As a proud product of Jackson State, I’m delighted to share this time with all of you. In the past four years, we’ve had many opportunities to break bread and share views. I wanted your thoughts and perspectives. And I have greatly benefited from your counsel and wisdom. I have looked to you as a “Talented Tenth” for national education policy. And the guidance you have given to President Bush and to me has made American education nobler, better, and stronger.

Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays, the late president of Morehouse College, once said that Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) should not strive to be great black colleges, but great colleges. He wanted our schools to achieve and maintain the highest standards of educational excellence. Dr. Mays knew that HBCUs have an historic mission to serve our minority communities. But he wanted us to serve with vision, scholarship, and distinction. He asked for nothing less than our very best, and the best for our students.

I agree with that vision. I know you do too. And in the past four years we have made large gains. Our schools have established a unique identity. HBCUs have a position of leadership and importance in our nation. We have been able to foster a dynamic vitality, energy, and momentum that propelled HBCUs toward the top ranks of educational institutions.

And we have done this together, with powerful results.

And we have been helped by the President. He has made HBCU support a top priority of the nation. The President has been a strong supporter of HBCU financial development. His Executive Order to continue federal financial support has been met with record, historic levels of funding.

And the President has given unprecedented access to voices from HBCUs, including meetings with many of you.

I have been particularly interested in his relationship with the HBCU advisory board, chaired by Lou Sullivan. It has the ear of the President. Dr. Sullivan has met with 17 departments and agencies to secure their further financial support. We have recently met with these agencies to secure compliance with their commitments. Lou has been masterfully diplomatic in persuading these agencies to give the maximum amount of support. And he has focused federal efforts for HBCUs into a coherent, long-term, and secure national response.

I wanted all of this, and more, because I promised you, under my watch, the Department would explore every avenue to better align our common mission to serve our students and our country.

Bill Harvey has been talking to me for some time about a collaborative effort to strengthen the capacity of HBCUs. Recently, we received a proposal to do just that from the United Negro College Fund Special Programs, Hampton University and NAFEO. This collaborative initiative is designed to address long-standing issues of importance to HBCUs. It will ensure the broadest possible access to the expertise needed to help HBCUs enhance operational performance, better train senior executives, and improve institutional governance.

This work is important and crucial for the long-term viability of HBCUs.

So, tonight I am pleased to announce that the Department is awarding a grant of $1 million to begin this effort. This is a timely, necessary action to help HBCUs continue on the path to excellence. The grantees will:

• develop a collaborative effort to provide professional development and training for senior executives and governing board members;
• examine institutional operations to help avoid or lessen accrediting concerns and to meet regulatory requirements; and
• provide technical assistance in the areas of financial management, planning, evaluation, and professional development.

I am pleased to make this announcement in the presence of so many people who have dedicated their lives to the education of our nation’s students. I know that this collaborative effort will be successful because of your involvement and hard work.

This grant is consistent with the direction of the President’s fiscal year 2005 budget. His request includes $419 million -- an $18.8 million increase -- to assist higher education institutions with a large proportion of minority and disadvantaged students, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Historically Black Graduate Institutions.

This budget, like the previous three, has strong support for minority students and HBCUs.

For instance, student financial assistance would be increased in the President’s 2005 budget. Overall, student financial aid would expand to more than $73 billion, excluding the consolidation of student loans. This is an increase of more than $4 billion or 6 percent over the 2004 level.

The number of recipients of grant, loan, and work-study assistance would grow by 426,000, to 10 million students and parents.

The budget also includes more than $832 million for the Federal TRIO Programs and more than $298 million for GEAR-UP to provide educational outreach and support services to help almost 2 million disadvantaged students enter and complete college.

Funding is important; so is programmatic direction. Our HBCUs have become premier institutions for urban studies. You have institutional linkages to our minority and low-income communities. These distinctive relationships benefit the entire country.

And perhaps no benefit has more lasting influence than your graduates themselves, especially those who enter teaching. Last year I asked you to strengthen your efforts by preparing more teachers. We need them even more desperately now. A recent report indicated only ten percent of our nation’s three million teachers are from minority communities. Only six percent are African American. Just twenty-one percent are men. This is unacceptable in a nation where more than forty percent of students are from minority communities.

Because HBCUs are the primary source for African American teachers, we need your help. Students need good teachers, period. They also need good teachers who have similar life experiences, who understand their needs, who will not leave them behind. It is vital that this country produce more African American, Latino American, Native American, and Asian American teachers. The teachers you produce are a lifeline from your institution to our nation’s elementary and secondary schools. The No Child Left Behind process is greatly enhanced by your participation.

As we seek to close the K-12 achievement gap, one important action is to make sure that every teacher is highly qualified.

Yet we know that too many teachers graduate feeling unprepared to teach. This is especially true in the critical area of reading. As educators, we all know how important reading is, for you can't read to learn until you learn to read. Yet many of our teachers graduate from education schools without a strong foundation in scientifically based reading instruction.

President Bush is investing an historic $5 billion in his Reading First Program to make sure that our current teachers use the very best methods.

Last September, I announced a $4.5 million grant to the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) to launch the Reading First Teacher Preparation Network. This was a partnership between the U.S. Department of Education, the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education, the Center for Reading and Language Arts Higher Education Collaborative, and minority-serving institutions across the nation. This initiative allowed reading professors from 25 institutions to teach with scientifically-based reading instruction, so that they can make sure that their students -- our future teachers -- have a solid foundation.

The initiative, led by Boyce Williams, worked with the institutions to build the organizational capacity to support long-lasting reforms in reading. The training began in November, and I we are already seeing results.

Many prospective teachers have already been trained. The participating institutions have reported good, positive feedback. In fact, six more institutions have joined this partnership since September. By the end of the three-year grant period, approximately 450 prospective educators will have been taught by 100 faculty trained in scientifically-based reading instruction.

There is a powerful ripple effect. On average, there are 75 teachers enrolled at institutions in this project. These teachers work with approximately 20,500 K-3 students each semester. Over three years, these teachers will have reached out to children in about 27,000 public schools and may have improved reading for as many as 2.7 million public school children, most of them children of color.

I can think of no more important effort. Reading is the key to learning. We need to make K-12 students passionate about reading. Your graduates, especially those in education, can be the catalyst to ignite this passion.

Many years ago, during my own student years, Dr. Mays said “This is a time for greatness….We have a rendezvous with America.” This is our time; this is the moment when our institutions reach for greatness.

I believe that is true. This is our moment. I am confident that with your leadership, vision, and partnership, we will continue the remarkable, miraculous, and vital work of our nation’s HBCUs.

Thank you.

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