 Tonight, we honor Special Olympics for their impact on our world today, and for the positive and potential global influence they will have on the world of tomorrow. As part of this award, Security Benefit Corporation is giving a $5,000 contribution to Special Olympics. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my great pleasure to present the award for outstanding service to public education to Special Olympics. Joining this award on behalf is the Chairman of Special Olympics, Timothy Shriver. Thank you. I was given the chance to say just a few comments tonight, although I think it's almost unfair not to have heard from those extraordinary teachers earlier on, but I'm grateful for just a second to say to each of you what a great honor it is for me to be here. I started my career in education. I don't know if there's anybody here from Connecticut, but Hill House High School, and all right, okay. So I did my practice teaching in New Haven at Lee High School, which is not there anymore, and have an enormous affection and enormous appreciation for the work being done by each and every person in this room. I think we live in a time hungry for heroes. I was thinking watching the teachers tonight as they came up. I was remembering President Obama recognizing Gary Rensburg at the State of the Union. I don't know how many of you saw it, but it was such an extraordinary moment where the president looked to one person to embody the spirit of sacrifice, the spirit of dedication, a spirit of giving to something bigger than yourself without regard to self. And although it may seem a stretch, I think so many of you in this room embody that same spirit, and I think I was looking at him and thinking to myself, teacher's the same message, same message, same message. I'm here, I think there's a few slides, but I'm here again just very briefly. I want you to know I'm here on behalf of over four million human beings with intellectual disabilities. This past year, our movement included that many athletes around the world participating in over 70,000 community-based activities in India and China and Afghanistan and Rwanda and South Africa and Peru and Mexico and in every state in the United States, Canada, most of Europe and all of Asia. All of these people have one thing in common. And increasingly bringing their message to schools with a singular point of view, not just about pity, not just about sports, although sports is so powerful, but also about inclusion, also about unity, also about teaching one another the goodness of the human spirit, the power each of us has to do something good, the power each of us has to end the idea that anybody is dis anything. To be honest, I think we need a new era. I think we need a new era led by so many kids. If you look at some of the pictures, which I hope you'll see just now, I think we need a new era. All across the country, our efforts now are focused on schools, bringing unified sports to schools, bringing the idea of inclusive education on the playing field to schools across the country. And many of you are old enough to remember when Title IX was passed, you know, everybody looks back now and thinks, how could we possibly have ever had a time when an American high school would not have had girl sports? Well, it wasn't so long ago. It wasn't so long ago. And now we have it and it's considered normal. Why not a time? Why not a time in the future where the new Title IX would be a new title, challenging American education, American schools, American park rec departments, to ensure that there's also inclusive sport in every school, maybe a title unified in the future. Maybe we think of special education becoming unified education and a whole new world of possibility is born. So I want to thank you all. I want to thank Dennis. I want to thank Harriet. I want to thank Mike. I want to thank all the donors tonight. The first thing and most important thing that I learned as a teacher was the power of what we came to call social and emotional learning. We coined that phrase in New Haven and I still think it's the most important element missing often from these school reform debates. Nobody's better at teaching the lessons of social and emotional learning than the children with special needs in your schools. Let's empower them and welcome them in a new way. Thank you very much.