Madame Secretary, welcome to the Harriet Tubman Learning Center. Mr. Chairman, it's indeed a pleasure. And Chancellor Klein visited us about four years ago. It's indeed a pleasure to have you again. There are some new faces. Elaine Goldberg, who is the CEO of our Learning Support Organization, welcome to the Harriet Tubman Learning Center. Gale Reeves, the Community Superintendent of District Five is with us. And our PTA President, Mr. James Dinglle and our Treasurer, Ms. Michelle Odom. Welcome to everyone.

Madame Secretary.

SECRETARY RICE: Well, thank you very much. Thank you for this wonderful gathering and to the wonderful kids who greeted me when I first arrived. You may ask, well, why am I here, why did I want to come to the Harriett Tubman School, the Learning Center here?

Well, for a couple of reasons. First of all, because my friend, Congressman Rangel, told me I had to come and see this great center and he's going to go and see a similar place that we started out in East Palo Alto, California because we've been talking a lot about the importance of education to the United States, the importance of education to our continued leadership, to our continued competitiveness, the importance of education to making us a country that is confident and not fearful about our future, but that has a real sense of hope and promise for each and every child.

And I've been saying, and I really do believe it, that there's a kind of bargain in America. It's a bargain between each individual citizen and this country and that is a bargain that if you work hard and if you take the opportunities before you, then you can succeed. And it really shouldn't matter where you came from; it should matter where you're going. And a learning center like this makes it possible for these children to have limitless horizons, makes it possible for these children to know that if they work hard and if they excel, then they're going to be able to go on to that next level and to have an excellent future.

I want to be here to talk to the kids, to talk to the wonderful teachers, but also I'm so glad to have representatives for the Parents and Teachers Association, because parents are obviously an awfully big part of that bargain too, so thank you for all that you're doing. It's just wonderful to be here. I'm an educator myself and I suspect that when I go back to college teaching, I'll see some of your kids along the way. Thank you.

CONGRESSMAN RANGEL: Good morning. I complain so much about what we're not doing in our school system that I thought our Secretary of State joining with our Chancellor Klein could see what we are doing from a very positive way.

The truth is that since I've become Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over trade, it's become abundantly clear to me that we're having a deficit in development of skills and the training that's going to be necessary for us to be competitive in the future, that our trading partners not only subsidize their workforces with healthcare and education and training, but it's reached a point that the private sector asks the Congress on a regular basis to expand our visas so that we can import the intellectual resources that we should be manufacturing in this country ourselves: the math, the sciences, and those things that's necessary to make us competitive.

And so when I was invited to speak with the Secretary, I had no idea whether she was going to talk about the trade agreements, whether Doha, whether the crisis in the Middle East and my terrible voting record. (Laughter.) But instead, she told me about how badly she felt that so many minorities were not successful in a community near where she was Provost at Stanford University and that she, in fact, did start a school that is in existence today, which I soon will visit.

But more important than anything as dramatic as I would try to make it is that when she said that she thought that poverty and lack of education was a threat to our great nation's security, then it really meant that the private sector and all the patriots that we have in this great country of ours would be more focused on what she said, developing the expertise she has in international affairs with the deep-seeded emotional feelings that she has that every kid should have an opportunity in this great country.

And so Madame Secretary, what you have said to me in the past, but demonstrated as she spoke this morning in front of the New York City Partnership, which is a coalition of our most successful business and corporate members, that I think that would open a new door, Chancellor Klein, far beyond that of just the academic need that we have in getting our kids graduating. But also to form a marriage between the federal government and the public sector with the private sector; that when we say no kid is going to be left behind, we're talking about our love for this country and the need to provide for its security.

And so Secretary Rice, this is a historic moment for the country and I just hope that those of you that are involved in education know that we sure picked up one great partner with Condoleezza Rice. I might also share with you as an aside that since I've become Chairman, I refer to her now as Condi. (Laughter.)

CHANCELLOR KLEIN: Thank you. I'm just thrilled to have Secretary Rice and Chairman Rangel here today to shine a spotlight on this school and on the work that we're doing in New York City. You know, in the last couple of weeks, we won the Board prize as the most improved and the most successful urban school district in the United States. And in spite of that and maybe because of that, it emboldens us to do exactly the kind of work that the Secretary and the Congressman are talking about.

We have got to take public education to an entirely different level. It's not just an economic and national security issue. It's an issue about what kind of country we want to be. The racial and ethnic achievement gaps in America are the greatest shame of this great nation and in New York City, we're taking that seriously, we are changing that, and the kind of partnership that the Secretary and the Congressman are talking about is precisely the kind of partnership that we need to continue to take this effort to our next level.

Charlie, you've been a friend of education and a friend of mine since the day I took this job and I just want to say how much I admire your leadership in this city, in this community, and your passion about kids who have been underserved, kids who have not gotten the opportunities they need, and your commitment to see that change. Thank you.

CONGRESSMAN RANGEL: Thank you, Chancellor.

PRINCIPAL JARRETT: Thank you. Secretary Rice, Congressman Rangel, I would like to invite you upstairs to two of our classrooms so that you can see the wonderful and exciting work our children (inaudible).

CONGRESSMAN RANGEL: Thank you. Thank you.

2007/830