Thank you, Gary, and the staff of the National Center for Education Statistics for your report. I appreciate what you do to help us understand how well our nation's children are progressing.

I also want to thank Russ Whitehurst, an excellent researcher in his own right, who is critical to our effort to improve federal educational research. I am grateful to President Bush for appointing Russ. I want to welcome John Patrick to the Department of Education, and welcome Diane Ravitch back to the Department. I look forward to hearing your thoughts in just a moment. But first, I want to share a few thoughts on what Gary just said. NAEP is an important national report card.

And what this report card is telling us is that too many of our public school children are still struggling in this critical core subject area—history. And the higher the grade in school, the lower their understanding in history.

For example, more than a third of 4th graders—nearly 40 percent of 8th graders—and more than half of high school seniors did not demonstrate even a basic understanding of the subject. Think about it: "Basic" is the bottom of the achievement ladder. And they didn't even reach that—the lowest rung.

This is unacceptable. History is a critical part of our nation's school curriculum. It is through history that we understand our past and contemplate our future. Our shared history is what unites us as Americans.

But as Gary pointed out, the questions that stumped so many students involve the most fundamental concepts of our democracy, our growth as a nation, and our role in the world. This is particularly startling given the grave new world we've lived in since September 11th.

So I take joy in finding some glimmer of hope in this report. Specifically, between 1994 and 2001:

• the average scores of 4th and 8th graders increased, and

• the achievement gap between white and minority students narrowed noticeably.

Diane and John will talk more about the details. But I believe these numbers back up what the President and I have been saying all along: Every child can learn—regardless of race, income or zip code. Every minority child can achieve.

And these scores show they are learning—and they are achieving. And I commend those history teachers responsible for helping these children progress. Yes, we've got a lot more work to do. But we've got just the tool to do it—the sweeping new education reforms of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

Our nation has been called to commit itself to a bold goal—creating a system that insists on accountability and results, teacher quality, and reading programs that work. A system where taxpayers know what they're getting for their money—and parents know if their children are learning history, reading, math, and science.

Defenders of the status quo say it's not enough money. Well, over the past 50 years, American taxpayers—at the federal, state and local level—have spent trillions of dollars on our schools and what have we got to show for it?

For starters—a third of our fourth graders who don't know that our fundamental right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" comes from the Declaration of Independence.

We are working with our schools to implement this new law. This week I've been traveling with the President to meet with parents and educators and community leaders.

Earlier this week, the President and I met with chief state education officers and business leaders at the White House. And to a person, they are helping in our states to get the message out that we are all responsible for results in our schools.

And when we all as nation pay attention and focus on accountability and results, our schools will improve. These NAEP scores will rise. And the achievement gap between rich and poor finally will be history.

Thank you.

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