America Competes Act

Floor Speech

AMERICA COMPETES ACT -- (Senate - August 02, 2007)

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the America COMPETES Act. I applaud the bipartisan group that put together the America COMPETES Act, an extraordinary bill that will provide invaluable resources to ensure that the United States does not lose step with our global competitors.

We live in a global marketplace and if our students are to compete with students from around the world, they must have the benefit of a first rate math and science education taught by first rate math and science teachers. This new program will vastly improve the chance that our high school students are taught math and science by the best and the brightest.

That is why I am particularly proud of one provision that I authored that has been included in this conference agreement. This provision will establish a new program called the National Science Foundation Teaching Fellowship within the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program. I wish to express my deep gratitude to Senators Kennedy, Bingaman, Alexander and Enzi for including this important provision in the bill. I would also like to thank my friend and colleague, Senator Clinton, for her valuable support.

The provision creating the NSF Teaching Fellowship is modeled on a bill I introduced last Congress, the Math and Science Teaching Corps Act. The Math and Science Teaching Corps was in turn modeled after a highly successful New York City program called Math for America.

Math for America's mission is to improve math education in our Nation's public schools by recruiting top math and science college graduates to become teachers and providing financial incentives to make these jobs competitive with the graduates' other opportunities.

The program has made tremendous strides. Over 100 teachers teach in nearly 60 New York City public schools. By 2011 the program will support at least 440 teachers. I can only hope that the new NSF Teaching Fellowship will be so successful.

The NSF Teaching Fellowship program is about paving the way for the future. It will ensure that leaders in math and science train the next generation of innovators--instead of leaving the classroom for research or other jobs. This model program is working in New York City, and now, with the America COMPETES legislation, it will be expanded to the rest of the country.

We need this program to reverse a dismal trend. Our students are not currently prepared to compete in a technology-intense economy. In the 2003 PISA math assessment that compared 15-year-old students across the world, American students ranked 24th out of the 29 participating countries--here in the U.S., in math, 24th out of 29. How can we compete when our students are falling behind?

A 2005 mathematics assessment of twelfth graders by the National Assessment of Education Progress found that 61 percent of high school seniors performed at or above the basic level, and 23 percent performed at or above the proficient level. For science, 54 percent of twelfth graders scored at or above the basic level. Eighteen percent performed at or above the proficient level. This is unacceptable.

Students currently studying math and science will be the fuel that powers our economy for the next century, and we must give them every chance to achieve, excel and thrive. The NSF Teaching Fellowship is a significant step.

Inspirational and brilliant teachers will make an enormous difference. To attract these role models, we need to level the playing field, and ensure that these future teachers can afford to teach. Only one-third of math teachers and less than two-thirds of science teachers majored or minored in the subject they teach. It is not hard to understand why. Starting salaries for math and science majors can be as much as $20,000 higher in the private sector than they are for public school teachers.

The NSF Teaching Fellowship will help reduce these barriers. The program's structure has a rigorous selection process and incentives built in to improve retention. NSF teaching fellows will have to take a test to prove their strengths in math or science. Then they enroll in a 1-year master's degree program in teaching that will give them teaching certification, and it is all paid for. They will agree to teach for at least 4 years, and for those 4 years, they will receive bonuses on top of their salaries. These individuals will infuse our schools with a deep passion for and an understanding of math and science and will share their knowledge with other teachers in their school.

To retain our current teachers who are outstanding at what they do and can provide expertise in the classroom that our teaching fellows won't yet have, there is another category called NSF master teaching fellows. Master fellows are current teachers who already have a master's degree in math or science education. They will also take a test demonstrating they have a high level understanding of their subject area. For the next 5 years they will serve as leaders in their school, providing mentorship for other teachers in their department as well as assisting with curriculum development and professional development. For these 5 years they also will receive bonuses on top of their salaries.

We all agree that every child deserves effective, high-quality professional teachers. And there are thousands of wonderful teachers in our country. But we need more. Without them, children will have difficulty reaching the high standards we want them to achieve. The federal government has long worked to ensure that all children have equal access to a quality education, no matter where they live. We must encourage and fund well-designed programs, such as the NSF Teaching Fellowship to incite rapid improvement in the quality of the Nation's future teaching workforce.

I urge all my colleagues to support this monumental bill, the America COMPETES Act.

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