STATEMENT OF ALBERT SHANKER, PRESIDENT I am Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO. The AFT represents more than 580,000 elementary and secondary teachers, school paraprofessionals, health care professionals, civil service employees and university professors. We are deeply concerned with this problem and grateful that this committee recognizes that it requires federal attention. We are appreciative that you have given the American Federation of Teachers the opportunity to express its point of view. Before addressing the specific proposal you have before you, I think it would be helpful if you first had a sense of how we view this issue. This presentation will be necessarily brief, but it is based on two more extensive documents which I ask be included in the permanent record of this hearing. One is a spot survey of what is The other is a more First of all, we believe that to tackle the problem of quality in math and science is to tackle the problems of education generally. In dealing with the math and science teacher shortage we have to face the problem of teacher recruitment and quality generally. The questions we ask at every level of government and the answers we offer will ultimately shape our entire system. We must be sure we ask the right questions. The AFT also believes the federal government has a role to play in solving the problems that we are examining today. These hearings must produce a commitment of federal dollars and leadership towards solving the shortage of math and science teachers. The problem is nation-wide and so must be the solution. We must start by recognizing that with the economy in the midst of a near depression, public education is caught up with the need to defend itself in economic terms. The crisis in school financing captures the attention of all who are working for a quality system of public education. On top of this financial crisis is a second crisis of national scope and that is the wearing out of the nation's infrastructure and of the erosion of our country's position as the world's leader in science and technology and our decline as a world economic power. While public education should never be geared to react solely to Immediate problems, to ignore these problems would be a disservice to our country and the nation's children. Within this context, the crisis in math and science education is beginning to get the attention it deserves. Student test scores are down in these subjects. Curriculum requirements are often minimal and do not compare well with those of this nation's economic competitors. Students lose interest in these subjects early and fall away from them as soon as school course requirements permit. To compound the situation, severe teacher shortages are emerging in both subjects in all but a handful of our states, largely because of the failure of teacher salaries and job satisfactions to compete with those in the private sector. Some have taken the popularity of the economy-education connection as an indication that fitting education specifically to future job skill requirements is the best way to keep the educational enterprise and the demands of the economy running in tandem. But even if this were the 21-) 0 - 8) - 21 sole purpose of education, which it is not, from the reports we have examined and the experts we have talked to, we have come to the conclusion that deciding on which specific job skills would be impossible. Experience has already shown that it is hopeless to try to predict labor market skill demands with an exactness. The economy is simply too large and subject to change on very short notice. In fact, in the future many believe that everyone will be required to function in many jobs due to the demands of rapid job market change. The best job skill will continue to be an education that focuses on developing intellectual skills and the ability to adapt to new circumstances. This is an important premise if we are to solve the math and science crisis because many are examining the problem with invalid assumptions such as: Since high technology is growing (to what degree and at what Because math and science are regarded as preparation for There is good evidence that all of these assumptions are wrong. unfortuantely, many believe this analysis of the problem and they are producing initial responses that concentrate on college preparatory students, ignore the importance of the early grades, and wrongly interpret business wisdom on the subject. But, There is one other dimension to the economic-education relationship worth mentioning here: demographic patterns add additional considerations to any evaluation of the importance of math and science education. U.S. Census predicts that within the next twelve years there will be The At the more than a 25% reduction in the number of 18- to 25-year-olds. same time, the proportion of this age group likely to be from nonEnglish speaking and disadvantaged backgrounds will rise dramatically. The likely outcome of all of this is that competition among business for the better performing students will increase at every employment skill level. The more these less advantaged students are grounded in math and science, as well as, in other intellectual skills the more prepared they will be to function in our changing economy. I am not going to go into an extensive description of the math/ science problem here. That information is already on the puble record and is covered in detail. It will be in the supplementary material we are submitting. I will try to indicate briefly why we put our emphasis where we do. We believe that the most important change in the current direction is to put far more emphasis at the elementary and secondary level. Current solutions seem to be aimed at aiding those who might already be described as select students with well developed math and science capabilities, new emphasis must be placed on raising the level of math and science capabilities for all students and teachers. THE EDUCATION ISSUES For many of the economic reasons indicated above, and because of the requirements for a broadly informed citizenry able to deal with complex questions, we contend that all students should get more math and science. There is no national thrust to establish why math and science are important to the general education and why math and science literacy must be developed in the early grades. Nor is there a needed examination as to why all students should develop what John Dewey called, "scientific habits of mind," no matter what direction their future employment takes. Right now, this issue is often being advanced politically by specialty groups who are understandably more concerned with math and science education for future scientists and mathematicians. And at the federal level, at least, this is highly convenient for an administration that would prefer to spend as little money as possible on a few select, visible programs. To really address the problem comprehensively costs more than the present administration cares to spend on public education. The AFT bases its solution to the problem on two points: That school districts be encouraged and assisted in efforts The elementary school level is extremely important and is now THE TEACHING FORCE A teaching force to match these priorities will not be easy to come by. Our AFT survey points to two broad problem areas, as do most of the other data now available. First of all, people are not entering teaching in these fields in adequate numbers. The figures are well known. We think the major reason is inadequate teaching salaries. Without adequate salaries to attract talented people, it will be difficult to turn this trend around and, though, we realize that the billions required to make teachers' salaries competitive are not likely to come for the federal treasury, this problem will hamstring any effort to solve the shortage. |