Secretary Spellings laughs with students at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia.
October 10, 2007
The United States strongly supports UNESCO's goal of ensuring every child has access to a quality education by 2015. We have also made a similar commitment in our own country: to provide every child with grade-level or better skills in reading and math by 2014.
These goals are historic and revolutionary. To achieve them, we must confront long-held assumptions about the ability of underprivileged children to perform as well as their peers. We must challenge longstanding habits in our education systems—including the ways in which we allocate resources like time, funding, and personnel. And we must hold ourselves accountable for supporting programs that have been proven to produce results.