Well, isn't this is a wonderful way to begin a morning? I don't quite have Natalie Merchant's ability to sing but I do want to extend my personal thanks, as well as the thanks of President Clinton and Vice President Gore, for the many, many efforts all of you are making to help our nation's children learn how to read. And let me thank Carol Rasco and her staff for their dedication and commitment.

I think all of us here have known the thrill of reading to a child and watching their eyes open in wonder. Children love to read and they love being read to as well. We have all experienced that wonderful feeling of curling up with a child and reading to and with them. There is a level of comfort and serenity that comes with reading to a child that truly makes a child feel connected. I think that is so important.

And, like many of you, I have also had the opportunity to visit many schools to read to children. Here a story is in order. A few years ago, we were launching our summer "Read!Write!Now!" initiative. I went over to a school in Virginia for the event. You can imagine the scene.

I'm in a classroom surrounded TV camera crews, photographers and reporters all waiting to get the shot. I like to think that I'm pretty good at this sort of thing, and I knew that camera crews and photographers were still looking for a good shot. So I decided to really capture the attention of the young boy to whom I was reading.

I sat down with a six-year-old boy to read a book together. The book was all about animals eating ice cream. On the first page, there was a dog eating ice cream. On the second page, there was a cat eating ice cream. On the third page, there was a bear eating ice cream. And so on. I figured things were getting pretty boring for the press, so I decided to make things a little more exciting. When the boy turned to the fourth page and it showed a spider eating ice cream, I raised my voice and said, "A spider?! That's ridiculous! How can a spider eat ice cream??!!"

And the boy looked up me, and with the TV cameras zooming in, he said, "Mr. Riley, this book is fiction!"

As you can imagine, the camera crews and photographers got their shot. So now, when I go out to visit a school, I just keep to the text of what I am suppose to read.

In the last few years, we have all been working so very hard to create the momentum for a new national effort to give all of our children the ability to read. Each and every one of your organizations is a part of this growing movement and we are already seeing the fruit of our many efforts.

This year, for the very first time, our national reading scores have gone up in all three grades tested. Isn't that wonderful? In the last two years, more than 20 states have enacted new laws to support literacy. Over two million children have been tutored by Americorps volunteers. And over 20,000 college work-study students are now serving as reading tutors.

And countless organizations and corporations, including many here today, have become part of this national effort and contributed millions of dollars in services and manpower to improve literacy.

I believe that we really are at a turning point in making a difference in the lives of so many children. We have a set a goal for America -- that every child become a good reader by the end of the third grade if not earlier -- and we are already starting to see movement in the right direction.

This is why I am so very disappointed by the current debate in the Congress on tax cuts. The House of Representatives has just passed a massive tax cut bill that will gut our new investments in education and gut them all across the board. I saw a chart in the Washington Post last Saturday about who are the big winners, and I can tell you education did not make the list.

One of the winners is the business meal credit, better known as the three-martini lunch. Now listen hard to this number: "over a decade, the provision is expected to cost the government $8.4 billion." Just imagine what we could do to wipe out illiteracy if we had $8.4 billion to help children learn to read. Just imagine.

We have children coming to school who are hungry, we have children who have not had their eyes or hearing checked, which is why they are struggling to learn how to read, and the Congress wants to set aside $8.4 billion in the coming decade to reduce the cost of a business lunch.

Under the House tax cut proposal, education is a loser and we lose badly. There is no mention, for example, of school construction in the tax bill, even though President Clinton has been asking for Congressional approval for three consecutive years. America's schools are overcrowded and wearing out. I will be the first to tell you that children do not get the individual attention they need to become good readers in an overcrowded classroom.

Our discretionary programs, including the "Reading Excellence Act," will be badly crippled. We have done some preliminary estimates and the Reading Excellence Act would essentially be cut in half. The same is true of our new after-school initiative as well.

Once again, the Congress is thinking short-term and short-changing our children. This is why I urge you to be civic-minded and pay close attention to the developing debate on this proposed tax cut. This debate is not just about tax cuts but about whether or not this nation is going to continue to make reading a national priority.

Let's be clear, there are going to be winners and losers. Education should be a winner and not a loser. Now is not the time, just when we are starting to see progress when it comes to improving reading, to be short-changing America's children.

Now, let me turn to other things on our agenda.

Today, we are releasing two reports that have some encouraging news. The first report, entitled Start Early, Finish Strong, is a snapshot of where we are and where we need to be going when it comes to reading. The second report, entitled Ideas At Work, is a compendium of best practices and tells people where to go to get help. I hope that all of you will find both of these reports useful.

Start Early, Finish Strong suggests to me that a great deal of work has been done in the last few years to build a new American consensus around reading. We have all been part of this effort at the community, state and national level. And that's important. We aren't going to make a difference unless we are in all in it together, and moving in the same direction.

One of the problems that we have had in the last decade is having so much of our energy wasted in the endless politics of the reading wars over phonics vs. whole language. I believe that the landmark 1998 report by the National Research Council, entitled Preventing Reading Difficulties in Children, should be our road map for the future. We need to tune into what is best for each child and get beyond the tiresome politics of the reading wars.

At the federal level we are continuing to work very hard to build on what has been accomplished in the last five years to improve literacy.

We are doubling our support for writing in our proposed budget because we believe there is a very strong link between good writing and becoming a good reader. We have proposed an additional $26 million for the Reading Excellence Act.

We have a new and significant provision in our reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to help early childhood educators and caregivers learn how to better teachers of reading. We have proposed over $170 million in increases for our Adult Education programs to help many new immigrants learn how to read and write English.

We also have three other major pieces of legislation that make a very direct contribution to our effort to help children learn how to become good readers: The president's school construction and modernization initiative, which will help communities build and modernize 6,000 schools; federal support for reducing class size in the early grades by adding 100,000 teachers; and a very ambitious expansion of our after-school initiative.

I believe that as a nation we are moving in the right direction but we still have a very long way to go. Last September at the 1998 Reading Summit I outlined five challenges that are still paramount today. Let me remind you what they are.

First, parents need to be reading to their children 30 minutes a day. If we accomplished just this goal we would, in my opinion, revolutionize public education.

Second, we have to put the reading wars behind us and develop literacy efforts based on proven research; that is the very essence of the National Research Council report.

Third, we have to continue our efforts -- and that is what this meeting is all about today -- to build new links and collaborations; to do a much better job of linking schools to community and national literacy efforts.

Fourth, we have to place a very strong focus on children with learning disabilities, on African-American children and children with limited English. Eighty percent of children with learning disabilities have reading problems that we can overcome. This is where reducing class size comes in. Teachers will tell you again and again that the most important thing they need to help children become good readers is time.

And I am very concerned that well over 60 percent of all African-American and Hispanic fourth graders are failing to read at grade level. Let's get focused and cut those numbers in half in the next five years. This is a very big challenge but it goes to the heart of our problem.

My fifth challenge is to higher education. Higher education simply must do a much better job preparing future teachers when it comes to teaching reading. I believe every K-3 teacher really should be a reading specialist. Future teachers need to learn how to use multiple strategies to teach reading, they need to work closely with master teachers, and all teachers need to weave reading through out the curriculum.

This September, I will hold a very important conference with over 100 college and university presidents on how to improve our nation's colleges of education. I want to assure you that the teaching of reading will be high on my agenda.

Today, I want to add a sixth challenge and suggest that we have a grand opportunity to build new and stronger links to the child care community.

There are 3 million child care providers currently taking care of 13 million children. This is one of the fastest growing occupations in this country. Yet too many child care centers are hampered by low pay, high turnover, and lack of training when it comes to literacy.

There is great potential here to make a powerful difference in helping these preschoolers develop their language and literacy skills. We should not miss this opportunity. Libraries, local and state agencies, and the many groups here today need to be creating training opportunities for these caregivers. Several states -- North Carolina, Georgia and California -- are already moving this direction and I encourage the many states that are supporting good child care to intensity their efforts.

There are other things that we can and should be doing to make literacy central to good child care. Many corporations are creating child care centers for their employees. Surely they can set an example in terms of pay and training. I encourage schools to work with working parents and stay-at-home Moms to let them know what they can be doing to help their preschoolers. I also believe that many working parents would welcome a school hosting classes on literacy and language development for their nannies and baby-sitters.

This fall I will be going on a bus tour of five southern states as part of our annual back-to-school effort. When my staff gets idle they like to get creative and do things like this to me. But I will get the opportunity to talk about the importance of reading and showcase exciting preschool centers like Bright Beginnings in Charlotte, North Carolina. We need to get the word out that starting early really does make a difference.

My friends, let me end now by suggesting that we have this wonderful window of opportunity to make a difference for our children and we should not miss this chance. The American people are tuned in when it comes to the importance of reading. We have their support. We have a new momentum and energy and I get excited about the many possibilities we have together to make a difference.

Helping children to learn how to read is a gift we should give every child and it is a gift that lasts a lifetime. So now is the time to aim high and reach for our goal of making sure that every child in America is a good reader. I am so very proud of the many contributions all of you are making to this effort to make America a better place for all of our children. You are true patriots. I thank you again for your spirit, your dedication and your determination to give every child in America the ability to wonder, explore and grow by becoming a good reader. Thank you.

-###-

[ Return to Speeches and Testimony page ]