[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 138 (Wednesday, October 26, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H9250]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       STEEL TO SCHOLARS PROGRAM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak on a program 
back in Youngstown, Ohio in the Mahoney Valley, the old steel valley, 
called the Steel to Scholars Program. And this program was initiated by 
the president of our Chamber of Commerce, Tom Humphries. The intention 
of the program is to go into schools and school districts to set 
expectations and to highlight schools that are having success on the 
test scores that are mandated by the State of Ohio, and other test 
scores that schools take.
  And I want to take this opportunity, Madam Speaker, to thank Tom 
Humphries for taking the initiative in recognizing the importance of 
education in our community.

                              {time}  2000

  There is a lot that needs to be done in the field of education at a 
State level and local level and definitely at the Federal level. But I 
believe that the most important thing that the Steel to Scholars 
program accomplishes is that it sets goals, and it rewards and 
highlights positive behavior and positive achievements.
  Madam Speaker, we recognize throughout society, whether it is in 
business or in education, that the level of success that any 
organization has or any school district has or any team has is directly 
related to the level of expectations that the community or the coaches 
provide and the bar that is there for the students to achieve.
  Regardless of what we talk about, as far as what needs to be done for 
education, whether it is through programs, or after-school programs, or 
exactly what needs to be done, there is nothing more important than 
telemarketing high levels of expectation, not in any particular school 
district, but in all school districts, and that is what the Steel to 
Scholars program is all about.
  The competition that we have in the United States of America and 
around the globe is more pronounced than it has ever been in the 
history of the United States of America. The competition is fierce. 
That is why tonight, Madam Speaker, we need to highlight the 
responsibility and the obligation of all of our citizens. Parents need 
to make it a personal mission to sit down and do homework with their 
kids; not some parents, all parents. Teachers and priests and pastors 
and the Chamber of Commerce and local elected officials all need to be 
there to raise that bar, to raise that level of expectation so that the 
kids, the students, will go out and try to achieve those levels.
  If we look at what has happened in the past few years, just in the 
past decade, the local labor pool that used to be the United States is 
now the globe, and high-tech, high-value workers, are rewarded with 
high salaries.
  I feel that the United States is not making the kind of investment 
that we need the make. Example: China, last year, graduated 600,000 
engineers; India, last year, graduated 350,000 engineers; the United 
States, 70,000, and half of those graduates are foreign-born.
  In high-tech output, total research and development investment, U.S. 
patent applications, in all three of these areas the Chinese have grown 
and closed the gap on the United States and are projected to surpass 
the United States in the upcoming years. The U.S. has lost world share 
in high-tech exports. If we do not recognize that we need to make 
investments in research and development, make investments in education, 
but at the same time demand from local school districts, local 
teachers, parents, local elected officials, there is no one that cannot 
be involved in this project. It will lead to the success or the failure 
of the United States in the next couple of decades. Everyone has a role 
to play.
  Madam Speaker, I believe that the No Child Left Behind plan that 
passed this Congress needs to be fully funded. We need to make sure 
that those components of the No Child Left Behind program that allow 
for tutoring and math and reading that have shown great levels of 
success, those children who are tutored in math and reading through the 
No Child Left Behind program have increased their reading scores by 70 
percent in some school districts, one teacher to six kids, but the 
funding needs to be there.
  So we have the parents, the local community, the local elected 
officials, and groups like the Chamber of Commerce, and people like Tom 
Humphries all coming together to support these kids so that we can have 
a better economy in the City of Youngstown and in the old steel valley.

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