Education Reform: A Moral Imperative, Remarks

Thank you very much, Steve, and good afternoon everyone.

Those are probably the nicest things a trial lawyer has ever said about me! Seriously, while the Chamber has its disagreements with a handful of mass and class action trial lawyers, Steve really is one of the good guys. In fact, his firm is representing us in our Supreme Court case, U.S. Chamber of Commerce v. Brown. It deals with an employer's right to speak out against the unionization of its workers.

Steve's specialty involves an issue critical to America's success—the protection of intellectual property and patents. The Chamber has a major initiative to combat IP theft and piracy, and I speak about the topic frequently.

In fact, over the past few months, I've been making a series of speeches around the country on the fundamental competitive challenges facing the American economy in an interdependent global environment—challenges like IP, energy, infrastructure, legal reform, health care, and immigration.

Together, these challenges comprise the Chamber's competitiveness agenda. Over the next five years—and beyond—we plan to focus extraordinary resources on advancing these issues. Why? Because they hold the key to our nation's future economic success. But nothing on our agenda is more important than education. That's what I'd like to talk about today.

I know the Rotary Club and its members are committed to educational excellence. Just this morning you held your annual Career Day. You provide dictionaries to every third grade D.C. public school student. And many of you volunteer your time and energy serving on school boards or helping struggling students learn. We applaud those efforts.

America's Embrace of Education

Looking back on U.S. history, Americans have argued, debated, and even fought one another over many things. But one fundamental principle our country embraced almost from the very beginning was that a quality education was a civil right for every child.

In fact, the first American schools opened during the colonial era, even before we became an independent nation! In 1642, the Massachusetts Bay Colony made education compulsory. In 1785, the Land Ordinance Act set aside a portion of every township for use in education. During the next century or so, primary and elementary schools evolved from a scattered collection of private institutions into today's vast network of public schools, funded primarily at the local level.

As waves of diverse immigrants came to our shores, the most powerful dream burning in the hearts of parents was that their children would enjoy a better life than their own. The way to make that happen was for their children to get a good education. There's no question our great nation was built upon those early and continuing investments in learning.

As our economy and society grew more sophisticated and specialized, we developed the most outstanding systems of higher education in the world. They remain so today.

A well-educated citizenry is at the foundation of our democracy, our economy, and the American Dream.

We've Lost Our Way

Despite its fundamental importance to our society and way of life, we've lost our way on education. Today, everyone utters all the necessary platitudes about the importance of education. You might even say I've just done so myself! But our deeds no longer match our rhetoric. Over many years, we have allowed a creeping mediocrity to invade the quality of our public schools.

Of course, there are many excellent ones, with outstanding teachers, engaged parents, and nose-to-the-grindstone students. We celebrate them and recognize their achievements. But dangerous trends have taken hold nationwide that should not only worry us but also scare us … and even shame us.

High school graduation rates remain appallingly low. Only about two-thirds of all 9th graders graduate from high school in four years—it's only half for minorities. Those students who do receive diplomas often require remedial education. Many are unprepared for postsecondary education or the modern workforce.

Some states have chosen to dumb down their academic standards in order to achieve proficiency even as our international competitors have toughened theirs. Today, U.S. fourth graders rank 11th in the world in reading; in 2001, they ranked 4th. We are also lagging in key subjects like math and science—skills essential to succeeding in the global, high-tech economy.

In 2003, U.S. 15 year-olds ranked 19th in science and 24th in math. And we are headed in the wrong direction. We've dropped five places in both subjects since 2001.

We get these results despite spending more on education than practically any other country.

Our students spend fewer hours in class than most of our international competitors. By age 18, students in many foreign countries will have received one to three years more class time than U.S. students. Talk about a competitive disadvantage!

And through lax management, poor oversight, and plain apathy, we have allowed schools to mismanage funds, facilities, and professional development; to hire and retain ineffective teachers; and to forgo collecting the data necessary to measure and track results. We cannot afford to lag behind as the rest of the world races ahead. The world will not stop and wait while our students catch up.

It's perfectly clear that the toughest, most important competitive race in the 21st century worldwide economy will be the global race for talent and workers. You can see this in industry after industry, from sector to sector. The question is the same all over the world: How are we going to find, train, and keep the best workers?

It's very simple—the nations that do the best job educating their children and attracting talent will succeed. Those that don't, won't.

Ninety percent of the fastest-growing jobs in our new economy will require some postsecondary education. The Department of Labor estimates that by 2014 there will be close to 4 million new job openings in health care, education, and computer and mathematical sciences.

Our kids are increasingly unprepared, as is our nation. Seventy-seven million baby boomers will begin retiring next year, leading to significant worker shortages. That means we must not only improve education but also keep baby boomers in the workforce beyond traditional retirement ages.

Unless we turn the education situation around, we will pay a terrible price. America will go from economic superpower to an also-ran. Our high standard of living will erode like sand in a pounding surf. We will lose jobs, productivity, and, eventually, hope. The social fabric that holds our nation together will begin to unravel. Our failure will be measured not only in dollars and cents but in broken dreams.

It's not difficult to comprehend the consequences of inaction. We know that high school dropouts are at greater risk of committing crimes, being imprisoned, and relying on public assistance. In fact, 75% of state prison inmates and 59% of federal inmates are high-school dropouts. We know they are less healthy and die younger. We know that their opportunities, income, and employability are limited.

Of those who do graduate from high school, many are not being equipped with the skills and knowledge they'll need to succeed. Many are unable to think critically, solve basic problems, or follow directions.

Put simply, we are falling dangerously behind.

Americans know this. Businesses know this. Parents—especially those of limited means who are counting on the schools to break generational cycles of poverty-know this. And they are rising up in revolt—and it's about time!

Signs of Encouragement

We are beginning to see some encouraging signs in education, beginning right here in the District. D.C. has one of the most troubled public school systems in the nation, but that's starting to change. Mayor Fenty has taken control and appointed as chancellor an experienced reformer and innovator, Michelle Rhee. As she may have told you in October, she is cleaning house, reducing centralization, and putting the focus on where it counts-on management and teaching.

For the first time in years, we have a chancellor and a mayor who are committed to reform. They have promised to close schools that are underenrolled and underperforming. This will allow them to consolidate the budget and put additional money where it can have the most impact.

There is plenty of room for improvement. D.C. schools get the worst bang for the buck. The city will spend about $9,000 per pupil this fiscal year-well above the national average—and yet only 9% of 4th and 8th graders are proficient in reading and math.

The District is not the only place where citizens and elected officials are rejecting a system that fails students, parents, and taxpayers. I have met personally with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who a decade ago was the first big-city mayor to win control of a major urban school system. He and his chief executive of education are replacing the 100 lowest-performing schools in Chicago. It is perhaps the boldest reform plan in the country.

I have also met with the chancellor of the New York Public School System, who is streamlining district management and introducing innovation. He recently signed an agreement with the teachers union to implement a pay-for-performance plan for teachers. He has created a Leadership Academy to train New York City principals. More charter schools are opening up across the city in response to great demand.

Innovation, accountability, and competition work—they are working in Chicago and New York, and they can work in the District and elsewhere if given a chance.

These reforms would not have been successful without the leadership role provided by business. For too long the business community has been willing to leave education to the politicians and the educators—standing aside and contenting itself with offers of money, support, and goodwill. Not anymore. This is a matter of critical national urgency.

The U.S. Chamber has reorganized and expanded its institutional assets focused on educating and training a superior workforce. We are pursuing state and federal legislation, engaging in public-private partnerships, working with like-minded allies, and using our bully pulpit to focus attention on these issues.

On the Hill, we helped win passage of the America COMPETES Act, which authorizes $40 billion for science, technology, engineering, and math research and education. It will help us meet the growing need for well-trained engineers and scientists.

We are lobbying for reauthorization of the Higher Education Act and supporting funding for teacher quality programs.

We have created a coalition—in conjunction with the Business Roundtable, civil rights groups, and others-to reauthorize and strengthen No Child Left Behind. This law puts results before special interests and ideology. And it's working. By bringing accountability into American classrooms, the law has made it impossible for schools to hide their failures.

The results are clear and encouraging—students are doing better in math and reading. The achievement gap between blacks and Hispanics and whites is narrowing. Instead of watering down the accountability provisions as some have suggested, we are urging Congress to extend the principles of No Child Left Behind to high school.

The law is due to be reauthorized this year. But if Congress does nothing, it will remain in effect unchanged. Our view is that the current law is better than a bad law.

Outside of Washington, we are forming strategic partnerships with state and local chambers—as well as community colleges—to ensure that our education system works in tandem with the employer community.

Our most significant initiative to date has been our national report card, Leaders and Laggards, issued earlier this year. It's one of the documents you should have at your place. This was a joint effort with the progressive Center for American Progress and Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute.

Our report card graded all 50 states and D.C. on their performance in nine areas. Among them: academic achievement; return on investment; rigor of standards; flexibility in management; and data quality.

The results echo the litany of failures I just outlined. In fact, had the states not been graded on a curve, almost all of them would have received failing grades.

Our report has been a wake-up call for a number of states. It has helped propel reform efforts in Tennessee, Oklahoma, Alabama, Rhode Island, among other states.

The Way Forward

Despite all of these promising efforts—and despite the tremendous and obvious deficiencies of our K-12 schools systems-there are still powerful, entrenched interests opposed to commonsense, effective reforms.

We see presidential candidates from the right and the left saying they would junk No Child Left Behind. This is the height of irresponsibility and political pandering—whether it comes from those on the right who are playing to the crowd who oppose national solutions to what surely is a national crisis, or from those on the left who think more money is the answer to every problem. And, by the way, whose union backers can't stand the idea that teachers and others might actually be held accountable for results.

In addition, it's time for concerned parents and businesses to ask questions that many of our politicians are afraid to ask: Why do we pay our best teachers so little and keep bad teachers in classrooms at all?

Why should a system of merit operate in almost every other endeavor of American life except where it counts the most, in education?

Who has the audacity to tell parents they don't have the right to send their child to a better public school when the school their kid is enrolled in is failing?

Why should we believe that teachers unions know best about how to achieve school quality and educational excellence when that's not why these unions were formed or why they exist? Their job is to represent their members in pay and in working conditions. It's that simple. They aren't the only voice in what's good for education. They shouldn't have a veto power over reforms, especially those that enjoy broad support.

Several important concepts should guide us going forward. Many of these are the focus of the Chamber's and CAP's Joint Platform for Reform, another document at your place. We need to make progress fast on all of them, even though we won't achieve all the progress we need to overnight.

What has long made the American private sector an engine of global prosperity—its dynamism, creativity, and relentless focus on efficiency and results—is essential to tapping the potential of our educators and our schools.

Let me mention five guidelines for reform.

First, teaching must be focused on results. We need to change the way we train, pay, and evaluate our teachers. Pay for performance should be the standard. Teachers who achieve excellent results, choose to work in troubled schools, or teach hard to staff subjects like science and math should be paid more. Teachers who are ineffective, incompetent, or otherwise impede the progress of students should be removed from the classroom.

We should raise salaries for first-time teachers to bring better talent into schools. We should allow professionals from the private sector who wish to teach to do so by using commonsense certification requirements that take into account their experiences.

We need to professionalize teaching. Forty percent of teachers face retirement in the next 10 years. Who is going to replace them? It's a dirty little secret that those going into teaching today are often from the bottom third of college graduating classes. Teaching used to be just one of a handful of professions open to women. Now women can pursue careers in any field they want. Today, teaching seems to attract too many people looking for job security.

Education schools are also in need of improvement—they focus too much on theory and less on how to achieve superior results in the classroom.

Second, school administrators must be given greater independence to run their schools. Principals should have more authority over budget and personnel decisions. They must insist on greater transparency surrounding spending, staffing, and student achievement.

Third, we need to collect more data so that we can accurately measure results. Without better data, we won't know when students need additional help to succeed, when teachers are being ineffective, or when teachers are excelling and should be awarded merit pay.

Our report card study found that not a single state could provide systematic data on teacher performance or return on investment. No responsible publicly or privately held firm could operate successfully with such a lack of data.

Fourth, we need more rigorous academic standards, and states must be more truthful about whether or not they are meeting them. Many states paint a much rosier picture of how their schools are doing than is actually the case. This makes it tough for parents, voters, or business leaders to hold public officials and educators accountable.

Finally, innovation. If history has taught us anything, it's that nations, organizations, and individuals that adapt and innovate are the most successful. Small learning communities, early enrollment in college-level courses for credit, charter schools, and online learning can help revolutionize and improve our classrooms.

Currently, 30% of D.C. students are in charter schools. Some are better than others. But when charter schools don't deliver results, they are shut down.

Of course, there are many other positive reforms we should implement, such as an extended school day. But these reforms will not succeed without greater involvement from students, parents, and the business community. Students need to be constantly challenged. They need to spend more time in school, take more challenging courses, and do more homework.

Parents need to get more involved in their child's education. Any citizen who doesn't vote in school board elections or show up at PTA meetings has no right to complain.

Conclusion

Helping children achieve their dreams and ensuring America's global competitiveness are vitally important to the business community. We're committed to creating education systems that are accountable, rigorous, innovative, and focused on achievement.

This will require nothing less than restructuring the bureaucratic apparatus of American education.

It will mean ensuring that states are honest about how well their students are performing and about their return on investment.

It will mean raising standards for all students and changing how teachers are hired and paid.

It will mean empowering principals so that they can manage their schools more effectively.

And it will require constant innovation and evaluation, so that we can do more of what works and stop doing what doesn't.

One of our most forward-looking presidents, John F. Kennedy, spoke frequently of education. He said:

"Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource."

He also said, "A child miseducated is a child lost."

We can't afford to lose anymore of America's children. And if the business community has anything to say about it, we won't.

Thank you very much.