[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 13]
[House]
[Page 17329]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           SUPPORT THE TEACHER RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION ACT

  (Mr. EHLERS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and speak about a 
bill we will be discussing today, H.R. 438, the Teacher Recruitment and 
Retention Act of 2003. This bill recognizes a major problem we are 
having in our K-12 educational system, that is, the shortage of 
qualified teachers in special education, math, and science.
  This bill addresses that by offering incentives to teachers to enter 
these fields and also to remain in these fields, primarily incentives 
through loan forgiveness of their student loans which they take out in 
order to obtain the proper training.
  To show my colleagues how serious this situation is, note that in 
science, in American junior and high schools, 57 percent of the 
teachers do not have either a major or a minor in the subject that they 
are teaching. In high school physics, it is even worse: a significant 
percentage of teachers have not even taken one course in college 
physics.
  Those teachers who are highly qualified in science are tempted to 
leave teaching because they can double their salary in industry, and so 
this bill is a good effort to maintain our teaching staff and retain 
them in the positions where we desperately need them. I urge its 
passage.

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