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U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings last evening delivered the keynote address at the grand opening of the Air Force One Discovery Center at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.

Following are the Secretary's remarks as prepared:

Thank you. President Reagan once said, "Education must be more than the province and responsibility of our schools. It's also an integral part of our homes, churches, synagogues, communities, and workplaces." That's why it's so appropriate that the Reagan Library continues to play a role in education consistent with this vision.

Thank you, Mrs. Reagan, for inviting me to be a part of this exciting opening. I know you are so proud of the Library, a very fitting tribute to your husband's enduring legacy.

You and President Reagan have been and continue to be a great source of inspiration to generations of Americans, especially those of us in public service.

We honor your contributions to our nation, Mrs. Reagan, including your long-time activism on behalf of keeping our children and our schools safe and drug-free. Students can't achieve their potential in the classroom unless they come to school ready to learn, and you brought national and international attention to the problem of youth substance abuse.

Thank you, Duke, for your kind introduction, and congratulations on the new Air Force One Discovery Center! I know what an incredible amount of work you and your staff invested in developing the center, and your efforts have certainly paid off. It's a remarkable addition to a remarkable institution.

Thanks also to the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation for your generous support for this wonderful place.

Thanks also to the singers from Newbury Park Middle School for the wonderful music.

I'm honored to join you for this special event. Having just toured the Discovery Center, I can sum up my initial reaction in one word, wow! And based on what I heard from the students who were testing it out, I think they share my sentiment.

This multi-dimensional experience engages students in many meaningful ways. For one, it provides an up-close-and-personal civics lesson about executive branch decision-making. But it's more than civics and history. Because students themselves assess the situation and call the shots, they exercise analytical skills, learn about leadership, and cooperate as a team. All of these are talents are sorely needed to develop the next generation of public servants.

The Discovery Center is just the latest example of how this library makes learning come alive for students. Initiatives like your "We the People" program on civic literacy and your Veterans History Project, in which high school students interview veterans, help educate students about the core American values that President Reagan held dear.

Students, as you tried out the Discovery Center, you got to play the roles of the President, Vice President, Secretary of Defense, and the Press Corps, among others. You had to look at the information available, balance the pros and cons, and consider the long-term consequences of your decisions.

Well, let me ask you, what if you were asked to play my role, the Secretary of Education? After all, you're the experts on schools. How would you work with the President to help ensure that every student gets the quality education they deserve? How would you help low-performing schools, encourage higher academic standards, and help more students graduate with the skills they need for college or the workplace?

These are questions we've been thinking about and responding to for a long time now. In fact, it was twenty-five years ago that a report called A Nation At Risk, commissioned by the Reagan Administration, that alerted the nation to stark realities facing our education system. It warned of deteriorating standards and sky-high drop-out rates. That report was one of the things that first hooked me on public policy and education.

That call-to-arms began a national movement, inspiring state-level pioneers to think about standards and accountability in education. This, ultimately, led to the creation of No Child Left Behind six years ago—a true game changer in U.S. education. This law is based on a few simple but revolutionary principles:

First, when it comes to education policy, what matters is not how much we're spending... but how effectively we serve students. We need research to focus our policies and resources where they will get the best results. And we need to measure to know what works.

Second, parents know what's best for their children and should be armed with information and options to make the right choices for their kids. As President Reagan said "I support the right of all parents to choose the education they believe is best for their children"

Next, we must hold schools responsible for meeting standards, and policymakers at the state and local level should set those standards. Meaningful accountability must include deadlines and consequences, along with flexibility to innovate and achieve goals.

Finally, teachers make the single biggest difference in getting results for kids, so we must do everything we can to recruit and reward excellent teachers in our schools. As President Reagan said, "good teachers are the heart and soul of any good school."

By enshrining commonsense principles like these, NCLB dramatically shifted the education landscape in America. Now, across the nation, we're finally measuring the progress of students of every race and income level, holding ourselves accountable for their performance and producing and sharing data to determine what works. These efforts are all the more important in today's knowledge economy.

We've seen improvement, including historic math and science achievement among younger students and shrinking achievement gaps, but we're also seeing some discomfort, and rightly so. The data we collect points to grave inequities in student achievement between whites and minorities and high- and low-income students

The chief commitment of the Federal government has always been and continues to be serving our neediest students and schools. A rapidly changing world means that this mission is more urgent today than ever before.

What does it mean for our nation that we will be a minority majority country by the middle of this century, but only half of our African American and Hispanic students currently graduate from high school on time? Or that over 90 percent of our fastest growing jobs require postsecondary education, but only nine percent of low-income students currently earn college degrees by age 24?

These statistics are alarming, and we risk becoming a stratified nation, where segments of our population lack access to the opportunities of the 21st century.

25 years after A Nation at Risk... more than 50 years after Brown v. the Board of Education, do we finally have the fortitude to achieve real opportunity in education for everyone? Do we have the ingenuity to prepare every student for today's global economy?

I believe we do because everywhere I go, I meet parents who are demanding change... and hardworking educators who are dedicated to achieving it. They need and deserve all the support we can muster.

President Reagan often emphasized that what education needed was not more money, but more leadership, and we still need strong leaders—at the local, state, and national levels—to seize the opportunity to innovate, lead, and communicate what works.

Just as this Library demonstrates the continuing legacy of President Reagan's influential role on American life, No Child Left Behind and the accountability movement will represent a lasting legacy in the history of American education.

The consequences for the future of our nation are enormous, and President Reagan understood that. He said, "The education our children need is the ability to read, write, and reason as well as any student in any country in the world. They need it, and the Nation needs it, as well, if we're to prosper and grow." These words are as true now as they were then.

Together, we can achieve the world-class education that President Reagan envisioned and that our children and our country need and deserve. Thank you for helping achieve that world class education for all.

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