EDUCATION & RESEARCH
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Education & Research Conference 2001No Child Left Behind: A Blueprint for Education Reform.Dr. Roderick R. Paige, United States Secretary of Education Kim Jones, Vice President, Global Education & Research, Sun Microsystems, Inc.: It is now that I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome our keynote speaker for this year's Education and Research Conference. He has certainly been a pioneer of change in education. He is a Mississippi native who became the Dean of Education for the education school at Texas Southern University. During that time, he was elected to the Houston School Board and in 1994 he became Superintendent of Houston schools. He had a tremendous track record during that time. The school district's test scores went up by 20%, the dropout rate decreased by 50%, and during that time he passed the largest school bond ever passed in Texas history for 678 million dollars. I think that there is a quote that I read from Democratic Texas Senator Rodney Ellis that really describes this person well. It says, "His ability to inspire people and build consensus comes from being an educator all his life, an elected official serving in a tough urban district, and having been a football coach." I learned from my meeting with him this morning that he also sets big, tough, hairy, aggressive goals. Here to speak about his blueprint for education reform, it is my distinct honor and privilege to introduce the new Secretary of Education for the United States of America, Roderick R. Paige. [Applause and music] Roderick R. Paige: Good morning. I'm honored to have this very special opportunity to talk about the President's plan to strengthen our public schools. The President's proposed a bold innovative planned called "No Child Left Behind -- Leave No Child Behind." I want to put that in context to begin with. There's an article, I think, that's going to be in the current Business Week, dealing with the seven points that they suggest would help to improve schools. But it begins by putting this goal in context. Leave no child behind -- focus on that for a moment. You and I both know that all across our nation -- indeed, across the world -- it has not been unusual at all to leave many children behind. But I think what is suggested here is that with the increasing need for improved literacy because of our social and economic movement in our nation, we really can't afford now to leave children behind. And so the President is asking something that has never been done before in the history of the world, universal education for everybody, every child -- not some -- every child. No society has ever done that. So when you think about it, this is not just a statement of pious sentimentality. It is a big, hairy, audacious goal -- and one that can be achieved, but it requires the participation of all of us. And this article in Newsweek puts this in the context of other big goals. President Kennedy asked us to put a man on the moon and do it in this decade. President Johnson had the goal of the Great Society. Now, I think you've got to think in that context when you evaluate "Leave no child behind." It's an important goal. And this plan to achieve that goal will affect every community in every state and every child of every race and every creed in our nation. All of us have something to gain or lose here. The phrase that I think about now is the one that the great Barbara Jordan used -- "With respect to education, we may have come to this country on different ships -- but we're in the same boat now." All of us need for this to work. And to strengthen our public education system requires us to think publicly. You know, sometimes we get into the habit of thinking that the public schools are for the children who are in the schools. But the public schools are really for the public. They're for the public good. Now, there is private good to be derived by the people who have children in the schools, and that's good. But the aggregate private good of the children in the schools does not equate to the public good. All of us have something to gain or lose based on the quality of our education. I know that it's not necessary to make that point for this audience, because you already know that. But it's something that I always have to bring forward. Now, what is this plan that President Bush has put forward called "Leave No Child Behind"? First, though, let's look at what we have now. Our system of education simply is not preparing students for the modern work world -- workforce -- or for the modern society. Many of you here represent the technology industries, and when you need skillful workers where do you turn? To foreign workers. In 1999, the Immigration and Naturalization Services granted 115,000 H1B visas. And last year Congress voted to increase that cap to 195,000. We're not sure that that's going to be enough, and there's nothing wrong with H1B visas or the program. But there's something wrong if we're not producing the kinds of workers that we need in our country. And we need to change, and to do something a little bit different. My predecessor Terry Bell 20 years ago, in 1981, impaneled a group called "Committee on Excellence" and asked them to look at our schools. And they brought the word back that we had problems. The publication was called "A Nation at Risk." It was not called "A Community at Risk" or "Certain Segment of a Nation at Risk" -- "A Nation at Risk." And where are we now, 20 years later? 20 years later, a third of our college students arrive on our university and college campuses unable to take rigorous college courses because they need remediation -- 20 years later. 20 years later, almost 70% of our fourth-graders could not read at the basic level on an important test for reading -- and that's 20 years later. 20 years later, our seniors trail almost every industrial nation on international merit. And probably worst of all, there exists a great gap between our most sociologically disadvantaged students and their more advantaged peers. Society's dividing itself into two parts. That won't work. So President Bush has proposed a plan to fix that. It's a simple plan, stated in his common-sense ways of stating things. First, let's ask that we set high standards for all students -- not high standards for some students; high standards for all students. This is a state responsibility. We're asking each state to set standards, set high standards, for each student -- both content standards and also performance standards. We won't set national standards -- this is a state-by-state responsibility. The plan asks that we assess to determine if those standards are being met. Measure annually grades three through eight -- annual assessments. The plan calls for us to take many of the categorical programs in the Department of Education and group them together and provide the kind of flexibility that the people at the scene, the schools and the classroom, need in order to be able to customize these programs to fit their needs. We won't be so arrogant to feel that we can see from Washington DC the need of every school in the United States of America. But rather, we believe that the people there have the best vantage point and consequently can come up with the best solution to the problem. We want to provide the resources. We want to ask for the results. We want them to be held accountable. But we won't be arrogant enough to dictate how it is done. And finally, we want to insist on results. And we want to say that if a school is performing or failing to perform well the first year, we need to increase the resources and technical assistance. If a school fails to perform a second year, we need to do that again. And if the school needs assistance in the third year, we want to make that assistance available. But at the end of the third year, if the school is not performing we want to take another path -- a road less traveled, so to speak. We want now to focus on the individual child and allow this child to go to a place where they can be served, because we don't now want to focus again on funding failure. So then we want to empower parents with choice. We believe that parental choice is a necessary condition for authentic school reform. These simple principles that you see every day and that you find not revolutionary at all are quite revolutionary in this business. If we are able to get this into the program, what we're going to have is a cultural shift in the whole school and enterprise -- one that shifts from compliance to performance, from the evaluation of inputs to the evaluation of outputs. The Federal government has been very good at providing resources, but they've not been very good at asking for results and measures to determine if we're getting results from those resources. This accountability is a big difference. And we believe that this plan will launch us in a direction that we need to go in order to improve our schools. When investors create a business they demand results. When customers buy a product they demand results. Why should a school be any different? What would be more arrogant abuse of the government of federal power than to trap a child in a failing school? We can't chain children to failing schools. Now, not only do we want to hold schools accountable but we want to first make it possible for them to succeed. So the President's plan calls for putting a lot of effort into early reading -- in fact, five billion dollars over the next five years in the President's first reading initiative, with the goal of having every child reading on grade level by the end of third grade. Because we know when a child is not reading on grade level by the end of third grade, the probability of that child being successful diminishes considerably. But we don't want to just fund reading programs -- we will only fund those programs that have the principles that are based on the kinds of principles that have proven to be successful and are scientifically based. The President's plan wants results -- so consequently we have to not invest in trial and error, but go back to those scientific principles that we know work. I know your interest is in technology. And somewhere in your city, there's probably an office building that's neither fancy nor expensive, where carpenters are not very famous for their work, where workers in those buildings stay in instant touch with each other through e-mail or cell phones or other communication devices. Instant communication is so reliable in these kinds of businesses that it's almost boring to them. They count on it. But down the street from that office building is probably a school where the principal has to print out memos to send messages to all of their teachers, and where a teacher is still dependent exclusively on the chalkboard -- white chalk and a blackboard. Even if the school district knows there's money available to install better communication, it may not yet have figured out just how to do that. So the President's committed to making sure that the Federal government helps in these efforts. Our plan will streamline the numerous Federal technology programs into a performance-based technology grant program. This simplified structure will ensure that more technology dollars get to the classrooms where they're needed. When the schools are free of the administrative burden that they must currently endure to receive technology funding from the Federal government, they can spend more time focusing on how best to use that technology funding. Technology can be a powerful tool to improve our academic achievement, but it is only a tool. And we don't want to use it as a crutch, nor the lack of technology as an excuse. We must integrate our technology programs into our basic programs, so that it becomes a coherent program. When technology is properly incorporated into the classroom, more students will develop the skills to succeed in the modern workforce. And often I hear you ask the question, "How may we help?" And my answer to that is that probably the highest-level insertion point into a school system is at the level of the teacher. Being able to change the teacher's skill set, attitude, or experience is the most powerful point of insertion for helping us. But right now, what we would like to ask of you is to help us get this plan into current law. That is the place where you can help us best. Raise your voices. You know who to speak to. You can express your consideration of this plan. And if it's expressed in the proper way and at the proper point, it makes a difference. And I would encourage you to do that right away. Now this bill is being discussed. Language is being tidied up. Amendments are being added or rejected. Things are happening. And so now is the time for you to play the role that you feel is important. We think this is a great first step towards improving public schools in America. But we also know that this is not a Republican plan, nor is it a Democratic plan -- it is an American plan. And I am extremely appreciative of the bipartisan way that it has been received. And so I feel comfortable in asking everyone in this country to step up to the bat and play a part in this, and make your voices heard about this particular plan -- because, once again, we came on different ships, but we're in the same boat now. Thank you very much. [Applause] Kim Jones: Thank you, Dr. Paige. That was great -- terrific. Thank you, Secretary Paige. I think we all agree that none of us want to leave any child behind. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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