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Thank you, Susan Sclafani, for that kind introduction. This Summit has been a real team effort, and you've been one of our "most valuable players."

You know, I've spoken many times about the Brown v. Board of Education decision in this, its 50th anniversary year. But let me tell you about another important civil rights anniversary.

Forty-nine years ago yesterday, Rosa Parks refused to go to the back of the bus. She chose not to do what was expected of her—and she changed history in the process.

I mention this because it illustrates the attitude we must have as we reform and improve our schools.

We must not accept second-best just because that's the way it's always been. We must lead by example—we must find out and share what works—and we must not be afraid of change.

That is why we are here today. Last October we held our first Summit. On that day we launched the Preparing America's Future High School Initiative.

Since then we've been quite busy, holding seven regional summits with State Teams from Massachusetts to Montana, and reporting the results on our website for everyone to see.

Our purpose is to help states realize their own vision of long-term excellence in high schools—schools that successfully educate all students—and what's more, provide a springboard for even greater success in college and the workplace.

As we do, we will expand our successful No Child Left Behind Act to provide the right framework for these state-designed plans.

We want to see high school students benefit from the same high expectations and accountability for results we've introduced in earlier grades.

And we want states to foster world quality teaching, rigorous coursework and creative, innovative structures so high school students remain engaged, excited and—most of all—enrolled.

At the end of the day, we want our high schools to be more than way-stations. A diploma should be more than a glorified certificate of attendance. It should be a roadmap to a prosperous, purposeful future.

It's a future that's not only possible, but inevitable with the right leadership.

I do not believe I exaggerate when I say this. If past is prologue, then our experience over the past three years justifies my optimism. Working in partnership with the 50 states, we have brought real and lasting changes to the classroom under the No Child Left Behind Act.

A child entering first grade this fall can expect more time and attention to be paid if he or she starts to fall behind. Parents can expect more timely and accurate information on their child's and school's performance. Teachers can expect more training in proven instructional methods. Administrators can expect greater federal resources and more flexibility to invest them where the need is greatest.

And, finally, in 12 years, society can expect a young graduate ready for responsibility, not remediation.

Ladies and gentlemen, we're proving that every child can learn. Those once at greatest risk are now making the greatest gains. In our large urban school districts, we've seen a 5-point jump in 4th-grade reading proficiency and a 7-point increase in 4th-grade math proficiency—in just one year!

Nationwide, the percentage of African-American and Hispanic fourth-graders who know their reading and math basics rose more between 2000 and 2003 than in the previous eight years combined.

This is a testament to the choices we made. All learning depends on good reading skills.

So we've invested $4.3 billion over four years for our popular and groundbreaking Reading First and Early Reading First programs. In two years, more than 45,000 teachers have been trained in scientifically proven instructional methods.

We also decided to focus on the children in the system and their families by empowering them with choices. More than 160,000 children have benefited from after-school homework help or been able to transfer to another school. And that was just the first year of the law.

Many others remain eligible—and we will continue to help schools inform families of their options.

There's more. This year we will provide $217 million in aid to our nation's charter schools, with another $37 million for building and infrastructure improvements so we can reduce the waiting lists for these vital alternatives. Overall, federal support for education has risen 34 percent since 2001.

Of course, No Child Left Behind was not designed to win a prize for spending the most taxpayer money.

Rather, it was designed to spend taxpayer money wisely, on the most urgent priority—namely, to bring every single child up to grade level or better in reading and math.

And that brings us to our next goal: the Preparing America's Future High School Initiative.

President Bush has asked us to prepare our high schools for an era of dramatic and fast-paced change. In my generation, workers often had one job or skill for their entire career.

Today, workers change jobs and even careers many times over. They must remain competitive in this global economy. And the key to competitiveness is education.

Studies show stark differences in income levels between adults with only a high school diploma and those with college degrees. The differences between high school dropouts and graduates are equally great.

It is perfectly acceptable to choose an immediate career over post-secondary education. But it should be just that—a choice, not a sentence.

Unfortunately, according to the latest international Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) report, our 25-to-34-year-olds rank only 10th among our competitors in high school graduation rates. The world is catching up fast.

And there's no let-up on the horizon. Less than a third of America's high school graduates are prepared for higher education or the workforce. Nearly one-third of 9th-graders will not graduate from high school on time. And only 22 percent of the 1.2 million students who took the ACT college assessment test this year were college-ready in English, mathematics and science.

This lack of preparation sends ripples throughout society. First in line: colleges who must remediate students. More than half of all freshmen attending the California State University system need to take remedial classes. Next down the line: employers who must remediate what the colleges could not.

It's a domino effect—and it's very costly: billions upon billions of dollars a year, not to mention the lives interrupted. It's simply not fair to young men and women to put them in this kind of a position.

It doesn't have to be this way. Our Preparing America's Future High School Initiative has three goals:

• one, equip state and local education leaders with the very latest information about the condition of our high schools;

• two, begin a national dialogue to raise awareness of the need for structural and instructional reform; and

• three, support these reform efforts with expertise and resources.

This will be led a state-led effort. Under No Child Left Behind, the states are beginning to realize their full Constitutional potential in leading—truly leading—the education of their children. And we're committed to giving them the tools and resources to make their vision of world-class high schools a reality.

We have had a year now to examine what's broken and to see what works:

We know that good teachers can produce up to six times the learning gains as the least effective teachers, according to the Education Trust. And yet children in high-poverty schools are nearly twice as likely to have teachers without a major or minor in the subject they teach.

We know that students who take rigorous coursework in high school are more likely to succeed in college. And yet our high school students are no better prepared for college than they were 10 years ago, according to the ACT.

We know that the percentage of Americans graduating with bachelor's degrees in science and engineering is less than half that of China and Japan. And yet only a tiny fraction of high school students state an interest in a career in science or technology. How can this be in the 21st Century?

Finally, we know that adolescents who have been taught good reading skills are far less likely to fail or drop out. And yet as our students grow older, according to the OECD, they lose ground in literacy.

Tuesday night on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, a young man named Joel Martinez described how we was simply passed along from grade to grade in his Florida school, eventually leaving at age 16 for a GED program he was not equipped to complete. "If I knew how to read," Joel said, "life would be a lot easier for me."

President Bush has asked us to correct this wrong by applying the successful principles of No Child Left Behind to our high schools.

We must assess all students in grades 9-11 as we do now for grades 3-8. We must know which students have fallen behind—and which reforms should be made.

We're moving ahead in other ways.

Our Striving Readers program will provide teachers with up-to-date information and resources to reach the students who need the most help.

It allows schools to develop specific intervention programs to allow struggling students to raise their reading levels, so they have a better shot at success in high school. We will initiate it this year with nearly $25 million.

The President has proposed incentives for states to develop a dual-enrollment system enabling students to take college classes while they are still in high school. He's also proposed increases in the Advanced Placement program under No Child Left Behind.

We've proposed an incentive fund to reward states and schools whose teachers show the most progress in closing the achievement gap.

And we have tripled loan forgiveness limits for mathematics, science and special education teachers who serve low-income students.

Yes, there are some bright spots on the horizon—in many states, more college-prep courses are being offered and taken; a record number of seniors took the SAT this year; and scores for the ACT test rose for the first time since 1997.

But we must constantly re-examine our efforts. Are we producing well-educated, well-trained young adults? Are they prepared to succeed in college, in the workforce, in life? If not, why not?

At this Summit, policymakers and education leaders from across the country will accomplish the "three C's"—create, communicate and coordinate. I am eager to learn more myself.

I am pleased to note the many groups behind reform: the National Governors Association, the National Association of Secondary School Principals, the High School Alliance, the Council of Chief State School Officers, the Council of Great City Schools—even the National Football League.

Programs such as our State Scholars Initiative, which is introducing more rigorous coursework in our high schools, or our "New Teacher Project," which has recruited thousands of teachers from the business and professional ranks, are getting the entire community involved—as it should be.

As one Superintendent put it, "High school reform was once the lonely frontier of professional educators. No longer."

It is important that we invite diverse perspectives. Judge Learned Hand once said, "The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right...[and] which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women."

As we do, let us never forget the people behind the policy papers and statistics—the children.

The world that I—and many of you—grew up in is quite different from theirs. Children today are more sophisticated; their world moves at a much faster pace thanks to technological advancements. As a result, they think differently, have access to different media and process information differently.

They're the ones who need us to be steadfast on behalf of change, even if it runs counter to "the way things used to be" for us. They're the ones who need us to make the connection between what we know is wrong and what we do to make it right.

We can—and must—engage them in this dialogue for change. I am confident you will keep them foremost in your thoughts, as do I. Thank you.

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