A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

FOR RELEASE 
January 30, 1995
 
Contact:  Stephanie Willerton
(202) 401-7663

Riley to Salute Math Olympians at Second Annual State of American Education Speech

The six members of the U.S. team that took first place at the International Mathematical Olympiad held last July in Hong Kong will be recognized in person by U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley at the Second Annual State of American Education address on February 1, at the Thomas Jefferson Middle School in Arlington, Va. Each of the six members of the U.S. team scored the maximum number of points on the nine-hour competition and each received a gold medal. It was the first time in the 35-year history of the olympiad that any team has achieved a perfect score.

"These young Americans did something extraordinary," Riley said. "Their victory is surely a personal achievement and a victory for their teachers, coaches and parents. But it is also a reflection of the serious work that has been done these last 12 years by our country to define the very best in American education."

The six math olympians are:

Jeremy Bem -- an 18-year-old graduate of Ithaca High School in Ithaca, N.Y., who is now pursuing a degree in mathematics from Cornell University.

Aleksandr Khazanov -- a 15-year-old student at Stuyvesant High School in New York, who plans to become a professional mathematician.

Jacob Lurie -- an 18-year-old student at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Md., who was also a finalist in the Math Counts contest and took first place in the 1993 University of Maryland Mathematics Competition for high school students.

Noam Shazeer -- a 19-year-old student at Duke University, who graduated from Swampscott High School in Swampscott, Mass. He plans to pursue a career in mathematics.

Stephen Wang -- an 18-year-old math major at Harvard University. Wang graduated from the Illinois Math and Science Academy, a state-supported magnet school, in Aurora, Ill.

Jonathan Weinstein -- an 18-year-old student at Harvard University. Weinstein graduated from Lexington High School in Lexington, Mass.

In his address Secretary Riley will review progress made since the landmark A Nation At Risk study. He will report on Goals 2000 state and community initiatives -- 45 states are developing comprehensive reform plans, based on challenging standards -- and conclude that we are "turning the corner."

Riley also will address the violence and the fear of violence in urban, rural and suburban schools. He will challenge the nation to create new "rites of passage" for youth threatened by a culture that too often glamorizes violence.

Riley will underscore the need to assure access and maintain excellence in higher education and will discuss opportunities for lifelong learning under the President's Middle Class Bill of Rights.

Riley will be introduced by former Reagan administration Education Secretary Terrel Bell and joined by the six public school students who achieved a perfect score in winning the 35th International Mathematical Olympiad.

The speech will be available nationwide via satellite. Following are coordinates:

C-Band: Telstar 302, transponder 12 horizontal, channel 24, 85 degrees west, downlink frequency 4180 horizontal, audio subcarriers 6.2 and 6.8.

Ku-Band: SBS 6, transponder 9 horizontal, channel 9, 95 degrees west, downlink frequency 11921, audio subcarriers 6.2 and 6.8.