U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings today met with business and higher education leaders in New York City to discuss America's higher education system and the business community's role in preparing our students to compete in the 21st Century global economy, as well the importance of reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in order to better prepare students for college and the workforce.

The event was sponsored by the Teachers Insurance Annuity Association of America—College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA-CREF), The Partnership for New York City and The Business Higher Education Forum.

Following are the Secretary's prepared remarks:

I'd like to thank TIAA-CREF Chairman Herb Allison. As a veteran of the financial services industry, you've made a career out of helping others plan for the future. Today, students across our country are lucky to have you looking out for them as Chair of the Business-Higher Education Forum.

I'd also like to thank Kathy Wylde of the Partnership for New York City and Cornell University President David Skorton for co-hosting us along with Herb.

It's an honor to be here with so many leaders from the corporate world and academia. From the research triangle to Silicon Valley and from economics to government to medicine, leaders like you are working hand-in-hand to improve our quality of life. As I've seen firsthand in my travels to Japan, China, Korea, Russia, and the Middle East, your work makes our country the envy of the world.

Each year, America's higher education system equips more than 20 million students with the knowledge and skills to achieve their dreams. Universities serve as incubators for the great ideas, inventions, and individuals that make our private sector thrive. And as board members, professors, and alumni, business leaders can help schools fine-tune programs and maximize resources to better serve more students.

And so, as a policymaker and a parent, I appreciate the fact that you're using your combined strength to improve our entire K-16 system.

You know as well as anyone that in today's world, a college education is becoming more and more essential to achieving the American Dream.

Yet while two-thirds of high-growth, high-wage jobs require a college degree, only a third of Americans have one.

To help make the dream of college education a reality for many more students, last fall I released a plan to increase access, affordability, and accountability. The plan is based on the recommendations of leaders like you who served on my Commission on the Future of Higher Education.

Earlier this month, President Bush prioritized these proposals in his budget request. Many of the Business-Higher Education Forum's major initiatives are included in our plans. So I'm counting on you to help make them a reality!

Thanks to your support, No Child Left Behind is already proving that high standards and accountability are the keys to improving the K-12 pipeline. We've seen more reading progress for 9-year-olds in 5 years than in the previous 28 combined. Younger students are reaching all-time highs in reading and math.

To better prepare more students for college and the workforce, the first part of my plan is to strengthen and renew No Child Left Behind this year. And I applaud the Forum for joining the Business Coalition for Student Achievement to help reauthorize the law. As Coalition Chairman Art Ryan of Prudential, who's here with us today, has said, this law "provides a solid foundation for improving U.S. education." I firmly agree.

With No Child Left Behind, we've made real progress in the early grades. But as you know, the problem of access begins in our nation's high schools, where every year:

• About a million students drop out, each forfeiting a million dollars in lifetime earnings compared to college graduates.
• Half of all African-American and Hispanic students don't graduate on time.
• Less than half of all graduates are prepared for college-level math and science.

As a result, business and academic leaders like you—and parents and taxpayers like me—spend over a billion dollars a year on remedial education... to teach skills students should have learned in high school.

I appreciate the fact that many of you are already working to increase public awareness of these issues, and to strengthen the K-12 pipeline. For example, the Forum is developing a "playbook" of effective corporate and university strategies in the K-12 arena.

Under David Skorton's leadership, Cornell University hosts yearly professional development workshops for teachers.

Christine DeVita of the Wallace Foundation works with several states to improve leadership in high-need school districts.

Going forward, the President and I want to build on this work by ensuring high school measurements are aligned with business and university needs.

We must create a nationwide appetite for math, science, and rigorous graduation requirements, as well as need-based aid for college students.

I've brought along a checklist of things you can do to help—and it starts with finding out what resources are available in your state.

We also need your help to challenge more students, especially in critical fields like math and science. To raise the bar, we support adding more AP classes, recruiting successful professionals to be part-time teachers, and providing scholarships to reward students who take rigorous high school coursework.

In addition, when it comes to chronically underperforming schools, we want help education leaders act more like CEO's... instead of what New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein calls "agents of the bureaucracy." Under Mayor Bloomberg's leadership—and with the help of the Partnership for New York City—New York has been a pioneer in this area.

To help more cities follow your example, our plan provides local leaders with more robust tools to target personnel, funding, and free tutoring to the students who need them most, and to re-invent struggling schools as charters.

Once we've strengthened the K-12 pipeline, the next step is to make college more affordable.

Many of you probably have sons and daughters in college, so you understand the real issue of tuition sticker shock.

Over the last 25 years, college tuition increases have outpaced inflation, family income, even health care!

In fact, health care and higher education have a lot in common lately—like limited innovation, and lots of government regulation. We keep putting money in, and the price just keeps going up.

As a result, young people are starting out in life saddled with debt-making it difficult to start a family, buy a home, plan for the future, or even continue their education.

That's why last week, the President called for the biggest increase to the Pell grant program in more than 30 years. In total, we would offer a maximum of $5400 to help more low-income kids realize the dream of a college education.

Now, money is important, but we're going to keep chasing our tail on price until we realize that a good deal of the solution comes down to information. Like any other investment or enterprise, we need meaningful data to better manage the system.

Which brings me to accountability.

In almost every area of our government—and certainly in the corporate world—we expect transparency and accountability in return for our investments. But over the years, we've invested tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer money in higher education and basically just hoped for the best. As a result, we don't have a very good picture of how the system works today and how it could be improved.

We live in the "Information Age." If you want to buy a new car, you go online and compare a full range of models, makes, and pricing options. And when you're done, you'll know everything from how well each car holds its value down to wheel size and number of cup-holders.

That same transparency and ease should be the case when students and families shop for colleges—especially when one year of college can cost more than a car!

In March, I'm convening a Summit to further discuss the Commission's recommendations. The summit will focus on five areas that impact the greatest number of students and offer the greatest potential for positive change:

• Aligning K-12 and higher education expectations
• Increasing need-based aid
• Expanding affordability through cost transparency
• Serving adults and other non-traditional students
• Using accreditation to support and emphasize student learning outcomes.

Many of you are invited, and I look forward to working with you to address each of these subjects. Be ready to talk about how you and your organization can make a difference on alignment, affordability, transparency, lifelong learning, and data.

At the federal level, we will continue to do our part. But the truth of the matter is that many of the Commission's recommendations require the leadership of stakeholders who don't work in Washington. My goal is for everyone present, including those of us from the U.S. Department of Education, to bring workable solutions to the table.

As the primary consumers of our nation's high school graduates, you obviously have a vested interest in their skill-level. And there's a growing consensus among parents, taxpayers, policymakers, and leaders like you that we must act soon. I look forward to working with you to increase educational opportunity across the board.

Thank you. I would be happy to answer your questions.

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