[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 156 (Monday, November 8, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H11679]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    CALLING FOR IMPROVEMENT IN MATH AND SCIENCE EDUCATION IN AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to discuss the issue of 
education and mathematics and science in our Nation. I have deep 
concerns about the current status of math and science education in this 
Nation.
  First of all, I believe currently it is inadequate. I say this for 
several reasons. Mr. Speaker, as I was stating, the Third International 
Mathematics and Science Study, which was conducted a few years ago, 
indicated that we were near the bottom of those nations and developed 
countries teaching mathematics and science in their high schools, near 
the bottom.
  Some say, well, it is not so bad, we were not that far below the 
others. I say it is terrible. With the resources that this country has 
and with the high quality of students this Nation has, it is 
inexcusable for us to be near the bottom, or at the bottom. We should 
be not only at the top, but far and away the best Nation in this world 
in terms of our educational effort.
  Mr. Speaker, the second reason I say we are not doing well in 
mathematics and science education is simply by looking at the tests 
administered by the States. When we look at these tests and look at the 
test scores, we find that in reading a typical average for a State 
might be in the seventies, and for some of the other subjects in that 
area, and for science we are down in the 30 percent, even for some of 
the better States, and as low as 10 percent in some of the others. 
These are not passing grades and they never have been in our school 
system. We must improve.
  A third indication that we are not doing the job well is that we do 
not have enough engineers and scientists to do the job in this country. 
How do I know? Because we issue H(1)(b) visas every year to allow 
scientists and engineers from other countries to emigrate into this 
country to help us out. Annually, it is in the neighborhood of 100,000 
each, and usually that quota is used up well before the end of the 
year. We are importing scientists and engineers, asking them to 
emigrate to this country for this purpose. Clearly, we are not 
producing enough of our own.
  The final indication that we are not doing the job with math and 
science education in our K through 12 system is that when we visit our 
grad schools, graduate education in mathematics, science, and 
engineering, we find that, in general, over half of the students are 
from other countries. Our students are not able to compete for grad 
school entrance with students of other nations.
  I think we have to improve our math and science education. Why? For 
the reasons I gave above, but also because, first of all, we have to 
make sure we have enough scientists and engineers in this country so 
that we can keep our economic growth strong and meet the needs of our 
citizens.
  There are other reasons as well. It is not just producing good 
scientists and engineers, but a second main reason is what I call 
workplace readiness. We have reached the point in our society and in 
many developed nations that you literally cannot find a good job unless 
you have a good grounding in math and science.
  It is going to get worse. I have made predictions on this floor that 
in 20 years, it will be impossible to find a good job without a good 
foundation in math and science. I have to revise that, because last 
week I attended a talk at the Capitol here by John Chambers, CEO of 
CISCO Systems, an Internet company. It is clear to me that I have to 
revise my estimate downward and say in 10 years people will not be able 
to get a really good job without a good grounding in mathematics, 
science, engineer, and technology. So workplace readiness is another 
good reason.
  The third reason is to simply produce better consumers and citizens 
of this Nation, people who understand math and science, so they can 
evaluate claims in the marketplace about health products or health 
supplements, or that they can vote better about projects that involve 
science and the environment, and that they can elect leaders who have 
shown that they understand these issues and will vote intelligently on 
issues involving math, science, technology, engineering, the 
environment, and so forth.
  How are we going to improve math and science education? I think three 
major points: better teachers, or better trained teachers, I should 
say; better curricula; and improved methods of teaching science.
  I will take just a minute to discuss each of those. I will address 
those later in more detail in another talk. We have to make sure we 
recruit good teachers, because we are not recruiting enough today, we 
have to make sure they are trained properly, and we have to keep them. 
We have to make sure they do not get discouraged. We have to help them 
get the job done in the classroom.
  We have to improve our science curricula. Right now it is a 
hodgepodge. Recently the American Association for the Advancement of 
Science studied middle school curricula. Every middle school science 
curriculum in the United States was judged to be inadequate, every 
single one. The only one that was regarded as acceptable, and mildly 
acceptable, was one put out by Michigan State University, and that is 
only a partial curriculum.
  The final point is methodology. We have to improve our way, our 
methods of teaching science. As I said, I will address these issues in 
a later talk.

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