Reform in K-12 STEM Education
Opening Statement By Chairman Bart Gordon
Good morning. I’d like to welcome my fellow Committee Members and our distinguished panel of witnesses for what I know will be a valuable discussion on reform in K-12 science, technology, engineering, and math (or STEM) education.
Our Committee has repeatedly heard that we need more STEM educated graduates and teachers if we want to continue to be leaders in the global economy and maintain a high standard of living for all Americans.
As many of you know, in 2007 Congress passed and the President signed into law the Committee’s landmark legislation, the America COMPETES Act. The COMPETES Act sought to ensure not only that our Nation will produce the world’s leading scientists and engineers but also that all students will have a strong grounding in math and science. Through the COMPETES Act, we expanded and strengthened key teacher training programs, including the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship program at the National Science Foundation. As I’m sure many of you know, we used the Math for America model in establishing a new component of the Noyce program in COMPETES. We’re fortunate to have Math for America’s Founder, Jim Simons, with us here today.
COMPETES focused on improving teacher training, but there is still more work to do. This year our Committee is reauthorizing the America COMPETES Act. This reauthorization will give us the opportunity to strengthen existing programs and focus on ways to make more efficient and effective use of the limited resources we have to support real reform in STEM education. STEM education in this country is a problem that no one entity can solve alone. There is a role for all the key stakeholders, including federal, state, local school districts, higher education, and industry. But we must coordinate our efforts and leverage all our resources.
The witnesses today represent a range of key stakeholder groups in STEM education who have all been actively involved in efforts to improve K-12 STEM education, both locally and nationally. I look forward to hearing from them about how universities, private companies, non-profits, and other public and private stakeholders can work in partnership to bring about systemic reform in STEM education.
I want to thank all of the witnesses for your ongoing work and dedication to improving the quality of STEM education in this country, and for taking the time to appear before the Committee this morning. I look forward to your testimony.
Witnesses
Panel
3 - Dr. Gordon Gee
President Ohio State University Ohio State University
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1 - Dr. Jim Simons
Founder and Chairman Math for America Math for America
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4 - Dr. Jeffrey Wadsworth
President and CEO Battelle Memorial Institute Battelle Memorial Institute
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5 - Dr. Vartan Gregorian
President Carnegie Corporation of New York Carnegie Corporation of New York
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2 - Ms. Ellen Futter
President American Museum of Natural History American Museum of Natural History
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