Thank you, Steve, for that kind introduction. It's an honor to be here.

This forum has long provoked vigorous debate about the diverse issues that matter most to us as a society. So I appreciate the invitation of Steve, Paul Peterson and Gail Christopher to come before you to talk about something that is very dear to me and to the President as well, and that is improving the quality of public education in America.

Quite often when I speak, I cover the overall issues surrounding the historic education reforms that President Bush signed into law on January 8, 2002 known as the No Child Left Behind Act. I talk about the President's efforts to get the law passed. And the good progress we're making implementing it in the states.

But as we approach the 20th anniversary of the groundbreaking report A Nation at Risk later this month, I am focusing on some of the major issues addressed in the historic reforms of No Child Left Behind.

Fifteen years after A Nation at Risk warned that too many children were falling through the cracks in our education system, experts estimated that, of all the high school seniors in the nation:

• 10 million kids couldn't even read at the basic level;
• More than 25 million didn't know even the basics of U.S. history;
• And of all the kids from all high school levels, more than 20 million couldn't even do basic math.

It wasn't for lack of resources or effort.

Between 1970 and 1995, per pupil spending shot up 75 percent. The number of students per teacher fell 25 percent. And the number of teachers with advanced degrees more than doubled.

Yet student achievement in the United States remained flat.

I have spent my whole life either studying to get a good education or working to help others do the same. And in my years, I have seen many well-intentioned, well-funded efforts to close the widening achievement gap between those who have and those who don't.

But in all my years, I've never seen any movement with greater potential to improve our education system than the No Child Left Behind Act.

And with each budget cycle since President Bush took office, he has worked to protect our investment in our children—with historic levels of funding targeted to areas of greatest need.

But the question is how do we turn those resources into results? How do we ensure that in another 20 years we're not still a nation at risk?

We do it with a new law that says no child will be left behind. With a new attitude that says every child can learn. And with a new era of accountability that says results matter.

All are strengthening public education in America. I would even argue that No Child Left Behind is the most powerful affirmative action program ever devised. We're working to fix the problem on the front end of each child's education, where it will do the most good.

But improving America's schools will take something else as well: new freedom for innovation and creativity in our public schools—and new freedom for parents to choose what is best for their children academically.

And that's what I'd like to focus on today: Strengthening Public Education by Empowering Parents with Choice.

Tomorrow, here at Harvard, there's going to be a conference discussing innovations in education. One topic I'm sure will be discussed is choice. And I think it's pretty remarkable. Only in education could we consider choice an innovation.

We are three years into the 21st Century—we left behind the Industrial Age long ago. The great companies and organizations that have survived and prospered have done so only to the extent that they provide greater choice to their customers. They have succeeded by providing greater choices and options for the customer.

Yet here we are today—preventing our schools from operating by this same formula for success.

Choice is essential for authentic public school reform, and I'll tell you why: Ours is a highly mobile, confident nation that has the greatest range of personal choices ever in the history of mankind.

Look at the world we live in. Instant messaging. 24-hour news. Personal Web sites. Global markets. Overnight express. eCommerce.

Every day presents new opportunities to tailor what we see, what we hear, and what we do to our own personal tastes. The world is moving toward more choice, not less. Unless you are poor. In that case, you look around and you see the rest of the country speeding into the future.

While you're still trying to catch up with the present.

Americans will not allow themselves to be boxed in by a monopoly. In the 21st century, choice is not the exception—it's the rule. Only in education would choice and competition be viewed as "innovative" or "radical" or "risky."

Our education system must change to reflect these times—for all parents and all children from all income levels. No Child Left Behind says we must empower parents by giving them the range of choices for their children's schooling that many have come to expect in all other parts of their lives—and that low-income parents can only dream about.

The defenders of the status quo argue the current way of doing business is just fine. That giving parents a choice is a bad idea. That choice could destroy the public school system. In fact, some have even claimed that the No Child Left Behind Act is designed to do just that.

I say that's nonsense.

A necessary condition for strengthening public schools is the freedom of parents to choose and participate. This will strengthen public schools—not detract from them.

Under the current monopolistic system, public schools have no incentive to embark on substantial reforms or make major improvements because no matter how badly they perform:

• Their budgets won't be cut;
• Their enrollment won't decline;
• The school won't close down.

But when parents are allowed to remove their children—and the money that comes with them—from underperforming schools, public schools are forced to respond.

John Gardner found this, when he was president of the Milwaukee School Board. In an article titled "How School Choice Helps Public Schools," John wrote:

"As a left-wing organizer with 30 years' experience in labor unions, workers' cooperatives and poor communities, I knew working-class and poor people do not want school choice or public education. They want BOTH."

"Three years later, evidence from Milwaukee, home of the nation's most ambitious program to let parents enroll students where they want, demonstrates school choice has improved Milwaukee Public Schools."

Under Florida's A-Plus Program, children in underperforming schools are offered the choice to leave with Opportunity Scholarships or remain in a school that is eligible under the same program for increased funding from the state. The opportunity for students to take their business someplace else is a powerful incentive to improve. If students have choice, schools will begin treating them like customers instead of taking their enrollment for granted.

We have seen—on more than one occasion—how competition created by choice can motivate public schools to improve:

• When philanthropist Virginia Gilder offered vouchers to disadvantaged children at Giffen Elementary School in Albany, New York, 20 percent opted for private schools. In response, Superintendent Lonnie Palmer sprang into action making needed improvements at the public school:

  • Hiring a new principal;
  • Replacing a fifth of its teachers;
  • And adopting a new curriculum.

• Using Department of Education data, Harvard researcher Caroline Hoxby studied school choice programs in urban areas. She found that choice increased the academic achievement and graduation rates of students in both public and private schools.

I've heard people say, "There's no room for these children to leave public schools. They must stay where they are and we'll do the best we can with what we have."

To that I say I believe one of our most grievous sins has been to tie a child to a school that is failing them—and insist that they stay at this school and continue to be crippled. There is room for choice.

The supply of private schools is not fixed. As demand for private schools increases, so too will their supply. Entrepreneurial firms, philanthropic individuals, and even existing schools will establish new schools and many existing private schools will expand.

In the cities with large-scale choice programs, new private schools have been founded directly in response to the demand generated by choice. This is not to say the process is easy. It is not—we are talking about starting a small business—but the number of new schools is growing rapidly.

These include the Hope Academies in Cleveland, more than 20 schools in Milwaukee, and more than a dozen in San Antonio.

School choice turns the static education monopoly into a marketplace that is responsive to consumer demand.

We need only look to the experience of charter schools to see the large number of schools that have been created in response to demand for more and better choices in schooling.

The American people are demanding change:

• More than a half million children are enrolled in roughly 2,700 charters nationwide;
• About 2 million children are home-schooled;
• The number of students learning through virtual charter schools is growing.

Under No Child Left Behind, if children are not learning, and schools do not improve, then moms and dads can choose supplemental services such as one-on-one tutoring, or after-school help. Or they can enroll their children in a better public school.

The Supreme Court decision declaring vouchers constitutional was great news—and a real step in the right direction for public education.

No Child Left Behind says all parents deserve the right to choose schools for their kids, just like the right to choose their own health care, retirement plans, or family auto. Because all parents, no matter what their color, no matter how rich or poor, understand that education is the key to success.

My parents were educators who drummed that into each of us kids when we were growing up. In my family, we were going to get a good education or die trying. They wanted better for us.

This is what drives Johnietta McGrady, a single mom raising her two children and two of her grandchildren as well. She was so fearful that these kids might follow in the footsteps of her eldest daughter and drop out of school that she sought out a better school with the help of the Cleveland Scholarship Program for low-income families.

She says: "Every day I wake up, I tell the children, today is another day of Thanksgiving."

Right here in Cambridge, according to a recent article in the Boston Globe, a parent named Steve Plante seized the opportunity provided by the law to transfer his four children from a school needing improvement to a new school, the Baldwin School.

The Globe quoted Mr. Plante as saying: "The Baldwin is an excellent school, and the kids love it. I'm already seeing a big difference in their grades."

Competition works and I can speak from experience. I ran the nation's seventh largest public school system and I didn't shy away from choice. I embraced choice. I knew that competition would make our system stronger. And it did. And I knew that our public school system could compete with charter schools and private schools, and win. And it did.

I chartered the first KIPP academy in the nation in Houston that takes under-achievers and turns them into scholars. I also launched a program that allowed students to attend private schools in their neighborhood instead of getting bussed all over town to overcrowded public schools.

We strengthened our system in Houston and won a national award for closing the achievement gap. So I know choice can make a difference. And there's early evidence, thanks to Dr. (Paul) Peterson, that choice programs that allow children to attend private and parochial schools can improve student achievement. The findings were particularly strong for African-American students.

I believe the nation's public schools are going to succeed by being innovative and entrepreneurial. And we're here to help.

Four months ago, we launched the new Office of Innovation and Improvement at the Department of Education. Its role is to identify, support and promote promising innovations in education. Through its 25 grant programs and proactive outreach efforts, this Office will provide needed resources and ideas to educators across this country. This is a high priority. And that's why Nina Rees was lured from the White House to lead this endeavor.

Nina would you please stand? Nina has the President's confidence and mine as well. And she brings to this mission impressive depth and experience necessary to get the job done.

As we work to implement our new education reforms, I am mindful that change can be difficult. But I reminded of the words of Martin Luther King when he said:

"Every society has its protectors of the status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. But today our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change."

We must break the stranglehold of those whose first concern is protecting the system, not the child—the barnacles that drag down and slow the growth of the improvement of our public schools. Those who do not believe in the strength of our public schools, and have no confidence in our public school educators.

When No Child Left Behind made it the law of the land for schools to tell moms and dads how well their children are learning, a hue and cry arose from some quarters.

Interestingly, when Congress first debated the merits of what would become the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, another member of the Harvard community, a young Senator named Robert Kennedy, called for standardized testing.

How else, he asked, would we be able to measure the progress of schools and know—and I quote "whether the child, in fact, was gaining from the investment of these funds."

Senator Kennedy added: "I think it would be very helpful to Congress and I think it would be very helpful to people living in the states, and I think it would be very helpful to the people living in the local communities."

That's the point, after all: to ensure that children—not adults, not the system—are gaining from the investment of these funds. And that's why the robust accountability systems that No Child Left Behind demands, and that fine states like Massachusetts are already adopting, are so critically important.

Strengthening our schools is a mission for President Bush. He believes that educating our children is the most important thing we will ever do as a nation. And each and every one of us must work together as to borrow the President's words "absolute warriors" on their behalf.

Everyone can help. Volunteer in a local school here in Cambridge, or Boston, or Chelsea. Sign up for Teach for America or Citizen Schools when you graduate. Consider launching a charter school, or preparing to be an urban superintendent—though you've got to be a little crazy to do the last one. Be a part of the solution.

The great Barbara Jordan used to say, "We may have come on different ships, but we're all in the same boat now."

As passengers on this boat, we need everyone rowing in the same direction.

God bless you all. And God bless America.

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