America Competes Act--Continued

Floor Speech

AMERICA COMPETES ACT--Continued -- (Senate - April 24, 2007)

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I also thank the Senator from Ohio for letting me make some brief remarks, and then I will yield the floor to him.

First, I wish to praise my colleagues from New Mexico and Tennessee, who have done an excellent job on this legislation. I applaud the bipartisan group that put together this extraordinary bill we are considering, the America COMPETES Act, because this legislation will provide invaluable resources to help slingshot our economy forward and ensure that our great country does not lose step with our global competitors.

I am particularly proud of one provision I authored and has been included in the managers' amendment that was adopted earlier today. That is what I want to speak about.

The program is called the National Science Foundation Teaching Fellowship, and it will go a long way toward ensuring that our high school students are taught math and science by the best and the brightest.

I wish to express my deep gratitude to Senators KENNEDY, BINGAMAN, ENZI, and ALEXANDER for including this important provision in the bill. I would also like to thank my friend and colleague, Senator Clinton, for her valuable support as a committee member in this process.

The NSF Teaching Fellowship is modeled after a highly successful program in New York City called Math for America. The program recruits top math and science graduates to become teachers and retains them as teachers by offering financial incentives. The program will ensure that leaders in math and science train future generations of innovators--instead of leaving the classroom for research or other opportunities.

It is working in New York City, and it is crucial to expand this model to the rest of the country. Let me share with you some statistics that will explain why.

Our students are not currently prepared to compete in a technological 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 America, in math, 24th out of 29. How are we going to stay the greatest country in the world when that has happened?

Students currently studying math and science will be the fuel that powers our economy for the next century, and there is no question we are not giving them the tools they need to compete.

One reason why our students are not doing well is because 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.

But by allowing this disincentive to teach to continue, we are ignoring our responsibility to have our students taught by teachers who know math and science backward and forward. The bottom line is the American economic engine may stall if we don't have a highly skilled workforce to keep it going. Unfortunately, this is where we are faltering.

So today the Senate has adopted the NSF Teaching Fellowship program, along with other excellent provisions in the America COMPETES Act, to fill in the gap. Here is how the program will work. 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 existing 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.

Last year I introduced the Math and Science Teaching Corps Act with my friend Congressman Jim Saxton in the House. Today that bill has evolved into a program that has been included in the America COMPETES Act.

The question is: Will this generation have the skill sets necessary to take full advantage of this new economy? Right now our children are lagging behind and we must act quickly before businesses need to look elsewhere. Math and science skills are the key to maintaining this country's competitiveness in the global economy, and this legislation will help ensure that.

I believe the NSF Teaching Fellowship, as well as the rest of the America COMPETES Act, will put us back on track. I am proud to have been included in the process and I look forward to working with my colleagues to complete work on this important bill.

MEDICARE

Mr. President, I want also to take 1 more minute to address the comments this afternoon of my friend and colleague Senator Gregg. He and I often agree, and I believe we do on this particular issue as well, about the need to shore up Medicare. I think he misunderstood my comments from yesterday and I want to take a moment to discuss them.

Yesterday the Social Security and Medicare trustees released their annual report showing that Social Security does not face an impending funding crisis, but Medicare funds are less secure. The report indicates that the Social Security trust fund would be solvent 1 year longer than was predicted in last year's report, that is until 2041, but Medicare would be exhausted as soon as 2019 in terms of the Medicare trust fund.

The Senator should know I did not and would not attack the independent trustees of the Medicare and Social Security trust funds. My statement responded to two things: first, the administration's misguided mission to use any and all news with regard to Social Security as an opportunity to push for privatizing Social Security; second, the administration's unwillingness to do something to fix underlying problems in our health care system and reduce budget deficits to shore up Medicare before it is too late.

My colleague from New Hampshire pointed out that most of us on this side of the aisle voted against some of his amendments. That doesn't mean we don't want to fix Medicare; it means we don't agree with the way he is proposing. In fact, we have to get a handle on the whole health care system to fix Medicare, not chop away and slash away at Medicare itself. So I agree with the Senator from New Hampshire, we can't leave these problems to future generations. I look forward to working with him on that important issue.

I once again thank my good colleague from Ohio for his generosity of both time and spirit.

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