10,000 Teachers, 10 Million Minds Science And Math Scholarship Act

Floor Speech

10,000 TEACHERS, 10 MILLION MINDS SCIENCE AND MATH SCHOLARSHIP ACT -- (House of Representatives - April 24, 2007)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, let me thank Mr. Gordon, Mr. Hall, and our subcommittee chair as well as the ranking member.

I rise in strong support of H.R. 362. It is an essential measure to world competitiveness for this country. We are in the storm. We cannot accomplish rising above until we invest in our teachers, teachers that are qualified. Many of our teachers love teaching and they are trying hard, but they simply do not have the background needed. A lot of it has to do with pay, because the people who are well-qualified in these areas simply do not come to the classroom because they do not pay enough.

I support the Noyce teacher scholarships, and I know that the storm of need is sure and it is now. It takes efforts and investment to deal with this issue. There are now more and more high-need schools which means we have more and more students that need special attention, and we cannot have a positive future until we include them in this education.

This is called the investment in America's future. We are depending on the home people to be prepared because the H-1B visas are causing us to brain drain other countries. This is a global need, and we must be ready to prepare our own. We will be left with no possible preparation in this area, and we will move right into a Third World nation.

We must remedy this. Implementing the provisions of H.R. 362 will go a long way in remedying this problem, and I firmly believe that with proper resources we know our young people can do it.

There is a school in my district with some of the poorest kids, but they are doing it because they have the proper resources.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source