Welcome to this Research-to-Practice Summit.

I enjoyed our dinner last night. Thank you all for coming. It is always terrific to have a room full of teachers. We love to talk about our profession and share experiences. And we love to talk about our mentors and influences--those who inspired us to go into teaching.

I am the product of two educators. My parents inspired me. But there were also other influences: Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, Ralph Bunche, and other African American educators. Each one was a great teacher. One of the most legendary was Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays. He was the dean of the School of Religion at Howard University, a few blocks from here. But he is most famous for his almost three decades as president of Morehouse College in Atlanta.

Dr. Mays loved to talk about education. For him, education was a road to freedom, opportunity, personal growth, and service to mankind. He had almost a religious devotion to education; it was a way of life. He understood its importance and its influence. Education commanded his commitment and his humility.

For Dr. Mays, to be a teacher was to be part educator, part instigator. Education was more than a transmittal of knowledge. A good teacher had to motivate a student to lifelong learning and to reach for the highest goals. A good teacher transmitted values, inspired scholarship, and sought to bring out the best in each student. He used to call education "a harvest," because seeds were planted and cultivated, with students themselves reaping the benefits of the harvest. One seed that became a bountiful harvest was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I'm sure you recognize a bit of yourself in the story of Dr. Mays. Good teachers everywhere strive for the same things. We live to give. We work to share. We teach because we care. We strive to become better so our students can better reach their own potential. Our country owes you a great debt of thanks for your own dedication, service, and sacrifice.

Today we meet to discuss how best to plant the seeds and to nurture growth for a good harvest. We recognize the individual needs of each student. We know the importance of each educator taking a personal interest in each and every student.

But we ask the same questions teachers have asked over time in places like Thebes, Athens, Rome, Oxford, and Princeton: how can we best teach so students can learn well? It is a question asked every day by every teacher: how can I do my job better? We wonder which techniques work best in the classroom.

Unlike our colleagues in the ancient past, or even the recent past, we teach at a unique moment. For now our scholarship in education has advanced to the point where we can identify and measure best practices. We now have the skill, the statistical tools, the methodology, and the research to better examine educational practices.

We need such research, and it would be a powerful addition to our knowledge. Such research could make our schools and teachers better. I am hopeful that research will take center stage in educational training, helping teachers learn how to reach their students and motivate them, not force them into stereotypes, categories, and columns. This research must complement the humanity, empathy, and scholarship of the teacher, not supplant it. Research should help teachers better reach troubled students and help outstanding students to excel. It should make the entire educational process more successful.

Ideally, research could become the driving force of change, with dynamic interactions between researchers, university instructors, teachers in the classroom, policy-makers, parents, school administrators, and students themselves.

We know that research translates into success. One example of a successful effort is our Reading First Program. The program is designed to help teachers learn about scientifically proven, successful methods for reading instruction. States have already received almost $1.8 billion for this initiative, as well as almost $200 million for early childhood reading efforts. The Reading First Program has already made some substantial progress. In just two years, more than 45,000 teachers across the country have been trained. More students will become better readers because of this program.

Certainly, the president has been supportive of education research efforts. Funding for education research and dissemination has increased 60 percent since 2000. We have established new programs of research in math, science, and reading education. You will hear about some of the results later today. And we've debuted the What Works Clearinghouse to provide educators with a trusted source of information on what research shows to be effective. Russ Whitehurst, director of our Institute of Education Sciences, will be telling you more about that later.

The administration has also increased funding for state formula grants for teacher quality, for set-asides for professional development in state grant programs, and for loan forgiveness and tax benefits for teachers.

The pieces are in place. Now, we need to move into the future. We must find the ways and means to enable research to assist teachers. Today we meet to lay the groundwork for the best utilization of new research. This is a first-of-its-kind gathering. But it won't be the last. We have crossed a historical information timeline. This is a landmark event.

We need to begin our process with a candid, detailed, and visionary conversation. I am hopeful for meaningful dialogue and two-way feedback. We need each of you to help guide and shape policy and direction. We need your wisdom and experience to make this research most effective.

As I mentioned last night, we have met with thousands of teachers across the United States through efforts like our Teacher-to-Teacher initiative. The initiative includes:

• Roundtables around the country to share information and advance the profession;
• Seven Summer Workshops for successful teachers to share experiences with fellow teachers;
• Teacher e-mail Updates to keep teachers informed of the latest policies, research, and developments in the profession; and
• This Research-to-Practice Summit.

The roundtables have already been completed and resulted in the establishment of the seven workshops, of which four have been completed. All the previous meetings have been very successful. We have heard much from teachers and learned a great deal.

Our work could not be more important. As Dr. Mays once said, we must create "a society where each person has the opportunity to develop his mind, body, and spirit without the imposition of artificial barriers."

If this is so, then we can share Dr. Mays' greater vision: education can be liberating, emancipating for all students. By helping all teachers achieve at their best, we can help every student achieve at his or her best as well. By providing a quality education to every student, day by day and year after year, we will make this country stronger, nobler, more compassionate, and more tolerant. We will use education to give each student a full measure of the American Promise, a share of the American Dream.

Thank you all for coming. Best wishes for a most productive meeting.

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