Editor’s note: Last week, former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice presided over her first national policy summit as chairwoman of the Foundation for Excellence in Education. Her opening keynote address served as a statement of purpose for the school choice and education reform movement.
Like in her speech at the foundation’s previous gathering, she drew on her family background and her experience growing up in the South. The full video is not yet available online, but a short clip is embedded below and more can be found here. Below is an excerpt from her remarks, edited for length.
This is a great movement, and great movements are built on a core premise. They’re built on a sense that something’s not right, and that it has to be made right.
What we really should be doing, is to not accept the world as it is, but to work for the world as it should be.
The world as it is, is a world in which I can look at your ZIP code and I can tell whether you’re going to get a good education.
The world as it should be is one in which every child’s life is worthy and fulfilled.
Education is the key to so many of the ills that we face.
I know that poverty and broken families and social immobility and joblessness are critical issues, but education has always been our best intervention, our best lever to make sure that those evils do not produce another great evil: Two societies, one capable, and one not.
This is an article of faith, and it has been in my family for many years … They understood the transformative power of education … Education gives you horizons … you would never otherwise have. But we know that if it doesn’t start now for each and every child, it will never happen. We won’t accept that.
