[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 42, Number 16 (Monday, April 24, 2006)]
[Pages 734-740]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, Alabama

April 19, 2006

    Thank you all. Please be seated. Thanks for having me. Mr. 
President--[laughter]--got a nice ring to it. [Laughter] I respect 
President Ben Payton for his commitment to education and his commitment 
to the United States of America, and I'm proud to be on this campus.
    I was telling President Payton that I knew about Tuskegee before I 
knew about most other universities when I was a kid. When I was growing 
up, believe it or not, in Midland, Texas, which is way out in the 
desert, I knew about Tuskegee. I knew Tuskegee was a center of 
excellence, has been for a long period of time. And I saw firsthand, it 
is still a center of excellence.
    George Washington Carver--you've heard of him; so did I as a young 
guy. [Laughter] Booker T. Washington--when you think Tuskegee, you think 
Booker T. Washington. And when you hear about Booker T. Washington, you 
think about Tuskegee--Ralph Ellison, or the music of Lionel Richie. I 
mean, Tuskegee has been a center for educational excellence and a place 
for opportunity for a long period of time here in the United States of 
America.
    When I was the Governor of Texas--Governors are heads of the 
National Guard, and I had the opportunity and honor to name the person 
that headed our Guard. And I picked a fellow named Danny James--General 
Danny James. It just turns out his father was a man named Chappie James. 
As a matter of fact, Tuskegee--I was in the Chappie James Building a 
little while ago. You named the building after a fine person.
    I appreciate the role that Tuskegee has had in the 20th century to 
break down racial barriers, to provide hope, and to help build a better 
America. What I'm here to talk about is the role Tuskegee will continue 
to play in the 21st century, and it is to prepare our students and our 
kids for the jobs of the 21st century. Tuskegee is a really important 
part of making sure the United States of America provides hope and 
opportunity for all people.
    I want to thank Dr. Shaik Jeelani, who is the director for the 
Center for Advanced Materials. I don't know if you have seen that 
facility before. I'm sure some of you have who work here, but if you 
haven't, I strongly urge you to go there. It's a really interesting 
center of the--where you'll see the future being explored and developed. 
There's a lot of science going on there.
    I appreciate being joined by Governor Bob Riley. Riley is a friend. 
Riley cares deeply about educating every child. I'm going to talk about 
the No Child Left Behind Act as part of the foundation to make sure 
every child gets educated, but in case I forget, Riley is willing to set 
high standards and hold people to account and provide help so no child 
gets left behind. And I want to thank you for your leadership.
    Margaret Spellings is with us. She's the Secretary of Education. 
I've known her for a long time. I know this: She's committed to the 
public school system and the higher education system of the United 
States of America. I look forward to working with her to make sure that 
every child gets a good

[[Page 735]]

education and every child has a chance to succeed.
    I appreciate being here with the Congressman from this district, 
Congressman Mike Rogers. Thank you for coming, Congressman. I appreciate 
your service. Although he's not here, we better say something nice about 
Senator Shelby. [Laughter] The reason why is, is that he is the chairman 
of the Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations Committees. And 
what I'm going to talk about requires appropriations. [Laughter] That's 
why I'm being nice to him. [Laughter] Plus, I like him. He's a fine 
United States Senator--as is Senator Jeff Sessions.
    I appreciate all the State folks who are here and the local 
officials who are here. I want to say something about my friend Johnny 
Ford. I'm proud that the mayor--there he is--city of Tuskegee mayor. 
Thank you, Johnny. Thanks for being here. I know you didn't ask me--my 
advice is, fill the potholes. [Laughter] If anybody can get them filled, 
it's Johnny. [Laughter] He's a good man.
    Listen, I flew into Montgomery; I choppered over to the airfield. 
And what I found interesting was, that is the airfield where the 
Tuskegee Airmen trained. Now, Tuskegee Airmen have led an important part 
of the reputation of this facility. A lot of people know about the 
Tuskegee Airmen, and more people are going to know about it when we 
finish that museum.
    With us today is Lieutenant Colonel Herbert Carter, Tuskegee Airman. 
Where are you, Colonel? Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Did you bring Mildred? 
[Laughter] Oh, there she is. Hi, Mildred. Thank you for coming. And so 
is Major Carrol Woods, member of the Tuskegee Airmen. Thank you for 
coming, Major Woods. Proud you're here. Thank you, sir.
    I appreciate the members of the Tuskegee Board of Trustees. I want 
to thank the university leaders. I particularly want to say something 
about the faculty. I thank you for teaching. Yours is a noble 
profession, and yours is an important profession, and I thank you for 
answering the call. And I want to say something about the students. I 
hope you're proud of this fine institution. And I know you'll bring 
honor to it by not only studying hard but by going out and being people 
of accomplishment after you graduate. And so I thank you for having me. 
It's such an honor to be here.
    So here's the problem we face. The problem is this: Can we compete? 
Are we going to be a nation in which we can compete in a globalized 
world? Tomorrow I'm welcoming President Hu Jintao of China to the South 
Lawn of the White House. Last month, I traveled to India to set the 
stage for new relations with that important country. These countries are 
emerging nations. They are growing rapidly, and they provide competition 
for jobs and natural resources. And it's really an interesting thought, 
when you think about it. The world has really changed, since at least 
when I was growing up, where competition might have been around, but it 
didn't really nearly affect the lives of our citizens as much as it does 
today.
    I'll give you an example of the effects of globalization. When India 
buys more fossil fuels, it causes the price of crude oil to go up, which 
causes our price of gasoline to go up. That's an example of 
globalization. As these new jobs of the 21st century come into being, 
people are going to hire people with the skill sets. And if our folks 
don't have the skill sets, those jobs are going to go somewhere else. 
That's one of the effects of the world in which we live.
    And there are several ways to look at the world in which we live. We 
can say, ``We understand the world the way it is, and we're confident in 
our capacity to shape the future,'' or, ``We don't like the way the 
world is, and we're going to withdraw and retreat.'' Withdrawing and 
retreating is not the right thing to do, in my judgment. America has 
always been able to compete. As a matter of fact, America should not be 
afraid of competition; we ought to welcome it and continue to be the 
leader of the world--the world's economy. We ought to continue to be the 
leader in research and development. We need to continue to be the leader 
in higher education. We shouldn't lose our nerve. We shouldn't see the 
future and fear the future; we ought to welcome the future.
    And here are some things we need to do to make sure we shape the 
future. First is to make sure we're always on the leading edge of 
research and technology. I saw some

[[Page 736]]

amazing things happening today. I was a history major, so maybe they 
were really amazing because I didn't know what I was looking at. 
[Laughter] It seemed amazing. [Laughter] I was at the Center for 
Biomedical Research--I was really at the Center for Advanced Materials 
called T-CAM, a sister organization to the Center for Biomedical 
Research and for the Center for Aerospace Science Engineering. Isn't 
that interesting, that those three centers exist right here in Tuskegee. 
I think it's a hopeful part of making sure we're a competitive nation 
and a confident nation, to be able to say out loud those three centers 
of excellence, the centers of science right here on this campus.
    We spent some time talking about nanotechnology. I don't know if you 
know much about nanotechnology--[laughter]--but I met some students who 
knew a lot about nanotechnology--Ph.D. candidates who knew a lot about 
nanotechnology. By the way, Tuskegee produces Ph.D. candidates. I think 
you produced five last year. You're on your way to five more over the 
next year or so. That's important.
    But also as important is the research that's being done here. It's 
research that will keep the United States on the leading edge, keep the 
United States competitive. And that's important for our fellow citizens 
because so long as we lead, our people are going to have a good standard 
of living. So long as we're the leader, people will be able to find good 
work. If we lose our nerve and retreat, it will make it hard for us to 
be able to provide those jobs people want. The more productive a society 
is--and by the way, research and development leads to higher 
productivity--the higher standard of living we'll have. And that's what 
we want. We want our people to be able to realize their dreams, to be 
able to get good work.
    So here's the first thing that I intend to work with Congress on to 
make sure that we're on the leading edge of change and technology, and 
that is to increase Federal support for vital, basic research. I don't 
know if you realize this, but because of Defense Department spending in 
the past and because of the research that the Defense Department was 
doing to enhance communication, to improve military communications, the 
Internet came to be. In other words, the Defense Department said, ``We 
need to figure out how better to communicate.'' And therefore, they 
spent some research dollars at institutions like Tuskegee. And out of 
that research came the Internet, which has helped change our society in 
many ways.
    Here's another interesting example of where basic research can help 
change quality of life or provide practical applications for people. The 
Government funded research in microdrive storage, electrochemistry, and 
signal compression. They did so for one reason; it turned out that those 
were the key ingredients for the development of the iPod. I tune in to 
the iPod occasionally, you know. [Laughter] Basic research to meet one 
set of objectives can lead to interesting ideas for our society. It 
helps us remain competitive. So the Government should double the 
commitment to the most basic--critical research programs in the physical 
sciences over the next 10 years. I look forward to Congress--to doubling 
that commitment.
    Secondly--and by the way, those centers of excellence I went to are 
funded by--some of them are funded by grants from the Federal Government 
on this type of research money. So, obviously, it helps your institution 
flourish, but more importantly, it helps our country. It helps our 
country in two ways. There's no telling what's going to come out of this 
basic research. As a matter of fact, I saw nanotechnology applied to 
what could conceivably be the next airplane wing. Boeing is funding 
research into nanotechnology here at Tuskegee, which may end up yielding 
a lighter, more firm material which could become the basis for the new 
airplanes that you fly in. It's lightweight stuff, but it's really 
strong. It's right here on this campus that people are making research 
into this--[applause].
    But you notice I said ``Boeing.'' See, the Federal Government has 
got a role to play, in my judgment, in basic research. But the private 
sector spends twice as much money on research and development that the 
Federal Government does. So I think it's important for us to put policy 
in place to continue that kind of research. If you were to ask the 
President and the folks involved with the scientific and the engineering 
departments

[[Page 737]]

here, you'll find that private companies are providing research and 
development money to help meet certain objectives. And one of the things 
we got to do is continue to provide incentive for corporate America to 
make these investments. They spend about $200 billion a year. If we want 
the country to be competitive, if we don't want to fear the future, and 
shape it, then there needs to be incentive for corporate America to 
continue to make these research and development investments.
    We do that, by the way, through what's called the research and 
development tax credit. It's fancy words for saying that if you spend 
the money, there's going to be a--you'll get a credit on your income. It 
makes sense to me. It makes sense to a lot of other countries, too, by 
the way. A lot of countries, in trying to be competitive in this global 
world, are doing the same thing to encourage research and development, 
because they know what we know, that if you come up with new products 
and are constantly on the leading edge of change and innovation, the 
standard of living for the people in the country in which these 
investments are made goes up.
    The problem we have is that the research and development tax credit 
expires every year. Now, if you're somebody trying to plan an investment 
strategy and you're uncertain as to whether or not the research and 
development tax credit is going to be around for the next year, then 
you're less likely to be aggressive in your research and development 
spending. It's logical. It makes sense.
    So I think Congress needs to make sure there's certainty in the Tax 
Code, so as to achieve an important social objective--by the way, and an 
objective which helps Tuskegee--and that is they need to make the 
research and development tax credit a permanent part of the Tax Code.
    Thirdly, and perhaps the most important way that this United States 
of America can remain the leader when it comes to economic development 
and opportunity, is to make sure our education systems work well. And so 
here are some ideas as to how to set in motion a strategy that says, we 
shouldn't fear the future; we ought to welcome it. We ought to be a 
nation that says, we can compete. And the way to compete in the 21st 
century is to make sure that our children have got the skills necessary 
to fill the jobs of the 21st century.
    I said earlier--and this is practical--if we don't get the children 
the skills in math and science and engineering, those jobs are going 
elsewhere. That's just the way it is. And therefore, we've got to deal 
with it head on. We can't hope the world changes. We've got to be 
confident in our capacity to achieve an objective. And it starts with 
making sure younger children know how to read and write and add and 
subtract.
    I want to describe to you, if you don't mind, the theory and the 
strategy and the vision behind the No Child Left Behind Act. And here it 
is: One, I believe every child can learn. Two, I believe it is important 
for people to show us whether or not every child is learning. And three, 
if a child is not learning early, there ought to be extra help to make 
sure he or she does not get left behind. That's the theory behind No 
Child Left Behind Act.
    We spend a fair amount of money at the Federal level, particularly 
on Title I students. It's money directed toward a certain segment of our 
population, as it should be. But I think in return for money spent, we 
ought to--we have said to the States, ``You develop an accountability 
system to let us know whether or not a child can read,'' for example. 
All the talk about science and engineering and math matters nothing if 
the children cannot read. The first step toward making sure our children 
have the skills of the 21st century is to insist upon a solid reading 
program that works. How do you know whether a program works or not--
really depends on whether or not you're willing to measure.
    I was the Governor of Texas; I remember the big debates over the--
how to properly teach reading. If you've ever been on a school board, 
I'm confident you were involved in that debate. And it was quite a 
philosophical argument. The way to cut through all the rhetoric is to 
say, ``Let's measure and--to see.'' I've heard every excuse why not to 
measure, by the way. I don't know if you've heard them, but excuses 
ranging from, ``All you're doing is teaching to test.'' No. My attitude 
is, when you teach a third grader to

[[Page 738]]

read, he or she can pass the test. ``All you do is spend time worrying 
about tests. It makes me nervous, tests.'' Well, what ought to make you 
nervous is a school system that simply shuffles children through without 
understanding whether or not they've got the basics.
    I remember being told that testing is discrimination. I said, no, 
the system that's discriminatory is one that doesn't care and just says, 
``If you're so-and-so age, you belong here.'' I believe a compassionate 
society is one which says, let us find out early, before it's too late, 
and provide extra money for after-school tutoring or help to make sure 
children get up to grade level.
    Now, if you believe certain children can't learn, then it's 
justifiable that you just pass them through. I believe every child can 
learn. And therefore, our school systems must make sure we focus on 
individual children. And so we're beginning to see some improvements, by 
the way, in the public school systems around America. How do we know? 
Because we measure.
    In 2005, America's fourth graders posted the best scores in reading 
and math in the history of the test. That's positive. People are 
beginning to learn. African American fourth graders set records in 
reading and math. How do we know? Because we measure.
    The Federal Government, by the way, didn't design the test. I'm a 
local-control-of-school guy; I don't think the Federal Government ought 
to be telling you how to run your schools. And one way to tell you how 
to run your schools is if the Federal Government designed the test. We 
said to the Governor, ``Design your test, but make sure you measure; 
make sure we know.'' It's in your State's interest that people know 
whether or not the curriculum is working or whether children are 
learning to read and write.
    The Nation's Report Card showed that eighth graders earned the best 
math scores ever recorded. And that's a positive development if you're 
worried about making sure our children have the skills to fill the jobs 
of the 21st century. Eighth grade Hispanic and African American students 
achieved the highest math scores ever. In other words, there's 
improvement. It's positive development. But here's the problem: By the 
time our kids get into high school, we've fallen behind most of the 
developed world in math and science. In other words, we're closing the 
achievement gap, and there's improvement in the public school system 
around America, but what ends up happening is, is that there is a--is, 
we're beginning to fall off. And that's where the challenge exists.
    And so, how do we make sure that our high school students are coming 
out of high school so they can go to a place like Tuskegee with a skill 
set necessary to even go farther, so we remain a competitive nation? 
Here are some ideas.
    First, one of the programs that works well is the Advanced Placement 
program. I don't know if you've heard of the Advanced Placement 
program--I hope you've heard of the Advanced Placement program--it is a 
rigorous course study program. It basically says, it's possible for 
children from all walks of life to meet high standards. I went to an AP 
school in Texas, in inner-city Dallas. It wasn't one of these suburban 
deals; it was inner-city. And there's more children graduating from that 
high school with--passing AP than any other high school in America--at 
least, that's what they told me. Texans sometimes, you know, might--
[laughter]--I believed the principal. [Laughter]
    But, nevertheless, it is important to set high standards, 
particularly in math and science, and to have rigorous academia. And a 
good way to do that is through the Advanced Placement program. 
Therefore, the Federal Government needs to provide money to train 70,000 
high school teachers on how to teach AP. In other words, take a system 
that's worked and see to it that it's spread all across the United 
States of America.
    Secondly, yesterday Margaret and I went to a high school--a middle 
school outside of DC, in Maryland, and we met two NASA scientists that 
were there in the classroom exciting these kids about math and science 
and engineering. There's nothing better than having somebody in the 
classroom who actually knows what they're talking about in terms of the 
practical applications of science and math and engineering, to excite 
somebody.

[[Page 739]]

    I don't know what it's like now, but when I was coming up, it wasn't 
too cool to be a chemist--[laughter]--or a physicist, or science wasn't 
exactly--it just didn't ring. We need to make it ring for our kids in 
high school by having people who know what they're doing. Therefore, 
part of this program to make sure we're competitive is to bring 30,000 
math and science professionals to teach in our classrooms. They're 
called adjunct professors. I think it's a smart way and a practical way 
to excite children to take the courses that are necessary to make sure 
this country is a competitive country.
    I want to repeat to you again; if we don't have the skill sets 
necessary to compete for the jobs of the 21st century, they'll go 
somewhere else. If our kids do have the skill set necessary to compete 
for the jobs of the 21st century, the standard of living of our country 
is going to improve.
    And that's the challenge we face. So I set up--recognizing that we 
need to do better in math and in science, I set up what's called a 
national math panel. It's a way to analyze--we got experts coming 
together, and they're going to analyze the best teaching methodology for 
math, the best curriculum for math. We did the same thing for reading, 
by the way. We set up a group of experts on reading. And they helped 
States and local districts understand what works, how best to make sure 
every child can read. And it's working. I just told you; it's working 
because we're measuring.
    We need to do the same thing for math. We need to make sure that our 
teachers, our school boards, our principals, our superintendents, our 
Governors understand what works. You cannot set an objective and achieve 
that objective unless you have the tactics necessary to do that. And so 
we're going to call the experts together. They'll be presenting a report 
to Margaret and myself by January 31st of 2007. It will be a really 
important study, because, again, it will give--it will help States and 
local school districts have the methodology, the teaching methods 
necessary to help achieve an important objective.
    And then we're going to implement what's called a Math Now program 
that will get those recommendations into the teacher's hands. But 
there's also another interesting aspect of Math Now, which I think is 
vital, and that is, when we measure and find a child slipping behind in 
math in the eighth or ninth grade, that child gets extra help. We do 
that in the third and fourth grades when it comes to reading; we need to 
apply that same standard of help for a child as they head into the high 
school.
    If you want to deal with the problem of the United States of America 
falling behind in math and science, you focus on the problem, and you 
focus on it with what works and money and extra help. And that's exactly 
what we intend to do to make sure that we begin to lay that foundation 
for a competitive tomorrow.
    I also understand that the Federal Government has a role in helping 
people go to college, see. It's one thing to make sure the students have 
got the skill set, but if there's not the financial means to get to a 
university, then that skill set could conceivably be wasted. And we 
don't want to waste it. We want to make sure we've got a strategy that 
works in the early grades and in the high school, and then make it more 
likely a child can afford coming to a place like Tuskegee.
    Of course, we have helped the Historically Black Colleges and 
Universities. I want to thank the good doctor for serving on the panel. 
I pledged a 30-percent increase of Federal help to Historically Black 
Colleges, and we met that commitment. I also said that it's really--the 
Pell grant system is a very important program. And since 2001, there 
have been 1 million additional students on the Pell grant program. So 
there are now 5 million students across the United States of America on 
Pell grants, which is an important part of making sure our students get 
to go to a higher education.
    I want to talk about a new program that I hope will interest you. It 
caught the good president's fancy when I described it to him, and it's 
this. I've always believed that it's--if you have an objective, like 
encouraging people to take rigorous courses, particularly in math and 
science, which lays the foundation for our engineers and our chemists 
and our physicists of the future, then there ought to be incentives to 
do that. And Congress this year listened and passed a bill which I

[[Page 740]]

signed into law, which Margaret is now going to implement, and it's 
this: There are two new grants associated with Pell grants. This will be 
a $4.5-billion program over the next 5 years, and here's the way it 
works.
    One is called the Academic Competitiveness grant, which will provide 
additional money to first- and second-year students, college students, 
who have completed a rigorous high school curriculum and have maintained 
a 3.0 GPA in college. There will be up to 750 for first-year students 
and up to $1,300 for second-year students. The idea is to encourage 
rigorous courses and to provide incentive. I'm not talking about 
impossible; I'm talking about raising the standard--saying to somebody, 
``Here's your chance. Apply yourself in the fields that we know are 
necessary to be able to compete in the 21st century, and we'll help you 
more.''
    And then third, we've got what's called SMART grants. Now, these 
grants are for college students, third and fourth-year college students, 
who have maintained a 3.0 GPA and who major in math, science, or 
critical foreign languages. What we're trying to do is to make sure that 
people have got that skill set, and it makes sense to provide incentives 
for people. And by the way, these grants will be up to an additional 
$4,000 per person.
    So the Federal Government needs to play a vital role. One, a vital 
role is to set the goals and strategies, to make it clear to the 
American people we've got a choice to make: Do we compete or do we 
retreat; do we become isolationists and protectionists as a nation, or 
do we remain a confident nation and lead the world?
    The Federal Government has got a role in making sure that there's 
research dollars available for places like Tuskegee. The Federal 
Government has got a role to provide incentive for private corporations 
to continue to invest in research and development.
    I want to remind you that the research being done today in this 
university will end up somewhere in our society 10, 20, or 30 years from 
now. That's what's happening. And at the same time, that research is 
helping a young man or woman realize his or her dream, making sure that 
person gets the skill sets necessary to become the leaders.
    We should never cede any educational territory to anybody anywhere 
in the world. We need to be the centers of excellence all around the 
United States. And one way to do that is to continue to provide 
financial help and to encourage people to take math and science through 
additional financial help. And another way to do it is to make sure the 
public school system provides excellent education early in a child's 
life, laying that foundation for children from all walks of life, all 
across our country, so that we can continue to be the country of hope.
    I am very confident about the future of this country. There's 
nothing we can't do if we don't put our mind to it. And this is a step 
in putting our mind to making sure the United States of America is the 
finest country on the face of the Earth. I'm honored to be at one of the 
finest institutions in the United States of America to talk about this 
initiative. Thanks for letting me come. God bless.

Note: The President spoke at 12:20 p.m. in the Kellogg Conference 
Center. In his remarks, he referred to Benjamin Franklin Payton, 
president, Tuskegee University; and Gov. Bob Riley of Alabama.