I want to first thank the First Lady for speaking before you yesterday—the "A-Team." She cares passionately about education. And she's a tough act to follow.

Thank you, Rep. Boehner, for the hard work you've done on behalf of our nation's children.

I want to thank Dr. Boggs, Dr. Taylor and the two associations, the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) and the Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT), for hosting this event and for inviting me.

I'd like to think it was not just because I'm an old community college hand myself. In a previous life, I worked at Austin Community College in Texas in a number of capacities, including professional development and continuing education.

I learned a lot about community colleges—how responsive you can be to individual students and local employers, how you work 24-7 to meet people's needs on their own timetables. This flexible, consumer-first mentality has become truly indispensable in a world defined less by where you were born or live and more by what you know.

For you, educating non-traditional students is a tradition. Who am I talking about? Students attending school part-time and working full-time; those coming back to the workplace after a few years; single parents; even a few without a high school diploma.

People like Stacey Leedom, a silkscreen graphics artist, who wanted to set an example for her young daughter of the value of education. So she enrolled at Mesa Community College in Arizona and earned a degree in computer network administration, plus several IT certificates. That was less than four years ago. Now she works full-time for a cable company.

Community colleges offer an opportunity for people of all ages, backgrounds and life stories to gain the skills needed to thrive in this education economy.

We want to help you meet the practical needs of your community's economy and the changing life needs of your students. Let me tell you our plans and our philosophy.

Historically, community colleges have not had a high profile in Washington. That has changed. President Bush recognizes and appreciates what you do. In fact, I can't tell you the number of times he's visited your institutions in the past four years.

Last month he went to Florida Community College in Jacksonville, where he vowed to work with Congress to "make sure the ... system is viable and vibrant" and "focuses on the needs of the students."

So how can we help? Well, we believe that the single best thing we can do for you is to provide students who are ready to learn from day one.

As enrollment swells, you have neither the room nor the resources to remediate new waves of unprepared students.

You should not have to be a "13th-grade," teaching basic math and reading skills that our K-12 system should have taught. One recent report found that 40 percent of students entering four-year universities required remedial education, while the figure was 63 percent for those entering two-year institutions.

Now, you already know about the No Child Left Behind Act. It calls for annual testing of every child in grades 3-8 in reading and math to help them reach grade level or better.

And it calls for the data to be disaggregated so traditionally under-served students don't fall through the cracks.

The philosophy of No Child Left Behind might be described as, "Accountability plus high standards plus resources equals results." And it is working. Across the country, test scores are rising in reading and math, with disadvantaged and minority students leading the way. We are beginning to put a real dent in the "achievement gap," which will help you close your own achievement gap as those students age.

Just as important as what we're doing is how we're doing it. Under NCLB, states and school districts set the course of action. They create the tests; they direct the teaching; they choose the priorities to be funded. This frees up local school districts to partner with community colleges or local businesses.

It's time to replicate this success in our high schools. The numbers tell the sad tale. National and international tests show that our students lose ground as they enter high school. Just 68 out of every 100 entering ninth-graders will graduate on time.

A new study released by the Manhattan Institute yesterday shows the urgency of the situation: it found that high school graduation rates have remained flat for the last decade and that a staggering two-thirds of students leave high school unprepared for college.

You end up dealing with the consequences. While about 80 percent of the fastest-growing jobs will require at least two years of college, only 26 of 100 of today's entering ninth-graders will still be enrolled in their sophomore year.

We need to change that. Under the president's High School Initiative, students would be measured annually in at least two more high school grades in reading and math. For those who are struggling, the budget increases funding for the Striving Readers program by $175 million. This is aimed at middle and high school students who still lack the necessary reading skills to do high school level work. The budget adds another $120 million for a Secondary Education Mathematics initiative. These are rigorous, research-based programs that help teachers teach and students learn.

The budget also contains $1.2 billion for an important new High School Intervention Initiative. It would provide focused and personalized instruction—individual performance plans, dropout prevention, vocational and technical courses, college awareness and more. Schools would receive greater flexibility in exchange for accountability for results, an element that has been missing from previous programs.

Our philosophy is that high schools should steer their students in the right direction. And the president's High School Intervention Initiative gives them the resources to meet their own students' needs as they see fit.

We also need to encourage a clear-eyed view of what it takes to succeed in college. This is especially important for students from families without a long college tradition.

Research shows that rigorous coursework in high schools is a great predictor of later success. Currently, however, 40 percent of high schools offer no Advanced Placement courses; fewer than half the states require at least three years of math or science to graduate.

To help solve this problem, the president's budget provides a 42 percent increase—to expand Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs in schools with large numbers of disadvantaged students. The funds would help train teachers and defray costs such as exam fees.

And a new Presidential Math-Science Scholars Program would award up to $5,000 each to low-income students engaged in those demanding—and in-demand—pursuits.

The budget offers $12 million to increase the number of states participating in the State Scholars program, which strives to put a college-ready curriculum in every high school. Complementing that are Enhanced Pell Grants for State Scholars. The Budget includes up to a thousand additional dollars per student for each of the first two years of study. And it represents the first time within the Pell System we've aligned resources with expectations.

Let me now turn to some specific—and significant—assistance for community colleges.

First is the new Community College Access Grants Fund—$125 million to support dual-enrollment credit transfers for high school students taking college-level courses. Dual enrollment encourages students, particularly those with disadvantaged backgrounds, to enter college.

Chancellor Bruce Leslie of Houston Community College talks about a student who used dual credits to earn an associate degree one week before receiving her high school diploma. Her future plans include Baylor Medical School in Houston. I hope you'll help us expand access to such promising programs in order to help students in need.

At the same time, I know many of you have raised concerns about transfer of credit policies that negatively impact your students. That's why we are going to work with states and institutions to encourage more streamlined transfer of credit policies, even across state lines. In our mobile society, we understand that students will relocate—and they should not be penalized by incurring new college expenses or credit requirements simply because of restrictive policies.

Let's turn to affordability. The president's budget provides an additional $19 billion over 10 years for Pell Grants, helping more than five million recipients next year alone. It uses savings and efficiencies from student aid programs to increase the maximum award by $100 for each of the next five years, to a total of $4,550 annually. And the $4.3 billion shortfall would be retired. It had been a major stumbling block to increasing the Pell maximums.

To maximize flexibility, Pell Grants will be made available year-round and the strict limits on on-line and distance learning will be lifted. More aid, more flexibility and more accountability is the right mix for the education economy.

Next, we'll increase student loan limits for qualified students to $3,500 for the first year, and $4,500 for the second. Students would no longer be limited to a set number of courses or credit hours. And a variable interest rate would be adopted for all student loans, with more flexible extended repayment plans for borrowers. This will help students benefit from continued historically low interest rates.

All in all, including this year's budget, aid available for postsecondary students and schools will have risen 38 percent under President Bush, from $48 billion to $78 billion.

More importantly, we will have begun to align student aid with results. This philosophy of accountability is one we hope to see matched by states and education institutions.

One change we'd like to see is a more systematic effort to collect and share data. As the Government Accountability Office noted, "Little is known about the full spectrum of credit and noncredit academic and training programs." Current and potential students deserve to base their decisions on information, not anecdotes.

Your growing popularity, of course, creates a need and an opportunity for qualified teachers, especially for those in hard-to-staff schools and critical subject areas. Out of every 100 teachers working in the United States today, more than 40 will have passed through a community college.

I urge you to offer more focused teacher-training programs. This will help solve the perennial problem of teacher retention. With No Child Left Behind calling for a qualified teacher in every classroom, the need has never been greater.

Finally, let me say a few words about job training. The Labor Department has the lead on this. But it's an important component for places like Florida Community College, which contracts with hundreds of companies to train thousands of employees.

For the second straight year, the president's budget contains $250 million for Community-Based Job Training Grants. This will help you train 100,000 new workers for the high-skilled, high-growth jobs in most demand.

We know that many of your institutions have serious capacity issues. So part of the discretionary funding will be directed to capacity-building. To be eligible, schools will have to develop strategic plans with local businesses and industries, so you can identify and fill these high-demand jobs.

As we work to reauthorize the Workforce Investment Act, we'll add reforms to ensure that federal job training programs meet practical community needs.

They'll allow governors and others to form new public-private-academic partnerships. States will have more flexibility, overhead will be reduced, and red tape and duplication will be eliminated.

Workers, too, will have more choices through new personal Innovation Training Accounts, or ITAs. And for the first time students will be able to use federal loans to obtain short-term job training skills. This will help dislocated, unemployed workers especially.

These are all steps toward what the president calls the "Ownership Society," and the "security, dignity and independence" it will bring.

Our plan will provide accountability for taxpayers, flexibility for colleges and students, and new skills for workers and communities. In this education economy we know how hard states must compete for each new job, student and resident. So you deserve nothing less.

As the president has said, "This changed world can be a time of great opportunity for all Americans." And no one exemplifies change like community colleges.

We look forward to helping you meet the changing needs of your students and communities. As well as a few needs of your own. Thanks for listening.

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