[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5745-5746]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             STEM EDUCATION

  Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I rise to talk about a matter that is 
very important to our country, to Minnesota, and to me, which is 
science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education or STEM 
education for short.
  As I have traveled around Minnesota, I have heard from many of our 
high-tech businesses. They fear our students will not be ready to take 
on the jobs waiting for them when they graduate and, as a result, these 
jobs will go unfilled and our economy will founder. This is not just 
true in Minnesota, of course, but across the country--in Pennsylvania, 
the State of the Presiding Officer, and everywhere in our Nation.
  That is why I am addressing our need for a well-trained STEM 
workforce through the STEM Master Teacher Corps Act, which has been 
cosponsored by my colleagues, Senators Lieberman and Shaheen.
  We have been hearing concern about the state of STEM education in our 
country for over a decade now. In 2000, a 25-member commission, headed 
by former Senator John Glenn, published a report called ``Before It's 
Too Late,'' which addressed the pressing need for high-quality math and 
science teaching.
  Five years later, another report--``Rising Above the Gathering 
Storm''--presented the findings and recommendations of a National 
Academies commission, chaired by former Lockheed Martin CEO Norm 
Augustine, concerning the deteriorating condition of STEM education and 
basic research.
  Last year, a followup report, dramatically entitled ``Rapidly 
Approaching Category 5 Hurricane,'' warned us that the ``gathering 
storm'' is now threatening to wipe out U.S. leadership in global 
science and technology if we don't act fast--and said so with good 
reason.
  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly every one of the 
top 30 fastest growing professions requires STEM skills. These include 
jobs in some of the fields that are most critical to the future of our 
country--health care, energy, climate change, and national security. 
Yet too few kids are graduating from high school with the interest or 
the preparation to successfully pursue STEM degrees in college. Well 
over half of college students in China and Japan major in STEM fields, 
compared with only one-third of U.S. students.
  International standardized tests show that we rank only average or 
below average in students' math and science performance. The 2009 
Program for International Student Assessment placed American 15-year-
olds 25th in math and 17th in science out of 34 OECD countries--the 
developed countries. What is worse is, we are spending more on 
education per student than any other OECD country in the world, except 
for Luxembourg.
  As Congress works to reform No Child Left Behind this year--and the 
Presiding Officer is working with me on that on the HELP Committee--I 
urge my colleagues to consider strongly the importance of STEM 
education and how to spend our limited resources most effectively. 
President Obama has proposed recruiting and training 100,000 new STEM 
teachers in the next decade and has requested $100 million to advance 
this worthy goal.
  However, many STEM teachers leave the profession within their first 
few years of teaching, often drawn by far more lucrative salaries 
elsewhere in science and technology fields. Those talents are valued in 
the market. So if we are going to invest in recruiting and training new 
teachers, we also need to invest in retaining and best utilizing those 
individuals.
  The STEM Master Teacher Corps Act is based on a proposal brought 
forth by President Obama's Council of Advisors on Science and 
Technology. It will provide the top K-12 STEM teachers in a 
participating area with additional professional development, so they 
can become leaders in their schools and in their communities.
  Master teachers will mentor their younger or less-effective peers, 
giving them guidance and inspiring them to stay in teaching. Master 
teachers will also network with one another, sharing best practices and 
resources. Together, these measures will improve the quality and the 
ability of all teachers to impart strong STEM skills and an eagerness 
to learn and pass it on to their students.
  Providing career advancement opportunities to effective STEM teachers 
and support to beginning teachers will help increase retention, so our 
investments in recruitment and training will have an even greater 
payoff.
  In recognition of their excellent work and new leadership 
responsibilities, it is only fair that these master teachers should be 
compensated, so my legislation also gives them a salary bump. Our 
teachers work just as hard as other STEM professionals, and it is time 
we recognize that and pay them accordingly. According to the National 
Association of Colleges and Employers, the median salary offered to 
recent college graduates in certain STEM-related fields, including 
physics, computer science, accounting, and engineering, is $24,000 
higher than that offered to a new secondary school teacher and $30,000 
higher than that offered to a new elementary school teacher.
  This legislation has been endorsed by more than 60 national and 
regional groups, ranging from educational organizations such as the 
National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, 
the College Board, and Education Minnesota, to business groups such as 
LifeScience Alley, the BioBusiness Alliance of Minnesota, and the 
Minnesota High Tech Association. The bill is also supported by rural 
groups, such as the National Rural Education Association and the Rural 
School and Community Trust and numerous science and math societies.
  I am particularly pleased to have the endorsement of two leading 
national businesses that also happened to be headquartered in my State, 
Medtronic and 3M. Both of these companies recognize and support the 
importance of acting now to ensure a well-trained workforce for the 
future, and they have already shown a proactive interest in supporting 
and engaging students in STEM activities.
  I was recently at a first robotics event at the University of 
Minnesota that was astounding. They had two huge auditoriums of these 
over-130 teams competing in Minnesota in this

[[Page 5746]]

robotics competition. So I am very grateful for the support of 3M and 
of Medtronic.
  Mr. President, I have a very impressive list of the number of 
endorsers to the bill, and I ask unanimous consent to have printed in 
the Record the full list of endorsers.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

Organizations Endorsing Senator Franken's STEM Master Teacher Corps Act 
                                of 2011

       3M; Alliance for Excellent Education; American Association 
     for the Advancement of Science; American Association of 
     Physicists in Medicine; American Association of Physics 
     Teachers; American Federation of Teachers (AFT); American 
     Institute of Physics; American Mathematical Society; American 
     Physical Society; American Society for Engineering Education; 
     American Society of Civil Engineers; America's Promise 
     Alliance; Arlington, MA STEM Coalition; ASME Center for 
     Public Awareness; Association of Science Materials Centers; 
     Biobusiness Alliance of Minnesota; Campaign for Environmental 
     Literacy; Central Jersey Modeling Institute; College Board; 
     College of Education at Purdue University; Council of State 
     Science Supervisors.
       ECOCAD DESIGN GROUP, LLC; Education Development Center; 
     Education Minnesota; Engaged Education Now; For Inspiration 
     and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST); HMC 
     Architects; IEEE-USA; International Renewable Energy 
     Technology Institute; Iowa Mathematics and Science Education 
     Partnership; LearnOnLine, Inc.; LifeScience Alley; Materials 
     Research Society; Math for America; Medtronic; Minnesota 
     Center for Engineering and Manufacturing Excellence; 
     Minnesota Council of Teachers of Mathematics; Minnesota High 
     Tech Association; Minnesota Intermediate District 287.
       National Association of Secondary School Principals; 
     National Association of State Boards of Education; National 
     Board for Professional Teaching Standards; National Council 
     of Teachers of Mathematics; National Education Association 
     (NEA); National Institute of Building Sciences; National 
     Institute for Excellence in Teaching; National Rural 
     Education Association; National Science Center; National 
     Science Teachers Association; New Teacher Center; Ohio 
     Technology and Engineering Educators Association; Ohio 
     Technology Education Advisory Council; The Optical Society; 
     NV STEM Education Coalition; Project Lead The Way; Rural 
     School and Community Trust; School Science and Mathematics 
     Association (SSMA); South Carolina's Coalition for 
     Mathematics and Science; SPIE, the International Society for 
     Optics and Photonics; STARBASE Minnesota; STEM Education 
     Coalition; TIAX LLC; Triangle Coalition for Science and 
     Technology Education.

  Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, the Master Teacher Corps Program 
addresses the recommendations presented in the President's Council of 
Advisers on Science and Technology's 2010 K-12 STEM education report 
and tracks the priorities laid out more than 10 years ago in the Glenn 
Commission report.
  Specifically, it would establish an ongoing system to improve the 
quality of mathematics and science teaching in grades K-12, and it 
would improve the working environment and make the teaching profession 
more attractive for K-12 mathematics and science teachers.
  With the planned reform and reauthorization of No Child Left Behind 
this year, we have a rare and, indeed, ideal opportunity to implement 
real change in K-12 STEM education in this country. So let's act now, 
before it is too late, before the storm has fully gathered, and before 
that rapidly approaching category 5 hurricane destroys the competitive 
technological edge and the prosperity our country has worked so hard to 
build and maintain.
  I urge my colleagues to join Senators Lieberman, Shaheen, and me in 
supporting a sustained investment in K-12 STEM teacher quality and in 
raising the standards of the teaching profession through the STEM 
Master Teacher Corps Act.

                          ____________________