Providing Lifelong Opportunities for All Americans

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his leadership to come to the floor of the House tonight, along with the cochairmen of the Careers for 21st Century America, the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt). I serve as another one of the cochairmen of this very important part of our Republican Conference.

Tonight we are going to talk about lifelong learning and its impact on this country. As we today held a press conference, the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt) and I, we talked about a number of things that face America, our opportunity to make sure that the educational system that we have in this country is not only aiming at the right things but is prepared to make sure that we are ready for its future.

A number of facts came to us today that were very interesting. Among others that we learned were approximately 60 percent of corporations are prevented from updating technologies by the low educational and technically skilled level of their workers, meaning that the workers that are in today's workplace have to be retrained, have to be retrained on a regular basis, and that the corporation that today spends some $60 billion a year on training their employees and making sure that their employees can deal with not only the technologies that are new and emerging but also the tools, being able to do those things that will produce American products and make sure that America is leading edge.

In 1950, 80 percent of the jobs were classified as unskilled. Today, roughly 85 percent are classified as skilled. That is a change in the marketplace. In the coming decade, 40 percent of the job growth will require postsecondary education, so says the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Approximately 75 percent of today's workforce will need to be retrained just to keep up with their current jobs, also from the Chamber of Commerce. Lastly, from the Chamber of Commerce, as much as 40 percent of tomorrow's jobs do not even exist today.

So as we begin talking about this, not only in the Republican Conference but also in the press conference today, we recognize that our leadership, through the leadership of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), that we needed to bring forth not only a vision statement about what we believe in, but also actual bills, pieces of legislation that will do those things that allow our country to be prepared for the future.

Mr. SESSIONS. And we recognize that, as we started talking about this, that three pieces of legislation, which are going to be on the floor this week, which are very, very important, one of them H.R. 4409, the Teacher Training Enhancement Act, which we are going to hear about in just a few minutes which the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey) brought forth to our conference because he recognized that we need to make sure that we are utilizing the best effort not only from what States do, because they are responsible for education, but also to make sure that companies and people who are out there in local cities and at the local level are able to engage in those things to bring their skill sets to the educational environment.

We have H.R. 4410, the Teacher Shortage Response Act, which the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson) has made sure is a part of our package. We need to make sure that we are able to accurately and carefully find those people who would come and be teachers in our public schools. We need to find those who have in particular a background in math and science, a high-tech background.

It is difficult for school systems to come and compete for those specialized people who might want to get out of school and be able to pay off their student loans, so they go and they work for local industry. We need them in our schools. So the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson) saw this need and said we need to be able to compete in our school systems to have those kinds of teachers to be ready and available to teach our children. He did a good job.

Lastly, H.R. 4411, the Priorities For Graduate Studies Act. The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Burns) saw this as a tremendous opportunity for us to capitalize on many people who receive higher education, meaning a masters or a doctorate degree, to be a part of our school system, to be a part of the teaching system that we have in this country, to make sure that our students are challenged with not only leading-edge tool sets, the tool kits that are necessary, but also by the teachers who would be employed to do that, to challenge our bright young students to make sure that the leading-edge concepts, the leading-edge ideas that will develop tomorrow so that we can make sure that this country is prepared.

And that is what this week is about. That is why we operate Careers For the 21st Century in this week, talking about lifelong learning. We believe that if the United States Congress acts forthrightly to where we talk about what is the real job that Congress should be doing, we should be aiming this country in a direction that will allow the private sector and schools back home to not only compete and hire those people who will help our students, but also to make sure that the resources are available to do that. And that is why this Republican conference is so interested in making sure that this is a part of what is available in the tool kits for teachers and administrators back home.

I am very proud of what this will mean and what it will do. Years ago early in my career I spent time at Bell Labs in New Jersey. And I was around some of the brightest and the best of the young people that this country produced. Now we have seen a proliferation of jobs all over this country where high tech has taken off, where jobs are available in not only health care but also the employment industry where it is high tech involved in helping our military or perhaps producing things for jobs in this country.

We must continue in this country being the leading-edge producer of not only technology but also the students who will operate and make that technology work. I believe that America's greatest days are in our future because we have a vision and a dream about where we are going to go in terms of not only this generation but the next generation.
This is a part of the Republican Party's commitment to the future of this country. I am proud of what we are doing. I am proud to be a co-chairman of this very important Careers For 21st Century.

I thank the gentleman from North Carolina for taking his time tonight to make sure our message is given to our colleagues about how important our responsibility is to ensure the success of the next generation of Americans through education.

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