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Thank you, Patricia, for that introduction and for your leadership at the Council for Excellence in Government.

I want to thank Jon Baron for your excellent work.

And I want to welcome you all and say what an honor it is to be here at this extraordinary gathering to focus on how rigorous research can help shape public policy.

In my corner of the world, we are already seeing how research can improve education--in policy and in practice. And we have our President to thank for that.

He examined the facts: Over the past 30 years, we have spent trillions of dollars on education--at the local, state and federal level. We've increased public spending per student 90 percent. And yet the NAEP scores show that we've made almost no progress in raising the achievement level.

The President looked at those flat scores and said, This is unacceptable. We have got to fundamentally change the way we educate our children in America --from a system that educates some of the children, to a system that educates all of the children.

In a remarkable show of bipartisanship, Congress agreed with him and passed the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. This new law rests on four pillars; accountability, local control, options for parents, and, importantly, evidence-based instruction that works.

This is a key pillar. When people ask me, What's so special about President Bush's plan? Why do you think this has a better chance of boosting student achievement than anything anyone else has tried?--I tell them:

Because for the first time ever, we are applying the same rigorous standards to education research as are applied to medical research, and other fields where lives are at stake.

For the first time ever, we are insisting that states pay attention to the research. And for the first time ever, we are insisting on evidence-driven teaching methods that really work.

Not fads. Not feel-good fluff. But instruction that is based upon sound scientific research.

The President further backed up that commitment last month when he signed into law the bipartisan Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002. The leadership and support of Representatives Boehner, Miller, Castle and Kildee , as well as Senators Kennedy and Gregg, says that they believe as we do that we can no longer continue to use curriculum or methodology that have not passed the scrutiny of science.

I am especially pleased that this bill created the new Institute of Education Sciences at the Department of Education. I am also pleased that we have Russ Whitehurst at the Department of Education. His scholarship, vision and leadership are helping the Department move forward in the area of rigorous research.

The President and I are serious about closing the achievement gap in America's schools. And we're listening to what the research tells us about what works, because we know the solid scientists really know what they're talking about.

Many of you know that I was Superintendent of the Houston Independent School District, a large urban district with many challenges. Yet I have success turning it around, and one factor that was critical was that I turned to the best scientists and the best science to help select the curriculum materials and approaches used for instruction.

We didn't choose a textbook or a curriculum because a staff member was excited about it or because a company sales team said it was research-based.

We went to the scientists and we found out what works. And that is how we decided on textbooks and curriculum.

The French writer Marcel Proust, once said: "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."

Thanks to groundbreaking research, we have new eyes to look at how children learn. We now know, because the evidence tells us, that every child can be taught to high levels. Every child can learn.

An important addition to this discussion is the new report by the bipartisan Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy. We are reviewing the recommendations with great interest--particularly the call for more randomized controlled trials.

I want to close with a story Mrs. Bush tells what a shock she received when she first started teaching elementary school. Even with a degree in education and student-teaching experience, she had no clue how to even begin to teach a child to read.

It bothered her that some of her students were having real trouble learning, and it was not because of a problem on their part; it was because she needed to know more.

Research is really the Stealth pillar of our new education reforms. It may be quiet and almost unnoticeable to most. But it is zeroing in on the enemies of student achievement and bringing us closer to the President's goal of educating every child, with no child left behind.

I am grateful to all of the scientists for being a part of this historic education revolution.

Thank you.

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