A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

SECRETARY RILEY: Thank you so much, Senator. And thank you all. I thank you all for serving, and I thank you for your leadership. And I see two governor friends here, Governor Hunt and Governor Geringer.

Governor Hunt, we've been suffering with you. I know my wife and I were talking this morning, we don't think of water causing the kind of damage that that's causing, really, but it is very significant. And I have followed that, and I have been thinking about you and the people in North Carolina. It passed South Carolina by. I won't say I'm pleased at that, but I have been suffering for you. And, Governor, it's good to see you again.

I see Congressman Holt here, I was looking for you this morning when I was testifying, hunting for a friend up there, and you were over here.

But I thank all of you for being here, and this is a very important commission. I'm going to share something personal with you, my granddaughter Riley-Smith, who is in the fourth grade, saw this thing in Time Magazine, the children's version of it, and had all about Senator Glenn and his flight, and she was asked to do a study of that, or a report of it, and I'm going to read you just a little of it. I thought this was a super article. "I wonder what it's like in space. Why does he like going to space so much? I wouldn't, especially to blast off in a rocket. Once I’m on the moon, it would be a fascinating experience. I think it was smart for him to be healthy so he could go to space. Most 75-year-old men can hardly walk."

I'll say John Glenn, at my request, signed this "You did a great job on this report, Riley, keep up the good work," and she got an A-. And that has some distant relation to math and science. He got to space and got to the moon.

This commission is really about to embark on an important and challenging mission and you have embarked on it, because I know you've been working hard today. And I look forward to your recommendations and to your action plan, what is it in terms of action that we need to do, we must do. The work is undertaking is especially important because we know today, more clearly than ever, that this is truly a vital link between quality teaching in math and science and higher student achievement. This link is very clear.

Even as Americans are beginning to appreciate the importance of higher student achievement in math and science, and there's a real attention to that now, we still need a sea change in public thinking about how these subjects are taught.

I am so pleased with my staff, with Dr. Linda Rosen, who is the executive director of this commission, and is a very talented person. Linda, and I'm so glad that you're working on this important work. And I'm confident that this commission will help seal the link between higher student achievement in math and science and quality teaching.

Without the knowledge and the guidance, the strong hand, the enthusiasm, the nurturing qualities of a well-prepared and committed teacher your schools will continue to fall short and fail to provide our students with the kind of quality education that they clearly are going to need in this area of math and science.

Now, let me mention to you a statistic that I find very instructive. And, that is that almost two-thirds, 61 percent, of all teachers have some responsibility for teaching math and science during their school day. I think we need to stop and think about that a little bit. We're not talking about just someone teaching science, we're talking about teachers being knowledgeable in this field of math and science, 61 percent of all teachers have some responsibility for teaching math and science during the day.

Now, what this statistic confirms is that the work and recommendations of the commission will have a significant impact on a majority of the teachers and provide much needed guidance to educators, and to administrators, and all those who are working to strengthen teaching in these areas.

Now, a number of important recent studies reaffirm that how we go about addressing and improving the preparation and the qualification of teachers directly correlates with improved student achievement.

One extensive study of the relationship between teacher quality and student achievement was conducted by the esteemed educator Linda Darling-Hammond, whom you will hear from later today. She's here. How are you, Linda? This study, which -- aren't you pleased I said something nice about you, and I didn't even know you were here. This study which examined the effects of teaching policies and student characteristics on student achievement on the 1990 through ‘96 NAEP mathematics scores, is summarized in your briefing book. And because it is so significant, I think it is important to mention it here.

Dr. Darling-Hammond’s results confirm what to me seem almost commonsense notions about teaching and learning. For instance, she found that the most powerful and consistent predictor of student achievement in math and science is the percentage of teachers who have full certification and a major in the field in which they are teaching. So, we get back to those two issues, certification and teaching in field.

Conversely, the strongest consistently negative predictor of student achievement are the proportions of new teachers who are uncertified and who hold less than a minor in their teaching field.

This is an especially relevant finding for the commission to ponder since 28 percent of high school math teachers and 18 percent of science teachers do not have a major or a minor in the subject in which they teach. I think that's very significant.

That is why we need not only to recruit talented individuals to the teaching profession, but also provide them with a rigorous education to become teachers, and then give them appropriate compensation and meaningful support and professional development opportunities.

And that's why our college and university teacher education systems can no longer be university backwaters. Some have been allowed to become that over the years. That's an issue this country is going to have to deal with. They must focus on math and science, have the support of the entire university, and enjoy much stronger links with the colleges of arts and sciences.

Unfortunately, it's in the fields of math and science that a lack of expertise, teachers teaching without a major or full certification, are the greatest. It's in those areas.

In our elementary and middle schools, for example, many prospective science and math teachers take only one or two undergraduate math or science courses. What is more, many middle schools hire teachers with only elementary certification, who lack the content background needed to take on math and science and teach them well.

And the situation is no better in high school. If you have this many teachers who are unprepared to teach these subjects, the impact on the achievement of students in those schools can only lead to disappointing results. So, it's a bad situation in middle school, and high school, and elementary school.

Now to remind you of a very important point as you go about fulfilling your mandate, and that's the urgency of your work. As the result of record enrollments of students as well as significant teacher retirements over the next ten years, we are facing a shortage of 2.2 million teachers. This is 2.2 million teachers who are qualified, who must be qualified, who much be certified, who must be teaching in field, who must know how to teach to high standards, know how to teach with technology, know how to teach with diverse student bodies. This is a real challenge for this country. And I don't know of any greater challenge we have.

John, I talk about it in terms of patriotism. If we want this country to be great in this next millennium, or the next century, certainly, we've got to deal with this issue. Of this number, more than a quarter of a million, 250,000 plus, are middle and high school math and science teachers. That's what we're going to need.

If that figure isn’t compelling enough, consider that the shortage is exacerbated by the fact that many of our current math and science teachers are under-qualified and leave the teaching profession at alarmingly high rates. And you are all aware of that, I know.

This points to a very important issue, one which I know the commission will be addressing, and that is the relationship between teacher recruitment and teacher retention. When I was at James Logan High School in Union City, California, a couple of weeks ago, I was there with Delaine Easton, the state superintendent, and I was so proud to see -- this was a big school, a big high school -- they had the best system of bringing in new teachers in this inductive period, and BTSA [Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment], I think, is the name of the program in California, the governor is very supportive, I think he put in some $70 million this year -- to hear these new teachers talking to us, and these were a lot of them were in these areas of math and science, about how much the teachers worked with them in the evenings, and sat with them in their classes, and helped them plan for their programs, and how meaningful it was -- and some of these were people who had come mid-career, and had come back into teaching and needed some special help in teaching skills. And I was so impressed to hear then this program being used for a couple of years now, I think Gary Hart, who is now secretary of education, really started it when he was in the legislature, the assembly, and the number of teachers who are leaving the profession is very, very small in those first four or five years.

There are ways to do that, and they involve relationships and personal attention to young teachers coming into the classroom. So, I would urge you to take a look at what California is doing in that regard. Certainly I was impressed at James Logan High School.

And, on the one hand, we need to do everything possible to widen the pool of qualified applicants. In my book, becoming a teacher is certainly as patriotic, as I said, as anything we can be about. We need to encourage all those who have thought about becoming teachers and work to raise standards for those teachers who are hired. Nothing bothers me more than for a young person to tell me that they were inspired by their teacher, they really thought about being a teacher, and their parents talked them out of it. That's a terrible thing for a parent to do, in my judgment, to say, you know, it doesn't pay enough. It's hard work. Parents ought to be talking to their children about the excitement, the possibility of becoming a teacher, and not downgrading the profession. So, I think we have an awful lot of work to do.

And as Dr. Darling-Hammond explores in her study, states can have a number of influences on the qualifications of the teachers who are hired, from policies affecting hiring standards of local districts, to accreditation of teacher education institutions, to the creation of professional standards boards that establish and enforce teaching standards. And everywhere I go, I promote national board certified teachers. Jim, and you, Linda, I want you to know I'm your leading spokesperson out there.

I am pleased, by the way, I was in Greenville, my hometown, on my school bus. I don't know if any of you all know that I took a school bus through five southern states. Governor Hunt was with me in North Carolina, and in Tennessee and Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. The governor was there with all of them. It was bipartisan. And, in Greenville, my hometown, they said they're going to give me a gift, a big crowd of people, we were on the school bus and all, and we know you hate to carry plaques around, or whatever, so we're going to give you $20,000. And I said, my goodness, we have a $20 limit. How will I explain that? And they said, we're going to provide the funds for ten teachers to become national board certified teachers, $2,000 a teacher, and that's your gift. And I don't know anything that meant any more to me in my trips. So, I am very supportive of those elevation of teachers, and I think that is a great way that we can in this country elevate them.

I am pleased that there are a lot of creative recruiting programs that are out there. On this same trip, by the way, I went to Fort Mill, South Carolina, and it happened to be the home of one of the leading budget members up here. That didn't have anything to do with how I picked Fort Mill, but he was there. And, we all went to a great school there, and in there I was introduced in a teachers cadet program, which I started when I was governor, many years ago. And this was a classroom of students, all in this teacher cadet program at this high school, in kind of a rural almost part of South Carolina.

And I asked, how many of you are planning to be teachers, and I guess a fifth of them raised their hands. The others, they were considering it, but they hadn't decided yet, and they were going through this course and meeting teachers, and going into classrooms, and whatever. And it's a wonderful program. And then they said, Mr. Secretary, and the Principal, I want you to see these two women who are behind me. And there were two young women who are first- year calculus teachers in this very high quality public high school. And they said, they were teacher cadet people, and they came through this program and went to Clemson University and majored in mathematics, and came out and now they are first-year calculus teachers back in their old high school. And I was as proud as I could be to see that.

Programs like the teacher cadet program, every state doing it their own way, really can make a difference in terms of recruiting and interesting young people in education. But as we build strong programs to recruit math and science teachers, we also must work to develop solutions to retaining quality teachers in the profession, and part of that, of course, is rewarding them appropriately. Moreover, good professional development opportunities need to be increased.

The impact on math and science teachers is particularly significant. Dr. Richard Ingersoll’s paper written for this commission, suggests math and science teachers may be more dissatisfied with teaching than teachers in other subjects. His numbers showed 40 percent of math and science teachers cited dissatisfaction as the reason they were leaving the profession, and only 29 percent of other teachers who were leaving the profession. So, math and science teachers more frequently listed dissatisfaction as the reason.

I think we need to work to develop solutions to the specific and often unique problems encountered by math and science teachers. I am confident that this commission will recommend real solutions to these challenges. And I'm anxious to work with you on those.

Let me conclude my remarks today by addressing what I think is an important distinction for you as you proceed in your work, and this is the difference between teacher quality and teaching quality. It's a very important difference, and I think you might have had some discussions on that earlier.

Both of these issues are crucial to raising student achievement. But now, we know more about what goes into making good teachers than we do about what is good teaching. And I believe, however, that there is great promise in this area, and that is why I hope this commission will focus on the issue of how to develop teaching quality.

The videotapes of actual teaching taken in conjunction with the TIMSS tests have provided very important data on this. And I know that continued study of these materials and of research, including new video studies done by Dr. Stigler that I think you heard from and saw this morning, all will give us expanded insights into this somewhat elusive area.

Now, some may believe, as Justice Potter Stewart once said, really he was talking about another subject, he was talking about pornography, I think, that we only know good teaching when we see it. And that statement has gotten some notoriety over the years. But I do not think so. I believe we can go further in identifying this mysterious quality. And I am confident that through your work we can gain greater insights into what good teaching and learning looks like and how we can make it better.

So, I'm extremely pleased by what I see and have heard about your meeting thus far, and who all is here and willing to serve. I'm especially pleased that more Americans today are beginning to understand that from the very earliest years of learning through high school, math and science classes are truly gateways to higher knowledge and future success.

But this is just the beginning. The real work which this commission is at the core of is in focusing on and articulating the steps that are needed to strengthen the classroom practice of math and science teachers. I am confident that you'll succeed in this mission, and I eagerly anticipate your recommendations.

And I thank you very much, and I'd be happy to hear from some of you. I have to go participate in a press conference in a few minutes. It's been a wild day, and I can sympathize with Governor Geringer, I flew in here from Seattle late last night, as I said, and I know he probably has to fly back. But I would welcome now hearing from any of you that have anything you want to share with me. And if you have any questions, I'd be happy to respond. But, again, it's great to be here and to be working with you.

Do any of you all have any comments or questions? And I really welcome comments, too. Mr. Congressman?

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, you alluded in your talk to making sure that education schools are not in the backwaters of universities. And I wanted to commend you. I noticed last week that you called together college and university presidents. And, in fact, I joined and talked with some of them. And I thought that was a marvelous thing that you were doing to engage them in this effort to bring full respectability and vibrancy to the schools of education.

SECRETARY RILEY: Well, and I thank you. And your being there raised the credibility of the meeting. This year we've had lots of meetings with the presidents of the colleges of education, which are very critical to all of this, and I find all of them, certainly in the schools that are doing lots of that work, to be very interested, very supportive. For example, the Cal State system, big system that educates so many teachers out there, they're really trying to do things differently and better.

What we wanted to do, though, and I bring these presidents of teaching colleges in a lot to meet with teachers and have sessions with teachers, but this was different. As Rush says, this was the chancellors or the presidents of the entire university. And this was purposely done to make sure that this group realized that we were counting on them to elevate the place of the college of education. The president of the university needs to get involved in that process, and boards of trustees of the universities. And I urge then all presidents all over this country, that have major university responsibilities, like Ohio State, really get into this, as I know you are, and I know others are, too.

But they came together for two days, it was in the middle of Hurricane Floyd, and we got them up here and they couldn't leave. They were stuck. So, we had grand meetings. And I mean, active participation, and they left there with all kinds of statements about having further meetings, and talking with their school superintendents out in the district to work with them, and make sure that the teachers they send out of their school are doing a good job. I was very pleased with that, and I appreciate it, Rush.

Any other comments or questions? Yes?

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, one of the things I appreciated in your remarks is that we’ve been struggling a little bit today to get clear about what we should place our focus on, and one of the things that you said near the end of your remarks was that, in fact, we know much more about what makes a good teacher than we know about this thing we refer to mysterious or elusive quality that makes perfect teaching and I think that you are urging us to focus there, while acknowledging that those other areas matter but reminding us that we know more about that than we know about this, may help us because that’s been a place where we’ve gone back and forth today, trying to get our bearings on this relatively quickly and what I hear you saying is that’s the place where we need to place our emphasis in the Commission.

SECRETARY RILEY: Well, and thank you. And I do think that, and I think that's a very interesting difference. You know, not many years, of course we didn't have video not too many years ago, but it was very unusual, unthought of, to video teachers and really see teaching take place, and analyze it. You know, just like a football coach does to the last game, and they analyze, what did right, why didn't we do well here, and why poorly there? And to have those kind of things available for teachers now I just think is absolutely wonderful. And I do think that's a very important part of what I want this commission to work with. And I've got the people here that can do it, and I thank you for that.

Anything further? Anybody have any suggestions for my press conference that you want me to say? Something?

I had my testimony this morning, Rush, without you there. It went very well. They were fairly nice. We got into the question of vouchers, and some of us differed on that. But other than that, we got along fine.

QUESTION: I noticed that the Governor of Florida assiduously avoids using the V-word. But, by any other name.

SECRETARY RILEY: [If] it quacks like a duck [it must be a duck].

QUESTION: At your press conference, I hope you will talk about what a shame it is that in our appropriations process in Congress, we let education go to the last, to pick up the scraps of the appropriations process.

SECRETARY RILEY: And that's what's hit us today. The subcommittee that handles education, labor and health, really was moved to the back of the bus. And, my name was pulled out of there in substance to solve problems with VA, and a number of other things. And so, we've come to the end of the road, and we are short of money. And so they had a markup this morning, I haven't seen the details of it, that has something to do with my press conference, that cut education 1 percent. And here it is, this education era, the American people in three or four different polls have come out in the last two weeks and education is up in the 80s, and you ask people how they want federal dollars spent, it’s up 79 percent, 80 percent.

And then it was interesting to me, one of the polls, the ABC/Washington Post poll had 15 items, and it had the American people say which was the most important issue for the presidential candidates to address. That's a good way to put it when you start thinking. Education was by far number one. Tax cut, think about this, you know, a tax cut helps you personally, you know, and you can be greedy and say, tax cut is number one. Tax cut was 14^th out of 15. Education, and a lot of those, most of those, are people who don't have children. And they want to spend money, their money, their tax money, on education. And then to come in and have the subcommittee, based on its allocation, cut education. It out of sync, and that is a source of concern. So the president vetoed the tax cut bill this morning, and I'm proud that he did. It will amount to cutting as much as 50 percent out of education over the next ten years. I mean, dramatic cuts. And here we are in the middle of a surplus. It's a time when we ought to be taking that surplus and looking to the investment of our young people in the future.

So, anyhow, I appreciate that, and I'm very disturbed about what's happened today. But I do believe we're going to turn it around, and I'll assure you that if it comes to the President with an education cut, he'll veto it very quickly, just as he did the tax cut. And maybe at the end of this season, we can get something done that's meaningful.

But thank you all again very much, and I look forward to working with you.

John, as always, and this is your current mission, so I am looking forward to you for it to be successful.

(Applause and end of tape.)

This page last modified November 24, 1999 (sab)