It's great to see so many people committed to a bright future for every child in America. Each year, it seems, this crowd grows bigger and bigger.

And it's not just because of the famous Miami weather—although it sure beats Washington's!

No, the answer is closer to home—your homes.

Twelve years ago we had no charter schools. This year we have nearly 3,000, educating more than 750,000 students. More than 40 states allow—and sometimes encourage—charter schools.

It's a great story, and you should all be proud to be a part of it.

The charter school movement turns 13 years old this year. Like all adolescents, it's suffered a few growing pains. But I believe we're ready for another huge growth spurt.

One reason is that President Bush has adopted the charter school "model"—higher expectations, focus on the basics, innovations and real parental options—for all of public education.

This was manifest in the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act, the most innovative and far-reaching education reform of the past 40 years.

No Child Left Behind has much in common with charter schools. Both provide freedom and flexibility in exchange for accountability for results. Both were created to meet a need that was not being met. And both demand continuous evaluation, of both students and schools.

In education, actions must have consequences. A charter school that is failing its students and parents can have its charter revoked. Simple as that.

And under NCLB, a school that chronically underperforms must provide real choices to parents—free tutoring and supplemental services, for example, or transfer and transportation to another public or charter school.

Early results are positive. Studies show we're starting to close the achievement gap in urban school districts. And every day seems to bring good news on test scores from the states.

This is student-centered, parent-centered, customer-centered learning—the kind we hope to foster all across the country. The old top-down, central planning model is no longer sufficient—not in the 21st century.

We're also supporting your schools in a more concrete way—literally.

President Bush has proposed $100 million to leverage improvements for facilities and infrastructure under No Child Left Behind—in addition to the more than $220 million already provided for charter education.

Overall, we've increased federal support for education 36 percent since 2001. But No Child Left Behind and charter schools are needed to help ensure that the money is spent wisely.

Now, some see the demand for charter schools as, sadly, a reflection on what our traditional public schools have become.

I see their point. But I view it more optimistically. I believe it's a harbinger of what public education can be!

Look around you. Every one of you is meeting a need in your community, filling a gap—including the "achievement gap."

You educate children with unique interests, rare talents and special needs—some who were left behind by public education—and others for whom traditional schools could not keep up. And you insist on results.

By doing so, you create an environment of achievement and excellence that permeates public education.

It would be a mistake to think that you only teach students. You teach educators as well. Every day you show them how it's done in your classroom and how it can be done in theirs.

You've shown us that it's possible to have both high standards with discipline and, yes, fairness—accountability for results as well as respect for teachers and principals.

One of the promises of the charter school movement was to serve as a laboratory of innovation—to try bold, new, daring ideas and see if they work. And if they do, then to transplant them back to the traditional public schools.

Innovations such as smaller schools, school uniforms, arts and science curricula, online and "virtual" classrooms—all found a home in charter schools.

Of course, as you know, not everyone favors charter schools. Many of you work against the headwind of a hostile political environment.

It's difficult to tell what the greatest worry of the education establishment is—that you'll fail, or that you'll succeed!

We at the U.S. Department of Education, of course, want you to succeed. So we thought we would make a contribution in this regard.

Today I am proud to announce the third in our series of six "Innovations in Education" booklets—designed to help teachers and administrators implement No Child Left Behind.

Whenever a new reform is enacted, the need naturally arises to find "early adapters" and successful models and to share their stories. These booklets, produced by our Office of Innovation and Improvement, will meet that need.

This one examines eight thriving charter schools and tells how their success stories can be replicated nationwide.

Now, this is not a "Top Ten" list, so don't think we're saying that their schools are better than yours! These are not necessarily the eight best charter schools in the nation.

But they have demonstrated outstanding qualities over time, such as parental satisfaction and improved student achievement. And to date, all eight have met their "adequate yearly progress" under NCLB.

These schools are meeting their goals in different ways. And that's a good thing.

Those who argue that NCLB will mean the end of electives and enrichment have clearly not spent time in the Arts and Technology Academy school of Washington, D.C., where drama, dance, singing, composing and video production round out the curriculum.

Or at the BASIS School of Tucson, Ariz., where students might be seen producing an opera or visiting a marine biology school in Mexico.

Those who believe NCLB will spawn soulless "testing factories" have not set foot in the School of Arts and Sciences in Tallahassee, Fla., which uses a project-based approach to learning, with students of many ages and grade levels helping one another in the same classroom.

Those who believe NCLB does little to spur parental involvement do not know about Oglethorpe Charter School in Savannah, Ga., which requires moms and dads to donate at least 20 hours of school service as a condition of enrollment.

And they have not read the "Home-School Compact" of the Community of Peace Academy in St. Paul, Minn. It pledges regular home visits, parent-school liaisons, even child care services and interpreters for parent-teacher conferences.

The schools featured in this booklet are also busy blowing away the common myths and excuses for why children are left behind.

KIPP ["Knowledge Is Power Program"] Academy Houston's student population is 77 percent Hispanic and 21 percent African American. Eighty-six percent receive subsidized or free meals.

But thanks to a strongly enforced credo—"There are no shortcuts. Success is built through desire, discipline and dedication"—85 percent go on to college.

The student body of the Roxbury Preparatory Charter School in Boston is 80 percent African American and 20 percent Hispanic. Two-thirds performed below grade level upon entry.

But thanks to homework support, Saturday instruction and summer school, all of them will be on a college prep track when they reach high school.

Finally, the Ralph A. Gates Elementary School in Lake Forest, Calif., enrolls more English language learners than any school in its district.

Yet it not only provides intensive, two-way Spanish-English immersion for students, but a parallel program for moms and dads to learn the languages too.

Indeed, the most valuable testimony about charter schools comes not from facts and figures—much as we like to use them—but from satisfied parents, enthusiastic teachers and eager young boys and girls.

One teacher at the Community of Peace Academy praises the school's administrators: "I see change happen here when we need it."

Teachers at Washington D.C.'s Arts and Technology Academy call it "an oasis in the community."

Imagine that—instead of blaming the inner city for their school's environment, they're changing their environment one student at a time!

A student at Oglethorpe says, "It is really small here, so all the teachers know all the kids." Another at the School of Arts and Sciences says, "I've never seen a bully here."

And a parent with a special-needs son called the Arts and Technology Academy "a blessing… Everybody makes him feel comfortable and loved…. He's excited about his homework."

"Excited about his homework?" I didn't know we were setting the bar quite that high!

As in life, it's often the little things that count. KIPP Academy's Principal Elliott Witney tells the story of the mother who called to complain that her son constantly skipped homework to watch TV.

Would it help if you brought the TV into the school? he asked her. She did and Witney now reports: "It's sitting here on my floor until her son earns it back."

These are not merely anecdotes. These are satisfied customers. And they're the tip of the iceberg.

They can be repeated a thousand times in our public schools, if we just show the "desire, discipline and dedication" to do it.

The booklet identifies common "elements of effective charter schools." I don't need to tell this crowd about them. Many of you live them every day. But they should be required reading for everyone involved in public education.

One is to start with a mission, one that everyone in the school knows, believes in and works toward.

Another is to innovate across the entire school program and student body. Different students have different needs—while one is handing in extra credit, another will need extra help. A good charter school—or any school, for that matter—adjusts to both.

A third element is the promotion of continuous learning and improvement. When it comes to goals, we want No Child Left Behind to be a "floor," not a "ceiling."

Good schools foster "internal accountability"—or, as the KIPP Academy promises, "If there's a better way, we find it."

Finally, success requires partnerships between parents, teachers and the community at large. This is one of the real strengths of charter schools—after all, parents and teachers often start them!

Ladies and gentlemen, we need to bring everyone to the table, and make them part of the solution. Business and community leaders want to help. We must let them.

They know that the quality of education deeply affects our nation's competitiveness.

Our 12th-graders placed among the lowest levels in math and science among industrialized nations. And we have the largest concentration of adults in the lowest literacy levels.

Is it any surprise that since World War II, worker productivity has grown more slowly in the United States than in any other industrialized country? Clearly, this has got to change.

Fourteen years ago, as charters were being debated, the president of the National Education Association predicted, "Market-driven school choice would create an inequitable, elitist educational system."

He added, "Free market economics works well for breakfast cereals but not for schools."

He was right about one thing—students are not breakfast cereals. They're vastly more important.

So why on earth would we insulate their schools from the rigors of competition and choice when what they produce—an educated society—is so critical to our freedom? And their future?

As you go back to your schools and communities, you will no doubt continue to face pressure from unions, administrators and others to water down charter school laws or lower the caps on the number of students they can teach.

At most, these opponents of change see charter schools as a necessary evil, a "hole in the kettle" letting out some reform-minded steam so that frustrated parents and teachers do not explode.

But this view is shortsighted. The long waiting lists at two-thirds of the nation's charter schools prove it.

We should not be content to pluck a few lucky parents off those lists each school year. We should not be content with 3,000 schools and fewer than a million kids.

The public education system needs your movement to grow. It needs your successful schools to replicate and duplicate. And it needs the productive pressure—the "wake-up call"—that competition provides.

President Bush has spoken often of an "ownership society"—one in which people own the means to make their own lives the best they can possibly be.

We must do our part by taking ownership of public education. We must never deny its challenges. And we must never deny their solutions.

You are one of those solutions. You're the ones "finding a better way." And we need your help. Armed with your own experiences and the stories in this book, we want you to shout from the rooftops how life-changing charter schools can be.

Every day you ask your students to give their best. Now I'm asking you to give yours. Let's not stop until we have a quality charter school on every street corner, in every community of this great nation.

Thank you.

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