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EDUCATION FOR ECONOMIC SECURITY ACT

TUESDAY, MARCH 8, 1983

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, ARTS AND HUMANITIES,

OF THE COMMITTEE ON LABOR AND HUMAN RESOURCES,

Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m., in room SD-430, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator Robert T. Stafford (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Senators Stafford, Pell, and Quayle.

Also present: Senators Domenici, Hart, and Chiles.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR STAFFORD

Senator STAFFORD. The Subcommittee on Education, Arts and Humanities will come to order.

I am very pleased to convene this first day of hearings on legislative responses to the problems of mathematics, science, and foreign language education, problems which impede America's economic growth and undermine our national security.

Legislation to deal with the critical shortage of teachers qualified to instruct students in mathematics, science, and foreign languages is urgently needed in the United States if this country is to compete adequately with other nations in an increasingly competitive economic arena.

The litany of our deficiencies in these areas is appalling. Nationwide, according to my most recent information, 22 percent of teaching posts in mathematics are unfilled. In 1981, half the newly hired instructors in mathematics and science in secondary schools were not certified to teach those subjects.

Virtually five times as many science and mathematics teachers left the teaching profession for nonteaching jobs than left due to retirement. Fewer than one-half of the high school graduates have taken even 1 year of a foreign language as a part of their curriculum.

Certainly, education is principally a State and local responsibility, and our State and local school boards and our colleges and universities must play a major role in responding to these glaring deficiencies. So, too, must industry and our educational system fashion a cooperative approach to solving these problems.

Yet, there is also the national problem of our ability to cope generally with rapidly changing technology and changing labor-force requirements, and a pressing national need to improve our international economic competitiveness. These national problems demand a response at the Federal level.

Numerous bills to address these problems have been introduced in the House of Representatives on both sides of the aisle, and our colleagues in the House have moved quickly to pass legislation to deal with them.

I, too, believe that there is a most serious and urgent need for legislation, for any legislative response to improve teaching and learning in math, science, and foreign languages will have to have as its goal the development of a more technically competent and knowledgeable citizenry. This is indeed a long-range goal, but we must act deliberately and soon if it is to be achieved.

On February 17, Senator Pell and I introduced S. 530, the Education for Economic Security Act. I believe that this legislation represents a good start in the subcommittee's efforts to fashion a measured approach to a complex set of problems in mathematics, science, and foreign language education, problems which cut across our education system at all levels.

I recognize that our legislative approach falls within the jurisdiction of the Department of Education. Therefore, it should be seen as the foundation for a more comprehensive approach which includes a merit-based program under the aegis of the National Science Foundation.

I intend to work closely with the chairman and ranking member of the full Labor and Human Resources Committee, Senators Hatch and Kennedy, under whose jurisdiction the NSF falls, to develop such an initiative.

Through our hearings, we hope to accomplish three things: first, to determine the nature and magnitude of our problems of mathematics, science, and foreign language education; second, to assess current and prospective initiatives at all levels of government and within the private sector to address these problems; and third, to develop the most appropriate Federal legislative approach which will help us to strengthen America's economy and security.

I look forward to this challenge and to working closely, as always, with my subcommittee colleagues, and particularly our ranking member, Senator Pell, who I hope will be here later. A severe illness suddenly developed in his staff and that is why he is not here now. We will enter his statement into the record at this point.

[The following was received for the record:]

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PELL

Senator PELL. At the outset, Mr. Chairman, I want to commend you for holding this, the first of several hearings on S. 530, the Education for Economic Security Act, and on related science and mathematics legislative proposals before this subcommittee.

These hearings could well be the most important education hearings we will hold this year. Their importance can be seen in the number of bills that have already been introduced in this area.

We are fortunate indeed this morning to hear from Senators Domenici, Hart, and Chiles. Each of these distinguished colleagues of mine has either introduced or will soon be introducing legislation in the math and science areas. I eagerly look forward to their testimony.

Tomorrow, we will hear from the Secretary of Education. I was very heartened when the President, in his state of the union address, called for a new Federal math and science initiative. I look forward to having the Secretary discuss that proposal as part of his testimony.

I am very hopeful that all of us-my colleagues and the administration-will be able to work together in coming up with a viable program. For this crisis we face in the area of mathematics, science, computer technology, and foreign language instruction is a crisis of the first order.

The crisis with which we are confronted is not at all unlike the Sputnik crisis of the late fifties. It involves acute teacher shortages, inadequacy of instruction, a lack of emphasis on important national priorities, insufficient materials and equipment, too little vocational training in new and emerging technologies, and a paucity of public funding.

I was in the Soviet Union when Sputnik was successfully launched and I witnessed the invigorating effect it had upon the Soviet people. I returned home to witness the truly remarkable response of our Nation. Almost immediately we identified our inadequacies and set a course to correct them.

It is equally critical today that we come to grips with the high technology demands placed upon our Nation. To my mind, that responsibility must be borne most heavily by our educational system. The adequacy of our response will in large measure depend upon the legislation that we fashion within this subcommittee. Let us take care, then, that we hear all voices and that we involve all parties in coming up with a Federal educational initiative that will enhance and strengthen the economic security of this great Nation. Senator STAFFORD. Senator Randolph, who is today celebrating his 81st birthday, for which I am sure all of us wish him a most happy birthday and many happy returns today, has asked me to say in his behalf that he extends his apologies to the members of the subcommittee and today's witnesses for his necessary absence from these hearings.

Although he fully intended to be here and to join with others in expressing concern over the emergency nature of the need to improve the quality of math and science instruction in our Nation's schools, a meeting was called for the West Virginia delegation to find ways to avoid, if possible, the layoff of thousands of additional steelworkers in his State at a time when the State has the highest unemployment record in the Nation.

Senator Randolph wishes to reaffirm his commitment to the subcommittee-he does not need to do that as far as its chairman is concerned, because we know it-and to the educational community-and I think the educational community knows of his commitment-in working to design legislative initiatives to address our national science and math problems.

The Senator also, as I said, is celebrating his birthday, and not only his 81st birthday, ladies and gentlemen, but the 50th anniversary of his first swearing in as a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1933.

We will include a statement from Senator Randolph and a statement from Senator Dodd in the record at this point.

[The following was received for the record:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR RANDOLPH

Senator RANDOLPH. Mr. Chairman, I am impressed by the vast array of bills that have been introduced to date addressing the newly emerging science and math needs in the education community. These many bills are indicative of the genuine concern among us concerning math and science education, and also indicates that the Congress believes the decline in the quality of these disciplines to be a national priority if not a national emergency.

I am pleased to be a cosponsor of S. 530, the bill introduced by our able ranking minority member, Senator Claiborne Pell. I consider this bill to be the model, or centerpiece of whatever final form the science and math initiative in the Senate might take. With so many bills pending, addressing the need through proposals that include tax deductions for donation of computer equipment, teacher inservice programs, and program-improvement grants to local school districts, as well as loan forgiveness and scholarships proposed for college students who desire to become secondary school math and science teachers-I believe that unless there is a real national concensus that we can afford an omnibus-bill approach to this emergency need in the two fields-we are apt to end up with bits and pieces of many bills, and insufficient funds to really make an impact on the problem at the State and local levels. There are dozens of problems inherent in any initiative-omnibus or otherwise-to really address the inadequacies-without taking into account the complex governance system for education that must be accommodated in any national effort to relieve math and science teacher shortages and to improve the quality of math and science instruction in our schools. That complex governance system is comprised of 50 State systems and nearly 16,000 individual, or local, school districts nationwide.

Are we really sure how diverse the problem is? Doesn't it all depend on the various perspectives represented in the contentions about the "real" and "alleged" deficiencies in math and science education? Is the real problem a general condition associated with larger societal values and changing circumstances, or is it the result of one or more particular concerns?

We are responding now to the same problem we responded to when Russia hurled its first Sputnik into space. We responded by enacting the National Defense Education Act to remedy the allegation that we had a national shortage of qualified teachers in higher education and secondary schools, we had the need to replace outmoded equipment in schools and colleges, and to provide inservice training and curriculum development programs to improve the quality of instruction. The NDEA provided loans to students preparing to enter careers in areas of scarcity, grants for purchase of equipment, supervisory and consultancy services for teachers, fellowships for persons preparing to become college teachers, foreign language development-and many other authorities-none of which are currently funded to a great extent except for a few continued under other legislative provisions. For example, the student loans and grants under the Higher Education Act that was enacted

in 1965, staff development and program improvement activities under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, now known as chapter 2 of ECIA, and international education programs for foreign language instruction, also under the Higher Education Act-which by the way the President has zero-funded in his fiscal year 1984 budget request, and finally there are some programs still authorized under the Vocational Education Act.

Our task is formidable, Mr. Chairman. The magnitude of the problem appears to be great indeed. I doubt if we have the capabílity to provide a valid picture of need with the data we are able to obtain through spot surveys conducted by 50 State systems and 16,000 local school districts-all separate and disparate-to pinpoint just where the shortages, and perhaps surpluses of teachers already trained to teach math and science are so how can we do a really good job of enacting legislation to remedy the problem without a comprehensive analysis of the extent to which the problem exists. Is it, as some groups claim, not really a shortage of such teachers nationwide, but merely a geographic maldistribution of those already adequately trained?

If there are areas in the country that have a surplus of such teachers, what incentive can we give them to leave home and teach in another State where a shortage exists? Most teachers refuse to leave their home States because most teacher retirement programs are not portable-and if that isn't enough to thwart an effort to redistribute these trained, qualified teachers, consider the fact of significant differences between teacher salaries among the 50 States, and the refusal of trained teachers to move around because of probable reduced income at other locations. And we know from experience that efforts to allow the Federal Government to address and resolve the teacher retirement problem would likely continue to be considered an "imposition of Federal intrusion" at the State level, encountering fierce resistance-as much so as any Federal initiative to address teacher certification requirements.

All we really know is there is a growing consensus that we appear to have unqualified precollege teachers, a shortage of teachers at the college and precollege level, too few math and science students in college, insufficient math and science courses or requirements in high school, inadequate exposure to math and science for students not planning to pursue a career in these disciplines, and the cumulative impact of a decade or more diving which educational priorities have emphasized equity and access while, according to some people, we sacrificed excellence in education. Which is true? All of the above, or none of the above?

When we enacted the National Defense Education Act, it reflected a broad categorical approach, with 11 separate titles, and it was considered a major breakthrough by proponents of Federal aid to elementary and secondary schools as well as higher learning institutions. But its supporters never forgot that a national emergency provided the rationale for its enactment. And with all that it provided, the NDEA was still criticized by some as having failed to reach those sectors of education in greatest need of help-such as schools in central city slums and depressed, isolated, rural areas. Our approach to addressing what we perceive to be a real national need a national priority to remedy inadequacies in science and

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