Thank you, thank you so much. Thank you, Representative Coggs, for that kind introduction. I would also like to thank your outstanding President, Senator Monson, President; and Senator Pam Redfield, the Chair of the Education Committee. Thank you also for this opportunity.

It is an honor to be here today because it gives me an opportunity to talk about what I believe to be the most historic education reform since public schools began. I am, of course, talking about the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. And it's important to talk to you about this because we need your help on this so much.

We want to join hands so that we can create in America an education system worthy of this great nation, one that leaves no child behind. And educates all of our children. No society's ever tried that. But we are a great country and we can do this.

This new law is a powerful tool that, when fully implemented, it can slam shut the wide and in some places increasing and in all places un-American achievement gap between ethnic groups.

So what is the No Child Left Behind Act? Let's talk about it for just a moment.

It's a set of reforms that takes this point of view. Every single child can learn. And they are worth our effort.

We know what it takes to teach them. And we're going to do whatever it takes to ensure that no child is left behind. No ifs, buts, or ands.

No Child Left Behind is not just a statement of pious sentimentality, it's an expectation.

Here's our current reality.

We have an education system that's doing a wonderful job of educating some of the kids. But this a new paradigm; we're talking about educating all of the kids.

All across America we have schools—wonderful schools—that are islands of excellence. We have schools where we have some graduates that we can brag about, that go to MIT and Harvard and other places; but we're talking about ALL of the children. Not just a few. No child is to be left behind.

We can see here that part of our issue, is we're not getting the movement that we need. The blue represents the expenditures, the money, that we're spending on education. The red represents the improvement in performance in reading. And you can see the red was flat but the blue had this sharp incline. And we need to make sure that we can hook these two ends together so that the dollars that we're spending actually produce results.

And the way we want to do that is to have policies that focus on four pillars that underpin the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

The first one is accountability. Begin with that, accept the reality that schools and school districts and principals and teachers and superintendents and secretaries of education and all of us have to accept the accountability—accept the responsibility for student learning and not make excuses about their poverty status. Or about their dialect. Or their initial language. But find solutions to the problems that they bring.

And flexibility and local control. This law has new flexibility that's never been seen before in this kind of federal legislation. When I was Superintendent of Schools in Houston and dealing with federal legislation, at that time the ESEA was called the Improving America's Schools Act of 1994. We had to write the U.S. Department of Education or call the U.S. Department of Education to find ways that we could change or use dollars in other ways, and most of the time you got answers that didn't satisfy you.

But built into this legislation is an opportunity to change directions for the funding—very flexible—without calling or getting in touch with the U.S. Department of Education the principals and teachers and superintendents and legislators on the spot can make decisions about where approximately 50% of these dollars can be spent. Broad categories, because we believe the people who are the best to make these decisions are the ones who are at the scene.

When schools change they will do so not because of what we do in Washington, D.C. but because of what the people do who walk up and down the halls of the schools and who look into the eyes of the children. So we want them to have flexibility.

Choices for parents. We want parents to become a part of this revolution. And we want to expand opportunities for parents. We want them to be participants and to make decisions about their children; not just for the children who leave schools and go to other places, but for the children who are at the schools.

And I want to be clear about this. This whole idea is aimed at improving public schools. Because what we're going to end up with is a collection of delivery systems. There'll be cyber-schools, there'll be private schools, but the heavy lifter is going to be the public school system and that's the structure that we've got to make work better.

Research-based instruction. There's a fourth pillar. And here we're talking about making sure that the methodology used for teaching has been proven to work and has a scientific basis, and we know that if we use this method children will learn. And so this is the fourth pillar. And this is what makes this legislation different.

But all the reform in the world won't help us if the people who stand in front of the children don't possess the skills and attitudes that we need for effectiveness.

And we know that more than half of the middle school math teachers and nearly half of the science teachers did not major or minor in the course they're teaching.

Perhaps that's why our scores for twelfth graders in math look like this. And 20%, or 34%, is nothing to write home about but the 3% and 4% and 10% are areas that need special attention.

And the same thing is true in science. And we're not doing well when we compare with our international neighbors. So we have a good deal of work to do there.

Not only do we need teachers who have the skills; and, by the way, I agree with Omar Bradley when he said, "others can defend democracy but teachers create it." And we probably have better teachers than we deserve, in terms of how we treat them and how we pay them.

But we cannot escape the fact that we don't have enough teachers. Especially in some particular fields like math and science. And we also cannot overlook the fact that we want to make sure that every teacher believes that children can learn. Not only must they know their subject deeply, but they must also believe that their children can learn. And teachers who do not believe that children can learn cannot have the kind of success that we need in order to make this work.

I've heard, unfortunately, some teachers say, "You don't know my kids. They can't learn; they're too poor, they're too disadvantaged, they're too unprepared, or they're too you-fill-in-the-blank to achieve like the kids in the suburbs."

The Wall Street Journal just recently carried an article that quoted a school board member from San Diego, and this school board member said that he shouldn't be held responsible for any declining scores in the district under his 12-year tenure because as you know the 'demographics' had shifted, and it's changed and we have fewer white students in our district now, so you can't hold me responsible for the lack of growth.

There's no place in our schools for people who don't believe in children. That's the first criterion. Every child can learn and every child can be taught to high standards. And this is not something that I'm just dreaming up.

I think of the study that every teacher learns in their education courses, that told them the story of a research project where researchers told teachers that they had "spurters"—students who were really bright—in their classes. And of course, the students were just regular students that had been picked at random.

But because they were explained to be "spurters," they achieved like that. Their scores took off like rockets.

And the only difference between these students and others was that they were believed to be "spurters."

Many schools and teachers throughout the nation are already achieving to high standards with students who would otherwise be thought not to be able to.

There's the KIPP academies that many of you have heard about that take so-called lost causes and turn them into scholars. There's the Waitz Elementary School in Texas where poor migrant farmers' children who speak very little English are outperforming their suburban neighbors.

The kids at Samuel Gompers High School in the Bronx—by the way, this is the district with the lowest per-capita income in the nation. Yet last year, 85% of their kids graduated and went to college, and the other 15% went into the job market with high skills; computer repair and other skills that they can make a good living with. But the people there really believed in these kids.

Let me address a few other points that I'm sure that you have in mind.

Some have described this legislation as one that contained a lot of unfunded mandates. I think this is an inappropriate characterization. It provides money at historical levels. The increase by 50% since 1996, when discretionary funding for this purpose was about $23 billion. The current budget has better than $50 billion in it.

The $2.58 billion for teacher enhancement is historical. The reading funding was at the level of $300 million just three years ago. Now it's at a billion dollars a year.

Funding is not the issue. Reform is the issue. Accountability is the issue.

And finally allow me to comment on one characterization that I've heard much too often. And that is failing schools.

This legislation requires schools that fail to meet AYP—Adequate Yearly Progress that is determined by the state—to be identified for improvement. Many have chosen to call these schools "failing schools."

I think this is inappropriate. They may or may not be failing schools. In fact they may be very successful schools in other measures. The average score for the school may be very high.

But we're setting a different standard because we're talking about every child. And so we choose the language 'identified for improvement'. No Child Left Behind is a positive law. And it's there to make sure that every single child has an opportunity to learn.

This includes children with disabilities. We're going to be, the beginning of next year, about the end of January, preparing for the reauthorization of IDEA. I expect that we're going to have a lot of changes there and also increases in funding to make the possibilities for children with disabilities better.

Obviously, we're still in the early stages. And there is much yet to be done. We're working with individual states on their accountability systems; we're talking to each individual state's accountability persons and to their state chief, and to their governor.

We're converting the United States Department of Education to a partnership agency so that we can reach out and be there with you, the people in the states, and the school districts. We're not just going to sit back, and monitor, and criticize. Our people are going to be partners, because we can't succeed if we don't have success in the states.

And so we're in this together. The only thing that we ask is that the commitment be strong, and that the determination be relentless.

And that we move as fast as we can to make sure that every single child in the United States has the opportunity to attend a school that provides for them enhanced opportunities for them to gain their potential.

This is what the No Child Left Behind Act is about.

It's an incredible pleasure for me to serve as the United States Secretary of Education because I believe this cause is a good and just cause and it's worth spending time and effort on. Thank you so much for your attention.

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