I am going to make three simple points.
Teacher quality is the most important variable in producing student achievement gain.
Universities and colleges are responsible for teacher quality. Because there will be a large turnover in the teacher workforce in the coming decade, we have a grand opportunity to help the nation improve its schools. But, before I get started, I want you to know that the main reason we can speak optimistically and substantively about teachers and the nation's schools today is because Richard Riley, who you have just heard, put us on this path almost a generation ago. The political courage and leadership he showed when he served as governor of South Carolina, from 1979 to 1987, encouraged other governors to take up the challenge of reforming teaching and learning in America. One of the facts the education governors of the 1980's helped people understand was that we could not talk intelligently about improving the nation's schools if we did not have some reliable and comparative measure of student learning.