[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
REFORM IN K-12 STEM EDUCATION
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 4, 2010
__________
Serial No. 111-82
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science and Technology
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.science.house.gov
______
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COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. BART GORDON, Tennessee, Chairman
JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois RALPH M. HALL, Texas
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER JR.,
LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California Wisconsin
DAVID WU, Oregon LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
BRIAN BAIRD, Washington DANA ROHRABACHER, California
BRAD MILLER, North Carolina ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma
DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois
MARCIA L. FUDGE, Ohio W. TODD AKIN, Missouri
BEN R. LUJAN, New Mexico RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas
PAUL D. TONKO, New York BOB INGLIS, South Carolina
JOHN GARAMENDI, California MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas
STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
JIM MATHESON, Utah BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee ADRIAN SMITH, Nebraska
BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri PETE OLSON, Texas
BARON P. HILL, Indiana
HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona
CHARLES A. WILSON, Ohio
KATHLEEN DAHLKEMPER, Pennsylvania
ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
SUZANNE M. KOSMAS, Florida
GARY C. PETERS, Michigan
VACANCY
C O N T E N T S
March 4, 2010
Page
Witness List..................................................... 2
Hearing Charter.................................................. 3
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Bart Gordon, Chairman, Committee on
Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives.......... 7
Written Statement............................................ 7
Statement by Representative Ralph M. Hall, Minority Ranking
Member, Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 8
Written Statement............................................ 9
Witnesses:
Dr. Jim Simons, Founder and Chairman, Math for America, Chair of
the Board, Renaissance Technologies LLC
Oral Statement............................................... 11
Written Statement............................................ 15
Biography.................................................... 18
Ms. Ellen Futter, President, American Museum of Natural History
Oral Statement............................................... 18
Written Statement............................................ 20
Biography.................................................... 26
Dr. Gordon Gee, President, Ohio State University
Oral Statement............................................... 27
Written Statement............................................ 29
Biography.................................................... 33
Dr. Jeffrey Wadsworth, President and CEO, Battelle Memorial
Institute
Oral Statement............................................... 34
Written Statement............................................ 36
Biography.................................................... 40
Discussion....................................................... 40
Appendix: Additional Material for the Record
Statement by Vartan Gregorian, President, Carnegie Corporation of
New York....................................................... 54
REFORM IN K-12 STEM EDUCATION
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THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2010
House of Representatives,
Committee on Science and Technology,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in Room
2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Bart Gordon
[Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
hearing charter
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Reform in K-12 STEM Education
thursday, march 4, 2010
10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
2318 rayburn house office building
1. Purpose
On Thursday, March 4, 2010, the House Committee on Science and
Technology will hold a hearing to receive testimony on innovative
efforts to reform K-12 science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics (STEM) education, and the critical importance of K-12 STEM
education to our nation's prosperity and economic competitiveness. In
particular, in preparation for reauthorization of the America COMPETES
Act, we will be examining the role of the Federal agencies in
supporting improvements in K-12 STEM education and promoting STEM
literacy.
2. Witnesses
Dr. Jim Simons, Founder and Chairman, Math for
America
Ms. Ellen Futter, President, American Museum of
Natural History
Dr. Gordon Gee, President, Ohio State University
Dr. Jeffrey Wadsworth, President and CEO, Battelle
3. Overarching Questions
What are the major barriers to increasing student
interest and performance in STEM? What are some model programs
and approaches that have had the most success in improving
interest and performance in the STEM fields in elementary,
middle, and high school? What are the common characteristics of
effective programs? What data are available to support the
effectiveness of such programs? How can programs with evidence
of success serve as models of best practices and be brought to
scale?
How can the Federal Government, including the science
agencies, best support and catalyze innovative reform efforts
in K-12 STEM education? How can the agencies help to improve
STEM literacy among the general population?
What role can public-private partnerships play in
strengthening K-12 STEM education? How can foundations, private
companies, universities, informal STEM educators, the Federal
Government, and other stakeholders work with States and local
education agencies to improve K-12 STEM education in the
classroom? What kinds of partnerships are most effective at
leveraging resources, both financial and intellectual?
4. Background
A consensus now exists that improving STEM education throughout the
Nation is a necessary, if not sufficient, condition for preserving our
capacity for innovation and discovery and for ensuring U.S. economic
strength and competitiveness in the international marketplace of the
21st century. The National Academies Rising Above the Gathering Storm
report emphasized the need to improve STEM education and made its top
priority increasing the number of highly qualified STEM teachers. The
2007 America COMPETES Act implemented this recommendation by expanding
and strengthening two key National Science Foundation (NSF) teacher
training programs.
Two more recent STEM education reports that have generated a lot of
attention have emphasized, as part of their priority recommendations,
the need for greater coordination between the many public and private
stakeholders in the nation's K-12 STEM education system. The reports
are: A National Action Plan for Addressing the Critical Needs of the
U.S. STEM Education System, from the National Science Board,\1\ and The
Opportunity Equation, from the Carnegie Corporation's Institute for
Advanced Study.\2\ The stakeholders cited in these reports include the
Federal and State governments, colleges and universities, businesses, a
variety of nonprofit organizations, philanthropic organizations, and of
course, school districts themselves.
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\1\ http://www.nsf.gov/nsb/documents/2007/
stem-action.pdf
\2\ http://www.opportunityequation.org/
K-12 STEM Education across the Federal agencies
President Obama's FY 2011 budget request invests $3.7 billion in
STEM education programs across the Federal Government, including $1
billion to improve STEM education among K-12 students, an increase of
over 40 percent. Of that $1 billion, nearly half would be at the
Department of Education: $300 million for the proposed Effective
Teaching and Learning in STEM program, and $150 million through the
Investing in Innovation (i3) program. The rest of the funding is spread
across the Federal science agencies.
All of the Federal science agencies fund a variety of programs and
activities designed to improve K-12 STEM education. K-12 STEM education
at NASA, the Department of Energy, NOAA, and the other mission agencies
vary widely by type of program and target audience, with activities
ranging from curriculum development and professional development
opportunities for teachers, to age-appropriate field trips, online
resources, research opportunities, and internships for elementary and
secondary school students.
In a 2007 inventory of Federal STEM education programs, the
Academic Competitiveness Council (ACC) identified 105 programs and
approximately $3.12 billion in Fiscal Year 2006 appropriated funds
across the Federal agencies for STEM education at all levels, including
24 programs designed for K-12 students funded at approximately $574
million. However, the ACC set parameters on its inventory, limiting the
programs for inclusion to those ``primarily intended to provide support
for, or to strengthen, science, technology, engineering, or mathematics
education.'' As a result, the ACC inventory excluded many educational
activities supported by the Federal R&D mission agencies that are
managed through larger research programs and offices, including major
research facilities, and that do not show up as separate line items in
the budget. In a Committee on Science and Technology analysis of K-12
STEM education programs across the agencies within the Committee
jurisdiction, staff has found evidence of tens of millions of dollars
worth of programs that were not identified in the ACC report. For
example, Committee staff have identified more than 50 programs designed
to improve K-12 STEM education at NASA alone, with funding ranging from
a few thousand dollars to more than $35 million in FY 2008.
K-12 STEM Education at NSF
Historically, NSF's mission has included supporting and
strengthening science and math education programs at all levels. In the
area of K-12, NSF carries out its mission by funding a variety of
science and math education activities, including teacher training (both
in-service and pre-service), curriculum development, education
research, and informal education at museums and science centers. The
majority of K-12 STEM education activities at the Foundation are
supported by the Education and Human Resources Directorate (EHR).
Within EHR in the Division of Undergraduate Education, examples of
NSF programs designed to improve K-12 teacher performance include the
Math and Science Partnership (MSP) program and the Robert Noyce
Scholarship (Noyce) program, both strengthened and expanded in 2007 as
part of The America COMPETES Act.
Within EHR's Division on Research on Learning in Formal and
Informal Settings, programs targeted to K-12 education include the
Discovery Research K-12 program, which funds everything from basic
research on learning and teaching to the development and implementation
of tools, resources, curricula, models and technologies based on the
research findings; the Informal Science Education program, which funds
projects that advance informal STEM education; and the Research and
Evaluation on Education in Science and Engineering program, which seeks
to improve the methodology of education research and evaluation of
education tools and models to ensure high-quality research results and
effective program development.
In the President's FY 2011 Budget Request, the Education and Human
Resources Directorate would be funded at $892 million, an increase of
only $19.2 million or 2.2 percent over FY 2010 funding. In the FY 2011
budget, the Noyce program would be funded at $55 million, the same
level since FY 2009, and MSP would be funded at $58.2 million, the same
level as in FY 2010 and a small decrease from FY 2009 funding.
Race to the Top
The U.S. Department of Education's $4 billion dollar Race to the
Top competitive-grant program included a competitive preference for
States with a demonstrated emphasis in STEM. The competitive
preference, worth 3 percent of a State's total application score, has
prompted many States to make STEM education a priority in their reform
efforts. Additionally, the Race to the Top application guidelines
encourage systemic reform, pressing States to implement interconnected
reforms that include partnerships between the many STEM education
stakeholders groups, including those represented in the witness panel
here today. President Obama's FY 2011 budget request includes $1.35
billion to continue the Race to the Top program.
Educate to Innovate
President Obama also launched the ``Educate to Innovate'' campaign
to improve the participation and performance of America's students in
STEM. As part of the campaign, the President announced a series of
public-private partnerships involving private companies, nonprofits,
universities and other key stakeholder groups, focused on inspiring and
educating K-12 students in STEM.
5. Questions for Witnesses
Witnesses today represent a university, a large company, a non-
profit informal science provider, and a non-profit organization that
invests in teacher training. All of these witnesses and their
organizations are deeply committed to improving K-12 STEM education and
will discuss how each of their organizations can uniquely contribute to
this effort.
Jim Simons
1. Please describe the mission and programs of Math for
America. What are the most important and effective components
of the Math for America model? How have you evaluated the
effectiveness of Math for America's programming? Are there any
lessons learned from the Math for America experience regarding
scaling and replication of proven-effective programs? In your
experience, what unique role can non-profit organizations and
the private sector play in supporting the teaching and learning
of K-12 STEM, both locally and nationally?
2. What partnerships have you built in support of your
programming--in terms of both financial support and
intellectual resources? What have been the key factors to the
success of such partnerships? How best can non-profit
organizations partner with other public and private sector
stakeholders, including local schools, businesses, colleges and
universities, to take on systemic reform of K-12 STEM education
in a community or region?
3. What has been your experience with K-12 STEM education
programs supported by the National Science Foundation or the
other Federal agencies? What specific steps would you recommend
the Federal Government take to improve the state of K-12 STEM
education in the country?
Gordon Gee
1. Please describe Ohio State University's K-12 science,
technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education
programs and initiatives, in particular programs for K-12
students and pre-service and in-service teachers, as well as
education research with a STEM focus. In your experience, what
unique role can institutions of higher education, such as your
own, play in supporting the teaching and learning of K-12 STEM
both locally and nationally?
2. What partnerships has your university built, with both
local schools and the private sector, to address STEM
education? What have been the key factors to the success of
such partnerships? How best can universities and colleges work
with public and private sector stakeholders, including state
and local governments, K-12 schools, business, and non-profits,
to take on systemic reform of K-12 STEM education in a
community or region?
3. What involvement has Ohio State had with K-12 STEM
education programs at the National Science Foundation and other
Federal agencies? What specific steps would you recommend the
Federal Government take to improve the state of K-12 STEM
education in the country?
Ellen Futter
1. Please describe briefly the American Museum of Natural
History's science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)
education programs and initiatives. In your experience, what
unique role can museums and other informal education
institutions play in educating students and the public about
STEM? What role can museums play in supporting the teaching and
learning of K-12 STEM both locally and nationally?
2. What partnerships has your museum built, with both local
schools and other stakeholders, to address K-12 STEM education?
How has your museum adapted its programming to meet the needs
of schools and States? What have been the key factors to the
success of such partnerships? How can museums best work with
public and private sector stakeholders, including local
schools, businesses, colleges, universities, and non-profits,
to take on systemic reform of K-12 STEM education in a
community or region?
3. What has been your experience with K-12 STEM education
programs supported by the National Science Foundation or the
other Federal agencies? What specific steps would you recommend
the Federal Government take to improve the state of K-12 STEM
education in the country?
Jeffrey Wadsworth
1. Please describe briefly Battelle's science, technology,
engineering, and math (STEM) education programs and
initiatives. In your experience, what unique role can
businesses and corporations play in supporting the improvement
of teaching and learning of K-12 STEM both locally and
nationally?
2. What partnerships has Battelle been involved in, with both
elementary and secondary schools and other stakeholders, to
address K-12 STEM education? What have been the key factors to
the success of such partnerships? How can business interested
in promoting and improving STEM education best work with public
and other private sector stakeholders, including local schools,
businesses, colleges, universities, and non-profits, to take on
systemic reform of K-12 STEM education in a community or
region?
3. What has been your experience with K-12 STEM education
programs supported by the National Science Foundation, the
Department of Energy, or the other Federal agencies? What
specific steps would you recommend the Federal Government take
to improve the state of K-12 STEM education in the country?
Chairman Gordon. This hearing will come to order.
Good morning. I would like to welcome my fellow Committee
Members and our distinguished panel of witnesses as well as all
our guests here for what I know will be a valuable discussion
on reform of 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 the key teacher training
programs, including the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship
program at the National Science Foundation. As I am sure you
all know, we used the Math for America model in establishing a
new component of the Noyce program in COMPETES. We are
fortunate to have Math for America's Founder, Dr. 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, and we must coordinate our
efforts to leverage our resources.
The witnesses today represent a wide range of stakeholders
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, nonprofits and other public
and private stakeholders can work in partnership to bring about
systematic 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 hearing your
testimony. And I think it is interesting that we have two
expatriate Tennesseans here, the first Noyce scholar, who not
only took that education into the academic area but also in the
private sector, and I suspect has paid a lot of taxes that has
reimbursed that Noyce scholarship since, and also the president
of my nine-year-old daughter's favorite type of museum. So we
have an excellent panel.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Gordon follows:]
Prepared Statement of 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.
Chairman Gordon. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Hall for an
opening statement.
Mr. Hall. Mr. Chairman, thank you, and I see those
Tennesseans. You know what I always tell you, I am graping up
to you when I do that, how much Tennesseans meant to Texas, and
I told the Chairman one time there wouldn't be a Texas if it
hadn't been for Tennessee, and he said there wouldn't have been
one anyway if the Alamo had had a back door to it. I never get
ahead of the Chairman.
Well, I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this hearing, and of
course it is good for us to hear from such a distinguished
group, particularly as we move forward on reauthorizing the
Act. We have a difficult task in front of us with this
forthcoming legislation. On the one hand, we know that making
the appropriate investments in research, development,
technology and math and science education including, of course,
educating, motivating and inspiring our children about STEM,
science, technology, engineering and math, subjects at a very
early age are essential to our future economic prosperity. This
country has long been the leader in innovation. I have no doubt
that we are going to continue to be so. At the same time, we
are faced with the stark reality that we have to strike a
delicate balance between adequately funding our Nation's
priorities while at the same time exhibiting fiscal restraint
to reduce our ever-increasing deficit.
In the last COMPETES Act, we made great strides to improve
K-12 STEM education in this country. As such, I believe we need
to give these programs time to succeed before creating new
ones. I am pleased to see that the President is trying to get
the Department of Education to focus more on STEM programs but
I am concerned that the National Science Foundation's unique
and critical role in K-12 has been somewhat diminished in the
fiscal year 2011 budget request. It is not so much the case
that we need to reform K-12 STEM education by continuing to
seek new and innovative ways to capture our students'
attention, as this Nation is full of good, solid examples of
teachers, schools and communities that are getting it right. I
refer to the Martha and Josh Morris Mathematics and Engineering
Elementary School in Texarkana, Texas. It is just one of these
schools. I know, Mr. Chairman, that I mention it often but you
have been to that school with me and you know how innovative
and successful it is, a true collaboration between the school
district, the local university, industry, and the willingness
of the community to embrace it.
Rather, we need to be able to figure out a way to share
these successful programs, the tools they use and the various
entities that came together to create them so that they can be
replicated across the country without being heavy-handed on the
Federal end. I know one size does not fit all but there are
many good programs out there already in existence. I bet we are
getting ready to hear about a few more, so with that, I would
like to thank our witnesses for being here today and I look
forward to your testimony.
Before I yield back the balance of my time, I would like to
yield to somebody that is not here. I yield back to you, Mr.
Chairman. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hall follows:]
Prepared Statement of Representative Ralph M. Hall
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling this hearing today. It is good
for us to be able to hear from such a distinguished group on what role
each of their organizations play in improving K-12 STEM education,
particularly as we move forward on reauthorizing the America COMPETES
Act.
We have a difficult task in front of us with this forthcoming
legislation. On the one hand, we know that making the appropriate
investments in research, development, technology, and math and science
education--including educating, motivating, and inspiring our children
about STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) subjects at an
early age--are essential to our future economic prosperity. This
country has long been the leader in innovation, and I have no doubt
that we will continue to be so. At the same time, we are faced with the
blunt reality that we must strike a delicate balance between adequately
funding our nation's priorities while at the same time exhibiting
fiscal restraint to reduce our ever increasing deficit.
In the last COMPETES bill, we made great strides to improve K-12
STEM education in this country. As such, I believe we need to give
those programs time to succeed before creating new ones. I am pleased
to see that the President is trying to get the Department of Education
to focus more on STEM programs, but I am concerned that the National
Science Foundation's unique and critical role in K-12 has been somewhat
diminished in the FY11 budget request. It is not so much the case that
we need to ``reform'' K-12 STEM education by continuing to seek new and
innovative ways to capture our students' attention as this Nation is
full of good, solid examples of teachers, schools, and communities that
are getting it right. (The Martha and Josh Morriss Mathematics and
Engineering Elementary School in Texarkana, TX, is just one of those
schools. I know, Mr. Chairman, that I mention it often, but you have
been to that school with me and know just how innovative and successful
it is--a true collaboration between the school district, the local
university, industry and the willingness of the community to embrace
it.) Rather, we need to be able to figure out a better way to share
these successful programs, the tools they use, and the various entities
that came together to create them so that they can be replicated across
the country, without being heavy-handed on the Federal end. I know one
size does not fit all, but there are many, good programs out there
already in existence.
I bet we are getting ready to hear about a few more, so with that,
I would like to thank our witnesses for being here today, and I look
forward to your testimony. I yield back the balance of my time.
Chairman Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Hall.
At this time I would like to introduce our witnesses.
First, Dr. Jim Simons is the Founder and Chairman of Math for
America and the Chairman of the Board of Renaissance
Technology. Dr. Simons really is a good example of the
evolution here of STEM education in that he started off, as I
said, as the first Noyce scholar, then was successful in the
academic area, then successful in the private sector, and now
in a philanthropic way he is trying to give back through Math
for America. So it really shows the evolution and how this is a
good investment. Dr. Ellen Futter is the President of the
American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and I
would recommend to everyone that if you may go to New York for
a play, for this or that, but if you are there, you should go
to the Museum of Natural History. It is a great resource, and
it is more than just a place to look, in that you have a lot of
good programs there.
Now I would like to yield to my distinguished colleague
from Ohio, Mr. Wilson, to make an introduction.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Today, ladies and gentlemen, I have the great privilege of
introducing to the Committee Dr. Gordon Gee, a good friend of
mine and the President of the Ohio State University. In
addition to a previous tenure as the President of Ohio State,
Dr. Gee has also served as the President of Vanderbilt, Brown,
the University of Colorado and West Virginia University. I was
proud to have two sons graduate from OSU during his first tour
of duty there and hope to see a few of my grandchildren
graduate during this tour of duty for you. For a guy who
doesn't like to stay in the same place a long time, we are so
glad that you are back at OSU. Welcome back, and thank you for
being there.
Dr. Gee, I want to also thank you for your commitment to
improving STEM education in the State of Ohio. Your innovative
approaches have set an example for other universities and are
why you have been asked to come here today and to speak to our
Committee. And while I know testifying before this committee
can't be half the fun that we had the last time when you and I
journeyed to California for the Rose Bowl and saw the very
successful Ohio State University perform, we are looking
forward to hearing from you today and thank you so much for
being here.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Wilson.
I yield now to my distinguished colleague, Ms. Fudge, to
introduce our fourth and final witness.
Ms. Fudge. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, before I do that, since I am a proud alumnus
of the Ohio State University, I too would like to welcome my
president, President Gee.
It is my pleasure indeed today and I am very excited to
introduce Dr. Jeffrey Wadsworth, CEO of Battelle Memorial
Institute. Battelle has been the leader in Ohio STEM
initiatives, and I have witnessed the results of these efforts
firsthand when I attended the opening of the revolutionary MC
Squared STEM High School in my district, Cleveland, Ohio.
Battelle also manages the Ohio STEM Learning Network [OSLN],
which is an unprecedented collaborative aimed at building and
connecting STEM teaching and learning capacity in regions
across the State of Ohio. Cleveland serves as one of OSLN's
five regional hubs, and I am truly astounded at the strength of
the partnerships that are present in my district. I just want
to say personally, having lived in Columbus for some time when
I was a student at Ohio State, for a long time I never knew
what Battelle was but I knew that it was important because it
had the biggest buildings, the most beautiful campus, and
people talked about Battelle all the time. So I want you to
know, it is a pleasure for me to finally work with Battelle
because I have been so impressed by what you have done for so
very many years.
Dr. Wadsworth, thank you for your leadership in these
efforts and I look forward to your testimony. Welcome.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Gordon. Thank you, Ms. Fudge. I have just
unfortunately been informed that it looks like we are going to
have votes maybe a little bit before 11, so I want to try to
move us forward and we can all get our questions in. Most
importantly, we want to hear from the witnesses. So without any
further discussion, Dr. Simons, please begin with your
testimony.
STATEMENTS OF DR. JIM SIMONS, FOUNDER AND CHAIRMAN, MATH FOR
AMERICA, CHAIR OF THE BOARD, RENAISSANCE TECHNOLOGIES LLC
Dr. Simons. OK. Well, thanks again, and I am over the mic,
and Ranking Member Hall. You have heard who I am so I don't
need to tell you again. I certainly appreciate the work that
your Committee is doing and in particular we focus on the
America COMPETES Act and the Noyce program, which we were
fortunate enough to have us give some help to its shape, and we
will get back to that soon.
I have submitted some written testimony but I will try to
make my remarks even briefer since these votes are----
Chairman Gordon. We would rather hear from you than us, so
you go right ahead.
Dr. Simons. Well, that is OK. Well, you know, it is clear
that these economic wars are heating up between us and our
competitors. We have a lot of advantages. You know, we have
some important assets. We have big companies. We have a lot of
money and we have great research universities. But what we
lack, and what could do us in, is a lack of technically trained
young people, because too few of our high school graduates go
on to study math and science and engineering, just too few. And
why is this? Well, I am going to argue here, but it is due to a
lack of knowledgeable and inspiring high school teachers. So it
comes down a little thing, relatively speaking: teachers who
know their subject, and particularly in high school. And we
just don't have enough of them. So I think the most cost-
effective investment our government can make in the future of
America is to ensure that secondary school teachers of math and
science are knowledgeable in their fields, and simply due to
the law of supply and demand, that is not the case today.
As a result, the quality of STEM education in our upper
grades is far below that of our most formidable competitors.
And if this situation is not soon remedied, our Nation will be
fatally hobbled, and I really mean that, as it strives to excel
in a technology-based economy of this next century.
So what do we do today? How do we manage? Well, a
combination of two things: we import people, and a lot of them,
through various visa programs who can fill these gaps, and we
export jobs to companies abroad by farming out the work that we
do. There are just not enough trained Americans to fill these
slots. Now, importing people is not a long-term solution. India
and China, who supply a lot of these folks, are doing just
dandy themselves and there will be more and more excellent
opportunities for those people to stay at home, and you can
already see that. And as far as exporting the jobs, exporting
work, well, we will just end up having fewer and fewer high-
margin companies in the United States. That is not a
satisfactory outcome.
So what does it mean to be a technically trained person?
Well, you have to get a bachelor's degree in math or science or
engineering. But who chooses to major in those subjects? Well,
someone who is prepared and inspired, that is who chooses it.
Those subjects are hard, and there are a lot of less-strenuous
things you can do in college besides become an engineer or a
physicist or a biologist. Those are hard things. So why do
people do it? They do it because they come out of high school
enthused with a good background and excited about going into
those fields. But if they are not so trained and excited in
high school, they are just not going to make those majors.
Now, I want to look at you all on the Committee, and for
that matter, whoever else is listening. So if you as an adult--
I am assuming I am talking to adults--were to take a course,
whether it was Italian, psychology or cooking, at the top of
your list of expectations would be a teacher who knew the
subject. No matter whatever marvelous qualities that instructor
might have, if he or she didn't know the subject, you would
feel cheated. Now, I have to tell you that in math and science,
millions of American high school kids are cheated this way
every day, and regrettably, due to their parents typically
being unfamiliar with these subjects, most students and their
parents never know the difference. You would know if your
cooking teacher didn't know how to cook but you wouldn't
necessarily know that your teacher who is supposed to be
teaching you quadratic equations doesn't quite understand what
factorization is all about or whatever.
Now, the most recent studies, and I am focusing on math
here because that is what we pay attention to, it is pretty
fundamental but it goes for science as well, these reports show
that by 4th grade we do pretty well compared to other
countries. We are better than average. By 8th grade, the end of
8th grade, we are about average. But by 12th grade, we are
right at the bottom. We have gone right to the bottom. What
happened? What happens between 9th and 12th grade that makes
these students who were doing excellently or well in 4th grade,
decently in 8th grade, why do they all of a sudden do terribly
when they get to 12th grade?
Now, it is not a case of the underprivileged kids or
whatever bringing the average down. In fact, our top 10 percent
does worse than everybody else's top 10 percent, in fact, even
worse than you might expect by the differences in the average.
So simply put, our kids do worse than our competitors' kids in
every ability range.
So why is this? What happens to us? Why do we stand so low
in these international rankings? Well, there may be more than
one reason. But one reason really stands out. Other teachers'
standards of content knowledge for teachers, countries'
standards for content knowledge for teachers of math and
science are far more stringent than they are in the United
States, and this is particularly the case when it comes to the
Asian countries where first-class STEM education is a high
national priority.
Now, you can try to work around this. Various approaches
have been proposed. You could have better technology in the
classroom, lectures over the Internet, new curricula, kids
lugging around even bigger books, and believe me, they are
pretty big now. These initiatives might help some but there is
no substitute for a teacher who actually knows what she is
talking about and whose enthusiasm is inspiring, and I will bet
everyone sitting up there today has had one or more teachers
who has really made a difference in his or her life, whether it
was in law school or wherever it may have been, someone who
inspired you, and I am certain that no teacher would ever have
inspired you if he or she didn't know the subject that they
were teaching.
So what happens? Why don't we have enough teachers who know
the subject in math and science in high school? And the answer
is that teaching math or science in an American high school is
simply not a very good job, measured both by compensation and
level of respect. A person with the background and ability to
do that job well can find many more attractive opportunities,
and as the economy continues to increase its dependence on
technology, this gap will only widen, and this is sort of the
amazing thing. The very economy which is dependent on these
people is stripping the classroom of those who can best train
these people.
So I just want to digress for a second and bring you back
to 1941. Now, I was three in 1941 and most of you were not
around in 1941, but it was an interesting year because that is
when we got into the Second World War and we needed to train a
lot of pilots and we needed to do it fast because we didn't
have anywhere near enough pilots in the Air Force. So when each
class had completed its training, ready to go out to action, a
few class members were kept behind to teach, and these were the
best pilots on the class because the Air Force reckoned there
was more value in their teaching than in their fighting, at
least right away. After a while they went to war and showed
their stuff, but even though if a guy became an ace, you know,
shot down five planes, whatever, what do you think they did?
They brought him back to teach. They brought him back to
inspire the new guys coming along. So the Air Force understood
that by and large, obviously there were exceptions, the best
pilots made the best and most inspiring teachers.
And in this economic contest that we are getting ourselves
into here big time, we do the exact opposite. The best go forth
and the worst stay back to teach. Now, obviously there are
exceptions. This is not every teacher in STEM education high
school has no content knowledge. That is certainly not true.
But too few do, and that is the problem. So there is really
only one way to attract and retain a higher quality math and
science secondary school teacher: pay them more money and
provide them with more respect. Now, anyone who runs a business
understands that if you can't get enough welders or whatever it
is or good ones, you are going to pay more and you get more
good welders. But we don't seem to really understand that in
the school situation. We just have to increase the compensation
and the respect that these people get. Otherwise they ain't
coming.
So we founded MFA [Math for America] six years ago as a
pilot to address this, and I will just briefly say what we do,
because I don't want to take away from Ellen, in particular,
sitting next to me. We bring these kids in, typically young
people but not all, into a fellowship program. We advertise.
They come in, they take a test of knowledge. Do you know math?
We give them a test. It is a good test. Then we interview them
to see, gee, you know, would you do OK in a classroom, and if
they pass those two things, we take them into the program.
These are people who have typically majored in math or physics
of engineering in college so they know the subject, they passed
the test. We plunge them into a one-year immersion in education
courses so they get a master's degree in education. They have
the ticket and they can go and teach. We pay the tuition. We do
this at Columbia or NYU in New York and other schools in
California and so on. We pay the tuition. We give them a
fellowship, $30,000, which is what you get as a teaching
assistant somewhere if you were a graduate student, and then
they go into the classroom, they teach four years as part of
this program and we give them a stipend which escalates and
ends at about $20,000 at the end of the fourth year and that is
on top of their teacher's pay, and we give them lots of support
in the meantime. We have seminars and lunches and all kinds of
great things, and they get mentored by the people who come in
on the other prong of the program, master teachers, and at the
end of their four years of teaching they can apply to the next
prong to become a master teacher, and a master teacher is a
teacher who is already there who is an expert, considered very
good by his peers and his principal, who passes the test. He or
she knows his subject. And we pay them for two reasons. We pay
them $15,000 a year on top of their salary and they have two
responsibilities: one, keep teaching, and two, mentor the young
people in the program who are coming along. And the spirit and
the effect of this program is really dynamic, and I think Bart
Gordon can testify to that. He came to our annual dinner of all
the fellows and master teachers a few months ago and you could
see, it was electric. It was really electric. These people were
enthused about what they were doing. They were proud of what
they were doing and accomplishing a great deal. So this is a
model of a program. It is not the only way to do it, but
nothing is going to work unless it includes more comp[ensation]
and more respect.
So that is my message to you guys. Keep it up. The Noyce
program is great. Let us make it bigger and let us find ways to
really do this on a very big scale, whether it through Noyce or
something else. This is a critical issue, a critical issue. OK.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Simons follows:]
Prepared Statement of James H. Simons
Good Morning Chairman Gordon, Ranking Member Hall and Members of
the Committee. My name is Jim Simons and I am here today as the
Chairman and Founder of Math for America (Mf A) which was created to
offset the alarming shortage of knowledgeable mathematics teachers in
our public schools.
We appreciate your continued focus to improve mathematics and
science education in our secondary schools and for recognizing the
importance of a high quality science and math teaching workforce. The
Congressional Innovation Agenda championed by this committee over the
past two years, including the passage of the America COMPETES Act, has
reinvigorated the essential role of math and science education in our
country.
While I was especially pleased that Chairman Gordon, using the Mf A
model of stipends, scholarships and support, included an amendment to
the COMPETES bill to substantially bolster the existing Robert Noyce
Scholarship program, I strongly believe we need to continue to
strengthen that effort during this reauthorization process.
Before talking about Math for America I wanted to give you a brief
glimpse of my personal background and how mathematics has been the
driving force in my life.
I am Chairman and Founder of Renaissance Technologies. The
company's investment approach, fueled by my background in mathematics,
has been enormously successful. Before I entered the business world, I
was a mathematician. I have a Ph.D. from Berkeley, won the 1975 Veblen
Prize of the American Mathematical Society and taught mathematics at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University before
becoming chairman of the mathematics department at the State University
of New York at Stony Brook.
Along the way, I spent four years as a code breaker for the
National Security Agency.
I serve as a Trustee of The Institute for Advanced Study, The
Rockefeller University, MIT, the Mathematical Sciences Research
Institute in Berkeley and Brookhaven National Laboratory. With my wife
Marilyn, I am actively engaged with my charitable foundation, the
Simons Foundation. Recently, we created The Simons Center for Geometry
and Physics at Stony Brook which looks at the crucial interdependence
between theoretical physics and the geometric side of mathematics. More
recently, we initiated a Postdoctoral Fellows Program to support 68
postdoctoral positions at 46 universities. These will be three-year
positions in mathematics, mathematical physics and theoretical computer
science.
With Marilyn's leadership, the Simons Foundation seeks to advance
math and science research through grant making that particularly
encourages collaborations between the physical and life sciences. We
fund studies aimed to heighten interchanges between institutions,
across fields, and among scientists to facilitate the exchange of new
ideas. I am especially proud of the significant work of the Simons
Foundation Autism Research Initiative, which supports research to
better understand the causes of autism. This initiative is the world's
largest private investment in the field of autism research.
It's an honor for me to be here today to discuss strategies to
improve student achievement by creating an environment that encourages
people with high content knowledge in math and science to establish
successful careers as public schools teachers.
Drawing a straight line from the problem to the solution, the
simple answer for improving STEM education is to have the best, most
knowledgeable teachers in the classroom. My thesis is that unless we
meaningfully and immediately increase the level of respectability and
compensation earned by secondary school mathematics teachers with
strong knowledge in their subject, our nation will continue to lose its
competitive edge in the technology based global economy of the 21st
century.
Our economy is increasingly dependent upon technology that uses
math as the starting point, and there are many private sector career
opportunities for a young person with math skills and knowledge in
finance, technology and research. Given that, flat salaries for
teachers are thwarting the supply and demand. If we want knowledgeable
mathematics and science teachers in the classroom, we must dramatically
increase their compensation and give them the respect they deserve.
This is a supply and demand issue. It's clear that the widening
salary gap, between quantitative skills based private sector jobs and
teaching jobs in our secondary schools, has discouraged many capable
people from launching a career in teaching. Taking that into account,
as well as the unlikelihood that those private sector jobs will
decrease their compensation in the years ahead, we instead need to
increase teaching salaries to make teaching a legitimate career option.
By doing so, we are providing our students with the edge they need to
keep the Nation competitive and progressive.
The relative weak ranking of US students in international
assessment tests clearly demonstrates the urgency. The most recent
TIMSS (Trends in International Math and Science Study) report shows
that by the eighth grade, our students are rated average in
mathematics, and by the twelve grade, they drop to near the bottom.
Moreover, even our top 10 percent does worse when compared to the top
10 percent of most other countries. Research indicates that the best
performing nations employ rigorous entry requirements and high
standards for teachers, and that high performing students in math and
science more likely had teachers with content-specific training. We are
facing an economic onslaught of a highly competitive global workforce,
causing us to fall behind to some measure because of the more rigorous
teacher preparation policies of other countries--and it is these
students who are outperforming our math and science students.
How do we solve this problem? The idealistic nature of many has
sparked volunteerism and short-term programs to make an immediate,
although temporary, impact. We need a long-term, sustainable solution
to ensure that math and science teaching jobs are attractive so that
teachers stay in the classroom and remain involved with education.
Currently, about one-half of new mathematics teachers leave by the end
of five years. Obviously, paying more is necessary, but giving teachers
more recognition and respect are equally important components.
Moreover, American schools and policymakers must do better. There is a
preponderance of top down solutions and slogans, mostly related to
testing data, standards and curriculum that does not get to the heart
of the problem. We need to go directly to the center of the issue-
ensuring that we have inspiring and knowledgeable teachers in the
classroom.
Math can be difficult to understand and explain. Excellent teachers
know and love their subjects. Outstanding teachers will not merely
follow the material in a lesson plan or teach to the test, but instead
will sufficiently and intelligently answer questions that
enthusiastically encourage and engage students to seek further inquiry.
This is not a question of the number of teachers. This is about
knowledgeable teachers who are impacting the lives of countless
students every day. Students today need the necessary mathematical and
scientific tools to learn and think critically and analytically in
order to be adequately equipped for the jobs of the future.
Having briefly touched on the roots and barriers of our national
STEM educational crisis, I would like to focus on our approach to the
solution and tell you about Math for America. We sponsor three
Fellowship programs make teaching jobs more attractive through
financial rewards, recognition and respect.
Our endeavor in starting Math for America in New York City in 2004
was to create a pilot program for a national model. Mf A is a private
nonprofit organization with a mission to improve math education in US
public secondary schools by recruiting, training and retaining
outstanding mathematics teachers.
Along with New York City, we have sites in Boston, Los Angeles,
Berkeley, San Diego and Washington, DC. We are currently negotiating
with several other cities and states interested in joining our network.
We are ready to grow and provide substantial matching funds for those
efforts while looking at existing state and Federal programs to best
leverage our impact. For example, Mf A sites in Boston, Washington, DC,
Los Angeles and San Diego were recently awarded National Science
Foundation Robert Noyce Teaching Fellowships and Master Teaching
Fellowships grants. That NSF support, leveraged by the Mf A commitment,
is expected to have a significant impact on their work.
Mf A offers Fellowships for both new and experienced teachers,
including the Mf A Fellowship which aims to increase the number of
mathematically talented individuals entering the teaching profession,
as well as the Mf A Early Career Fellowship and Mf A Master Teacher
Fellowship, which support outstanding mathematics teachers already in
the classroom. To date, we have more than 300 teachers in the program
with about 100 additional Fellows and Master Teachers poised to enter
the program this spring.
The Mf A Fellowship is a five-year program where recent college
graduates and mid-career professionals make a commitment to teach math
in public secondary schools. Mf A Fellows are mathematically
sophisticated individuals who are new to teaching and use their talents
to make a difference in students' lives. The program includes one year
earning a master's degree in education and four years of teaching math
in public secondary schools. The Mf A Fellowship provides a full
tuition scholarship, annual stipends of up to $100,000 over five years,
in addition to a full time teacher's salary, and mentoring and
professional development services. During the fifth year, Fellows may
apply to become Master Teachers.
The Mf A Early Career Fellowship, a pilot program, provides
professional support and growth opportunities to current new teachers
of secondary mathematics in a public school or recent graduates of
education training programs who are certified to teach and have secured
an eligible job. The four-year program includes annual stipends of up
to $70,000 over four years, camaraderie with a cohort of outstanding
secondary math teachers, mentoring and professional development
support.
The Mf A Master Teacher Fellowship rewards exceptional public
secondary school math teachers with a four-year Fellowship in New York
City. The Master Teacher Fellowship includes annual stipends of up to
$60,000 over four years, professional development and leadership
opportunities and support for mathematical and educational interests.
Mf A staff, along with part-time New Teacher Advisors and Master
Teachers, provide Fellows with regular professional and instructional
support and guidance. Mf A also hosts a variety of workshops and
seminars to keep Fellows connected to one another and learn new math
and education skills and strategies. Selected meetings are open to the
public and Fellows are encouraged to bring colleagues and other
department members. In addition, Mf A urges Fellows and Master Teachers
to create professional development sessions and attend and present at
local and national conferences.
The Mf A Fellowships and Mf A Master Teacher Fellowship are based
on three key principles:
To teach math effectively, one needs a strong
knowledge of mathematics, solid pedagogical skills and a desire
and ability to interact with young people.
Generous incentives make it possible to recruit
highly qualified individuals into teaching and to retain
outstanding mathematics teachers.
By providing strong support services, including
continuing education, mentoring and professional development,
it is possible to inspire a commitment to a long-term career as
a mathematics teacher.
We have established extensive partnerships with universities and
school districts at each program site to provide our Fellows with the
best resources and education and continuously improve overall secondary
mathematics education in these public schools. In addition, working
with other math education stakeholders, we created a Professional
Development and Outreach (PDO) group with the Park City Math Institute
to support mathematics teachers in the five boroughs through workshops
and outreach activities. Mf A Los Angeles has also worked with Harvey
Mudd College and the Park City Math Institute to establish the Harvey
Mudd Professional Development and Outreach Group for mathematics
teachers in the Los Angeles area. It's this kind of collective effort
that builds a sense of purpose, self respect and recognition that their
work, as teachers, is meaningful and important.
We have found that this injection of teachers--who are highly
knowledgeable and passionate about math--into public schools directly
helps students, while also encouraging and inspiring other teachers,
schools, districts and parents. And, by creating a community of like-
minded mathematicians in the classroom, we have watched the important
role of esprit de corps in fostering our mission and impact.
When Sputnik went up fifty years ago it shook our country because
we were underprepared in Defense. Quick and effective congressional
action, including the National Defense Act, which helped me get my
Ph.D. in 1961, remedied that by creating an outstanding pool of
scientists and mathematicians. Today, we are facing a vastly different
and more difficult challenge with both our economic and national
security threatened and our role as a leader of innovation and
ingenuity considerably lessened. We must find a way to meet that
challenge, and the ideas that underlay Math for America suggest a way
to do this.
Mf A attributes much of its success to its commitment to providing
professional enrichment opportunities, developing leaders and creating
a strong community of mathematics teachers. I believe this can be done
on a national level through the creation of a Math Science Teaching
Corps (MSTC). In 2006, this notion was introduced by my friend,
Congressman Jim Saxton and perhaps it's time to revisit that effort.
The Robert Noyce Teacher Fellows and Master Teaching Fellows Programs,
which encourage talented science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics majors and professionals to become K-12 mathematics and
science teachers, could become a pilot program for such a national
corps.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify before the Committee
and for your work over the past two years under the leadership of
Chairman Gordon. I intend to continue my modest contribution to make Mf
A successful in New York City and around the country by working with
the NSF and other entities. We greatly appreciate your efforts as you
go through the reauthorization process of the America COMPETES Act. I
believe private sector support combined with a robust Federal
Government commitment will achieve results.
Biography for James H. Simons
Dr. James H. Simons is President of Euclidean Capital, a family
office, and Board Chair of Renaissance Technologies LLC, a highly
quantitative investment firm, from which he retired in 2009 after many
years as CEO. Previously he was chairman of the Mathematics Department
at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Earlier in his
career he was a cryptanalyst at the Institute of Defense Analyses in
Princeton, and taught mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology and Harvard University.
Dr. Simons holds a B.S. in mathematics from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University
of California at Berkeley. His scientific research was in the area of
geometry and topology. He received the American Mathematical Society
Veblen Prize in Geometry in 1975 for work that involved a recasting of
the subject of area minimizing multidimensional surfaces. A consequence
was the settling of two classical questions, the Bernstein Conjecture
and the Plateau Problem. Dr. Simons' most influential research involved
the discovery and application of certain geometric measurements, now
called the Chern-Simons Invariants, which have wide use, particularly
in theoretical physics.
Dr. Simons is the founder and Chairman of Math for America, a
nonprofit organization with a mission to significantly improve math
education in our nation's public schools. He serves as Trustee of
Brookhaven National Laboratory, the Institute for Advanced Study,
Rockefeller University, and the Mathematical Sciences Research
Institute in Berkeley. He is also a member of the Board of the MIT
Corporation and Chair Emeritus of the Stony Brook Foundation. Together
with his wife, Marilyn, Dr. Simons manages the Simons Foundation, a
charitable organization primarily devoted to scientific research.
The Foundation's philanthropic activities include, in addition to
Math for America, a major research initiative on the causes of autism,
and the recent establishment of an institute for research in
mathematics and theoretical physics. The Foundation is particularly
interested in the growing interface between the physical and life
sciences and has established and endowed several such research programs
at universities and institutions both in the U.S. and abroad. Dr. and
Mrs. Simons have also privately launched and funded a country wide
health care and training program in Nepal.
Chairman Gordon. Thank you, Dr. Simons. Mr. Hall leaned
over to me and said, ``That guy makes a lot of sense.''
Ms. Futter, you are recognized.
STATEMENTS OF MS. ELLEN FUTTER, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN MUSEUM OF
NATURAL HISTORY
Ms. Futter. Thank you very much. Chairman Gordon, Ranking
Member Hall and distinguished Members of the Committee, it is
an honor to have the opportunity to testify before you today.
I would like today to offer a way to support schools in
improving science education, and that is the unique and
powerful role that informal science education institutions like
the American Museum of Natural History, that we are delighted
your daughter has enjoyed, as well as other science centers,
zoos, botanical gardens, aquaria and other science-based
cultural institutions can play and increasingly are playing in
improving the teaching and learning of science and enhancing
science literacy more broadly among the general public
including particularly tomorrow's workforce.
Schools will of course remain at the center of efforts to
reform science education but they cannot and need not shoulder
this responsibility alone. Institutions like the American
Museum of Natural History, which are grounded in authentic
science and have collections of real specimens and artifacts as
well as working scientists and educational expertise, and are
today building innovative partnerships with schools that seek
to empower teachers and improve student achievement. These
efforts are transforming the definition of the schoolhouse by
providing access to educational resources beyond the school
walls, and in the process are redefining science education
itself.
Museums and similar institutions have always been places of
inspiration, and inspiration and awakening curiosity have long
been recognized as the gateway to learning. Building on that
awakening, however, is absolutely essential to achieving
enduring improvement in science education, and institutions
like ours have a strong role to play in this respect. We are
pleased to join others, including the Carnegie-IAS Commission
and Race to the Top, in pointing to museums and like
institutions as catalysts for both STEM education reform and
cross-sector partnerships.
One such partnership is Urban Advantage. Based on the idea
that urban settings have a wealth of educational resources
embedded in the assets of community science-based institutions,
the American Museum of Natural History developed and now leads
a pioneering eight-institution collaboration with the New York
Hall of Science, New York Botanical Garden, Brooklyn Botanic
Garden, the Queens Botanical Garden, the Bronx Zoo, the Staten
Island Zoo, the New York Aquarium together with Joel Klein and
the Department of Education, with support from Council Speaker
Christine Quinn. Urban Advantage was designed to assist 8th
graders in completing their Exit Project, which is a city-
mandated science investigation. The program provides the
following vital components: professional development for
teachers, classroom resources and equipment for schools, access
to partner institutions' expertise and resources, family
engagement through educational outreach, capacity building with
lead teachers, leadership and demonstration schools, national
and local science standards built into the program design,
ongoing formal assessment of formal program goals, student
learning and systems of delivery, and, to serve New York City's
diverse student population, the program combines rigor with
equity and access. In its sixth year, Urban Advantage currently
supports over 300 teachers in more than 150 middle schools.
That is over one-third of New York City middle schools and it
serves more than 37,000 students.
Two other programs are priorities of the Museum's STEM
education strategy. First, to echo Mr. Simons' emphasis
appropriately on teachers, professional development of teachers
through partnerships with institutions of higher learning.
Today the Museum educates more than 3,300 pre- and in-service
teachers and those seeking certification on site and online
annually. Second, what we call the science generation pipeline,
a continuum of out-of-school science learning opportunities
that serve audiences ranging from children as young as two and
their parents to high school students who are matched with
science mentors and conduct research. And our mission in this
regard is not unique to us. There are many other exemplary
programs across the country: Washington State's LASER program
led by the Pacific Science Center, the Arkansas Discovery
Network, the Daily Planet program of the North Carolina Museum
of Natural Sciences.
With the Federal Government's vital assistance, these
programs can be multiplied to achieve broad-scale change
through the following actions. First, grant competition should
be designed to foster cross-cultural partnerships including
with informal education institutions. Second, the America
COMPETES Act should explicitly refer to the role of informal
institutions, including by providing access to funding, and of
course, Congress should fully fund the Act. Third, we support
the development of common standards. Fourth, these standards
should be matched with state and local assessments and also
should be internationally benchmarked.
In sum, communities across our country have access to an
array of science-based institutions, great institutions, some
large, some small, some local, some regional, but nearly all
housing phenomenal resources and expertise to help schools
improve science education while also promoting and advancing
instincts for inquiry and discovery that are precisely what
drive innovation and will fuel our country's global
competitiveness. We as a field stand ready to play a larger,
more formal, structural and leadership role.
I thank you for the opportunity and look forward to your
questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Futter follows:]
Prepared Statement of Ellen V. Futter
Chairman Gordon, Ranking Member Hall, and distinguished members of
the Committee, my name is Ellen Futter and, as President of the
American Museum of Natural History, it is an honor and a pleasure to
have the opportunity to testify before you on the topic of ``Reform in
K-12 STEM Education.''
As you are well aware, the United States has a history of
unparalleled innovation in science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics that we are in danger of squandering. In these remarks, I
will offer a way to support schools in improving science education, and
to expand their access to vital resources for doing so. Specifically, I
would like to describe the unique and powerful role that so-called
informal science education (ISE) institutions like the American Museum
of Natural History--other natural history museums, science centers,
zoos, botanical gardens, aquaria, and other science-based cultural
institutions--can play and increasingly are playing in improving the
teaching and learning of science and science literacy more broadly
among the general public, including tomorrow's workforce. These
institutions have a wealth of resources and, as a field and sector, we
stand ready to bring those resources to bear on the science education
crisis in new ways, joining forces with formal education institutions
and other key players to reform STEM education.
The need for systemic, long-term change in K-12 education is well
recognized and has been underscored by several major national
commissions in the past few years, including: the National Academies'
``Rising above the Gathering Storm''; the National Science Board's ``A
National Action Plan''; the National Governors' Association report
``Innovation America''; and the Carnegie-IAS Commission on Mathematics
and Science Education's ``Opportunity Equation.''
American Museum of Natural History
Founded in 1869 as an institution of scientific research and
education, and chartered as an educational institution by the New York
State Board of Regents, the American Museum of Natural History, located
in New York City, is today one of the world's foremost centers of
research and education in the natural sciences, the physical sciences,
and anthropology. The Museum's mission is: ``to discover, interpret,
and disseminate--through scientific research and education--knowledge
about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe.'' The Museum
welcomes approximately four million visitors annually onsite and was
voted the third most popular family destination in the nation, and the
first non-commercial enterprise on the list, in the Zagat Family Travel
Guide.
The Museum is home to one of the world's most important natural
history collections, including traditional collections of more than 32
million specimens and artifacts and new forms of collecting such as
frozen tissue and scientific data. Together they constitute an
invaluable and irreplaceable record of life on Earth. The Museum has a
scientific staff of more than 200, led by over 40 curators (tenure or
tenure-track positions). In 2006, the Museum was authorized by the New
York State Department of Education as the first American museum
authorized to grant the Ph.D. degree. With this, the Museum launched
the Richard Gilder Graduate School, which embraces both a new doctoral
program in comparative biology and maintains the Museum's longstanding
graduate training partnerships with such universities as Columbia,
Cornell, New York University, and City University of New York. The
Ph.D. program in comparative biology has now admitted two classes of
students and is fully accredited.
The Museum's robust scientific enterprise, with a century-plus
record of leadership in field science, theoretical science, and the
professional training of scientists, provides the foundation for a wide
range of public outreach and educational initiatives including
professional development for teachers, permanent halls, temporary
exhibitions and space shows (which travel both nationally and
internationally), public programs, major conferences, and special
seminars and symposia.
The scientific enterprise provides the foundation for the Museum's
extensive educational program that serves learners of all ages,
backgrounds, and levels of preparedness--both onsite and online. Pre-
school children and their parents and caregivers are introduced to
scientific investigations through collaborations with community-based
organizations and through programs onsite in the Museum's Discovery
Room. The Museum has extensive partnerships with the New York City
school system and schools nationwide. It is the most-visited field trip
destination for New York City public schoolchildren, who visit the
Museum free of charge. Each year, approximately 400,000 children visit
in organized class or camp groups. Visiting groups and their teachers
are supported with a wide range of pre- and post-visit materials.
Middle and high school students participate in an array of programs
after school, on weekends, and during the summer, including an
intensive program of independent research for high school students
working under the supervision of Museum scientists.
The Museum is also a leader in professional development of primary
and secondary school teachers, having made the strategic decision to
focus on teachers as a way to ameliorate the crisis in preparing,
supporting, and retaining science teachers nationwide. The Museum
provides institutes, courses, and programs--both onsite and online--to
more than 3,300 teachers a year. All programs are developed by
scientist-educator teams and many offer graduate credit. I will
describe several of these initiatives shortly.
At the American Museum of Natural History, science education is
distinguished by a focus on authentic science experiences that expose
teachers and students to the scientific process, including inquiry,
investigation, evidence and data collection, and analysis, while also
elucidating key scientific concepts. The overarching aim is to enhance
science literacy for all people, especially children, to inspire full
citizenship and informed participation in life; for families, who are
key to children's college and career choices; and for those children
who will become tomorrow's scientists or work in the STEM fields.
Informal Science Education Institutions
Schools will of course remain at the center of all efforts to
reform K-12 STEM education, but they cannot and need not shoulder this
responsibility alone. Indeed, in the face of this seemingly intractable
STEM education problem, we must think more broadly about what
constitutes an educational setting and how best to enhance the
scientific resources currently available to schools. Each science-based
institution has a unique and valuable combination of assets and
resources to offer. Institutions like the American Museum of Natural
History are grounded in authentic science, and provide access to
collections of real specimens and artifacts--``the power of reality,''
ranging from the 65-million-year-old T. rex to a 34-ton meteorite to a
towering totem pole--along with working scientists, laboratories and
equipment, and extensive educational expertise, including many decades
of experience interpreting and presenting complex topics in science for
a broad public in ways that inspire, engage, and educate.
Science-based cultural institutions of all kinds are building
innovative partnerships with schools, governments, corporations,
foundations, and other entities that seek not only to educate teachers
and improve educational outcomes for students, but, equally important,
to create sustained learning opportunities that span not only a child's
week and year, but his or her entire life. These efforts are
transforming our definition of the schoolhouse by providing access to
educational resources beyond the school walls--from museums and similar
institutions--and are also, in the process, redefining science
education itself.
Museums and similar institutions have always been places of
inspiration that enjoy a special connection with the public, one that
is marked by trust, familiarity, and enjoyment. Inspiration and
awakening curiosity have long been recognized as the first, essential
stop, or gateway, to learning. Building on that awakening, however, is
equally critical to enduring improvement in science education, and
institutions like the American Museum of Natural History have a strong
role to play in that regard as well. We join the chorus of voices,
including the Carnegie-IAS Commission on Mathematics and Science
Education, on which I was privileged to serve, and the Race to the Top
initiative, in pointing to museums and other science-based institutions
not only as powerful catalysts of STEM education reform but as uniquely
qualified to forge and sustain cross-sector partnerships.
There is a growing understanding of the key role informal science
education institutions can play in addressing the crisis in STEM
education. ``Opportunity Equation,'' the 2009 report of the Carnegie-
IAS Commission on Mathematics and Science Education explicitly points
to ISE institutions: ``Programs [at a growing universe of museums] are
giving hundreds of thousands of students and teachers access to museum
collections and staff expertise--along with powerful insights into what
people find most fascinating about science.'' \1\ The National Research
Council's 2009 ``Learning Science in Informal Environments: People,
Places, and Pursuits'' recognizes the important learning that occurs in
out-of-school settings and articulates approaches to the complexities
involved in assessing outcomes.\2\
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\1\ Carnegie-IAS Commission on Mathematics and Science Education.
The Opportunity Equation: Transforming Mathematics and Science
Education for Citizenship and the Global Economy. New York, NY: The
Carnegie Corporation of New York, 2009.
\2\ Bell, Philip, Bruce Lewenstein, Andrew W. Shouse, and Michael
A. Feder (eds). Learning Science in Informal Environments: People,
Places, and Pursuits. Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press,
2009.
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Importantly, the Federal Race to the Top initiative, funded as a
$4.3 billion initiative in the ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act), explicitly recognizes the valuable role museums and similar
institutions can play in reforming STEM education: the program provides
for a single competitive preference priority for STEM education, and it
specifically includes museums, calling on States not only to ``offer a
rigorous course of study in mathematics, sciences, technology, and
engineering'' but also to ``cooperate with industry experts, museums,
universities, research centers, or other STEM-capable community
partners to prepare and assist teachers in integrating STEM content
across grades and disciplines, in promoting effective and relevant
instruction, and in offering applied learning opportunities for
students . . . .'' \3\ It cannot be overstated how significant and
historic this inclusion is.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ ``Race to the Top Funds: Notice of Proposed Priorities.''
Federal Register 74:144 (29 July 2009) p. 37806.
Exemplar STEM Programs
The community of science museums and other ISE institutions is
deeply engaged in the national call to accelerate solutions to the
crisis in STEM education. Many of the directions undertaken by the
Museum and similar institutions across the Nation are built on a
partnership model--among science-based institutions and school systems,
local governments, institutions of higher education, and other
entities. These institutions, with their unique resources, collections,
working scientists, labs and equipment, and educational and
interpretive expertise are increasingly taking the lead in building and
managing these partnerships, and municipalities are increasingly
looking to these institutions for educational leadership as are
families and local communities.
Exemplar Programs at AMNH
Following are a few examples of American Museum of Natural History-
led partnerships that are working to improve the teaching and learning
of science, both locally in New York City and on a wider scale. All
these partnerships are characterized by the collaboration of scientists
and educators; the utilization of Museum resources including
exhibitions, collections, public programs, and digital resources; and
access to online educational resources. In addition, and importantly,
national and local science standards, assessments, scope and sequence,
and other forms of demonstration are built into the design so that
these offerings directly support the work of teachers. Because New York
City's population and student population are so diverse there is great
emphasis on combining rigor with equity and access in these
partnerships and programs.
Urban Advantage
Over six years ago, the Museum began to analyze the status of
science education in New York City's public middle schools. The middle
school years are considered a ``sweet spot'' \4\ when children either
develop a sustained interest in science or, too often, turn away from
science altogether. Findings\5\ pointed to a severe shortage of
qualified science teachers, which coincided with a new City mandate
requiring all eighth-graders to complete a long-term scientific
investigation known as the ``exit project'' before progressing to ninth
grade.
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\4\ Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, Task Force on the
Education of Young Adolescents. Turning points: Preparing American
Youth for the 21st century. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Council on
Adolescent Development, 1989.
\5\ Poitier, Johanna Duncan. Progress Report on Teacher Supply and
Demand. Report to the Higher Education Committee of the State Education
Department. Albany, NY: University of the State of NY, 2008.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
These findings led to the development of Urban Advantage (UA), a
keystone program of the Museum's Gottesman Center for Science Teaching
and Learning. Based on the notion that urban settings often have a
wealth of educational resources in the assets of the local science-
based cultural institutions that schools could more effectively draw
upon, UA is a pioneering, eight-institution collaboration with the
American Museum of Natural History as lead institution and including
the New York Hall of Science, the New York Botanical Garden, the
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the Queen Botanical Garden, the Bronx Zoo, the
Staten Island Zoo, and the New York Aquarium, together with the New
York City Department of Education under the leadership of Chancellor
Joel Klein, and launched with support from the New York City Council
and Speaker Christine Quinn, along with private funders.
UA incorporates professional development for teachers; classroom
resources; laboratories and equipment for schools; access to the assets
of the partner institutions for teachers, students, and families;
educational outreach that specifically engages families; capacity
building with lead teachers, school leadership and demonstration
schools; and, importantly, ongoing assessment of program goals, student
learning and systems of delivery.
UA has increased in scope and reach each year since it was piloted
in 2004. It began with 60 teachers and 35 schools and now, in its sixth
year, supports over 300 teachers in more than 150 middle schools--fully
one-third of all New York City public middle schools--and serves more
than 37,000 New York City students.
Museums and other similar institutions are increasingly
incorporating assessment of the effectiveness of STEM education
programs into the program design, and Urban Advantage places high
priority on outcomes assessment. Preliminary evaluations support the
initiative's primary goal of improving student understanding of
scientific inquiry as defined in the New York State Core Curriculum.
Sample findings include the following: 83% of UA teachers have observed
evidence of improvement in the quality of UA students' science content
knowledge; and 80% of UA teachers have reported increased understanding
of the process of scientific investigations. The program is also
fueling new levels of partnership among the collaborators and the New
York City Department of Education in creating effective professional
development for science teachers, and has led to increased visitation
rates to the institutions by science classes and families.
Professional Development of Teachers
Since the quality of a student's experience with science is largely
determined by his or her science teacher, the professional development
of both pre- and in-service teachers is a key priority in the Museum's
STEM education strategy. The National Academies' ``Rising above the
Gathering Storm'' states that ``few factors are more important than
[high quality K-12 mathematics and science instruction] if the United
States is to compete successfully in the 21st century.'' \6\ Science-
based institutions not only can bridge teachers to science content,
but, more importantly, they can bridge teachers to the actual practice
of science and to working scientists. Teachers who have practiced
inquiry-based investigations themselves--and who understand the
scientific method--are far more capable of and likely to foster such
learning behavior in their students.
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\6\ National Academy of Sciences, The National Academy of
Engineering, and The Institute of Medicine. Rising Above the Gathering
Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future.
Washington, D.C.: The National Academy of Sciences, 2007.
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Partnerships at the K-12 and the university levels are essential in
the Museum's professional development programs. The Museum currently
serves up to 200 teachers each year through higher education
partnerships with degree-granting programs, and more than 3,300 a year
through various other professional development programs at the Museum
and online. The Museum collaborates with a number of local colleges and
universities, including Bank Street College of Education, Teachers
College Columbia, Barnard College, and three City University of New
York (CUNY) schools (Lehman, Brooklyn, and Hunter Colleges). These
partnerships take various forms, including customized courses;
supervised internships in science and museum education; thesis and
dissertation advisement; Summer Institutes in Earth, space, and
biological sciences; and online science courses in the biological,
physical, and Earth sciences. These courses are co-developed with
faculty from each institution to determine which Museum components add
value and resources that enhance the experiences of participants.
With support from an NSF Teacher Enhancement grant in 2004, the
Museum developed the Teacher Renewal for Urban Science Teaching program
(TRUST), a partnership with Lehman and Brooklyn Colleges (of CUNY), to
establish a Museum-based component of their Master's programs in Earth
science. NSF's initial support was critical to the full development and
implementation of the Museum's partnerships with institutions of higher
education; not only did it enable the program to prepare 120 new Earth
science teachers, it also provided the necessary resources and support
for the Museum to develop successful and sustainable program models. It
also enabled the Museum to leverage this support to obtain foundation
funding for a similar program for biology teachers in partnership with
three of the CUNY colleges. This model and these partnerships have
since become institutionalized and self-sustaining, supporting state
certification in Earth and biological sciences. They also have spurred
the creation of additional collaborations and partnerships with other
area colleges and universities, including Teachers College Columbia,
Bank Street College of Education, and New York University.
The Museum also reaches out to teachers across the country and
increasingly around the world through Seminars on Science, an online
teacher education initiative. Serving more than 1,300 teachers in 2009,
the program currently offers eleven online science courses, co-taught
by Museum scientists and science educators, covering areas in the
biological, Earth, and physical sciences. Several institutions across
the country award graduate credit for these six-week courses, and four
universities specifically include them as part of the teacher
preparation and certification programs: Bank Street College of
Education, CUNY School of Professional Studies, Brooklyn College, and
Western Governors University.
The Science Generation Pipeline
One key dimension that museums and similar institutions offer is
the ability to provide a sustained exposure to the actual practice and
excitement of science and discovery--revealing for children, as well as
their teachers and families, the thrilling quest that science really
is. To that end, the Museum has developed and launched the Science
Generation Pipeline, a complete pre-K through graduate school continuum
of exceptional out-of-school science-learning opportunities. The
Pipeline offers educational programs ranging from the Science and
Nature Program, where parents and children as young as two are exposed
to and engage in science together, to the Science Research Mentoring
Program, where a highly diverse cohort of high school students are
paired with scientist mentors to conduct authentic research in museum
laboratories and collections.
Exemplar Programs at Other ISE Institutions
There are many other examples of effective and innovative model
partnership programs at institutions and communities across the
country.
In Washington state, for example, the Pacific Science Center is the
lead institution for the Washington LASER (Leadership and Assistance
for Science Education Reform) program. The program, which aims to
improve science teaching and learning through teacher professional
development, curricular and material support, and leadership training,
was created in 1999 as an NSF-funded dissemination and implementation
project.
The Arkansas Discovery Network was created in 2003 to make hands-
on, interactive museum experiences more accessible to schoolchildren
and their families throughout Arkansas. The Discovery Network provides
geographic coverage across the state, is composed mostly of ISE
institutions, and supports the state's STEM agenda.
As of January 2009, the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences
provided all of the state's schools with access to high definition
programming of breaking news in science and the environment through a
program called the Daily Planet.
The Role of the Federal Government
With all these ``islands of innovation'' \7\ throughout communities
across the country, how can these model programs be transformed into
catalysts for broad-scale change? And what role can the Federal
Government play in supporting the role of ISE institutions and
fostering effective partnerships that integrate formal and informal
educational institutions?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ Carnegie-IAS Commission. Opportunity Equation. 2009.
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I should first stress that the American Museum of Natural History
and the informal science education community have enjoyed significant
and important support from NSF, NASA, NOAA, and NIH for educational
initiatives, and we are most grateful for it.
Beyond that, however, grant competitions should be designed to
foster K-12 STEM partnerships such as those described here among
formal, informal, and private entities. Moreover, the value of learning
in out-of-school settings--and the institutions that provide those
opportunities--must be recognized and should be represented in
discussion and policy development regarding STEM education, as you have
done here today, and ISE institutions also must be made eligible for
funding in programs that relate to these discussions.
The fact that the Race to the Top Program specifically encourages
states to look to museums and other community partners in their STEM
reform efforts is an important milestone, as is the STEM education work
of this Committee. However, there have been several very alarming
efforts to exclude museums and other informal institutions from
participating at all. While museums can participate in American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act programs, zoos and aquaria have been
excluded; and there have been efforts to impose similar restrictions in
other legislation.
Concerning reauthorization of America Competes Act that this
hearing is focused on, the Act currently makes no reference to informal
education. For the reasons stated, it is imperative that the Act
recognize the role of informal institutions and refer to them
explicitly, including by providing access to funding. And it is
essential that Congress fully fund the Act.
In addition, as recommended by the Carnegie-IAS Commission, common
math and science standards that are ``fewer clearer and higher'' and
susceptible to assessment should be developed. Such standards should be
matched with state and local assessments that tie to authentic science
teaching and learning. And such state accountability assessments should
be internationally benchmarked to assessments such as TIMSS (Trends in
International Mathematics and Science Study) and PISA (Programme for
International Student Assessment), and to the Nation's Report Card, the
National Assessment of Educational Progress.
As an overarching point, efforts to reform STEM education suffer
from lack of coordination among the Federal agencies. In this regard we
support efforts to provide for government-wide coordination, as
embodied in the bill H.R. 1709, STEM Education Co-ordination Act of
2009.
Experience with NSF and other Federal Agencies
The National Science Foundation's role is unique among the Federal
agencies--in science education, its scope is comprehensive, embracing
K-12 through graduate and lifelong learning, in both formal and
informal settings. NASA, NOAA, and other science agencies, in turn,
each contribute their own area of science and are critical to the
Federal Government's overall STEM education capacity.
The Museum has been tremendously grateful for the support of NSF,
NASA, NOAA, and NIH, which has been essential to some of our key
partnership programs, as mentioned above.
Also with NSF support, we are currently able to carry out, with our
Urban Advantage partners and Michigan State University, education
research that will advance knowledge and practice of middle school
science education, including building a greater understanding of the
role of ISE institutions, and the role of inquiry-based education in
supporting student learning and science literacy for teachers,
administrators, and families.
Similarly, with support from the NSF ITEST Program and NASA's
Competitive Program for Science Museums and Planetariums, we have been
able to launch and assess the innovative Student Research Mentoring
Program, described above. NASA has also generously supported our
digital space shows which engage millions of viewers worldwide, while
NOAA's support has enabled us to improve public understanding of
climate change.
I referred earlier to the importance of ISE institutions'
interpretive and educational expertise and I return to this point here
to stress that these institutions can play a powerful role in
translating and interpreting current science and research for the
public. NSF (and other Federal agencies) should fully tap this enormous
and sophisticated outreach capacity.
In conclusion, I am gratified by the increasing recognition of the
unique and powerful role that museums and similar institutions can play
in reforming K-12 science education. Communities throughout the country
have an array of science-based institutions--some large, some small,
but nearly all housing resources and expertise that can enable schools
to improve K-12 science education. As a field, institutions like ours
are prepared and eager to take a larger, more formal, structural, and
leadership role.
What institutions like the American Museum of Natural History have
long done so well, and which is in many ways the hardest part to get
right, is awaken wonder and curiosity. Today, and this is essential,
this is amplified and extended by our demonstrated ability to create
opportunities for sustained exposure to exploration and inquiry. We do
so by sharing the power of discovery and real science with teachers,
students, and families, providing a platform for sustained inquiry and
learning that, in turn, enables schools to be vastly more effective. By
increasingly working in cross-sector partnerships, the full value and
promise of this approach can be realized and brought to scale. And,
importantly, the instinct for inquiry and discovery that this approach
nurtures is also precisely what drives innovation and will fuel our
country's global competitiveness.
Thank you, Chairman Gordon, Ranking Member Hall, and all the
Committee members for your time and for the opportunity to speak before
you today. I look forward to answering your questions.
References
Bell, Philip, Bruce Lewenstein, Andrew W. Shouse, and Michael A. Feder
(eds). Learning Science in Informal Environments: People,
Places, and Pursuits. Washington, D.C.: The National Academies
Press, 2009.
Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, Task Force on the Education
of Young Adolescents. Turning Points: Preparing American Youth
for the 21st century. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Council on
Adolescent Development, 1989.
Carnegie-IAS Commission on Mathematics and Science Education. The
Opportunity Equation: Transforming Mathematics and Science
Education for Citizenship and the Global Economy. New York, NY:
The Carnegie Corporation of New York, 2009.
Eccles, J. S., C. Midgley, and T. F. Adler. Grade-Related Changes in
the School Environment: Effects on Achievement Motivation. In
J. G. Nicholls (Ed.), The Development of Achievement Motivation
(pp. 283-332). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1984.
National Academy of Sciences, The National Academy of Engineering, and
The Institute of Medicine. Rising Above the Gathering Storm:
Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic
Future. Washington, D.C.: The National Academy of Sciences,
2007.
National Governors Association. Innovation America: A Final Report.
Washington, D.C.: National Governors Association, 2007.
National Science Board. National Action Plan for Addressing the
Critical Needs of the U.S. Science, Technology, Engineering,
and Mathematics Education System. Arlington, VA: National
Science Foundation, 2007.
Race to the Top Funds: Notice of Proposed Priorities. Federal Register
74:144 (29 July 2009) p.37806.
Poitier, Johanna Duncan. Progress Report on Teacher Supply and Demand.
Report to the Higher Education Committee of the State Education
Department. Albany, NY: University of the State of New York,
2008.
Biography for Ellen V. Futter
Ellen V. Futter has been President of the American Museum of
Natural History since 1993. Before joining the Museum she served as
President of Barnard College for thirteen years, where, at the time of
her inauguration, she was the youngest person to assume the presidency
of a major American college. Committed to public service, Ms. Futter
serves on the boards of several non-profit and for-profit
organizations. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the
American Philosophical Society. She has received numerous honorary
degrees and awards. Ms. Futter graduated Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum
laude, from Barnard in 1971 and earned her J.D. degree from Columbia
Law School in 1974. Her career began at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy
where she practiced corporate law.
Chairman Gordon. Thank you.
President Gee, you are recognized.
STATEMENTS OF DR. GORDON GEE, PRESIDENT, OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
Dr. Gee. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for the
great work you did for and in Tennessee and have done for the
Nation. I just want it to be on the record of acknowledging
your leadership. It really has been extraordinary and we
appreciate it, all of us who have been part of this science
community for a long time, and I want you to know how much I
personally appreciate your leadership.
Ranking Member Hall, we don't know each other but I
appreciate your comments also, and of course, it is great to
have Representative Wilson on this panel and a graduate of the
Ohio State University, Representative Fudge, we are honored for
that.
I am going to be very, very quick because we are doing a
tag team here, and with my good friend, my colleague, my
neighbor at Battelle, Dr. Wadsworth. I must say that--and you
have my written comments. I must say that I know that there are
a number of conversations going on in the halls of Congress
today. None are more important than this. I will go on the
record saying that, and the reason is, is this is about our
children but it is also about the competitive nature of our
Nation. It is also about the reinvention of America. It is
fundamental in terms of what we are talking about as we move
forward in this Nation, that we finally acknowledge the fact
that we are moving from a hardware to a thoughtware economy,
that if we are going to compete in the world as a Nation, we
are going to have to compete based upon your ability to
outthink and outperform, not simply to outmuscle. And in order
to do that, that means we are now going to have to turn to the
fundamental nature of our educational system and we are going
to have to become much more competitive in that regard. You
have heard from my colleagues the challenges we face and the
opportunities, but we now need to turn those opportunities into
realities, and I think that that is what all of us are
committed to.
I am speaking today on behalf of 3,600 colleges and
universities in this country. We have the premier system of
higher education in the world. We are also challenged in that
higher education system because we need to rethink about how we
do our business, and in so doing, we need to work more closely
and in collaboration with a number of our friends around the
larger community. It used to be that it was publish or perish.
Now I believe it is partner or perish. And I want to underscore
that again. We as a higher education community will not
succeed, we will not be able to compete in the world unless we
now partner with our nonprofits, with our businesses, with
industry, with government, state, local, certainly with Federal
Government. So this notion of a new rounded approach to the
world is extremely important and it is now our time.
And so as we move from this knowledge economy built on
innovation and ingenuity, that is the challenge, and in order
to do that, we have to start with the building blocks and that
is with our educational system, that is with our K-12 and pre-
K-12 system and that is obviously with our university system.
So we are as a university community very dedicated to STEM
efforts.
In that regard, Ohio State has taken a leadership role and
we are very grateful for that. As many of you know, and it has
been noted by Representative Wilson, I have the most unstable
employment pattern in America. I do, but nonetheless, my
involvement in universities has taught me as I moved around the
country that universities must take a much stronger leadership
role in terms of the kinds of issues we are talking about today
and we must do it in partnership with a number of people. And
we are doing so. The Association of Public and Land-grant
Universities has just made a commitment. They are going to
prepare 7,500 teachers in STEM education every year and we are
going to meet or exceed that goal, and we promise that that
will not be a high water mark, that will be at the low end of
what we are going to try to do.
In addition to that, what we have done at Ohio State is, we
have been very privileged to have the most comprehensive
effort, I think in the country, in terms of a partnership
between ourselves and the leading private science organizations
in this country in its research effort, and that is Battelle
Memorial Institute, and we have created the Metro Early College
High School, which has been designated by a number of people as
the finest STEM high school in this Nation and it stands on our
campus and next door to our colleagues at Battelle. And what it
is, it is a partnership between the university, Battelle, the
educational council, all of our community schools, and its
purpose is a very simple one and that is to develop these
millennial minds to lead a new era. We will have our first
graduating class in June, and of those graduates, 100 percent
have been accepted to college, nearly, of course, half of them
to Ohio State. I am grateful for that. These are average
students. And by the way, I want to say this. This is what is
important. It is not about geeks--I can use that word because I
look like one--but it is about individuals and students who
have average ability but who will be able to achieve great
things, and so these average students come from 16 school
districts in the 9th and 10th grades. They focus on a core
curriculum in school. In the 11th and 12th grades, they go
outside the school walls for internships. They spend time on
the Ohio State campus. And by the way, at the end of the fall
quarter those who have been taking classes at Ohio State have
about a 3.4 grade point average. Now, either our other students
are not doing very well or these are really--this is an
incredible teaching mechanism, but surely that shows the nature
of what we are doing, and of course, what it is about is
teaching teachers how to teach others and then go into the
public schools. Dr. Wadsworth will discuss Metro's lessons
learned.
I will just make a couple quick points, Mr. Chairman. I am
over my time. First of all, STEM education cannot be truncated.
All too often in this country--and as we all know, we thought
about the world in quarters. We thought about it as pre-K and
then we thought about K-12 and then higher education and then
go out and get a real job. It is now K through life and
particularly, it is very important we understand it is P
through 20 in this STEM education business, and with my
partners here we have to make certain it is preschool and we
start this issue and we make it a compelling and innovative
issue all through this period of time, this 20-year approach we
have.
Secondly, we have to support early STEM schools. This is
what America COMPETES is about. We have to support early STEM
schools who have proven records and who can set high standards.
And finally, we have to make this. This is a three-year
investment that has been made in America COMPETES. I urge this
Congress to make a long-term strategic investment in the future
of America through this effort.
So I urge you to be bold and to seek first-order change,
Mr. Chairman. That is my report.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Gee follows:]
Prepared Statement of E. Gordon Gee
Chairman Gordon, Ranking Member Hall, Ohio Delegation Members
Wilson and Fudge, and other distinguished Members of the Committee:
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on innovative efforts to
reform K-12 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)
education. I appear before you not as a scientist or as an elementary
or secondary school teacher, but as the president of one of the most
comprehensive research universities in the world. Established in 1870,
The Ohio State University is the flagship, land-grant institution of
Ohio. The university is home to more than 63,000 students and 40,000
faculty and staff. We have 175 undergraduate majors, 133 masters
programs, 99 doctoral programs, and seven professional schools, which
offer roughly 12,000 courses each year.
When Thomas Jefferson was designing the University of Virginia, he
established several ``design principles'' to guide the construction of
one of the first public universities in the United States. Two of these
principles are particularly relevant for STEM education in the 21st
century. The first principle deals with the economic value of a well-
trained mind. It states that a proper education must ``give to every
citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own
business.'' The second highlights the fundamental role science and math
play in educational, economic and civic development. It states that
students must be enlightened ``with mathematical and physical sciences,
which advance the arts and administer to the health, the subsistence
and the comforts of human life.'' As a land-grant institution, Ohio
State embraces those ideals and combines them with a founding purpose
to expand public education more broadly and to assure that education
directly improves lives and enriches communities. Such is the basis for
our approach to STEM education and economic development. STEM-driven
knowledge, innovation and talent are integral to how we confront the
grand challenges faced in energy, environment, health, food, water,
poverty and security.
This committee is well aware of the challenges facing STEM
education in the United States. Countless reports have identified the
problems and many have offered solutions. I am here today to report
that institutions of higher education understand that we must play a
vital role in solving the grand challenge of improving the STEM
pipeline. Ohio State, like many educational institutions, is
reinventing itself, and a comprehensive P-20 STEM education approach is
a vital part of our strategy. We must seize this time of disquiet as an
opportunity to create a new American educational ecosystem that
connects and develops talented minds in new and more powerful ways with
increased efficiencies and shared responsibilities. Significant change
in the quality and reach of STEM education requires our unrelenting
pursuit of deeper partnerships across the educational spectrum, with
business and industry, government, parents and extended families, and
our communities. We must work together to foster stronger early-
learning skills for preschoolers and to encourage all high school
students to be STEM literate, with greater numbers of them ready to
pursue advanced STEM studies in college. To do so, we must re-think our
priorities and re-order our time. We must challenge traditional
assumptions, and embrace not only innovation and creativity, but also
risk. STEM education is essential if we are to fully prepare our
students for leadership in a global context.
The work ahead requires new platforms for collaboration. By its
sheer size, The Ohio State University is the most massive intellectual
platform in America. From fostering the world-renowned and globally
relevant research on the loss of polar ice at the Byrd Polar Research
Center to co-founding one of the nation's finest early college STEM
high schools, Ohio State brings talent, knowledge and resources
together to tackle some of the toughest global problems. As we look to
amplify and accelerate the quality of STEM teaching and learning from
preschool through graduate school, we recognize that collaboration
platforms are necessary to help dismantle barriers and to speed the
cross-fertilization of innovative ideas, programs and solutions. Ohio
State's STEM education strategy centers on three platforms for
collaboration.
THREE PLATFORMS FOR STEM EDUCATION AT OHIO STATE
First, we enhance the power, reach and relevance of STEM education
by ensuring that our internal academic structures support collaborative
research, teaching and service on problems that cut across disciplinary
borders.
We are investing in trans-institutional Centers for Innovation and
Innovation Groups to encourage interdisciplinary scholarship across our
campus. We are removing structural and budgetary boundaries and
facilitating faculty collaboration to address issues and problems of
global dimension that affect the quality of the human condition. The
centers and groups are tackling challenges such as international
poverty, food safety, computational modeling of global disease, and
complex human, natural and engineered systems. With specific respect to
STEM education, our recently merged College of Education and Human
Ecology provides a collaborative platform to spur connections in human
health, nutrition, family conditions, brain development and academic
performance. Another major collaboration--both physically and
intellectually--is occurring with our academic Medical Center. There,
partnerships of all kinds are flourishing, translational medicine is
taking hold, and plans for greatly expanded facilities are proceeding
apace. State-of-the-art facilities are meaningless if top-notch medical
care and talent are not available. With that in mind, we have partnered
with Columbus State Community College to advance a much needed STEM
workforce pipeline for health care workers.
Second, we are strengthening and extending collaborations with our
early childhood and K-12 partners on the three most critical factors in
making sure every child succeeds--the equitable distribution of high-
quality teachers and school leaders, turning around persistently low-
achieving schools and aligning the entire educational system around
college- and career-ready standards.
Three examples demonstrate our commitment to increasing the number
of high-quality teachers in STEM fields and enhancing an educational
system around college standards: Metro Early College High School,
Project ASPIRE, and Wonders of the World.
Metro Early College High School is a joint project of Ohio State,
Battelle, and sixteen central Ohio school districts that began in 2006.
This nationally recognized and Gates-funded STEM secondary school takes
a project-based and integrated curriculum approach to preparing a very
diverse student body (many first generation college students) to be
college- and career-ready. Students at Metro participate in self-
directed and hands-on learning experiences with teachers and mentors at
Ohio State and in the community, and they participate in independent
research projects and community internships. In June 2010, Metro will
graduate its first class, all of whom have achieved college admission.
Most Metro students have taken college coursework, with an average Ohio
State GPA of 3.4.
Metro also serves as a research and development platform for
Columbus City Schools. Metro helped launch Linden McKinley STEM Academy
in a high poverty area of Columbus, and is the inspiration/prototype
for the design and launch of state supported STEM schools in Dayton,
Cleveland, Cincinnati, Akron and Columbus and other schools around the
country. Dr. Jeffrey Wadsworth, Battelle CEO, will elaborate on this in
his testimony.
Our overall STEM education strategy has been developed around Metro
Early College High school. Ohio State benefits from its Metro
partnerships in the following areas:
STEM R&D Innovation: Advances the science of STEM
teaching and learning and applies research-based knowledge to
the improvement of practice, particularly in high schools and
higher education.
Teacher Quality: Helps Ohio State to be a national
leader in an enterprise-wide approach to a teacher residency
program model for STEM educators.
College Readiness and Access: As perhaps the only
early college high school situated on the campus of a research
intensive university, Metro helps Ohio State to most
effectively connect high-impact STEM-oriented early college
efforts, particularly for underrepresented and first-generation
student populations.
Economic Development: Focus on STEM-oriented talent
pipelines in key driver industries such as advanced energy/
environmental technologies and health and life sciences.
Outreach and Engagement: Leverage Metro's capacity to
serve as an outreach and engagement portal for externally
funded research projects in STEM disciplines.
The second example combines two major initiatives, Project ASPIRE
and Wilson Fellows, to increase high-quality teachers in underserved
schools in Columbus, Ohio. There is one simple truth that guides our
support of schools--the quality of an education system rests on the
quality of its teachers. This philosophy resulted in a $13 million
Teacher Quality Partnership grant for Ohio State's Project ASPIRE from
the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Innovation and
Improvement. In partnership with the state's largest school district,
Columbus City Schools, Project ASPIRE is designed to deliver more than
600 teachers in high-need content areas such as science and math. In
the next five years, these teachers will be equipped to help low-
achieving students in low-performing schools to grow and succeed
academically.
We have aligned Project ASPIRE with the Woodrow Wilson STEM
Teaching Fellows. In partnership with the Woodrow Wilson Foundation,
Ohio State will design, deliver, scale and sustain an academically
rigorous, graduate-level, clinically based teacher residency program
that: a) attracts the very best candidates from traditional and non-
traditional pathways; b) places and supports strong STEM middle and
secondary teachers in high-need schools; c) reduces teacher attrition
and associated costs; d) transforms teacher education in Ohio; and e)
strengthens the quality of STEM teaching and learning. This is an
enterprise-wide commitment that will fundamentally reshape the way we
prepare STEM educators and work with schools and school districts.
Combined, Project ASPIRE and the Woodrow Wilson STEM Teaching Fellows
deepen our shared responsibility with Columbus City Schools to co-
manage a human capital system that greatly increases the chances that a
student will have access to high-quality math and science educators.
One final example is the Wonders of the World science outreach
program, or W.O.W., led by Dr. Susan Olesik. Since 1999, Dr. Olesik and
her team have successfully paired science fellows with elementary
school teachers to improve science education. Now she is working with
academically talented graduate students in the sciences to collaborate
with third through fifth grade teachers at Columbus City Schools to
develop hands-on, inquiry based science lessons to cover all areas of
the elementary science curriculum. Reported Ohio Proficiency Test
scores show dramatic improvements in the passing rates in science among
the elementary school children involved, and teachers participating in
the program are showing great progress in their science content
knowledge and their ability to teach inquiry-based science lessons.
With continued funding from the National Science Foundation, Dr.
Olesik is now institutionalizing these efforts at Ohio State and with
Columbus City Schools. New fellows and teachers are chosen through
competitive application processes to ensure that the best graduate
students are paired with teachers who are committed to improving their
ability to teach science. The W.O.W. program is substantially enhancing
graduate education at Ohio State, having a large impact on elementary
school teachers in inner-city schools while advancing science skills of
the students they teach.
Our third platform is to unleash our greatest resource--our faculty
and researchers--to develop new STEM education programs and assessment
tools to replicate, imitate and expand successful programs to the state
and national level.
The Battelle Center for Mathematics and Science Policy is housed at
Ohio State and headed by former astronaut and current vice-chair of the
National Science Board, Dr. Kathryn Sullivan. This center addresses the
need for strong science and mathematics education as a cornerstone of
U.S. global competitiveness by developing policies and practices that
will increase the number of students who pursue careers in STEM
education. Presently, the Center is currently engaged in a major STEM
modeling program, which includes powerful analytical tools designed to
guide decision-making across the entire spectrum of STEM education,
from policy to program to practice.
Using Ohio as a testbed, Dr. Sullivan and our colleagues at
Battelle seek to understand how success in STEM education is linked to
the economic growth and competitiveness of the state. This effort would
be impossible without the partnership of Battelle, as well as also the
Ohio Business Roundtable and the Business-Higher Education Forum. It
will involve a broad spectrum of partners from K-12 education, higher
education, government and industry.
At the national level, Ohio State is participating in the Science
and Mathematics Teacher Imperative (SMTI), spearheaded by the
Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU). SMTI is a
commitment by 122 public research universities across 42 states that
prepare more than 7,500 math and science teachers annually--the largest
initiative in advancing the preparation of science and math teachers in
the nation. Our pledge is to substantially increase the number and
diversity of high-quality science and mathematics teachers we prepare,
and to build better partnerships among universities, community
colleges, school systems, state governments, business, and other
stakeholders. As stated during its commendation by the Obama
Administration's Educate to Innovate effort, the collective goal of
SMTI is to prepare more than 10,000 teachers annually by 2015. SMTI
institutions are committed to quality and are using SMTI as a national
platform to identify and share exemplary practices encompassing leading
efforts such as Noyce Scholarships, Wilson Fellowships, UTeach and
other leading approaches to foster expansion of successful programs. We
look to our participation in SMTI as a mechanism to share our efforts
and understand the innovations by others for potential adaptation in
Ohio.
PARTNER OR PERISH
Academics are all too familiar with the phrase ``publish or
perish.'' When it comes to successful STEM programs, I suggest that
institutions of higher education must ``partner or perish.'' We are
fortunate to be geographic neighbors with the Battelle Memorial
Institute, a global leader in research and development, and we are
aggressively deepening our collaboration to meet pressing needs.
In addition to the specific partnerships with Battelle and Columbus
City Schools for Metro and Project ASPIRE, we are members of
STEMColumbus, which brings together Battelle, American Electric Power,
Columbus City Schools, Educational Council, the Ohio State colleges of
Engineering and Education and Human Ecology, and COSI, an award-winning
science center in Columbus, in a partnership to locate, link, lift and
leverage Columbus City Schools middle and high school STEM clubs, camps
and competitions.
Ohio State is also a founding member of the Ohio STEM Learning
Network (OSLN). This is an unprecedented collaborative aimed at
building and connecting STEM teaching and learning capacity in regions
across Ohio. At its core, OSLN is focused on student and teacher
success, built from a slate of committed partners from P-12 education,
higher education and business and industry. Designed from a systems
engineering approach, the OSLN develops and connects a state-wide
system of innovative STEM schools and Programs of Excellence,
leveraging the ongoing work of regions across the state, along with a
$12 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and an
initial $5 million investment from Battelle.
Our successful partnerships flourish for several reasons. Together
we mobilize, engage and empower the right stakeholders to make
decisions on behalf of the institutions. We also must seek agreement
and commitment to specific outcomes, as part of developing a
sustainable business model. We select an approach that meets explicit
standards of proof, scalability and sustainability. Throughout the
process, we build in oversight mechanisms. And finally, we communicate,
communicate, communicate.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR COMPETES REAUTHORIZATION
I would like to recognize the leadership in Congress and the White
House, both past and present, to the issue of STEM education. Through
America COMPETES, Congress has pushed the Federal Government to do a
better job aligning Federal programs to meet the needs of our students,
teachers and researchers that are the STEM pipeline. As with any
legislation, implementation is far from perfect. It is in the spirit of
gratitude and good partnership that I offer a few suggestions as you
debate the COMPETES reauthorization:
Approach STEM education from a P-20 perspective.
Nearly every report issued over the last quarter century
suggests that the STEM pipeline must be strengthened. Federal
programs should strive to better link the efforts from pre-
kindergarten through the post-doctoral level. The multitude of
individual programs across Federal agencies ought to be re-
aligned, both with one another, and with the growing industry
and university initiatives focusing on STEM education and
teacher development.
Support early college STEM schools which have proven
success with underrepresented and first-generation students.
Metro Early College High School, and its sister institutions
across the country, should be afforded opportunities through
the Federal agencies to share best practices and compete for
innovation grants to enhance their outreach efforts to first
generation students.
Demand, incentivize, support and recognize
collaboration at the horizontal and vertical levels. As I have
described, Ohio State is working with our peer institutions of
higher education, local school districts, the State of Ohio and
industry at many different levels. Each of our partnerships is
critical to the success of our STEM programs.
Encourage national partnerships to make STEM
``contagious'' through social networking and viral education
reforms. For example Teach for America, the School for
Everything and teachertv in the United Kingdom rely a great
deal on information and social technologies that attract and
invite talented minds to work together. A national and state
STEM education strategy can be greatly augmented by a digital
media and social networking strategy. Another way to make STEM
contagious is to form public and private partnerships around
``high leverage'' problems using network strategies, structures
and tools to promote the flow of high value knowledge and the
development and exchange of powerful policies and practices.
Provide sufficient resources. The funds provided
through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for the Race
to the Top and Investing in Innovation grant programs offered
significant incentive for institutions to change the way we
educate students and prepare citizens to lead the world in the
new knowledge economy. It is important to ensure that the
National Science Foundation is well connected to these
Department of Education efforts and that NSF funding is
appropriate. For example, it's been almost a decade since NSF
had a program specifically targeted to preparing science and
math teachers. While the NSF provides scholarships for students
through the Noyce program, it is important to provide some core
funding for universities to better develop their teacher
preparation programs to go along with this support for
students.
In conclusion, I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify
before this committee on such an important issue. This moment presents
us with the greatest of opportunities: to wholly reinvigorate and
reshape STEM education programs and to create a fully rounded system of
education that is truly pre-K though life, one in which our
interdependencies are our greatest strengths. Without question, you
have a difficult job ahead. I respectfully urge you to move boldly, act
quickly, and seek first-order change. And know that America's
universities, and especially The Ohio State University, will be working
with you to achieve our goals.
Biography for E. Gordon Gee
E Gordon Gee, among the most highly experienced and respected
university presidents in the nation, returned to The Ohio State
University after having served as Chancellor of Vanderbilt University
for seven years. Prior to his tenure at Vanderbilt, he was president of
Brown University (1998-2000), The Ohio State University (1990-97), the
University of Colorado (1985-90), and West Virginia University (1981-
85).
Born in Vernal, Utah, Gee graduated from the University of Utah
with an honors degree in history and earned his J.D. and Ed.D degrees
from Columbia University. He clerked under Chief Justice David T. Lewis
of the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals before being named a judicial
fellow and staff assistant to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he worked
for Chief Justice Warren Burger on administrative and legal problems of
the Court and Federal judiciary. Gee returned to Utah as an associate
professor and associate dean in the J. Reuben Clark Law School at
Brigham Young University, eventually achieving the rank of full
professor. In 1979 he was named dean of the West Virginia University
Law School, and in 1981 was appointed to that university's presidency.
Active in a number of national professional and service
organizations, Gee served as a Trustee for the Harry S. Truman
Scholarship Foundation and as chairman of the Kellogg Commission on the
Future of State and Land Grant Universities. He is a member of the
National Commission on Writing for America's Families, Schools, and
Colleges, founded by the College Board to improve the teaching and
learning of writing. He also serves as co-chair of the Association of
Public and Land-Grant Universities' Energy Advisory Committee.
Gee is a member of the Board of Governors of the National Hospice
Foundation, the Advisory Board of the Christopher Isherwood Foundation,
and the Board of Trustees of the Christopher Columbus Fellowship
Foundation, an independent Federal Government agency established to
``encourage and support research, study and labor designed to produce
new discoveries in all fields of endeavor for the benefit of mankind.''
He also is a member of the Business-Higher Education Forum.
Gee has received a number of honorary degrees, awards, and
recognitions. He was a Mellon Fellow for the Aspen Institute for
Humanistic Studies and a W.K. Kellogg Fellow. In 1994, he received the
Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Utah as well as from
Teachers College of Columbia University. He is the co-author of eight
books and the author of numerous papers and articles on law and
education.
Gee's daughter, Rebekah, is an assistant professor of clinical
medicine in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Tulane
University and a Norman F. Gant/American Board of Obstetrics and
Gynecology/IOM Anniversary Fellow.
Chairman Gordon. Thank you, President Gee. So I learned
some new words here, P to 20, K to life and hardware to
thoughtware.
Dr. Gee. I am always available.
Chairman Gordon. Thank you for the addition to my
vocabulary, and tag, Dr. Wadsworth, you are next.
STATEMENTS OF DR. JEFFREY WADSWORTH, PRESIDENT AND CEO,
BATTELLE MEMORIAL INSTITUTE
Dr. Wadsworth. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and distinguished
Members of the Committee, and thank you, Representative Fudge,
for your overly kind introduction.
I am the second Tennessean on the Committee, and if I don't
sound like I am from Tennessee, that is because I am really
from east of Tennessee.
Gordon Battelle back in 1920 wrote a very prescient will,
and Battelle Memorial Institute was founded in 1929 on three
principles that I think you will recognize. Conduct scientific
discovery was the first. The second and very importantly was
translate those discoveries into practical applications that
would benefit the economy and society. And thirdly, he declared
that with the proceeds of that work, we should reinvest in the
education of men and women. So you can see a very strong
fundamental base in the principles of Battelle that apply
today. We started with 40 people in 1929, 80 years ago. We
closed our books this year at $5.6 billion. It started with
$3.5 million which in today's terms is about $40 million
startup. We employ 20,000 people, mostly in the United States,
in 100 different locations.
We applaud the leadership in Congress and the White House
on the America COMPETES Act. It is exactly what is needed. At
Battelle, we have a firsthand understanding of the issues.
Those 20,000 people we employ, 40 percent of them will be
retirement eligible in five years. That is 8,000 people we have
to replace. And we look at the source terms for replacing those
people, they are both going down: foreign nationals who come
and stay, and homegrown science and technology graduates and
people in other disciplines. Increasing pull term to reduce
source terms, that is a train wreck and that is why this
subject is so important.
So 10 years ago, we invested $10 million to create a
company called Battelle for Kids. Today, it is an independent
organization and a leading national provider of services across
the country. It will do tens and tens of millions of revenue in
the next couple of years. They work on value-added assessment,
data-driven decision making and old-school reform. They
measure, measure and measure performance, and that capability
is becoming increasingly recognized as core to advancing our
capabilities at schools.
Having done that, we then established an operating unit
within Battelle focused on education. I want to emphasize, this
isn't a separate foundation. It is not a disconnected entity.
It is a core part of what we do and we now think of it as a
line of business, and it is focused on STEM education and
partnerships and it is fully integrated into what we do, and
our goal is very clear, our ambition is very clear. We believe
in STEM competency being available for all students, not just a
select few, and we focus our efforts on supporting students at
high risk of being denied the opportunity to have a STEM
education. It could be because of their race, their
socioeconomic background, their family situation, anything that
reduces their chance of accessing a high-quality education,
that is where we focused our efforts.
Now, what are we good at? We are actually good at complex
program management, public-private partnerships, systems
engineering, things like that. We manage seven of the Nation's
major laboratories, and these involve hundreds of partnerships,
and it turns out that in our view, it is this ability to bring
complex teams together in a systems approach to education that
is where we can make the greatest contribution. So we engage
directly with public education partners, like-minded
corporations and foundations.
What have we learned? First of all, we believe in using our
skills in STEM to create STEM networks. In other words, we use
our scientific skills to create networks of institutions. The
Metro Early College High School mentioned by my colleague,
President Gee, is a prime example. Metro uses project-based
learning centered on the students. Now, what does that mean? It
means that a student, instead of saying, ``why am I studying
algebra II,'' says, ``oh, that is how I can use mathematics to
solve a problem.'' We are graduating students. For example, one
is interested in combining journalism and engineering studies
because he wants to increase public understanding of technology
and its implications. Another student is passionate about
interior design, but how do you apply sustainable products.
These kinds of experiences are the sort that could indeed
create new industries. So we are using STEM to create STEM
networks and to produce students who have an intrinsic interest
in using that.
Our engagement of Metro lead to scale, so we started off in
Columbus but then we joined with the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation and they have been a huge asset to us, leveraging
our investment, and we created the Ohio State--with Ohio State
University and the State of Ohio, we created a public-private
STEM Learning Network, and this was in order to go to scale. So
since opening in 2006, we have helped design 10 new STEM middle
and high schools across Ohio, and indeed as far away as
Richland in the State of Washington. All are open to students
of all ability. They are drawn in using a lottery system. We
get D students and A students. And it turns out, as Gordon
described, they end up graduating with very high competencies.
In less than three years, we have had over $100 million
invested. High schools now serve 3,000 students and more than
100,000 students and 1,000 teachers have been connected in.
I would like to comment on the Carnegie Corporation's
Opportunity Equation report that was recently published, and
they call for us to tap into the vast resources we have in our
institutions of higher learning, museums and other science-rich
community institutions, to essentially do school differently.
They are saying we have to do it differently and we agree.
Battelle's work also aims at doing schools differently through
partnerships designed to spread innovations.
Having gone to the broader Ohio network, we now seek to go
and create multi-state networks. So right now we are currently
creating networks across Ohio, Tennessee, North Carolina and
Washington as we expand our philosophy and our investments.
We believe that partnerships have to be deeply engaged, and
. . . I am running out of time. In Cleveland, there is a very
interesting public STEM high school in a building on the
General Electric Nela Park Campus, where employees from GE work
side by side with teachers and students. Another example closer
to home is the Mid-Ohio Food Bank where food distribution and
hunger issues involve logistics and economics.
So let me conclude. We think there are three principles
that you should look for in investments. One is design for
scale, one is design for sustainability and the third is to
measure, measure and measure and hold people accountable to
those goals that we have set. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Wadsworth follows:]
Prepared Statement of Jeffrey Wadsworth
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and distinguished Members of the
Committee. My name is Jeff Wadsworth and I am President and Chief
Executive Officer of Battelle Memorial Institute. I want to thank you
for inviting me to speak today on this important topic and to join with
the other witnesses this morning--several of whom I know and work with
personally on education programs as you have heard in their
testimonies.
To set some context, I will begin with a brief overview of the
organization that I currently lead, and compare its mission with the
role of this Committee. In the late 1920s, our founder Gordon Battelle
established Battelle Memorial Institute through his will. Gordon
Battelle was a visionary and part of a family of successful
industrialists and humanitarians. He believed that scientific research
was central to industrial competitiveness. Through his will, Battelle
Memorial Institute was established with three founding purposes: (1)
conduct scientific discovery, (2) translate discoveries into practical
applications of benefit to the economy and to society, and (3) utilize
the proceeds from these activities to benefit education of men and
women for employment.
What began with several dozen people in Columbus, Ohio more than 80
years ago is today a global non-profit research and development
enterprise with revenues of $5.6 billion. We employ more than 20,000
people and operate in many locations around the world. The majority of
our staff work in more than 100 sites across the United States. In
addition, Battelle operates seven national laboratories for the
Department of Energy and the Department of Homeland Security,
including: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (operated by UT-Battelle, in
conjunction with the University of Tennessee), National Renewable
Energy Laboratory (operated by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy),
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory
(operated by Battelle Energy Alliance), Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory (operated by Lawrence Livermore National Security), and the
National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center (operated by
the Battelle National Biodefense Institute).
At Battelle, we have a first-hand understanding of the urgency
addressed by the America COMPETES Act and we applaud the leadership in
Congress and the White House on this issue. The talent available to
replace the 40-plus-percent of Battelle scientists and engineers
eligible to retire in the next few years is becoming increasingly
scarce. A solid foundation in STEM education beginning in the K-12
years must become the rule--not the exception--for every student
growing up in the United States.
The tie between education and economic development has never been
more important than it is today--a view we share with this Committee.
Although we have grown significantly over our history, the will of
Gordon Battelle represents the constant guiding instrument for our
organization. The role of Battelle's management team is to continuously
interpret the will in a contemporary context and constantly search for
the best and highest use of our human capital and facilities.
Like many organizations with a high content of science and
technology, we are strong advocates of STEM education and proud of our
history of support to K-12, college, and workforce training programs.
In 2001, we made a decision regarding the contemporary ``best and
highest use'' of Battelle's financial resources and human talent in the
area of education improvement. That decision ultimately led to
integrating our education efforts in STEM as a full operating business
of equal standing and priority to our core research and development
businesses in Energy, Health and Life Sciences, National Security, and
Laboratory Management. We are aimed at STEM competency for all
students, not just a select few. In particular, we are joining with
others in efforts to support students that are at high risk of being
left behind due to any circumstance--their race, socioeconomic status,
family situation--that reduces their chances of accessing a high
quality education. Our efforts concentrate on K-12 STEM education, but
as you will hear in my testimony, it is carried out through close
partnerships with higher education leaders.
Battelle demonstrates one of the basic tenets of STEM collaboration
espoused by experts in the field. Corporations are finding that their
core competencies in logistics, communication and broadcasting,
research and development, and information technology have tremendous
value in the education sector. This is especially the case in STEM
education because these organizations simultaneously provide authentic
models of what STEM careers look like to students and teachers.
Battelle's core skills are in program management, public/private
partnerships, systems engineering, and product design. These are
coupled with our experience in management of multi-billion dollar
assets such as U.S. National Laboratories that involve hundreds of
simultaneous partnerships. We have translated this combination of
competencies to the STEM education arena as we directly engage public
education partners and like-minded corporations and foundations. I want
to highlight for this Committee what we are learning along the way and
offer some recommendations on ways the Federal Government can
accelerate progress.
We are seeing high value in an approach that ``uses STEM to create
STEM.'' Metro Early College High School--described earlier by President
Gordon Gee from The Ohio State University--is a good example of this
principle at work. Metro uses project-based learning with STEM as the
fundamental language for instruction. Art, history, composition,
language, engineering, physics, mathematics are not separate
disciplines. They are integrated into student-led projects as the core
of learning in the school. A goal of project-based learning is to
develop relevance. Relevance is actually quite easy to spot. It's when
a student replaces the all too familiar: ``Why would I ever need to
know this?'' remark with, ``Oh . . . so that's how that works!''
OSU and Battelle joined with 16 public school districts in central
Ohio as founders of Metro. But for OSU and Battelle--with adjacent
campuses that house the nation's largest land grant university and the
world's largest independent research and development organization--
creating a 400-student personalized learning STEM high school a mile
away was not the sole objective.
The design goal was to establish Metro as an authentic
demonstration laboratory with real students and teachers under real
world conditions. OSU would co-construct Metro's curriculum with
teachers and STEM practitioners at Battelle, and consequently transform
the way OSU trained teachers from the outset. The school would be
lottery based and non-selective. Mastery would be required in order to
earn credit for each subject. Ohio-based KnowledgeWorks would provide
support in school design, essential in the expansion of the Metro
concept.
The fundamental design principle at Metro was the partnership
itself. That is--we wanted to establish a school involving multiple
public school districts, anchor higher education two-year and four-year
institutions, and committed business that collectively commit to the
design, start-up and continued governance of a school. Once
established, the school would serve as a ``platform'' for proactively
transferring learning and teaching practices to districts in its region
and facilitate STEM education practices into those districts. Platform
schools would be connected to other platform schools to amplify their
impact.
As a demonstration school, Metro has met its objectives so far.
Chosen by lottery without regard to their prior academic performance
when they entered ninth grade, Metro's entire senior class will
graduate and all have received admission to college. Not all will
choose the traditional STEM studies in higher education--in fact, many
will not. But all have a mastery of STEM fundamentals that will serve
them well in whatever endeavors they choose. The operative word here is
``choose'' because all of their options remain open. Students' choices
about college pursuits reveal their command of STEM. One student is
interested in combining journalism and engineering studies because he
wants to increase public understanding of technology and its
implications. Another student is passionate about interior design and
the application of sustainable products. These types of experiences are
how new industries are born.
Our deep engagement at Metro led to scale--a statewide effort using
similar design principles. Since opening in 2006, teachers and leaders
at Metro also have helped to design and open 10 new STEM middle and
high schools across Ohio and as far away as Richland, Washington. All
are open to all students, of all abilities. Informed by experiences
with Metro, Battelle worked with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,
The Ohio State University, and the State of Ohio to form the public/
private Ohio STEM Learning Network. Battelle's education group manages
this network with in-kind resources, and provides grants from the Gates
Foundation and Battelle that are co-invested with regional funds. The
network, called the OSLN (see www.osln.org), is a living laboratory of
collaborative excellence. In less than three years, 10 STEM platform
schools and 26 K-8 STEM programs of excellence have been created
through this network. More than $100 million has been invested by
public and private partners. The high schools now have 3,100 students;
the K-8 programs reach more than 100,000 students district wide; and
more than 1,000 teachers are involved.
Each school and program implementation is tailored to local, on-
the-ground conditions. But all 36 schools and programs in Ohio, and the
more than 300 partners that are at the core of the five regional
``hub'' collaborations (Akron, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Dayton,
Columbus), have agreed to identical commitments regarding how they will
participate with each other and their responsibility to actively share
tools, practices, and human talent.
Educational systems are too strained to apply much focus and effort
to effective collaboration. They are understandably focused on their
own performance. We believe that careful network design and interface
management are essential ingredients in scaling high quality education
innovations. The basic formula for Battelle's network management is not
a one-size-fits-all approach based on replication. While we are a
highly disciplined organization in the way we apply design to solve
engineering problems for our clients, our approach to managing networks
of diverse partners is centered on relationship management and creating
reciprocal value for the committed stakeholders. We place a deliberate
focus on engineering the interfaces among stakeholders--across the K-12
to higher education continuum, and across education/industry/state
government. This focus enables partnerships in various locations to
leverage their strengths and maintain their distinctiveness, while
benefiting from the work and progress of others operating in the
network.
Statewide efforts are leading to multi-state efforts. A key to
Battelle's success as a research and development organization is
putting partnerships in place. We are applying these same skills to
link schools and regions together in Ohio to accelerate STEM education
innovation. The natural extension is to link states together in a
similar systematic fashion. Battelle now is working with national
organizations including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the
National Governors Association to create multi-state networks. We
currently are connecting networks across Ohio, Tennessee, North
Carolina, and Washington, and adding other states and private
corporations in this process. In all cases, we are building incentives
for reciprocal agreements among states and regions. Committed
collaboration is a requirement for participation.
Partnerships must be deeply engaged and not be cheerleaders from
the sidelines. As I indicated earlier, STEM education is enhanced when
industry and private partners engage their core skills with educators.
In Cleveland for example, GE Lighting has converted one of the
buildings on its Nela Park Campus to house a Cleveland Public STEM High
School. GE employees work side-by-side with teachers and students
without the need to leave the workplace. Students see professionals at
work. Battelle is also organizing a community of practice with our
national laboratory partners so they can tap into the state networks
and amplify their education outreach efforts.
Advocates make the argument that STEM is a 21st century survival
skill, but most programs pigeonhole STEM only where scientists and
engineers work. STEM does not take place just in laboratories--it can
be found everywhere. At Battelle, we are encouraging and funding STEM
field sites and requiring connections of these sites to the regional
schools that participate in the networks. In this context, a field site
is a location where STEM experiences naturally occur. A good example is
the Mid-Ohio Food Bank. Food distribution and hunger issues involve
logistics and an understanding of data analytics. Students take on
projects that are designed to improve the efficiency of food
distribution, the use of community gardens, and new ways to increase
local production. The direct application of STEM to social justice
issues is a powerful motivator and offers relevance especially to
students who come from poverty. Botany is taught inside a park
conservatory and students learn about community gardens as a route to
community self-reliance.
Data matters and information sharing matters even more. Ten years
ago, while we were exploring the best and highest use of our own human
talent, Battelle helped to launch a school support organization through
a $10 million initiative called Battelle for Kids. Today, Battelle for
Kids is a leading national provider of services related to value added
assessment, data driven decision making and whole school reform.
Battelle for Kids currently is working with 20 school districts across
Appalachia Ohio on a comprehensive approach to connect college and
career ready standards to teacher quality and school redesign.
Broadening and deepening the access of students to high quality STEM
teachers and educational experiences is an essential piece to the
overall effort in Appalachia.
Despite many great examples of STEM initiatives and successes,
there is little evidence they have had significant collective impact on
STEM education nationwide. Indeed, there is plenty of evidence that
suggests many of them are operating in isolation. Even the best
teachers have few peers to call upon and little in terms of best
practice and content that they can exploit for their students. The need
for better instructional supports for teachers and students will only
grow more acute as the states adopt fewer, higher, and clear world-
class standards.
The reaction to this challenge is often seen as a logistical
problem--create accessible databases, maps and inventories of programs
and others will be able to more readily find solutions rather than
having to reinvent them. The nation now has hundreds of databases of
STEM initiatives that exist funded by states, Federal agencies, and
private sources. Most are useful, but almost instantly out-of-date at
the moment of creation. The lists also are incomplete because they
often don't capture work in process by grass roots innovators who don't
have the time, awareness of such databases, or see value in
contributing to these works. The information is also most useful to the
``STEM-literate''--those who already understand STEM's value in a
complete education. The ``STEM-uninitiated''--the majority of educators
and communities that are arguably the most in need--are not affected by
these databases no matter how good.
Battelle provides solutions to some of the world's most important
challenges. This work gives us the opportunity to connect with nearly a
thousand government and private sector clients and partners each year,
including some of the world's leading corporations and governmental
agencies. Collaborative innovation is one of our strengths and it is
embedded in our core values. Bringing educators and the key
stakeholders that support education together with system developers and
STEM professionals opens up entirely new and desperately needed
innovations in the way we design, deliver and sustain education that
makes a difference for all children and all communities. There are more
than 200,000 scientists and engineers employed by the Federal
Government. These STEM professionals are vital to both the economic and
educational future of the nation. We must find better ways to connect
and develop STEM talent across generations, geography and
organizational boundaries. Such grand efforts always begin and end with
collaboration and all of us need to work very hard to recognize and
reward partnerships that make STEM education relevant and readily
accessible.
In closing, I want to thank this Committee again for the
opportunity to recap our perspectives about K-12 STEM education. As
this Committee continues its important oversight of programs across the
science and technology spectrum, we urge consideration of three
important themes that I have underscored in my testimony: (1) provide
incentives that create large-scale partnerships, (2) base incentives on
efforts that build systems that last beyond the lifetime of individual
programs, and (3) require information sharing as a specific design
criteria.
I would be pleased to answer any questions from the Committee.
Thank you.
Biography for Jeffrey Wadsworth
Jeff Wadsworth has been President and CEO of Battelle Memorial
Institute since January 2009. Battelle is the world's largest nonprofit
research and development organization, executing about $5B of work
annually and employing about 21,000 people. Formed in 1925 as a
charitable trust and headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, Battelle counts
among its successes the development of the Xerox machine, pioneering
work on the compact disc, and a number of innovations in medical
technology, telecommunications, environmental waste treatment, homeland
security, and transportation. Battelle has spun off new ventures and
companies in fiber optics, pharmaceuticals, energy, electronics, and
informatics. Its principal businesses today are fee-for-service
contract research, laboratory operations, and commercial ventures,
executing more than 5,000 projects for some 1,500 industrial and
government clients throughout the world.
Jeff formerly led Battelle's Global Laboratory Operations business,
where he oversaw Battelle's management or co-management of eight major
laboratories: six national laboratories of the U.S. Department of
Energy, representing more than $3B in annual business (Pacific
Northwest National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, National
Renewable Energy Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Idaho
National Laboratory, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory); the
Department of Homeland Security's National Biodefense Analysis and
Counter-measures Center; and a renewable energy laboratory in Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia, designed, built, and operated by Battelle for the
private sector. In March 2009, a consortium including Battelle was
awarded a contract to manage the National Nuclear Laboratory of the
United Kingdom's Department of Energy and Climate Change.
Jeff was educated at Sheffield University in England, where he
studied metallurgy, earning a bachelor's degree in 1972 and a Ph.D. in
1975. He was awarded a Doctor of Metallurgy degree in 1991 for his
published work and received the highest recognition conferred by the
university, an honorary Doctor of Engineering degree, in July 2004.
Jeff came to the United States in 1976 and has worked at Stanford
University, Lockheed Missiles and Space Company, and Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory. In 2002, he joined Battelle and served as a member
of the White House Transition Planning Office for the U.S. Department
of Homeland Security. From 2003 to June 2007, Jeff was director of Oak
Ridge National Laboratory, the Department of Energy's largest
multipurpose science laboratory.
Jeff has authored or co-authored nearly 300 scientific papers and 1
book, and he has been granted 4 U.S. patents. His many honors and
awards include three honorary doctorates, two honorary professorships
from Chinese universities, and election to the rank of Fellow of three
technical societies. He was elected a member of the National Academy of
Engineering in 2005.
Jeff and his wife Jerre live with their two Parson (Jack) Russell
terriers in Upper Arlington. They have three adult children; two live
and work in California, and one in Vermont.
Chairman Gordon. Thank you, Dr. Wadsworth. And just for
your information, the Carnegie and the Gates Foundations have
each submitted statements for our record.
I am afraid we are going to have to be going to vote soon
so we are trying to get at least our first two questions. Dr.
Simons, as mentioned earlier, you have a deep knowledge of
Noyce and math by virtue of being a scholar, setting up a
program that has been replicated there. So do you have any
recommendations regarding the Noyce program specifically, and
additionally, ways in which it could be strengthened or
improved upon? And beyond Noyce, how can NSF and other Federal
agencies best support improved teacher recruitment and
retention in the STEM fields?
Dr. Simons. That is a long question. Generally speaking, I
am rather pleased with the Noyce program except for its size. I
think it should be bigger. The grants that they make on an
individual basis could be bigger.
Chairman Gordon. How big should it be?
Dr. Simons. Well, it depends on the size of the program.
They have a fixed-size grant which is independent of the size
of the program to which they are giving it. These grants could
vary with the number of people involved, the number of teachers
being trained or whatever rather than just be a flat amount.
But of course, those flat amounts are a good start but again,
they were too small.
I think the Noyce program is a very good template. I think
it could be substantially expanded, and what we learn from that
might allow us to do an even more far-reaching program, perhaps
with the National Science and Foundation and perhaps housed
elsewhere. But I am very thankful for what has been done so far
with that program.
Chairman Gordon. Thank you.
President Gee, with your experience at Ohio State, do you
have any--I am not asking you to be critical, you know, you are
not being critical, you are being helpful if you can give us
any suggestions on how Noyce could be better improved.
Dr. Gee. I think that Dr. Simons made the same point and
that is the fact that obviously this is a program that has
worked. I think what we have to do right now is, we have to
invest in the things that are working. Those that are working,
we invest in. Those that are experimental and not working, then
we have to put to the side. And so I would say two things. One
is the fact that you need to probably increase the amount of
grants, but you need to increase the size of it.
Mr. Chairman, I also want to make another point. We were
talking about this last evening, and that is the fact that it
can't simply be the National Science Foundation. There has to
be a number of other entities in this country, including
Federal agencies, that are starting these kinds of initiatives.
If we just continue to turn to the National Science Foundation
or to the Department of Education, we will not have the kind of
results we need to have, and opportunities about and that is
one of the things this Committee can encourage.
Chairman Gordon. President Gee, to give you a--we agree
with you. Let me tell you what we have done on this committee.
We are starting an inventory of all the STEM education all
across the Federal Government and we are finding that if you
just push a button and say STEM education, you will find some
will float to the top but you have to go deeper really to find
it, and we are finding hundreds of programs. And so we are
trying to create a--both inventory them and create an umbrella
that will be better coordinate those. So as I was saying with
Dr. Wadsworth earlier on another matter, it is easier to save a
dollar than appropriate an additional dollar. So if we can get
better use through synergy, and we are again in the process of
that investment and hopefully we will find ways to make those
dollars go further.
Mr. Hall, you are recognized.
Mr. Hall. Dr. Simons, I could listen to you all day, and I
almost did. But let me tell you something, you were saying
something, you were firing bullets every bit, and I was
intrigued. Even I could understand what you were saying. And I
suggest to you, Mr. Chairman, does their testimony that they
submitted go into the record? If it doesn't, it sure should
because everybody ought to read it. I think it is the best set
of opening statements I have ever heard. They were great, to
the point and just exactly what we needed.
With that, I had a question I wanted to ask about Metro
Early College High School, a secondary school that is a success
story, equivalent to the Morris Elementary School. Dr.
Wadsworth, I concur with you that a one-size-fits-all approach
to replicating these schools can't work but different
communities have different needs. I am sure you realized it
when you were developing the Ohio STEM Learning Network. Could
you maybe just elaborate on how you were able to successfully
tailor the Metro model for other communities, and for other
elementary and other middle schools?
Dr. Wadsworth. Yes, that is an excellent point. I think
there are some underlying principles that need to be in place,
and after that, it does indeed need to be tailored to a
particular area. So I think of it in terms of the `what' and
the `how'. The `what' is to get more kids into this area and to
provide some of the underpinning partnerships, the agreements
that are necessary to create new schools. The detailed design
has to flow from the local community. For example, rural areas
in southeast Ohio have to be different than, you know, city-
based schools but the underlying principles of bringing
business partners in, forming complex teams and allowing scale
to progress are principles that need to be common to all of
them.
Mr. Hall. Sometime I would like to visit the Metro Early
College High School.
Dr. Wadsworth. We would love to have you.
Mr. Hall. And I once again want to say it is the best
opening statements, and I am going to--I won't say I am going
to reread them; I am going to read them, by golly, and I thank
all of you for being here. I yield back whatever time I have.
Chairman Gordon. You can see I have a good partner here.
Ms. Fudge is recognized.
Ms. Fudge. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Wadsworth, I really like what you said about the direct
application of STEM to social justice issues. I believe that
nearly all of the problems that we face as a society require
some type of STEM solution, from affordable and energy-
efficient housing to child nutrition and obesity. How can we
help to raise awareness of the intimate connections between
these issues and STEM fields?
Dr. Wadsworth. Thank you for the question. I really just
echo the sentiment you have raised which is that when a child
sees the application of STEM to a real problem, that is the
most stimulating way to engage them into the field, and I would
urge all Members to visit the Metro High School. You will be
greeted by students who will show you around. You will go into
chemistry classes, which in some cases, believe it or not, are
being taught in Mandarin because the teacher is from China and
the students asked to learn Mandarin, and you will go into
complex lessons which correlate literature with film
interpretations of the literature. It is not just about
chemistry and math. You will see this constant engagement of
how you bring mathematics and science to solving complex social
problems, and it is the engagement of the students and the
realization that these skills can be applied across the
spectrum that I think is so exciting.
Ms. Fudge. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Gordon. Mr. Smith, you are recognized.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Gordon. Excuse me. I am sorry. Mrs. Biggert is
recognized.
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is an ongoing
thing, it seems like. I even moved down here so I would--sorry.
Thank you all for being here. I also serve on the Education
Committee and yesterday we had a hearing with Secretary Duncan
about, you know, what is going on and what the budget is for
education, and as we look at our education system and see the
low ranking that we have in this world, it seems like time is
a-wasting and we really haven't increased the overall education
for kids and it really worries me. One of the issues that
Secretary Duncan raised was the fact that in China, you know,
the kids go to school all the time and the focus is on
education. It sounds like it is pretty rigid and something that
our country would not want, you know, the type of education,
but I do think that we really need to take a whole new look at
it and I think what you are doing is really, you know, the
opportunity for the future. Hearing, you know, like in Ohio, we
just need to increase this type of education and look to the
21st century where it is just not the traditional go to school
from 9 to 3 or 8:30 to 3 or whatever the timing is and really
to expand this program.
So you talk about partnerships, you talk about, you know,
the Federal Government. What can we do? You know, I go into
schools and talk to the kids, and I have seen a dramatic
increase in the number of students that really want to go into
science, to be engineers and to be the mathematicians. They
used to want to be Michael Jordan, then they wanted to be
President. That has changed a little bit too. But how do we
engage the students that don't have the access to your programs
and how can we increase it?
Chairman Gordon. Excuse me, Mrs. Biggert. Before they
answer, let me tell the Members, because I know people are
going to start to peel off because we only have five minutes,
although it will be a long five minutes, as we know. Rather
than set a time specific for when we will return, let me ask
everyone to come back, you know, promptly after the last vote,
and you might want to grab some of your compatriots on the way,
and with that, I think President Gee, you were starting to
answer Mrs. Biggert's question. Go right ahead.
Dr. Gee. Well, I am going to be very swift hopefully. Two
things. One is, there is an interesting phenomenon in this
country that we really don't talk about and that is the fact
that indeed we have some real challenges in our K-12 system,
but think about this: all of a sudden we come and enter our
university system, and the university system in this country is
far and away the best in the world. And so how is it that we
have a K-12 system that is not as good, and then we have a
university that is the best in the world? And I think we need
to do some deconstruction which allows us to take a look at
that. I do have some views on that. But nonetheless, I think
that is something that is important for this committee to take
a look at.
In terms of the partnership issue, I think as I stated
earlier, the opportunity for us right now is to really
reinvent. The thing about it is, is what we have done is we
have gotten into this very sterile view that it is just about
X. Rather, now what we have to do is, we have to question
everything, we have to start anew. I sit next to Ellen here. I
mean, the notion of what can happen in her world and my world
is not so far. Actually it is now complementary and that is
what we need to--those are the kinds of partnerships. We just
need to look at each other and say, that is precisely what we
are going to do.
Ms. Futter. I would like to add to that if I could. As
someone who sat on the Carnegie Commission that spoke so
explicitly about doing school differently, as was cited, they
really mean through these cross-sector partnerships, and it
goes so much to the heart of what so many of you have raised
today in terms of how do you get families engaged, how do you
get children engaged. At the Museum, people are engaged. They
may first be engaged by an exhibition and the exhibition might
be on the topic of food, which goes directly to the question of
obesity and a major public issue, or it might be an
environmental subject or it might be human health, whatever it
is. But it is not just the exhibition, which of course is where
it can begin for a youngster and for families, but that we are
also going to put together materials that can be used in the
curriculum by teachers in training, by extending what is
learned in the exhibition to the classroom, and can be done
online. So this becomes a sustained initiative that is at the
Museum, in the school, at home, empowering a broad swath of key
players in enhancing science outcomes across this country.
Mrs. Biggert. Would it help if we had something like
Sputnik or something that the whole country gets behind? You
know, what you are doing, you know, you said you can go to all
these things but if we really had some way to really focus in
on this and say we are going to change the nature of education.
Ms. Futter. There is no question but that Sputnik played
that role, and finding a similar kind of clarion call or lever
would be exceedingly helpful, but frankly, funding it and doing
it will get us a long distance and we are very grateful to
participate in your activities today for that reason.
Chairman Gordon. Well, energy independence and stability is
our new Sputnik.
So I think where we are now is, to our panel, we are going
to adjourn. It will probably be about 30 minutes--oh, recess.
Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me. Recess with Mr. Hall's
permission. We are going to go vote. We will come back. Quite
frankly, I suspect that we will lose a few Members on the way,
although, you know, they are holding on. And so we might allow
you to have one more round of general discussion, and you are
welcome, we have a room over to the side to have coffee, water.
Dr. Simons, Mr. Finkel might take you aside for something that
you might have an interest in doing also.
[Recess.]
Chairman Gordon. Ranking Member-designate Smith has just
arrived. Let us see. I think that Mrs. Biggert was the last
witness so Dr. Baird, we will--and let me also say to everyone
that at noon we are going to have to--oh, I am sorry. Mr.
Wilson was next. At noon we are going to start to--two of our
members have to leave, so we will see how we are going to deal
with it.
Mr. Wilson.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was trying to get
myself organized here.
My question is to Dr. Gee. Dr. Gee, OSU has been a real
leader in establishing partnerships with various companies,
organizations, schools, and as a result--which has been a
better OSU--a better educated workforce and better communities.
Why do you feel OSU has been so successful in establishing
these partnerships, and how can the Federal Government be
helpful in encouraging similar collaborations around the
country?
Dr. Gee. I think two things. First of all, I appreciate
that, but we haven't always been that successful. The truth of
the matter is, is that I think that Ohio State--and President
Futter and I were just talking about this--universities in
general have been sort of isolated, arrogant. We felt that we
knew what the world was about and we did not want to engage in
relationship building. I think that the last five or six years
have clearly demonstrated to institutions that we can no
longer--particularly universities and colleges, we can no
longer go it alone, that we really do need to develop
partnerships, and by the way, the partnerships I am talking
about across the spectrum, I believe in many ways the most
powerful partner in the university setting is with our
colleagues in the community college sector. And by the way, I
want to be on record. I believe that the community colleges are
probably the most important educational institute in this
country. They are really the front door to the American dream
and we need to understand that. We need to work very closely
with them. And so we have worked very closely with a number of
institutions. I will just make one note, that is, we have
created very recently the first of its kind program with a
community colleague which is a pathway to medical school,
starting with the community college and working with them to be
able to develop ways right into our medical school. And so I
think the reason for our success is the fact that there is an
ability to understand and cherish the fact that we do learn
much from these partnerships, and I don't want to embarrass
Jeff who is sitting right next to us. All of a sudden we
discovered that gee, you know, with this magnificent friend
called Battelle that we do have powerful reasons to have
partnerships and I think that that is a driving force too.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you. And this question is for all or any
who would like to respond, but the Sixth District of Ohio,
which I represent, is largely rural where educational
resources, opportunities can be very scarce. How can the
opportunities being developed in Columbus, Ohio, and other
urban areas throughout the country through innovative STEM
programs be made applicable to Appalachia and other rural areas
of this country?
Ms. Futter. I will take a shot at that if I may because I
was very taken also when Ranking Member Hall made the point
earlier about the limited resources that we face. One of the
great things about museums and other institutions of this type
is that they really are storehouses of resources, and just to
give you some sense of what that means, in our institution
alone, which I use as an example because it is what I know
best, we have 32 million specimens and artifacts as
collections, and that is everything from a gigantic T. Rex to
an equally gigantic meteorite, and it goes on and on from
there. These are things that create wonder and excitement and
that are the gateway to learning, but beyond that, we have over
200 practicing scientists and we have been training teachers as
well as young students. We are the only museum in the United
States authorized to grant Ph.D.s in comparative biology.
So what this means is an opportunity and a window for the
general public, for teachers, for students to engage with real
things--that is the power of reality--to see real science in
practice and to engage with scientists and to have an
opportunity to get a window on the scientific method, and that
is not unique to an urban location. I heard your comment on
Appalachia. There are institutions across this country with
this kind of capacity. They may not all be big museums. It may
be a 4H, it may be a nature center, but there will be within a
region resources that can be accessed for people who have the
opportunity to learn from them all over the country.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you. Anyone else?
Dr. Gee. Can I just chime in for one second, because that
is like a home-run ball for me. Let me just read to you from a
publication, the Mathematics Coaching Program, which comes out
of our College of Education and Human Ecology, and our dean is
right behind us, Representative Wilson. This is a direct quote
from it. This is this Mathematics Coaching Program which is
where we work with the rural schools. ``One of the amazing
events is that the first Appalachian school in this program
moved from academic watch to excellent school improvement
status in three years,'' so it shows that in that--and by the
way, this is the history of the great land-grant universities.
I mean, it is not about what we do in Columbus, it is about
what we do in all of the 88 counties in Ohio. It is about the
notion of 4H and extension and all of those programs. It is the
people's university making the difference to all of those
folks, and that is a great story right there. So let us
celebrate that one.
Chairman Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Wilson.
We are going to have to--I don't mean to be heavy-handed
here, but Mr. Smith and Dr. Baird are our--in terms of when I
was in Sunday school, we used to get, you know, badges for
attendance. They get the best attendance award so I really want
them to have an opportunity, and then we are going to have to
shut things down. So we are going to go to Mr. Smith and then
Dr. Baird.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I will try to be
quick.
This is a very important subject obviously, and I am
grateful for the panel here. Perhaps the Chairman is already
working on this. I would love to see a second panel. And
certainly I am grateful for your input as well. I would like to
see a second panel consisting of a school board member, a
current or former science teacher and a school administrator,
those folks who are constantly fighting the battle of filling
empty positions or recruiting and hiring the most effective and
important, and while I am grateful that we are able to pay some
good teachers, perhaps I would say it still isn't enough, and
yet probably the best reward for a teacher, for example,
locally back home would be an elementary teacher attending an
Air Force Academy graduation where a student graduates, a
former student of hers graduates with honors and, you know,
catapulting that student out into the science world ultimately
after obviously some service to our country. But I am just
wondering if any of you would weigh in on the obstacles that do
exist for those school board members or school administrators
wishing to hire folks who can't seem to get the right person
for whatever reason, if any of you would wish to comment on
that.
Dr. Simons. Well, I am not sure I understood the question
but certainly one obstacle faced by school boards if they want
to hire exceptional people, and I would say again in STEM
education which is most competitive, is the flat salary scale
imposed by the unions. So I am not against unions but I am
against flat salary scales that don't recognize again the law
of supply and demand. So to the extent that unions could be
more flexible in their approach to salaries, that might make it
easier to do things.
Dr. Gee. Let me just respond because I think that really is
a great question. We all kind of looked at each other, is the
fact that I think if you gave us truth serum or I gave you
truth serum, what we would understand is the fact that what we
have done is, we have created a system in this country in which
we do not reward creativity, energy and agility among our
teachers or anywhere else. The second thing is, we have created
a system in this country in which we always say to our kids and
at our universities, well, if you can't be a doctor, if you
can't be a lawyer, if you can't be an engineer, you can always
be a teacher. So I spent some time in Germany. The word layer
in German is of the highest order, the word ``teacher,'' and we
need to change that concept in this country. So it is about
creating a high-performance culture through a reward system,
and that is how you are going to get to that point.
Ms. Futter. And related to that direct point, obviously to
get the best people teaching in STEM, we have to give them the
proper training. They have to see and engage in real science
and learn what the scientific method, the scientific process
is, and in that way be able to communicate to young people the
excitement of discovery, the detective story of science. So
teacher training, which is something that all of us are so
focused on at this table, is key to this.
Mr. Smith. Well, I will admit that I didn't appreciate
science as much growing up as I do now with the practical
implications and the public policy application as well. So I
just hope that we can more appropriately treat teachers as
professionals, because they are, and yet we have a system that
I am afraid does not treat teachers as professionals and
certainly we need to focus on that. Thank you.
Chairman Gordon. In full disclosure, Mr. Smith was offered
a teaching position in Tennessee but we didn't offer him enough
and so he went off and did other things. And I will also say
that at the Subcommittee level that we did have that exact
panel that you had recommended and so we do have that input
into this legislation.
Dr. Baird is recognized.
Mr. Baird. I thank the Chairman. I want to thank our
distinguished panelists for being here, but more importantly
still, for your work on a daily basis.
I want to put about three things out quickly, and this is
coming from somebody who has taught statistics and research
methods at the university, and as an untenured professor
completely revised our statistics and methods class so that it
made sense to people who wanted to learn it. A few things. I
have twin boys who will turn five in three days, and I want
them to learn basic math, and one of the ways you would think
you might be able to do it is to log online and get some free
software. I will tell you it is abysmal, and I would just
encourage you, you know, in the next couple of days, imagine
you are a parent of three- to five-year-olds and you want to
log on and get something. Now, you find math games but they are
terrible by and large. They spend a whole lot of time walking a
duck through a park so he can stack two logs and say ``two''
but it took you five minutes to get to that, and so the first
point is, I just would encourage you to do this because that is
the seed corn at some level.
The second point is, Vern Ehlers and I are both proponents
of at least a voluntary national curriculum so that math
teachers around the--not to take away the creativity of the
individual structure and all the hands-on pedagogy that is so
essential, but so that across the country, we know our kids are
getting a standard curriculum, and there are two benefits to
this. One, as a parent of teenagers, I had the experience of
trying to remember how quadratic equations worked, and I did it
pretty well but it was a rusty brain that was trying to do
this, and that is a brain of somebody who has had that
training. The average parent can't help their kids with math
past about the 6th grade, if that, and I don't mean that
critically or elitist. It is a fact. We do almost nothing to
help those parents help their kids with their homework. They
run screaming from the room, ask your older brother, ask your
neighbor, whatever. We need to do more to help the little kids
learn with software and games that are free for everybody.
Secondly, we need to help the parents help their kids in some
fashion, empower and educate them.
And then finally, one thing we neglect--and I applaud your
effort to teach high school--to teach people who will go back
into high schools. My experience at the college level was, a
lot of liberal arts majors desperately need basic math courses
but who is there to teach it? Your math department is filled
with people who are so darn smart, to ask them to teach liberal
arts people is a waste of their time and an obstruction to
their career. We need a whole cadre of people who teach at the
university level, who teach math in a comprehensible, usable
fashion so that our broad society gets it, including colleagues
in this institution who may not have--myself included in many
ways. So I just throw those three sets out. I would welcome
your thoughts on any of them.
Dr. Simons. Well, I would like to start with your
colleagues, and I would be delighted to come down here once a
week and give some lectures to the Congressmen and Senators
about math, and I wouldn't even ask to get paid, if I could
duck out for a cigarette every once in a while.
You know, everything you said makes sense. It is very
difficult for parents, and I think a lot of the professors at
universities do have some sympathy, professors in the
mathematics department, for the kind of folks you are talking
about. I think it is not as dismal as that. When I was a
professor, I taught a whole remedial course which I found--it
was pretty interesting, actually, and these were kids who came
to the university, just didn't know much, and the cutoff was
fractions. If a kid could add fractions and subtract fractions,
he was in good shape, he would be OK. But two-thirds of the
people just couldn't do fractions and, you know, that is 4th,
5th grade stuff. So the parents don't know, and maybe if we get
a little smarter as a country in another couple of generations,
more parents will know, but it is really a problem.
Mr. Baird. Well, one of my models of the national
curriculum, and Vern and I have discussed it, is if you had
that, then you could coordinate parent help literature on TV or
more easily on the Internet so a parent could say OK, anywhere
in the country I know that my 5th-grade kid is at this lesson
level. They are going to have illustrated tutorials online and
we can sit down and the parent can get it and say oh, OK, I get
it. If we did----
Dr. Simons. That makes a lot of sense. If you got different
school districts to agree to all that, I think it would be
fine. But I don't know if it is possible but I think is a darn
good idea.
Mr. Baird. Politically it may not be.
Ms. Futter. I would add several things to that. First, your
comment on parents is so central to both math and science, and
it is just indisputable. One of the great things about informal
institutions is family engagement, and this is a place where
families learn together, and by tying it then to these cross-
sector programs with the schools, it also has a formal
dimension, a systematic dimension, as the Chairman alluded to
at the beginning.
Second, I think common standards are critical. The
Carnegie--IAS [Carnegie Corporation of New York--Institute for
Advanced Study] Commission requests not only for common
standards but that they be fewer, clearer and higher. It is not
just a morass of standards, it is getting the right ones and
making them clear.
Your comment on the liberal arts struck a particular chord
with me as a former college president where we introduced at
Barnard College a requirement in the freshman year in
quantitative reasoning, but it had to do with all kinds of
things like music, like the Constitution, and I think tying
math and science to pressing ideas is one of the great
strategies. And it is something that we do in the Museum,
whether it be energy policy, human health or any of the other
many, many topics that we can take up but the public attention
and interest in the major issues of our time, and that also
ties back to the workforce and where they can later fit in with
jobs through the right training.
Dr. Gee. I will just add a couple of things. First of all,
I will just say that there is no substitute for good parental
involvement. I mean, it is absolutely essential. And I think
that that is one of the issues we are going to have to address
in STEM and other things is, how do we get parents engaged and
how do we not have them view our public schools particularly as
places they send their kids to get away from them, and I think
that is enormously important.
The second thing, and this is a long discussion, but what
you are talking about, as someone who has taught at a
university, you know that our reward and recognition structure
needs to be totally reexamined in order for us to be able to
say that there is more than one way to salvation and those who
teach are going to be rewarded and rewarded well simply not as
a passage, and I think that those are important discussions
that we can have at some other time.
Dr. Wadsworth. I would just add, common standards, I agree.
Achieve is trying to look at that as well. I am on the board of
Achieve. I would just observe, my own children went to a very,
very good public school in Menlo Park, California, and
mathematics was terrible. So I can only imagine how difficult
it is in other schools.
Dr. Gee. This is the final comment. I was just going to say
that mathematics is very intimidating. Every time I go and
visit with our math department, very distinguished math
department, I take Valium before I go. They scare the hell out
of me so I have to do that.
Chairman Gordon. Well, this is such an important discussion
and I am sorry it has been bifurcated. In continuing with the
unusualness of how we have dealt with this, let me say those
panelists that need to leave now, please do so. We have just--
Gabrielle Giffords, who is the Chair of our Space and Aviation
Subcommittee, has just come in and she will have a question for
those that are left, but those that have to go catch a plane,
whatever it might be, please go right ahead.
Ms. Giffords, you are recognized.
Ms. Giffords. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank
and welcome the panelists for being here today. I will keep it
brief. I know that we have votes and we are likely to be called
out.
I think it is interesting when listening to the panelists
and the discussion that the backdrop behind all of this is our
Nation's struggling economic situation, and while we have a lot
of bills that we are working on and a lot of plans here in the
United States Congress to improve our short-term problems,
oftentimes I feel like we are not having the most important
part of that discussion, which is our long-term education
investment and involvement, and STEM education is absolutely
everything. I often say to groups that I meet with back home in
my State of Arizona, if you really want to look into the
future, just take a look at your 4th-grade math scores. That is
the indication of where we are going to be 20 years from now,
50 years from now, frankly. It is all at the 4th grade a lot of
that is determined.
I was really proud of the COMPETES bill that was led by the
Chairman a couple of years ago, and our job in the Congress, I
think, is to continue to support the COMPETES bill and to have
experts like yourself articulate why COMPETES really matters,
and a lot of that discussion has taken place today, but reality
is going back to my home State of Arizona. The United States
Chamber of Commerce gave Arizona a D in academic achievement
and an F in postsecondary and workforce readiness. Also,
Arizona has the second highest student-to-teacher ratio in the
country and is second to last in terms of per-pupil
expenditure. So some of these statistics are real reminders
about what is going to happen in the second fasting growing
state in the country.
So my questions that I present to our two panelists are
really, how is it that we effectively communicate, particularly
to the industries that are out there, to other decision makers,
the importance of STEM education? How do we connect the dots to
the industries that are going to depend on this future
workforce? Because there is a crisis that is brewing, and with
so many retiring engineers and scientists, so much of the
workforce is leaving, I don't think the general public has
really heard that message loud and clear. So if I could just
hear from the panelists about that?
Dr. Wadsworth. It is a curiosity to me that we lead the
world in the most advanced scientific facilities without a
question, you know, so somehow there is this tremendous
disconnect between the fact we have the greatest university
system, we have the greatest research facilities and yet we
don't, somehow, appreciate the investment that is necessary.
And I think most of us who lead organizations eventually spend
our time, a lot of our time on education because all roads lead
back to Rome, and I think what you are seeing is a start of a
more intense conversation about the need to change policy, put
more money in, get everyone involved. It is not just about
teachers at schools, it is about businesses, institutions
playing a role, because many different departments have
educational needs and they need to be encouraged to spend their
resources on it as well. And at the end of the day I think it
is a lot about partnerships and recognizing the need to--the
other thing that I find--and then I will shut up--is the more
you study it, the more you drive down the age chain. So you
start worrying about kids by age three who are disadvantaged,
and the single biggest connector is family income. The biggest
correlation between educational success is with family income,
and that is a real problem because we know what happens when a
child is raised in a disadvantaged environment. It is a very
complicated problem.
Ms. Giffords. Dr. Simons?
Dr. Simons. Well, you have asked a question about
communication, about which I am not a great expert. But I will
make one point, one idea. As part of what we do in Math for
America, is give these fellowships and awards to people to come
into teaching and we pay them and so on, and it is quite an
honor. Now, if this program were to be made truly national with
tens of thousands, maybe even 50,000 slots for national
fellowships for STEM, let us say, high school teachers, and if
you got one of these fellowships and you were a teacher or
about to become a teacher you would get, say, $20,000, $25,000
a year. You would be known as a National Teaching Fellow. You
would get it because you knew the subject or whatever. There
would be some hurdle, of course. But that would--if there were
a reasonable number of these things, that would cover--there is
350,000 roughly teachers of math and science in our schools. So
if you had 50,000 or 60,000 or 70,000 of these people who were
national teaching fellows, first of all, it would be a
tremendous injection of brains into the system. But second of
all, the existence of that program, which maybe your neighbor's
kid got or whatever, would really--people would hear about it,
right? If you do things in large numbers, a finite number,
which I am certain you could, it would communicate a message
that this is a high-class thing. It would, I think, raise not
only the awareness but the sense of importance of this
education. So that is an idea. And if you want to prepare such
a bill, I will be delighted to help in its drafting.
Ms. Giffords. Thank you, Dr. Simons.
Mr. Chairman, just in closing, I am a proud product of
public schools. I am here today because of teachers and
administrators and folks that cared about our community and
were really dedicated to teaching kids, and not only does it
pain me to see what is happening now in my home State of
Arizona, but across the country, where as the Rising Above the
Gathering Storm report indicated, other countries are gaining
momentum and our country is falling behind. And we can't allow
that to happen. So this is important. I mean, we have got to
keep, you know, marching ahead and banging the drum and really
figuring out those ways that both policy--but also in terms of
being able to communicate effectively why this matters, and I
am excited to work with you on it, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Chairman Gordon. Thank you, Ms. Giffords.
You know, this is sort of an odd day here, but through the
preparation for this hearing and discussions that our staff has
had with yours, this is one of a variety of hearings that we
have had all coming together. We hear a lot of common
denominators and this is going to help us as we put the final
touches on our COMPETES bill.
So with that, let me say that the record will remain open
for two weeks for additional statements from Members and for
answers to follow-up questions, and we would also make it
available for the witnesses if you have additional statements
that you would like to make over these next two weeks, and so
the witnesses are excused and the hearing is now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:17 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
Appendix:
----------
Additional Material for the Record
Statement by Vartan Gregorian, President,
Carnegie Corporation of New York
Carnegie Corporation of the New York appreciates the opportunity to
submit this testimony to the U.S. House Committee on Science and
Technology (Committee) on the reauthorization of the America COMPETES
Act.
From the work of Euclid to Ptolemy to Newton to Descartes,
mathematics has laid the foundation for modern science. And from the
time of the Renaissance on, science itself has been central to the
development of modern society and the primary engine of global
progress. Successes achieved in almost every field of human endeavor--
medicine, transportation, commerce, communication, engineering,
security and defense, to name just a few--owe an incalculable debt to
the evolution of math and science.
As the Committee knows, in recent years the worldwide spread of
technological advances has not resulted in an equally robust
appreciation of mathematics and science among Americans. Now, however,
we have entered into a new phase of globalization characterized by
knowledge-based economies and fierce competition; the United States can
no longer afford not to be fully engaged with math and science and
their application to teaching and learning. If we believe, as the great
education reformer Horace Mann did, that ``education is the engine of
democracy,'' then the strength and progress of both American society
and our democracy depend on our ability to mobilize around this work,
with clear goals and great determination.
ROADMAP FOR REFORM
Nine months ago the Carnegie Corporation of the New York-Institute
for Advanced Study Commission on Mathematics and Science Education
(Commission) released ``The Opportunity Equation: Transforming
Mathematics and Science Education for Citizenship and the Global
Economy.'' The report lays out what we believe is the definitive
roadmap not only for the reauthorization of the America COMPETES Act,
but also education reform overall. The report and the two years of
study and deliberation that went into it are truly unlike any reform
effort that has come before.
Firstly, the Commission that authored the report did not just call
for reform. Rather, its ultimate goal--its challenge to the nation--was
far bolder: the United States must mobilize for excellence and equity
in mathematics and science education. The Commission believed that the
magnitude of the challenge demands transformative change in classrooms,
schools, education systems and beyond. Educators, students, parents,
universities, museums, businesses, scientists, mathematicians, and
public officials at all levels will need to embrace a new understanding
that the world has shifted dramatically--and that an equally dramatic
shift is needed in educational expectations and the design of
schooling. As a society, we must commit ourselves to the reality that
all students can achieve at high levels in math and science, that we
need them to do so for their own futures and for the future of our
country, and that we owe it to them to structure and staff our
educational system accordingly.
Only through a national mobilization for mathematics and science
learning will the need for change be made apparent to all Americans and
the resources and commitment to the effort be brought to bear. In
short, we need to mobilize in ways not unlike how the Nation fought and
won two world wars, overcame the Great Depression, landed a man on the
moon and secured civil rights for people of color. We believe that's
how our fellow citizens, educators, and policymakers must begin to view
it.
Secondly, all students, not just a select few, or those fortunate
enough to attend certain schools, must achieve much higher levels of
math and science learning. By higher levels, we mean the requisite math
and science skills to understand the natural world, the built
environment, systems of society, and the interactions among them that
will determine the future of our nation and planet. These are
competencies that all Americans must have if they are to contribute to
and gain from the country's future productivity, understand policy
choices, and participate in building a sustainable future. Knowledge
and skills from science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, the
so-called STEM fields, are crucial to virtually every endeavor of
individual and community life. Therefore, all young Americans should be
educated to be ``STEM-capable,'' no matter what educational path they
pursue, or in which field they choose to work.
Thirdly, success in achieving excellent math and science learning
for all students requires that math and science be placed more squarely
at the center of the educational enterprise. Making improvements in
only math and science education is not enough. Rather, we need to give
at least equal weight to driving fundamental change throughout our
educational system--in the nation's schools, school districts, and
institutions of higher education.
Finally, the ``Opportunity Equation'' goes beyond generalities. It
lays out a comprehensive program of action, describing concrete steps
that a range of stakeholders--from labor and business to Federal and
state government, school districts, colleges and universities, non-
profit organizations, and philanthropy--can take. As the Committee
undertakes the reauthorization of the America COMPETES Act, we urge it
to use the report as a roadmap for reform.
STRENGTHENING THE AMERICA COMPETES ACT
The reauthorization of the Act could very well be a defining moment
in the history of math and science education reform. Through
reauthorization the Committee, the Congress and the Nation have the
opportunity to define what the Federal Government's role will be in
leading this reform for the next decade and beyond. With ``Opportunity
Equation'' as our guide, we at Carnegie Corporation of New York believe
the Committee should reauthorize the Act in accordance with these
fundamental principles:
EXCELLENCE AND EQUITY: MOBILIZING FOR MATH AND SCIENCE LEARNING
As one of the most important expressions of national education
policy, the Act should explicitly support the principle of higher
levels of mathematics and science learning for all American students.
We must place even our most disconnected students on pathways to
graduation and postsecondary education. Moreover, our schools must
provide more opportunities for the most successful students in math and
science to accelerate beyond what is traditionally available in high
school. Excellence and equity are vital and must be pursued in tandem.
Put Math and Science Front and Center. To achieve the goals laid
out in ``Opportunity Equation,'' the Commission believes that
improvement in math and science outcomes, especially by historically
underperforming groups, should be a benchmark in the design and
evaluation of school improvement efforts at all grade levels and
subject areas, including literacy, social studies, art, and service
learning.
U.S. Department of Education (ED) should build improvements in math
and science learning into all of its major reform initiatives, as it's
doing with the $4.35 billion Race to the Top (RttT). For example, RttT
places an emphasis on funding innovative strategies for recruiting,
credentialing, rewarding, and retaining math and science teachers.
The Act should endorse the joint efforts of the National Governors
Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers to develop
Common Score Standards in mathematics and English language arts. The
Act should also endorse the development of standards in science, which
``Opportunity Equation'' strongly recommends, through the newly
launched effort by the National Research Council to develop a framework
for ``next generation'' science standards for elementary and secondary
schools.
Finally, the Act's existing STEM education programs should be
funded, which has not yet happened since the Act's first passing and
which Education Week reported on just last week.
National and State Campaigns to Get the Public Behind Reform. The
Federal Government should mount broad campaigns to increase public
awareness of math and science as central to the revitalization of the
economy and social mobility, as well as critical to success in a wide
range of careers in many fields.
Expand Opportunities for Excellence. Our schools must provide more
opportunities for the most successful students in math and science to
accelerate beyond what is traditionally available in high school. From
afterschool programs to summer institutes to advanced coursework, we
should not hold back our most promising students by limiting them to
the resources within the walls of their schools.
INNOVATION IN EDUCATION: SUPPORTING CHANGE
As the Commission discovered in its two years of study, there's
been considerable innovation in the education sector, especially in
recent years. New ``best practices'' and ways to disseminate them
abound. Higher-quality assessments in mathematics and science have been
developed, as have technology-based learning innovations. Nevertheless,
as compared to other sectors, ``(e)ducation has long suffered from a
lack of high-quality, dedicated research and development capacity,''
according to the Commission's findings. The ``Opportunity Equation''
report concludes, as follows:
Finally--and this will be as important as anything to our
long-term success--the American educational system must upgrade
its own capacity to innovate. We need to get smarter about
developing and testing new ideas, tapping and advancing
professional knowledge, and putting best practices to use.
Support Innovation through an `i3' for STEM. Carnegie Corporation
of New York supports the Administration's FY 2011 Budget proposal to
sets aside a portion of ED's Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) to
support STEM projects. As Education Secretary Duncan explained, i3 for
STEM would provide seed money for fresh ideas, help grow promising
programs and scale up to a national level program with proven results.
Incentives for Sharing with Federal Programs. The amount of private
research and development, both among non-profit and for-profit
education organizations, has never been greater. As importantly, major
funding is available to finance this change--from the Federal
Government as well as foundations. We've also learned a great deal over
the past few years about what's working in education and what
innovation in education looks like; examples include such success
stories as New Leaders for New Schools, Teach for America, and The New
Teacher Project. Private organizations could be incentivized to share
their best practices and new knowledge with Federal programs for
replication, dissemination, and scaling up.
Leverage the Government's Vast Research Assets. The Federal
Government has worked closely for decades with both industry and higher
education on research and development, funding, and supporting
innovation in defense, agriculture, aerospace and medicine, among
others. The Federal Government should connect the education sector with
these same companies, industries, and universities, and their
innovation infrastructures, resources, scientific knowledge, and
creativity.
One avenue could be the creation of an Education Innovation
Incubator, similar to Offices of Technology Transfer found at many
companies, universities and governmental organizations. Federal
research agencies could create and operate such an office for the
benefit of education, tapping private research enterprises for new
technologies that are readily transferrable to the education sector.
Creating Incentives for Innovation in High-Need Areas. Meaningful
incentives must be built into programs and grants to encourage the
development of promising practices in high-need areas and answers to
tough research questions. The need for such research is pressing in a
number of areas: high-quality standards; assessments; professional
development; teacher education; teacher evaluations; and partnerships
with cultural, research and academic organizations.
Support Promising Practices. In recent years government and private
organizations have created an array of innovative approaches to
improving math and science learning. These endeavors and others like
them in their embryonic stage should be supported with funding and
incentive systems to encourage expansion and even more innovation.
Examples of promising practices and programs that should be
encouraged, scaled up, and replicated include the Ohio STEM Learning
Network; Texas Center for Science, Technology, Engineering, and
Mathematics, which has established new models of STEM high schools and
STEM teaching; the Teaching Institute for Excellence in STEM, which has
shown how to grow new models and implement strengthened STEM education;
North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences' distance education program;
and Urban Advantage, a partnership between the American Museum of
Natural History and New York City Department of Education, which is
being replicated in three cities. Many additional promising practices
are noted in the ``Opportunity Equation.''
BETTER COORDINATION OF FEDERAL MATH AND SCIENCE EDUCATION ACTIVITIES
As the Committee knows, the Federal Government's math and science
education activities are varied, numerous, and often isolated. They're
located in dozens, maybe hundreds, of agencies or offices. More than
fifty years after Sputnik made math and science education a Federal
priority, no permanent and on-going means exists to connect and
coordinate the many math and science education and research activities
across agencies.
Interagency Council. Carnegie Corporation of New York supports the
creation of a permanent interagency panel to coordinate both
educational activities and research programs in the areas of math and
science. We need a venue and body to connect the best minds in the
Federal Government in these two critical areas.
Linking Race to the Top to Other Initiatives. RttT is one of the
most ambitious and best financed reform initiatives in recent memory.
We applaud the U.S. Department of Education's inclusion of STEM as a
competitive priority in RttT. A next step that could strengthen STEM
education would be to improve the linkages between RttT and the best
minds and programs in math and science education at Federal agencies.
Such integration of math and science education reform into overall
reform efforts is essential to successfully placing math and science
more squarely at the center of the educational enterprise.
TEACHING AND PROFESSIONAL LEARNING: MANAGING FOR EFFECTIVENESS
Classroom teachers are the primary asset of the American
educational system, and they deserve savvy, strategic management.
School systems need to recruit and develop qualified candidates for
teaching and leadership roles, place them intelligently and equitably
in the right positions, cultivate their skills, sustain their
commitment over time, and monitor and manage their performance with
relevant metrics. The Federal Government should offer support in these
critical areas:
Increase the supply of well-prepared teachers of math and science.
The Federal Government should support the development of integrated
programs of professional learning that engage all teachers in
incorporating science and math learning across the curriculum. Through
alternative certification and expanded recruitment, the Federal
Government should encourage the creation of a strong science and math
teacher corps.
The government should also support the dissemination of effective
human capital management practices in areas such as teacher
recruitment, hiring and retention, and compensation.
Improve professional learning. The Federal Government should
continue to support and expand its efforts to provide opportunities for
teachers to experience powerful science and math learning themselves.
This includes support for programs that strengthen partnerships with
science-rich institutions that create new learning opportunities for
educators. The Congress should also increase its support for the
Federal Government's various teacher institutes, scholarships and
fellowships to expand the supply of well-trained math and science
teachers. The talent within the government is an extraordinary asset--
the Nation should continue to leverage it for excellence in the
classroom.
Efforts to expand the use of master teachers and other strategies
that strengthen practice, encourage continuous learning, and improve
career satisfaction should also be supported.
CONCLUSION
Carnegie Corporation of New York urges the Committee to consult
closely the findings and recommendations of the ``Opportunity
Equation'' report. If not a roadmap, it certainly offers valuable,
well-reasoned and -researched guideposts for reform, many not found
elsewhere. A summary of the recommendations relating to the role of the
Federal Government can be found in Appendix 1.
We appreciate this opportunity to share our views and
recommendations on how the Nation can make the necessary improvements
in math and science learning. We look forward to working with the
Committee throughout the reauthorization process and urge it to take
bold steps commensurate with the extraordinary economic and social
challenges facing the country. There is no time or effort to waste.
APPENDIX 1
Summary of the ``Opportunity Equation''
Report's Recommendations for Federal Action
The report's recommendations were presented in four priority areas;
following are the recommended Federal roles in each:
Higher levels of mathematics and science learning for all American
students
Mobilize the Nation to improve math and science
education for all students
Mount campaigns that generate public awareness of
math and science as central to the revitalization of
the American economy and social mobility for young
Americans
Increase public understanding that math and science
are connected to a wide range of careers in many
fields--virtually any secure and rewarding job in any
sector of the economy
Build understanding and will among policymakers and
education, business, and civic leaders to close the gap
between current education achievement and the future
knowledge and skill needs of students
Place mathematics and science at the center of school
improvement, and accountability efforts
Make improvement in math and science outcomes,
especially by historically underperforming groups, a
benchmark in designing and evaluating school
improvement efforts at all grade levels for all
students
Incorporate math and science learning as part of the
expected learning outcomes of initiatives in other
areas, including literacy, social studies, art, and
service learning
Common standards and assessments
Establish common math and science standards that are
fewer, clearer, and higher and that stimulate and guide
instructional improvement and galvanize the Nation to pursue
meaningful math and science learning for all Americans
Endorse the National Governors Association and CCSSO
Common Core Standards Initiative process and the
creation of common, national standards that are fewer,
clearer, and higher in mathematics in English language
arts; urge the Common Core states to tackle science
standards in the next round of development
Support research and development activities that
strengthen our collective understanding of what all
students need to know and be able to do in order to
succeed in college, thrive in the workforce, and
participate in civic life
Take steps to increase public understanding of the
connection between better standards and better math and
science education for all students
Develop sophisticated assessments and accountability
mechanisms that, along with common standards, stimulate and
guide instructional improvement and innovation in mathematics
and science
Incentivize development of higher quality
assessments in mathematics and science for use by
states and districts to evaluate teaching and learning
and guide instructional improvement
Fund research on the effects of new standards and
assessments on student performance and on instruction
Improved teaching and professional learning, supported by better school
and system management.
Increase the supply of well prepared teachers of
mathematics and science at all grade levels by improving
teacher preparation and recruitment
Invest in the analysis of supply and demand for
science and math teachers, especially in high-need
school districts and schools
Support recruitment programs for math and science
teachers; experiment with scholarships and pay
incentives
Alter certification requirements to allow qualified
candidates to enter teaching by innovative and rigorous
alternative routes; enable museums, research
institutions, and others to become teacher certifiers
Develop integrated programs of professional learning
and quality improvement for teachers of science and
mathematics; engage all teachers in professional
learning that enables them to incorporate science and
math learning across the curriculum
Make policy changes necessary to create an effective
talent corps for schools, including principals and
teachers, especially science and math teachers;
encourage the dissemination of effective human capital
management practices in areas such as teacher
recruitment, hiring and retention, and compensation
Improve professional learning for all teachers, with
an eye toward revolutionizing math and science teaching
Create and incentivize opportunities for teachers to
experience powerful science and math learning
themselves
Cease support for professional development in
science and math that is disconnected from teaching
practices in schools; replace with investment in
strategic and coherent collaborative offering that link
coherent, sustained professional learning, rich in
relevant science and math content, to direct practice
changes in instruction in schools
Promote professional learning that engages teachers
in data analysis, identification of students'
differentiated learning needs, and assessment of
school-level interventions
Hold school leaders accountable for the professional
learning environment in their schools and districts
Strengthen partnerships with science-rich
institutions; use those partnerships to open new
learning opportunities for educators
Invest in sophisticated online professional
development systems that facilitate learning
communities and cyberlearning by teachers, along with
research to enable the improvement of those systems
Expand the use of master teachers and other
strategies that strengthen practice, encourage
continuous learning, and improve career satisfaction
Upgrade human capital management throughout US
schools and school systems toward ensuring an effective teacher
for every student, regardless of socio-economic background
Make higher science and math achievement the
overarching goal for system improvement; structure
specific improvement strategies to meet that goal
Experiment with strategies to improve job
satisfaction of effective teachers of science and math
at all grade levels
Raise compensation strategically to attract, retain,
and reward effective science and math teachers; compare
different methods
Development data systems that enable meaningful
teacher assessment on student achievement
Identify and promote leadership opportunities (such
as positions as coaches and mentors) for teachers with
demonstrated effectiveness in raising student
achievement in mathematics and science
Give effective teachers a more prominent voice in
education policy development
New designs for schools and systems to deliver math and science
learning more effectively
Enhance systemic capacity to support strong schools
and act strategically to turn around or replace ineffective
schools
Create aligned data, accountability, and knowledge
management systems across K-16 education to support
research and development for improvements in policy,
practice, and strategy to increase student achievement,
graduation, and post-secondary success; ensure that
science achievement is included in the early generation
needs
Develop data and accountability systems that enable
schools to use data to inform instructional improvement
by individual teachers and school-wide; data on science
achievement, especially in middle and high schools
Make the policy and management changes to generate
and accelerate innovation, and facilitate connections
to increase the talent and math and science assets
available in schools
Foster a more rigorous approach to ongoing
professional learning, focused on keeping teachers up
to date with emerging science and math knowledge and on
effective, differentiated pedagogical techniques
Make policy changes and take administrative action
to end policies and practices that result in persistent
low achievement, and, in particular, close and replace
schools that are low-performing
Stimulate the production of ideas and products that
will support school and classroom innovations to
increase math and science achievement through a variety
of public funding sources beyond education including
economic development, energy, and environmental quality
departments
Identify school models and innovations in school
design and instruction that have shown substantial
achievement gains in mathematics and science,
especially for under-performing middle and high school
students
Remove barriers and pro-actively grow and scale
effective school models through innovative governance
and management arrangements with educational
entrepreneurs; integrate with strategic human capital
reforms
Call for research in areas where innovations do not
exist or where there is a need for new knowledge,
including basic research, implementation research, and
tool development to advance
Tap a wider array of resources to increase
educational assets and expand research and development capacity
Narrow the gap between research and practice in
improving science and math education by designing
innovative partnerships between K-12 education and
universities, cultural and scientific institutions that
are accountable for joint strategies for improving
student achievement
Bring innovation and design approaches to bear on
improving math and science education in the K-12
educational system by developing R&D capacity and
external resources (such as consulting firms, private-
sector companies, universities)