U.S. Secretary of Education delivered the following remarks at the Education Department's first annual Teacher Quality Evaluation Conference in Washington, D.C. A complete copy of the report, "Meeting the Highly Qualified Teachers Challenge: The Secretary's Annual Report on Teacher Quality," is available at www.nochildleftbehind.gov or directly at https://www.title2.org.index.htm.

I want to thank all of you for coming and for being a part of this, the first annual Teacher Quality Evaluation Conference.

For those who have come from out of town, I hope you get a chance to visit some of our national treasures and see for yourself what an incredibly beautiful and vibrant place our nation's capital is.

More than a year later, I am still in awe seeing Lincoln and Jefferson in the early morning light—or Lady Freedom standing sentry on the Capitol dome. There is a special feeling when you pass the White House and see families peering through the fence, hoping for a glance of their president or first lady or first dogs.

Every day I'm reminded what an honor it is to live here and to serve as U.S. Secretary of Education.

One of the things you learn right off the bat is that children are going to write and ask for favors. Three of the most popular requests are: shorter school days, less homework and better cafeteria food.

Some write to ask me to come visit their schools and to please bring the president with me!

But most of their letters include well-thought out questions—like the one from a New Jersey eighth grader named Brianna who wrote to ask: "What do you believe are the most important issues facing elementary or high school education in the United States today?"

That's a great question—in fact, it goes to the very heart of our new education reforms signed into law by President Bush on January 8.

I believe the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 will go down in history as the key piece of public policy that finally slammed close the achievement gap between those who have and those who don't—between those who are hopeful and those who are hopeless.

Our nation has been called to commit itself to a bold goal—the goal of creating an education system that insists on accountability, results, teacher quality and reading programs that work so all children in our public schools get the excellent education their parents sent them there for. And it all started because we have a president who believes that the most sacred duty of government is to educate its children. They are our future.

Yet national report cards in recent years show we are destroying that future—one child at a time.

• Two out of three fourth graders can't read proficiently
• Seven out of 10 inner-city and rural fourth graders can't read at the most basic level
• Nearly a third of college freshmen need remedial classes before they can handle entry level courses
• America's twelfth graders rank among the lowest in math and science achievement among their counterparts in other industrialized nations

These are more than just statistics. They are a grim picture of the human toll of an education system that is failing too many African-American, Hispanic and low-income children in our nation's classrooms.

Soon after President Bush took office, he called on Congress to fundamentally change the structure of education—and enact the most sweeping change in education in 35 years.

Never before have we as a nation made the commitment to all children in our public schools that every one of them can and will learn. Every single child. Regardless of race, income or zip code.

The No Child Left Behind law also recognizes that just throwing money at a problem won't make it go away. Over the last half-century local, state and federal taxpayers have spent more than $10 trillion on our public schools. $10 trillion.

And what have we got to show for it?

Every year we did the same thing: spent more money. And every year we got the same result: mediocre student performance—or worse.

It was Albert Einstein who said insanity is "the belief that one can get different results by doing the same thing."

It doesn't take an Einstein to see the truth is that all the money in the world won't fix our schools if your only plan is to throw more money at the problem.

To solve the problem, you must first create a framework for change.

And our new education reforms provide that framework by insisting on accountability and results; by providing local control and flexibility; by empowering parents to take a lead in their children's education; and by insisting on teaching methods that work.

The basics work. Research-based reading programs work. Testing works.

Defenders of the status quo hate the idea of testing. But parents don't. Recent polls show the American people standing shoulder to shoulder with the president on annual testing. Moms and dads want the best for their children. They understand that the only way to know if teachers are teaching and their children are learning is to measure for results—and to hold schools accountable.

Their own children agree. A Public Agenda poll shows 95 percent of students are not obsessing over the idea of tests.

No Child Left Behind provided the framework for change. And it provided historic levels of funding to get the job done—including the largest education budget for disadvantaged children in U.S. history.

The big difference now is that taxpayers know what they're getting for their money. And parents know if their children are learning.

And if a school is failing its mission, moms and dads no longer have to helplessly stand by and watch every last spark of curiosity die in their children's eyes.

Thanks to No Child Left Behind they can choose one-on-one tutoring, or after-school help or enroll their children in a better public school.

Our new education reforms depend on high standards and accountability—and teaching every child to read. Most of all, our new education reforms depend on who's standing at the front of the classroom teaching.

Most of us can remember a favorite teacher. President Bush loved teachers so much he married one.

I had two favorite teachers: my parents. By day, they taught other children in Monticello, Mississippi. But on nights and weekends, they taught me and my sisters and brothers.

Books filled our house, and so did love—for learning, for our faith, for our country and for each other. Their example inspired me to become a teacher as well.

And it was while working in the classroom that I discovered the truth in the words of World War II General Omar Bradley when he said:

"The teacher is the real soldier of democracy. Others can defend it, but only he can make it work."

Very few people have the influence over our lives that teachers do. And that is why the resident, the Congress and I are determined to meet the goal of a quality teacher in every classroom by 2006.

Today, I am sending Congress a report on the state of teacher quality in America that spells out the challenges states face in achieving this goal. And we have a few:

• Too many teachers are not qualified in the subject they're teaching
• Too many states do not test to make sure teachers know what they're teaching
• Too many states that do test set the bar for passing way too low
• Too many education programs require too much focus on theory and pedagogy, and too little focus on fields of concentration—like math, history or science.
• Too many barriers are built into the system that keep talented people out of the classroom and force districts to fill vacancies with teachers on waivers

Clearly, there is much work to do.

Fortunately, we have a growing body of scientific research that tells us what it takes to be an effective teacher, and we must listen.

And we must do several things:

First, we must strengthen academic standards for teachers.

Research confirms that the most effective teachers are those who are smart and who know the subject they're teaching—inside and out. How much teachers know determines how well students learn.

Yet academic standards for teachers are low. Not all states test potential teachers on content knowledge. And many states that do test use tests that are not rigorous enough.

California, for example, requires teachers to take the California Basic Educational Skills Test that is set at roughly the 10^th grade level.

Other states set the bar so low that even teachers who scored in only the 20^th percentile passed certification.

Sadly, it's the children who need help most—those in inner-city and rural schools—who are least likely to have well-prepared teachers.

• 43 percent of math teachers in high poverty schools have neither majored nor minored in math-related fields, compared to 27 percent of middle class schools
• 25 percent of disadvantaged children are taught English by teachers who don't have a degree in English, compared to only 11 percent of middle class children.

Not only is this troubling to me. It's troubling to teachers.

Some months back, Mrs. Bush held a White House conference on teacher preparation. At that conference, Sandra Feldman, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, said:

"Good teachers need to be really well educated... They need to know—deeply—the subject they teach. Prospective teachers should complete an academic major and have a solid foundation in the liberal arts. You can't teach what you don't know well."

Some states have embraced meaningful standards—I think of Pennsylvania and Virginia.

But all states need to take a hard look at how they decide who's qualified to teach and who's not.

Which brings me to my second point: we must tear down barriers preventing talented men and women from entering the teaching profession.

At a time when we desperately need strong teachers in our classrooms, we should be doing all we can to attract and keep the best and the brightest candidates. A good place to start is by drawing from nontraditional sources.

For example, Teach For America is a program that recruits gifted and talented students from our nation's college campuses to teach in inner-city schools.

Transition to Teaching matches talented mid-career professionals with schools with the greatest need.

And Troops to Teachers is a program that taps retired service men and women for the classroom—people like Army Sgt. Art Moore.

Sgt. Moore served our country for 21 years. When he retired, he wanted to keep serving. So he contacted Troops to Teachers about alternative certification. And for the past seven years, Sgt. Moore has been a special education teacher in Baltimore.

Another teacher who took a different route to the chalkboard is Col. Chauncey Veatch.

After 25 years serving our country, Col. Veatch left the Army to teach children of migrant workers in California.

In April, President Bush and I had the honor of joining Chauncey in the Rose Garden as he was named the 2002 National Teacher of the Year.

We must streamline the process to encourage more people like Art and Chauncy to help fill the need in our nation's classrooms.

Finally, states must improve the quality of teacher education programs to ensure that new teachers are prepared to be effective in the classroom.

I've been a dean of a school of education. And I know the special problems these schools face and the responsibilities they bear.

But I am also mindful of what Diane Ravitch of New York University said during the White House conference on teachers. She said the original idea behind colleges of education was to create rigorous professional training for teachers—just like doctors and lawyers.

Yet here we are—a century later—with research showing many teachers fresh out of college lack what they need to meet the challenges of the classroom. More than one in five will give up and leave the profession within their first three years.

In one study, less than 36 percent surveyed said they felt "very well prepared" to teach and help their students meet performance standards. Less than 20 percent said they felt prepared to meet the needs of diverse students or those with limited English proficiency.

Despite this, many schools of education have continued, business-as-usual—focusing heavily on pedagogy—how to be a teacher—when the evidence cries out that what future teachers need most is a deeper understanding of the subject they'll be teaching—of how to monitor student progress and of how to help students who are falling behind.

It got so bad in the Elk Grove school district in California, that its Superintendent—David Gordon—took the matter into his own hands. David is with us today. Where are you David?

Working with a local university that was willing to "think outside the box", David started a fast-track teacher credential program called the Teacher Education Institute. They set high standards for prospective teachers and then provided intensive training to meet those high standards.

You know what happened? Even though he raised the bar for achievement for both students and teachers—and even though a teacher shortage loomed—Elk Grove schools began filling its classrooms with top-quality and well-trained people who were up to the challenge of the rigorous curriculum.

Student achievement soared. And the number of college-bound students has more than doubled.

Future teachers certainly need to learn the basics of teaching and managing a classroom, but that should not be the main focus of teacher preparation.

We must be open to innovative approaches and rethink traditional methods that may not work anymore.

There is no doubt that we ask a lot of our teachers—and we owe them something in return. We owe them our respect for the professionals they are. We owe them our support. And we owe them the training and tools to succeed.

The No Child Left Behind Act gives schools greater flexibility to use federal funds where the local need is greatest: to recruit new teachers, to improve teacher training, or to increase teacher pay in critical need areas.

President Bush's 2003 budget calls on Congress to:

• Increase funding for teacher development to help teachers succeed
• Increase funding to train and recruit teachers in math and science
• Provide Tax relief to help teachers defray expenses
• Expand loan forgiveness for those who teach in high need schools

President Bush's $2.85 billion Teacher Quality Initiative represents the largest and most comprehensive federal investment in preparation, training and recruiting teachers and principals.

These resources—and the ideas I've laid out—will help states as they work to ensure a highly qualified teacher in every classroom, and to implement our new education reforms.

Some defenders of the status quo are resisting our new education reforms. And, frankly, I don't understand that.

How can they possibly argue with a plan that says we want to provide more resources and better instruction for disadvantaged children?

Maybe the critics are like those people Sam Rayburn used to talk about when he said, "Any jackass can kick over a barn. It takes a carpenter to build one."

We're talking about helping children so far down on the achievement scale they're not even a blip on the radar.

We're talking about helping children who show up in national report cards that say 40 percent of white fourth graders can read while only 12 percent of black fourth graders can read.

In the 19 years since A Nation at Risk set off a wave of well-intentioned school reform efforts, we still have too many children—mostly urban and mostly African American—falling through the cracks.

The reforms of No Child Left Behind, when implemented, will provide a safety net to catch these children and get them back on track academically.

To be sure, there are pockets of excellence all around our country. As I travel our country I see many inspiring examples of schools and teachers and students rising to the challenges, of moms and dads getting involved in their children's schools.

No Child Left Behind is not just a law, it's a revolution. A profound moment of change. And all of us—as educators, policymakers, community leaders and those of us in public life—have a role to play.

Years from now, people will look back and say:

That's when they raised the bar and student achievement began to soar.

That's when leadership triumphed over politics and no child was left behind.

That's when the American people realized they could create great schools worthy of a great nation.

God bless you all. And God bless America.

Top