Today, education-and higher education in particular-is more important than ever to solving the most pressing problems of our communities and the country. Access to an affordable, high quality education is crucial to our economic prosperity, national security, and civic health.

Millions of hardworking American families and students continue to struggle to cover rising college costs, even after scholarships, loans and work-study. In response, the Republican congressional leadership and President Bush are proposing to make college more expensive-raising taxes on students and their families by increasing student loan fees, raising college loan interest rates and eliminating the low fixed rate consolidation benefit. As a result, the typical student will be forced to pay approximately $5,000 more for his or her college loans.

Many college students attend school part-time or are otherwise non-traditional students. Often these students, who must balance work with their studies, are returning to school after losing jobs or seeking to upgrade their skills. These students also are disproportionately from minority communities. Over 80 percent of both black and Hispanic undergraduates are part-time or non-traditional students, who leave without degrees at four times the rate of traditional students.

II. Improving Teacher Quality

Nothing is more important to a parent than the quality of their child’s teacher. Equally, nothing is more important to a child’s education than the quality of that teacher. Our nation’s teachers work hard to ensure that all children are provided a high quality education. Yet schools serving millions of school children - especially disadvantaged and minority children - cannot find or retain enough highly skilled teachers.

As school doors are closing for the summer this year, more than 200,000 teachers, nearly 6 percent of the teaching workforce, will not return to teaching next fall. In just a few years, the nation as a whole faces a dramatic loss of experienced teachers due to retirements. This high turnover and departure means our schools must spend more than $2.6 billion annually replacing teachers who have retired or otherwise left the profession. We have no national plan for attracting outstanding students into the teaching profession, and a large proportion of those who do enter teaching remain a short time, discouraged by low salaries, inadequate opportunities for professional development, and low public esteem.

By failing to address this problem we are shortchanging our parents and children by failing to provide talented teachers with the skills and knowledge they need to be effective. We need to act immediately to assure that we have an adequate supply of exemplary teachers for the next generation of students.

Strengthen Our Schools will ensure that all children have teachers with expertise in the subjects they teach through increased salaries for exemplary highly-qualified teachers and principals who transfer into the hardest-to-staff schools. Extra incentives will be provided for those who teach in subjects in which there are shortages. It elevates the teaching profession by promoting the establishment of career advancement ladders that encourage teachers to take on new professional roles such as mentor and master teachers. Additionally, it helps states recruit and train talented new principals. Finally, Strengthen Our Schools will keep the best teachers in our schools by helping new teachers transition into the classroom and build their skills through state-of-the-art induction programs that include proven strategies such as structured mentoring, common lesson-planning, and intensive professional development.

While asking our teachers, our principals and our students to do more, congressional Republicans and the Bush Administration have been providing far less than they promised: $39 billion less than promised for No Child Left Behind alone. Under recent budget requests, No Child Left Behind and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) will never achieve full funding, although they contain many demands on educators and students alike.

America is trying to educate too many of its children in dilapidated, unsafe and outdated school buildings. According to the U.S. Department of Education, more than 75 percent of public schools need to spend an average of $3,800 per student to be brought into good overall condition; one school in five has inadequate safety features, such as fire alarms and sprinklers. Child psychologists warn that the dilapidated condition of school facilities affects student learning. A poor quality facility also plays a role in teachers’ decisions whether to continue teaching in that school. And a poor quality facility can even affect the health of students and teachers. Parents have the right to ensure their children are educated in safe, healthy, technology-ready, modern buildings. Teachers and other school personnel have the right to work in such buildings.

High-quality pre-kindergarten helps children succeed both in school and in life and provides the building blocks for their future. None of our economic or trading competitors wait until children reach age 5 to begin the education process. That’s why our business leaders continue to call on America to fund pre-kindergarten. Young children are eager to learn, and children's brains grow faster before age 5 than in any other point in their lives. In pre-k, children learn new words and new ways to use language. They learn numbers, master ways to solve problems, learn to pay attention to instructors and get along with peers. Pre-k benefits everyone by reducing grade retention and special education, which cost valuable education dollars. Most importantly, parents of young children are demanding high quality pre-k environments for their children.