Contact: Lindsey Kozberg (202) 401-3026

Speaker Frequently Deviates from Prepared Text

As I join you today, students and teachers around the nation are looking for ways to participate in the war against terror. Children are reading the newspaper and watching television, and parents and teachers need to provide context for the news and also constructive ways to respond.

I had the honor of leading all of our schools in an inspiring expression of patriotism last Friday. At 2:00 PM Eastern Time, students in every time zone joined together in saying the Pledge of Allegiance to our flag with one unified voice. It was a simple gesture, but it was very significant. The response to the pledge reflected a deep and wide desire of students to express their patriotism.

At a press conference last Thursday, President Bush launched America's Fund for Afghan Children. He asked all American children to help their Afghan peers by contributing one dollar each to the fund. Through the Red Cross, these funds will give food, shelter, and medicine to Afghan children, whether they remain in Afghanistan or have fled to neighboring countries. As Secretary of Education, I particularly want teachers to talk with their students about the plight of the Afghan children and ask them to participate. By learning about and helping the children of Afghanistan, the children of America can play an important role in our war against terror.

I know they will respond because they have already begun giving. As I left Amidon Elementary after the Pledge Across America, a young child named Alexander Moore ran up as I was headed to the car and handed me a dollar. He said "Please give this to the President for the kids in Afghanistan."

As we help our children understand current events, we cannot lose sight of the long-term goal of reforming our educational system. Last week, I joined President Bush and my colleagues in welcoming the former governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Ridge, to the President's Cabinet. He understands the importance of education to homeland security. As he recently said, "If you want to respond to terrorism and you want to fight back, then you create an educated citizenry."

Are we creating an educated citizenry? Our nation is blessed with many excellent schools, and many excellent educators. But nationally, our system is still failing too many children. According to the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress,

• only 32 percent of fourth graders can read proficiently at grade level,
• and the proportion in urban areas is even lower.
• 26 percent of urban fourth graders are proficient readers,
• compared with 36 percent of suburban
• and 32 percent of rural fourth graders.

There is also a persistent achievement gap between ethnic groups.

• While 40 percent of white fourth graders read at or above the proficient level,
• only 12 percent of blacks and 16 percent of Hispanics perform as well.

The situation does not improve in high school. Our high school seniors trail students in Cyprus and South Africa on international math tests. The 2000 NAEP math assessment indicates that the average score for high school seniors was lower in 2000 than it was in 1996.

As ACT knows better than most, although more children are attending college, nearly a third of our college freshmen must take remedial courses to catch up. Your own score reports tell the same story. Eighteen percent of graduates who took the ACT scored below 17, which means, as your report put it, they are "likely struggling with … fundamental academic skills." Although minority students are taking more courses that will prepare them for college-level work, the performance of most minority groups is still measurably lower than that of whites.

This achievement gap reveals children being left behind, and that's why President Bush is determined to close it. He means "no child left behind" quite literally. I've worked with him for almost seven years, and I understand his thinking and his actions on this. He is committed to the bold proposition that every child can learn.

This doesn't mean that after you siphon off the children who have disabilities, or the children who were never properly taught how to read, or the children who never learned English, or the children who disrupted their classrooms, that most of the rest can learn. It means that all of our kids, even the ones our system calls "hard to teach," can learn. We have the empirical data that show far too few of our children can read well. The problems are worse in our urban and rural schools. I know these problems firsthand, and I know we face a national challenge. But I believe we are up to that challenge, and that we change the culture of education to focus on the achievement of all of our children.

We must prepare minority and low-income students—not just their advantaged peers—for college and for the workforce. We must close the achievement gap, and that means, among other things, closing the expectations gap.

You've all heard the phrase, "the soft bigotry of low expectations." Let me give you some examples of these low expectations from MetLife's most recent Survey of the American Teacher.

• Low-income students are less likely to report that their principal cares about all the students in their school;
• Low-income students are less likely to report that their principal makes the school a safe place;
• Low-income students are less likely to report that their school is helping to prepare them for the future; and
• Low-income students are less likely to report that their teachers encourage them very much to do their best.

Also, high-income students are more likely than low-income students to believe that their teachers and parents expect excellent work from them. Sadly, their assumption is correct. The survey shows that principals and teachers from schools with high proportions of low-income or minority students are less likely to have high expectations for their students and less likely to report that their school has a challenging curriculum.

Now we all know that low-income students as a group bring challenges in learning to our classrooms. But think for a minute how much smaller those challenges would seem to a child if her parents, her teachers, and her principal expected great things from her. Think how much brighter her prospects would be if we could only change one little thing: the expectations of the adults around her. Think how much better the system would be if it were designed around high standards and used its resources to make sure students reached those standards.

So wherever we look, the message is clear. We need to set high standards and help every child meet them. That's why I'm so encouraged by the progress of President Bush's plan. No Child Left Behind is based on four commonsense principles:

• accountability for results,
• local control and flexibility,
• expanded parental options,
• and doing what works based on scientific research.

No Child Left Behind passed by overwhelming majorities: 91-8 in the Senate, and 384-45 in the House. The conference committee is working hard to get the job done to send a final bill to President Bush to sign. Since the September attacks, President Bush and the education leaders in Congress have reaffirmed their determination to finish the bill this year, and the committee has made great progress. I believe we will see a final bill soon. I know you share President Bush's support for high standards, objective measurement, and accountability for results. I don't have to defend the importance of good testing aligned to high standards to this group. That's why you're here. As you know, the point of testing is not to punish, but to measure. Where we have clear standards and tests that are aligned to them, testing allows us to make sure every child is making progress. Testing allows teachers to teach students, not classrooms. Testing turns on the light, so principals can make informed decisions.

• Turning on the light means good tests that are aligned to state standards for what children should know and be able to do.
• Turning on the light means annual testing in grades 3 through 8 so problems can be identified and corrected quickly, and so schools can be held accountable for the progress of their students.
• Turning on the light means publishing a report card for every school so parents and community leaders will know how to help failing schools.
• Turning on the light means giving everyone involved in education more information. ACT does this for college-bound high school students and we need to do it at every level.
• Turning on the light means we can see where our children are and can help them before they fall behind.

Let me say a word about the important subject of children with disabilities. When I talk about every child I include children with disabilities. Right now, we are not getting the job done. When you look at state data, you find that the proportion of minority students identified in some disability categories is dramatically greater than their share of the overall population. More specifically, African-American students are much more likely to be labeled as mentally retarded and emotionally disturbed. Department of Education national data show that in Alabama, blacks are four times as likely as whites to be identified as mentally retarded; in Indiana, three times as likely. In Florida, blacks are twice as likely as whites to be identified as emotionally disturbed; in Kentucky, four times as likely. And these states are examples, not a full accounting.

Any miss-identification means resources are not reaching the children for whom they are designed, so we need to correct that problem. We have already begun to address these problems in the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Last week, the Department began holding local hearings on special education. President Bush has appointed a commission, led by the former governor of this state, Terry Branstad, to examine our special education systems and recommend changes to the federal role. It is not enough to get children with special needs into classrooms. We must raise standards and expectations for them and help them to meet our expectations.

No child left behind means every teacher and every administrator in every school focusing on success like never before. I know that most of you are involved in education in multiple ways and at all levels. Helping every child is challenging, and will require vigilance from all of us. I urge all of you to stay engaged in reform at all levels. Press forward with experiments and innovation.

I didn't come to Iowa City without a goal in mind. I came because you are men and women who understand testing. As the discussion about measurement and assessment continues, you can play a critical role as experts in that field. Many people don't understand testing, and others are afraid of what it will tell the world about their schools. You can help. Let us join together to educate America about testing and why it is critical to achieving better results for our children. Write letters and make phone calls. Engage Americans in a dialogue about the value of testing.

I know the goal President Bush has set for our country will not be easy to achieve. It will take all I have, and all you have, and all our teachers and parents have.

But we have the resources, the experience, and the will to come together and ensure that parents have more choices, districts have more flexibility, everyone has more information, and, most important, that no child is left behind.

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