As the First Lady said, we strongly support UNESCO's mission to provide "Education For All."

Education and literacy are necessities in a world devoid of certainty but abundant with opportunity. Lives can be transformed -- lifted over time from poverty and chaos to dignity and independence. Education offers a ladder on which to climb and a foundation upon which to stand.

Fifty-two years ago Eleanor Roosevelt spoke to a group of parents and teachers about the promise of the United Nations. "I think we will hand on to our children a struggle," she said. "But [it is] a struggle that will give our nation the capacity to lead the world toward peace and righteousness and freedom."

Learning and literacy will take us forward to that future. And I want to thank UNESCO for helping to lead the way.

We can all agree on the goals of Education For All. They include "universal primary education by 2015"; a 50 percent expansion in adult literacy; improved quality as well as access; gender equality; and opportunity for "excluded and marginalized" populations.

Those objectives have special resonance to Americans in light of our own education reform effort, No Child Left Behind.

Its goals -- every child learning at grade level in reading and math by 2014, a quality teacher in every classroom, special attention for students once ignored and left behind – complement UNESCO's good work.

Our system of education had grown complacent over the years, allowing some students to graduate without the basic skills they needed. By testing children annually, and holding schools accountable for their progress, we are seeing real changes in the classroom. We are reaching more kids at an earlier stage, helping them before they fall too far behind. And we are reaching their parents too, giving them more information about their schools and more choices if they are dissatisfied.

No Child Left Behind also stresses the importance of sound, science-based research. As the First Lady noted, thanks to recent advances in neuroscience, we now know more – and with more certainty -- about how the brain works and children learn to read. We've invested billions of dollars behind scientifically proven instruction, training teachers and putting "reading coaches" in our classrooms.

It's making a real difference; across the country test scores in reading are on the rise, with the greatest gains shown by disadvantaged and minority students.

We've established new research-based programs in math and science as well. Overall, President Bush has increased funding for education research by 60 percent.

We don't yet know where the research may lead. But we are eager to share our findings with the world. Educational access -- filling an empty chair with a willing student -- is necessary, but not sufficient. We must insist on quality. UNESCO's 2005 Global Monitoring Report demonstrated its importance. Children must leave school with the skills to survive and thrive in a knowledge-based world.

Sound research is crucial for another reason: to demonstrate the value of education. The UIS report, Financing Education – Investments and Returns, shows the strong link between education and economic growth in developing nations. Attendance in school significantly increases one's earning power and access to the labor market. This is especially true for women.

In this knowledge-based world, earning depends upon learning. Education helps both people and nations rise above their circumstances.

A study by the University of Ottawa found that a rise of just one percent in a nation's literacy scores yielded a two-and-a-half percent increase in labor productivity and a 1.5 percent increase in GDP per person. These raw numbers mean a real improvement in quality of life.

The study found that in the countries where skills improved the fastest between generations, productivity also improved much faster than average. It might surprise you to learn that the United States had one of the world's lowest improvement rates.

We knew we had to act. And we did. As a result, today, our youngest students are gaining vital literacy skills at an earlier age. Our fourth- and eighth-graders have significantly improved their performance in international tests. And the achievement gap between rich and poor and black and white is finally beginning to close.

Our secondary school students, however, continue to lag behind. The President is seeking to expand the promise of No Child Left Behind to our high schools.

We want to make a high school diploma a ticket to success in the 21^st Century, whether a graduate chooses higher education or the workforce. We owe it to our citizens and our shared future.

Other nations realize the importance of education and are taking action. My Australian counterpart, Dr. Education Minister Brendan Nelson, for one, has introduced reforms that emphasize testing and accountability.

In this knowledge economy, it is critical that students enrolling in colleges and universities be ready to learn from day one. As Bill Gates said, the "barrier of not being prepared for college" is every bit as real as financial barriers. We must remove that barrier. This is compounded by declining student interest in science and engineering -- ironically as demand for technology has never been higher.

If we improve student preparation, we can spur student interest. President Bush's budget provides unprecedented support for rigorous, college-track curriculum and advanced placement classes in our high schools. The nation's Governors are behind us in this effort.

Across the world, progress has been made. In the nations surveyed by the Financing Education report, time spent in school had more than doubled since 1960, from 3.4 years to 7.6 years. However, that is still almost three years fewer than the major industrialized nations. To close this gap further, we must continue to push for universal primary education – not just for the elite, but for all.

We also must confront other barriers to education – war and conflict, disease and disaster. On their visit to Thailand this month, former Presidents Bush and Clinton were greeted by groups of schoolchildren who survived the tsunami – but lost their mothers or fathers.

The United States is helping to lead the worldwide effort to rebuild devastated communities and schools. President Bush is seeking nearly one billion dollars for reconstruction and rehabilitation, including targeted aid for sparsely populated rural areas. It would be the most generous U.S. government response ever to a foreign natural disaster.

At the same time, UNESCO is focusing on longer-term needs, including post-trauma psychological assistance; teacher training; disaster prevention curricula; and access for students with disabilities. We stand behind them as they do.

Elsewhere, democratic societies and institutions are emerging after decades of tyranny and fear. In Iraq and Afghanistan, schools that once excluded girls and taught propaganda and hatred to boys are adapting to freedom. Across the world, HIV / AIDS has taken a terrible toll on students, teachers and families. In Africa, more than one child in ten has lost a parent to the disease.

Our Administration has committed more than $2 billion for Afghanistan's development, including newly built schools and clinics.

Our America's Fund for Afghan Children has tapped into the generosity of the American people to fund vaccinations, uniforms for schoolgirls, and thousands of chests filled with school supplies. The First Lady deserves our special thanks for helping to lead these efforts.

Finally, the President has more than tripled funding since 2001 to fight AIDS. His $15 billion Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, announced two years ago, is providing prevention and therapy, care for mothers and orphans and modernization of health care infrastructure.

Many of these efforts were once dismissed as unachievable – like the dream of Education For All. But for millions, dreams are coming true. Today, one hundred million more children attend school than in 1990, the year Education For All began.

We cannot let up. We still have much work to do to reach the millions still denied access to school -- and to teach the more than 800 million adults, one in seven worldwide, who still cannot read and write.

I believe our higher education community is ready to make a real difference. You are our greatest ambassadors to the world. Half a million foreign students come to our colleges and universities each year to study.

They return home, passing their knowledge and experiences on to their families and countries. Many become leaders in their nations.

Georgetown University is doing its part. It attended the World Education Forum in Dakar in 2000, where the principles of Education For All were updated and renewed. You have surveyed donor contributions and examined nations' education plans. You've led teacher-training workshops in Africa and Central Europe. And you play an important role in training America's future diplomats and corporate expatriates through your Schools of Foreign Service.

You are not alone. DePaul University was the first to negotiate a partnership with UNESCO in 2003. The University of Rhode Island and Rutgers University each have science-based UNESCO chairs. The University of Minnesota is working on cultural preservation with the World Heritage Center. There are other examples – and more yet to come.

We want to encourage more colleges and universities to apply their research to real-world challenges. We want to see new partnerships formed between nations, the business community and non-governmental organizations like the Red Cross and Red Crescent. The more people behind this effort, the more people in need we can help.

In the end, we're not looking to fill a press release or a fact sheet. That's not how we measure success. We measure success by the gleam in a young girl's eyes as she learns how to spell, or by the intensity of a young boy so lost in his studies that he momentarily forgets his troubles.

We measure success by places such as Bokgoni Technical High School in Pretoria, South Africa. This UNESCO-affiliated school suffers terribly from poverty and AIDS; a teacher says that "sometimes we have three deaths a week." And yet its students visit local AIDS orphans and donate food and uniforms to those in even greater need.

Yes, this is about learning how to read and write and do math. But it's also about learning how to respect one another and resolve our conflicts peacefully. Multiplied by millions, such changes will lead to a more peaceful, prosperous and free world.

Founding Father James Madison spoke of the bonds between "liberty and learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual and surest support." It is no less true today.

In Director-General Matsuura's words, literacy "enables [people] to make choices, to participate and to exercise their rights – in other words, to be free."

Like freedom, a quality education for all is worth fighting for. We are grateful to UNESCO, Georgetown University and everyone else who is engaging in this struggle for the future. Thank you.

####