Thank you, JueFei. It’s a pleasure to be here working with UVM’s Asian Studies Outreach Program. Our work today is to continue to build community around the shared vision of the importance of an international education.

Travel has been a part of my career as pilot in the military, and with the airlines and now as Lt Governor. My daughter is also currently in Argentina and traveling to Uruguay and Chile as part of a youth mission.

It has been my pleasure to serve with many of you on the Governor’s Council on International Education. The report entitled “International Education Benefits Vermont’s Children” that we issued in October 2004 sets the stage for today’s summit of Vermont policy makers.

The report will serve as a flight plan for our work.

For a pilot, it is always important to know who your wingman is. Let’s recognize our wingmen who are here today. Could you please rise, and remain standing, as I call on your area of service: school board members – principals – superintendents -- business leaders and state legislators – students -- and anyone who is interested in making a better world.

Thank you for your service.

This morning I would like to share with you three thoughts:

First, I would like to share with you why I think an international education is important.

Second, I’d like to highlight some of the work that is currently being done in Vermont.

And third, I’d like to share some of my thoughts on what we can do to improve our efforts.

Here’s why I think an international education is important.

Three reasons come to mind.

First is this: understanding our world is a means to achieve and to earn a living. Today’s kindergarteners will inherit a world far different from the one we all know. This summer I read Thomas Friedman’s book “The World is Flat”. Friedman explains the effects of globalization, and describes the impact of a shrinking world on global trade.

He writes about the great opportunities available to a workforce with proficiency in second languages and knowledge of world cultures and markets. Vermont Business Magazine recently published an article that documents the importance of exports to Vermont’s economy. 45,000 manufacturing jobs in our state are dependent on exports. Of every two jobs in Vermont’s manufacturing sector, one of them is dependent on exports. Do you think that the peoples of the world will become more interdependent -- or less interdependent -- in the future?

A gentleman named Rabbi Max Wall gave me another reason to believe in the importance of an international education. He is a special Vermonter. He challenged me to learn a foreign language and to travel to strange and new parts of the world and to be a peacemaker. Rabbi Wall challenged me, and he challenged us all to work to create a better world.

And third, an international education is a means to achieve a better world. Please let me explain. Accepting Rabbi Wall’s challenge, I have led Vermont delegations to China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Canada and Cuba.

I always ask three questions before I decide to undertake a trade mission:
1. Will the effort enhance social justice and promote human rights?
2. Will the effort be in congruence with our environmental ethic?
3. Will the undertaking make sense from a business perspective?

In Cuba, I met political dissident Vladimir Roca and asked him what he learned in prison. The 61 year-old former Cuban MIG-23 fighter pilot and government economist-turned pro-democracy advocate had recently spent 5 years in prison for criticizing his government -- 4 years, 2 months of that in solitary confinement.

The most professionally satisfying feedback I have ever received as Lt. Governor was when Vladimir Roca looked me in the eye and said that my meeting with him was – quote -- a magnificent statement of solidarity -- unquote.

* * * * *

I would like to highlight for you some of the outstanding programs and people in our state who are dedicated to building a better world by their work in international education.

The Academy School in Brattleboro, one of our amazing public schools, has a “Global Schoolhouse” program which serves as a model of international education. When those elementary school children go on to high school and college, and as they begin to explore the world through international travel, their lives and their work will be deeply enriched by what they learned in the Global Schoolhouse.

Vermont is blessed with many international exchange programs from “Maria’s Children” in Brattleboro to “Project Harmony” in Duxbury and the “Vermont Intercultural Semesters” in Orange County.

Vermont is so fortunate to have teachers like Lisa Brooks, an art teacher at Whitingham High School who incorporates her world travels into the classroom experience. She and her fellow teachers developed a powerful website documenting their 3-week trip to China.

Vermont is also fortunate to have teachers like Bill Rich and Brad Blanchette, who team-teach social studies at Colchester Middle School. They have developed courses with an international emphasis.

And we’re fortunate to have school principals like Steven John, who with social studies teacher Tom Conner at Leland and Grey have built the Journey East program that links traditional academic skills with international studies.

* * * * *

As I share with you the great work of these teachers and schools it leads me to an idea on how to improve international education in our state.

We need to connect not only people-to-people exchange programs, but all the international education classroom programs so that others in our state can use them as models and develop programs in their own communities.

We need a clearinghouse, if only through a website to start, so that schools, parents, teachers, government leaders and businesses can access existing resources in the state and nationally, to learn about our existing programs and to find new ways to enrich our work in international education.

Vermont has a lot of programs, but no clearinghouse for information-sharing on international education, which includes foreign language learning. Learning a foreign language is the gateway to understanding culture. Currently about half of Vermont students receive some foreign language in high school, but we need to do better.

We must start in the elementary grades. Research shows that younger children are more open and more accepting of new languages and exploring new cultures. We need a clear policy for K-16 International Education, partnering with our outstanding post-secondary institutions, to make this a reality.

Another idea that I have shared with Senator Don Collins, who will also address you today, is making high school international education available to a broader population of young Vermonters by allowing a student to use his or her state education block grant for study abroad. Or perhaps there’s some other means to create an option that is currently not an option for many young Vermonters.

Vermont is not an island. My travels in Asia, Canada, Europe and Cuba have shown that we are all inter-connected, and growing more so daily.

Whether it’s in business, agriculture, tourism, science, health, the environment, or any of a number of other ventures, Vermont school children need to learn about the world we are expecting them to lead. Vermont has no overarching state policy that states that our children need to have a global awareness.

It is no longer enough to be competent in math, reading, writing and science. These are all critical skills, but what is needed now is the ability to use those skills in different cultures, in different languages. International education is not about adding more to the school day, it is about enriching what is already going on in our schools with more flavor and richness.

Our wonderful people-to-people exchange programs need support and encouragement. They will all be made richer by providing earlier language learning and embedding international education into our K-12 school curriculums.

I applaud the work of the State Board of Education as they embark on answering the question, not if to implement, but how to implement a K-12 world language expectation. The importance of this issue is underscored by the State Board’s ranking of this issue as one of their 6 focus strategies for 2005-2006.

We need to send a clear message from this summit, that Vermont school children must be given the skills and experiences they need to succeed in world.

I stand committed to sending that message to businesses, to schools and to our children, and to helping assure that our schools are given the tools and the clear policy direction to turn this vision into reality.

* * * * *

I’d like to close with a story from my first visit to Cuba.

We were at a formal banquet, hosted by the Cubans.

I was seated between Ricardo Alarcon and Francisco Soberon -- the President of Cuba’s National Assembly, and the President of the Central Bank of Cuba respectively. At one point, Ricardo sat back and said to me, “So Brian, why have you come to my country?” He and Francisco both leaned forward as I answered.

In February of 1996, Cuban air force fighters shot down two US civilian aircraft flown by "Brothers to the Rescue," the Cuban Americans who conduct search and rescue missions for Cuban refugees adrift at sea between Florida and Cuba. I was an F-16 pilot with the Vermont Air National Guard at that time.

I said to Francisco and Ricardo, “Minutes after your air force shot those planes down in 1996, I received orders to get into my F-16, loaded with live missiles, on scramble, and ready at a moment’s notice to take off from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia. I sat in that jet for most of that long night.”

I leaned forward. “I was never given orders to launch that night,” I told Francisco and Ricardo. “But I vowed then and there that if I ever did have a chance to go to Cuba, I would. Now, eight years later, I’m the Lieutenant Governor of my state, and I am glad to be here.”

Francisco the banker looked at me closely, and smiled. Then he spoke. “In October 1962, I was a young Cuban anti-aircraft gunner during the missile crisis with your country. Every night, I would pray for a chance to shoot down an American fighter pilot just like you.” We both smiled.

At that moment, a chorus of Cuban children was singing on the stage. They sounded like angels. I turned to Francisco and raised my glass. “I propose a toast, Francisco,” I said, “that we both work together to make a better world, and a better life for the children of Cuba and the children of my country.”

Let us all dedicate our service to making a better future for our children, and children everywhere.

Thank you.