A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

And I can tell you that our message about the need for smaller schools that allow young people to feel connected has gotten through. Funding for our "Small, Safe and Successful High School" initiative increased from $45 million to $125 million in this year's budget, allowing us to reach another 600 schools.

I am so pleased that my old friend Governor Paul Patton of Kentucky could be here today, and that he is joined by the Vice Chair of the Commission, Jackie Belcher, the dynamic President of Georgia Perimeter College.

I would also like to recognize Stephanie Lee, the director of the "Schools for a New Society" project in Houston, Texas.

Stephanie has been working closely with Dr. Rod Paige in thinking through how to reform high schools in Houston. Dr. Paige, who has been nominated to be the next Secretary of Education, has a strong interest in high school reform and he is a member of this commission.

For several years now, I have had a growing concern about the quality of America's high schools. As a nation we are starting to see sustained progress in the early grades but we still seem to be struggling with how to improve our nation's middle schools and high schools.

Trish made a reference to the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off and she quoted a line that Matthew Broderick says about "life moving pretty fast." Well that is very true, life is moving pretty fast. This report suggests, however, that our high schools are still stuck in another era, and that we need to pick up the pace of reform to help more of our young people keep up in these new times.

The senior year of high school seems to be a lost opportunity: a year where we have a significant drift and disconnection. I have heard too many college leaders describe the senior year of high school as a "wasteland."

Many high school seniors check out, others spend more time working than going to school, and too many young people do not get the help they need to make well-informed judgments about life after high school.

I think we can do better, and there needs to be a sense of urgency to what we are doing. Many of our nation's high schools are already over-crowded. And they are going to become even more over-crowded in the years ahead because of rising enrollment, the direct result of the baby boom echo.

We need to be thinking ahead and we need to be thinking creatively. I believe that we must fundamentally restructure the senior year of high school. But our high schools cannot do it alone. This must be a community wide effort that recognizes that the senior year is also a critical and important transition year into adulthood for young people. As a society we haven't done a very good job in helping young people make this transition.

This is a very timely report. Education will be a high priority in the coming year and Congress will be taking up the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The draft ESEA legislation we sent to the Hill last year included an entirely new section on high schools. The final report of this Commission can help the Congress and the incoming Administration shape ESEA and give state and local leaders the extra tools they need to speed up the process of high school reform.

This is why I asked Governor Patton to lead this Commission. I am pleased that he has provided me with this preliminary report. So without further ado, let me ask Governor Patton to come up and explain his preliminary findings. Thank you.