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Albuquerque, N.M. — U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings today addressed the 2007 National Charter Schools Conference in Albuquerque, highlighting her support for our nation's charter schools. Secretary Spellings discussed President Bush's proposals for reauthorization of No Child Left Behind this year, including provisions to enhance charter school availability and performance. Following are Secretary Spellings' prepared remarks:

Thank you very much for having me. One of the messages I'm here to deliver today is that we at the Department of Education are your biggest fans.

We understand and appreciate the hard work you all are doing to empower parents and improve access to quality education for America's schoolchildren.

The President and I are just back from our most recent charter visit, to the Harlem Village Charter School in New York City three days ago. As usual, we were inspired by the work that educational entrepreneurs at charter schools are doing to help students achieve.

That's why the President and I have supported a robust expansion of school choice options for students and parents, including charter schools. Since he came to office in 2001, we have invested $1.4 billion in the Charter Schools Program to facilitate start-ups and spread clear information about successful schools. We have invested over $262 million in charter school facilities. So it's no coincidence that there were 2,000 charters in America when the President took office, and today there are over 4,000 in 40 states, plus the District of Columbia.

I'm proud to be working for and with a President who has supported choice and charter schools since the earliest days of his presidency, and even before that, as Governor of Texas.

Early in his first term as President, he spoke about parental empowerment and said, "charter schools are beginning to shape our understanding of public education, no doubt about it." He's still talking about charters with optimism and confidence today.

Traveling around the country, I've had the opportunity to visit many charter schools, sat in on classes, talked to students and teachers, and witnessed the types of innovations that are changing the way we approach education.

Just this past year, I've visited charters from New York to Arizona and many places in between.

I've visited schools like Mesa Arts Academy in Arizona, where three out of four students comes from a low-income family. The Academy offers an extended school day with opportunities in the arts and has 100% of its 8th graders proficient in math.

And I've been to schools like Noble Street Charter High School in Chicago. Thanks to a college prep curriculum, Noble Street sends 80% of their primarily low-income students to college.

I've been to Robert Treat Academy in Newark, where students attend school six days a week, participate in community service, and 100 percent of third graders are proficient in math and reading!

These schools are breaking apart the myth that some children can't learn. By acting as laboratories for best practices, they are changing attitudes about education and they're getting great results for kids.

All three schools, and so many more, prove every day that we can reach our goal of every student proficient by 2014!

The parents of students at Robert Treat, Noble Street, and Mesa Arts Academy don't seem to think it's too much to ask their children to perform on grade level, and I think the parents here would agree.

As all of you know, this year marks the 15th anniversary of the opening of the first charter school, the City Academy High School in St. Paul, Minnesota. Think about how much has been achieved in just 15 years.

Since teachers founded and students helped design the City Academy in 1992, the charter movement has revolutionized the education world, proving to detractors time and again that charters are here to stay.

We are seeing charter schools flourishing all over the country, serving over a million American students.

In my neck of the woods, Washington, DC, more than one out of four public school students attend a charter school—that's about 18,000 students—and this number grows every year!

School choice in DC is also being bolstered by the first-ever federally funded opportunity scholarship programs—thanks to this program, more than 1,800 DC students from economically disadvantaged families are realizing their potential at 58 private schools.

Cities like Washington, DC and New Orleans—where more than 60% of public school students attend charters—are proving that charter schools can be very effective at scale. They're not just solutions for small portions of a community's students anymore.

America continues to face a tragic inequity of opportunity in education that charters can help address. 15% of our high schools produce more than half of our nation's dropouts, and many of these are city schools serving mostly minorities.

Of those who graduate, many are not ready for college. Only 9 percent of low-income students earn college degrees by age 24 and this must change.

Charters are transforming urban education and tackling head-on the stubborn achievement gap. For example, the customization of learning that charter schools allow is translating into improved academic growth among Hispanics, a key demographic group in this country.

The National Alliance reported on this phenomenon in detail last fall, describing how certain charters are customizing learning for Hispanics—from staff, to curricula, to classroom values—and producing great results.

This is especially hopeful news given the fact that Hispanics are a growing proportion of our population. As it stands, about one in every two Hispanic students drops out of high school, and we need to enlist every tool in our arsenal to reverse this trend.

But it's not just certain types of students who are thriving in charter schools—these schools are booming in cities and rural areas and are serving every race and background.

As charters grow more popular among parents and students, charters are also gaining growing bipartisan support. Look at Indianapolis. Mayor Bart Peterson, a Democrat and the only mayor in the nation with the authority to authorize charter schools, has taken a leadership role in creating 16 charter schools serving about 4,000 students. He's building on the work of Republicans like Steve Goldsmith before him. Or take New York. Governor Eliot Spitzer, also a Democrat, recently succeeded in doubling the New York state cap on charters to 200 schools, while Mayor Bloomberg, a Republican, is giving principals greater autonomy to manage their schools, in return for increased accountability.

Amid all the success and remarkable progress of charter schools, it's easy to be lulled into thinking that the heavy lifting is done, that continued progress is inevitable. But that's far from the case.

Charter schools have yet to realize their full potential, and the public is only going to expect more from charters as these schools gain the advantages of experience and great results. There is still more to do.

One challenge is access, an issue I know you're all painfully aware of. Over a million students attend charters, but many more students remain locked out of the opportunities to attend one of these innovative schools.

All three of the successful charters I mentioned visiting have waiting lists or lottery systems to get in.

You shouldn't have to win the lottery to send your child to a great, high-performing school.

Ten states still have no charter schools at all. It's ironic that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation does so much good work to promote the promise of charter schools. But as Mr. Gates recently pointed out in a speech he gave, his own state of Washington keeps them from being able to do this work in his own backyard.

25 states have restrictions that limit charter school growth in some way. Charter schools have created an educational product that parents and students want, but many children remain cut off from these opportunities.

This must change—we shouldn't be rationing opportunity.

In addition to improving access, an increasingly urgent challenge for charter schools will be to provide quality without letting up on growth and innovation.

Charter schools are accountable by their very nature, since they must close if they are not satisfying their customers, but charters must continue to push themselves to deliver the highest caliber of education.

Fortunately, charter schools are up to the challenge! You all are poised to take advantage of data and knowledge about best practices that the first charters could have only dreamed about.

Many charters are already pioneering innovative uses of data. Take a look at the Brighter Choice Schools in Albany. They are using real-time data-driven decision making—evaluating students on an ongoing basis in every major subject and adjusting instructional strategies.

I'm sure that the many forums and discussions at this conference have yielded other great ideas and strategies.

And we at the Department of Education will continue to support you and do our part to help charter schools live up to their potential and replicate proven models.

Over the past five years, we have seen the No Child Left Behind profoundly change education for the better. Scores are up, and achievement gaps are starting to shrink, especially with our younger students.

NCLB is up for renewal this year, and our reauthorization proposals build on this progress and reflect what five years of implementation have taught us. Among these changes are provisions that both help charters and reflect what we've learned from them.

These include supporting local decisions to reopen underperforming schools in need of restructuring as charters, regardless of charter cap restrictions; allowing qualified charter school authorizers to apply for Charter School Program funds that they can grant to new schools; and boosting the replication of high quality charters.

On that last point, I'm pleased to let you know that my Department is drafting revised guidance to give states further encouragement and flexibility to help more high quality charters flourish...

In addition to measures aimed specifically at charter schools, we are proposing a number of changes consistent with the spirit of charters.

On the flexibility front, we plan to allow the use of growth models to track individual student progress from year-to-year and monitor achievement gaps.

And to help deal with the pressing problem of restructuring schools, we have developed a menu of options for local school officials to choose from, including real governance changes and—as I mentioned—the option of reinventing these schools as charters, regardless of arbitrary caps.

For all the innovations in education in America in the past fifteen years, so much about our approach to education still looks more like 19th century agrarian America than the nation that gave birth to Microsoft and Google.

The demands of the 21st century are not going to wait—we need every student to achieve their potential today.

Charter schools are proving that new approaches to education can work—that breaking tradition and taking risks can yield tremendous results for students.

And I encourage you and I thank you for this vital work. Your efforts are helping more and more students reach their full potential.

America has always been the world's innovation leader—pioneering the frontiers of space, medicine, and global communications. And if we give our students the skills they need to succeed we can be sure that they will continue to lead the charge on the frontiers of the future.

Thank you.

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