languages are barely taught at all in our high schools across America.

Listen to this: Less than 1 percent of U.S. high school students study Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, Korean, Japanese, Russian or Chinese. That's all of those languages combined and less than 1 percent of our students. Now those are the languages of the future, with respect to doing business, as you all know.

Less than 8 percent of U.S. undergraduates take foreign language courses, and fewer than 1 percent study abroad in any given year, in a world where we're all doing business globally. And I need not tell you this. Around the world, every other country, the European Union, China and Thailand, are learning a second language, and even a third language as a requirement. And they start early, and they're learning English, as you well know.

So that's why we need to start paying attention, in addition to math and science, to our ability to speak to people around the world. And so that's my pitch—more math, more foreign language.

I want to commend this organization, and the Gates Foundation, for all you have done to provide leadership in this arena, and for being strategic in your investments.

We have partnered—as I said, I had the opportunity to meet with Mr. Gates, Bill Gates, a little less than a year ago, and we have already partnered on one of the most important things I think we can do to improve education, and that is the mastery of data in our system.

No Child Left Behind, as you all probably know, is about assessment and about the ability to correct, diagnose and solve problems. But if we do all that testing without the ability to turn that into a management and instructional tool for principals and teachers, it's for naught. And the Department of Education, the Gates Foundation, and the Rhodes Foundation, and a number of others, have really worked hard with states to try to get this sort of capacity built in.

They are not used to using data to manage the system. That was kind of a new thing with No Child Left Behind. And I love the quote from Time magazine [that says] that your boss deals with data and facts with the [same] tenderness [with which] he deals with his children. I love that because I say, "In God we trust, all others bring data."

We're not going to be successful unless we, you know, look ourselves in the eye, confront this problem, and start to do the policy things that'll fix it. And I am so thrilled that this organization and the Gates Foundation are partners in that because I can't think of anything more important to our country. It's a civic issue and a democratic issue, and it's the morally right thing to do.

So thank you all for your hospitality.

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