FOR RELEASE: April 19, 2005

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Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here with you today. I want to thank your president, Armando Ojeda, and your chairman, David Lizarraga, for inviting me. It's also a pleasure to see my good friend, Hector Barreto, of the Small Business Administration. He has helped millions of Americans live the American dream.

Unfortunately, I'm not fluent in Spanish. But living in Texas, I picked up a few words. My staff in Washington has gotten used to me saying, "Pronto!" I like to see results quickly.

And that's why I've been so pleased with the progress our landmark education reform law known as No Child Left Behind has made in just the last three years. Across the country, scores are rising, and the achievement gap between minority and white students is finally starting to close. The percentage of Hispanic fourth-graders proficient in math doubled between 2000 and 2003. That's great news. And it's just the beginning.

The business community has rallied around No Child Left Behind. It's not surprising. Businesses understand that if we want our economy to keep growing, we need to make sure every student graduates ready to succeed in the future.

We're counting on Hispanic businesses to be a big part of that future. Right now, Hispanics own over a million businesses in the United States. That number is only going to keep growing. By 2007, one out of every 10 small businesses will be Hispanic-owned. It's a time of great opportunity. And we need to make sure America's children have the skills to get ahead.

It all starts with a quality education. That's why President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act into law three years ago. The law says all children can achieve high standards in school and that we should measure student progress each year to make sure they do.

No Child Left Behind calls for annual assessment of all children in grades 3–8 in both reading and math. And it requires us to break down that test data by student groups, so we can be sure all students are getting ahead.

These assessments help us see which students need extra help and where. Without annual assessments, there would be no way of measuring the effectiveness of our reforms. And without measurement, there can be no accountability for results. As the saying goes, "What gets measured gets done."

You all understand the importance of accountability. You depend on it every day. Accountability is what makes your businesses successful. And in the years before No Child Left Behind, it was missing from our schools.

The performance of subgroups, like minority, low-income, and special-needs students, used to get buried beneath misleading averages. It became all too common to overlook some students and their academic struggles. No Child Left Behind forced us to confront this achievement gap and to do something about it.

Now we expect all students—including students new to the English language and our nation—to achieve high standards in school. We're providing almost $700 million in funds to help students learning English reach the same standards as their peers. A report released last month showed for the first time ever, every state now has standards in place to help measure student progress in learning English. Best of all, we're making sure these students keep pace with their peers in reading and math. Learning the English language should help students get ahead in school—not set them behind. When families come to this country, they deserve to know their children will receive a first-class education at any public school.

And when schools fall short of this responsibility, No Child Left Behind gives families new options like the ability to transfer to a better-performing school or free after-school tutoring. These resources help level the playing field for families who otherwise would be unable to afford extra help for their children. Last year, around 250,000 students took advantage of these services, and that number is growing.

One of those students was Patricia Hernandez in Vineland, New Jersey. When she and her family arrived in the United States just over a year ago from Mexico, they faced a serious language barrier. Patricia struggled in school until her parents heard she could qualify for free tutoring under No Child Left Behind. It's made a real difference. Patricia's grades are up, and she's becoming more comfortable with English. Now she hopes to go to college and become a teacher. That's a great story, and we wish her the best of luck.

We want to help more families like Patricia's take an active role in their children's education. Study after study shows that education ranks as the top priority in the Hispanic community. The interest is there. And we must spread the word about what opportunities and resources are available.

No Child Left Behind empowers parents with information to make the best decisions for their children. All parents—regardless of how long they have lived in this country or how well they speak English—need to know their options under this law.

I want to thank the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Foundation for helping us spread the message through participating in the Partners in Hispanic Education program. Last year, the partnership helped empower thousands of Hispanic parents with more information about education and schools.

We still have much work to do. A study last year by the Pew Hispanic Center showed that 95 percent of Hispanic parents think it's important for their children to go to college, but over 75 percent say financing that education poses a major obstacle. As a result, only around one in 10 Hispanic Americans will ever receive a bachelor's degree. In a world where 80 percent of the fastest growing jobs require some postsecondary education, we need to close this gap between dreams and reality.

Your foundation, along with other organizations like the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, is helping families realize the dream of college. The key is providing parents with more information about financial aid opportunities. The president and I believe that financial concerns should not dim a child's hope of attending college. That's why he has proposed expanding funding for Pell Grants by more than $19 billion over the next 10 years. And over the next five years, we'll raise the maximum student grant from its current level of $4,050 to $4,550 per year. Next year alone, these changes will benefit 5.5 million low-income students.

Of course, we can't get more students to college unless we first get them through high school with a quality education. We face serious challenges. Nearly one-third of incoming ninth-graders do not graduate on time. As many of you know, the dropout rate for Hispanic students is almost four times higher than the rate for white students. And it's over double the rate for African-Americans. According to the Manhattan Institute, even when students graduate from high school, they usually do so unprepared for the challenges of college.

The result is that you in the business community end up paying for our students' education twice—first as taxpayers and then as providers of remedial education. By some estimates, American companies, universities, and of course, taxpayers must spend billions of dollars each year on remedial education just to teach employees and students the basic skills they should have mastered in high school.

The costs are even higher for our children. The average college grad makes over $53,000 a year. Compare that to the average high school dropout, who earns less than $23,000 a year. That's not the future we want for our children when we dream about them becoming entrepreneurs and owning their own businesses. We face a new gap—a "skills gap," which leaves our high school graduates unprepared for the lives ahead of them.

To close this gap, the president has proposed a new $1.5 billion High School Initiative. This initiative will allow high schools to develop timely intervention programs to save students at risk of falling behind. It will help ensure every student graduates with the skills to succeed in life.

Here's an example of how it will work. Before students even start ninth grade, high schools will study assessment data to identify students at risk of dropping out. This information will help teachers and parents work together to develop intervention strategies to save students before it's too late.

Many times these students need extra help with reading. We now have a lot of research on how we can help older students become better readers. And we must make sure this research makes it to the classroom where it can help kids. That's why the president's new budget increases funding for our Striving Readers program to $200 million. It's a program that is making a real difference in the classroom by providing teachers with scientifically proven methods for helping teenagers who have trouble reading.

Of course, we can't know where students are struggling unless we expand annual assessments. We must measure student progress in at least three grades during high school so we can ensure no one falls behind just as they're nearing the finish line. That's why assessment matters. We want every ninth grader to graduate on time. And we want every one of them to leave high school with the skills to succeed in college and the increasingly competitive global workplace.

A high school diploma must represent a ticket to success in the 21st century. And no one has a better idea of what it will take to succeed in the 21st century than you do. For years, you have warned us that our students need to develop stronger math skills if they want to keep up with the competition. Yet almost two-thirds of employers give high school graduates only fair to poor marks in math. And even worse, recent studies have shown that our students lag behind their peers across the world in problem solving.

If America is going to stay the best place to do business in the world, we must have the best math students. The president has proposed a $120 million Secondary Education Mathematics Initiative to strengthen the quality of middle and high school math. We'll use these funds to provide teachers with teaching methods that are proven to work.

We also need to encourage our students to fill their course schedules with core academic classes like math, science, English, and foreign language. Students who take rigorous courses stand a far greater chance of succeeding in college. That's why I'm excited to see more Hispanic students mastering college level coursework in Advanced Placement (AP) courses.

We want to expand AP and International Baccalaureate programs, particularly in schools that serve students who traditionally have been underserved. Forty percent of high schools still offer no AP classes. That's why the president's new budget increases funding for these programs by 73 percent. We must send more students to college, and we must send them prepared to excel.

We must act on these reforms now. The stakes have never been higher and the opportunity never greater. The achievement gap is a national problem. We need all Americans, including all Hispanic Americans, to continue fueling economic and civic growth, and that growth depends on the quality of education we provide our students today.

That's why we must stay the course on No Child Left Behind and extend the law's promise of high standards and accountability to our high schools. I hope you will take a stand for our neediest children. And I hope you will ask the tough questions about how Hispanic students are doing. You must be their advocates. States need to know that the days when we looked past these problems are over.

You have local chambers in states across the country. Using this network, you can be a powerful voice for all our children, especially children in the Hispanic community. As local leaders, you know that the best way to keep your economies growing and your communities strong is to close the achievement gap. The states with the best school systems will end up with the best jobs. We need your help spreading this message. I need your help. America's economic future depends on our success. We must work together to close the achievement gap and to share the American dream with every citizen.

Thank you.

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