Senators, Witnesses Agree that America Is Not Competitive
By Sara Hatch
WASHINGTON, March 1-Hartford’s University High School of Science and Engineering is part of a growing trend toward preparing students for the technology-dominated world they will confront in a few years, particularly in engineering, math and the sciences.
But it’s only “a start, not a final destination,” Joshua R. Tagore, a sophomore at the high school, told a Senate hearing here Wednesday on the proposed PACE-Protecting America’s Competitive Edge-Act.
The measure, of which Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut is a co-sponsor, would, among other things, provide grants to create math and science high schools like the one in Hartford throughout the country, establish college scholarships for students who agree to become public school science and math teachers and offer money to train 10,000 new teachers.
In his testimony, Tagore said: “I believe that if more high school students are exposed to this kind of unique learning experience as a routine part of their high school careers – as I was in my freshman year – we could help to shape a nation of young adults who will gain an interest in careers involving math and science. In this new millennium, the future of our country depends on it.”
Dodd, the senior Democrat on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Subcommittee on Education and Early Childhood Development, said in an interview after the hearing: “Too often we’re losing too many qualified, highly gifted people who blossom later in life; who don’t show their talent in the first, second, third, fourth, fifth or sixth grade or even later, so we need to do a better job of tracking people, investing in people earlier on so we don’t just write people off.”
PACE is needed, he said, because it is “so critically important in the 21st century; that nations which have a workforce that is knowledgeable and gifted in the math, science and engineering fields are going to play a critical role in determining the economic success of the nations in which they live and so this is essential.”
“And so if we don’t do it soon . the abruptness of the change is startling,” Dodd said. “You won’t have the time to build back up because people are going to move on and therefore you may never recover from it.”
The Hartford high school is one of about 70 in 25 states, with almost 12,000 students, that is part of the early college high school movement, and advocates expect those numbers to rise to 166 schools and more than 60,000 students six years from now.
The schools partner with a college to provide what the Hartford high school describes as “a bridge to a college education,” with students attending classes at an affiliated college and submitting those classes for credit to the colleges they eventually attend.
Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) said students like Tagore are the future.
“He does things with technology that we never dreamed about,” Burr said. “Not providing them the opportunity is the only mistake we can make.”
Assistant Secretary of Education Henry Johnson said that there has been progress in grades K thorough 8 but that “too many students hit the wall when they get to high school.”
Former North Carolina Gov. James Hunt also testified that America has fallen behind the world in competitiveness in math and science and that more must be done to change science and math education in the United States.
“We have so far to go, and the competition is about to clean our clock,” Hunt said. “We are not competitive today.”
Hunt added that though education has “historically” been a local issue, it needed to become a “national issue.” He also urged greater financial support, floating the idea of phasing in the money now going to Iraq to help pay for these programs.
Dodd and other senators agreed that this cannot be done without more money being put into the program.
“We heard from Gov. Hunt–this can’t be done on the cheap,” Dodd said.
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