[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 10999-11000]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      STRONG STEM EDUCATION POLICY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Connecticut (Mr. Courtney) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, in a few short hours, we are going to be 
voting in this Chamber on a rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary 
Education Act, which is long overdue.
  It has been 13 years since the No Child Left Behind Act was passed, 
and many educators and probably all Members have heard a lot of the 
clumsy and unworkable provisions that need a rewrite. More importantly, 
there are other reasons why it is time for a new law for our K-12 
system.
  Educating our children is a dynamic process, and everything from 
technology in the classroom, as well as the workforce needs of our 
national economy, have drastically changed in the last 13 years.
  Clearly, as a nation, we need to use this rewrite of Federal 
education law as an opportunity to equip our Nation, and particularly 
our children and grandchildren, with the tools they need to succeed.
  One area which we all know needs updating and strengthening is the 
area of STEM education--science, technology, engineering, and math. 
Employers all across the country are desperate to try and find incoming 
young people into our workforce who have these skills to succeed.
  The good news is, in the last 13 years, STEM occupations have grown 
three times faster than non-STEM occupations. In addition, the average 
income is two times higher in terms of the wages of STEM-educated 
workers compared to non-STEM. That is the good news.
  The bad news is that only 16 percent of graduating high school 
seniors are interested in STEM. If you drill down deeper, young girls 
and young minorities are woefully underrepresented in the single 
digits.
  Clearly, we need to move stronger as a nation in the area of STEM. If 
you look globally, China is producing 23 percent of the world's STEM 
degree graduates--the U.S., only 10 percent.
  Mr. Speaker, if you go back 58 years ago, our 34th President, Dwight 
Eisenhower, confronted a similar moment of crisis in terms of our 
education system.
  In October 1957, the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite, 
which shocked our Nation. We realized we were falling behind and that 
we needed to step up our game in terms of our educational and research 
system. This Republican President led the charge to pass the National 
Defense Education Act in 1958, which boosted and set a national goal, a 
national priority, for science and research across our country.
  At the time that he signed the bill in 1958, he said that, in both 
education and research, we needed to redouble our exertions, which will 
be necessary on the part of all Americans if we are to rise to the 
demands of our times.
  He also noted that this bill, the National Defense Education Act, 
back in 1958, would ``do much to strengthen our American system of 
education so it can meet the broad and increasing demands imposed upon 
it by considerations of basic national security.''
  Fast forward 57 years, we now have a national STEM education 
coalition made up of employers like Microsoft, the National Association 
of Manufacturers, and the American Farm Bureau, who have come together 
with a core set of principles on how we can today, in 2015, boost 
teachers with these hard science degrees in our elementary and high 
schools, how we can drill down and encourage, again, underrepresented 
groups such as young girls and minorities to get involved and engaged 
in education.
  We came forward on the Education and the Workforce Committee with an 
amendment supported by the STEM coalition, and it was rejected on a 
party-line vote by the Republican majority, who said that the national 
government had no business being involved in local

[[Page 11000]]

and State education policy. That is totally unacceptable in terms of 
the challenges that our Nation faces today.
  Unfortunately, the Rules Committee rejected our amendment from even 
being voted on today as part of the update of the No Child Left Behind 
bill.
  Again, it is the ultimate measuring stick of the failure of this bill 
to address the needs our Nation faces in terms of K-12 education 
policy. We should follow the example of this gentleman. He understood 
that at times, we have to rise up as a full nation.
  We can't rely on one local wealthy school district to invest in 
science and technology and engineering and math and leave behind other 
populations in this country because, as a nation, we need to come 
together to address and succeed and face this challenge. It will bring 
good things in terms of higher income and more growth for our country 
if we embrace these types of policies.
  The good news is that the Republican chairman of the Senate Education 
Committee did embrace the STEM education coalition provisions, and they 
have put it in their bill.
  Today, unfortunately, we are going to go do this exercise, this 
theater of passing a bill which woefully fails the test in terms of 
what our Nation faces today, but hopefully, later in the process, a 
conference committee will come together, and we will follow the example 
of Dwight Eisenhower and our bipartisan coalition of the 1950s to allow 
this Nation to have the tools to succeed.
  We need to pass strong STEM education policy for our young children.

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