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This past fall, the National Academy of Sciences, a very prestigious organization nationally, released a report entitled “Rising Above the Gathering Storm.” This report examined America’s competitiveness in the global economy specifically as it relates to math and science education in our country.

Let me just share with your briefly some things that the National Academy of Sciences found when they compiled this report. What the Academy found was both startling and unnerving to put it mildly. Let me share a few of them with you:

In a 2003 international assessment of 15-year-olds in 49 industrialized nations, found that the United States placed 16th in reading, 19th in science, and 24th in math, either near the middle of the bottom of all industrialized nations.

On the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress, the so-called NAEP test, in math, only 36% of 4th graders and 30% of 8th graders performed at or above the “proficient” level while 20% of 4th graders 31% of the 8th graders scored below “basic” proficiency levels.

Only recently have American schools begun to require algebra in 8th-grade.

The vast majority of students in high school, the report goes on to show, will never take an advanced science or mathematics course.

Many states’ curriculum standards focus on lower-level skills not linked to the knowledge and skills needed to do well in college and in the modern workforce.

About 30% of high school math students have teachers who either did not major in the subject in college or who are not certified to teach the course at all.

Now I could go on and cite more of these statistics, but I don’t want to make this report to about just what’s wrong. The report also makes some very strong suggestions, which a group of us in the United States Senate have incorporated into a bill; into legislative language, being led by my good friend Pete Domenici and Jeff Bigaman, the two senators from New Mexico, along with Lamar Alexander, a senator from Tennessee, who is the former secretary of education, and Barbara Mikulski of Maryland and myself, along with others.

We put together a bill that was recommended in this report. Let me just share with you some of the things that are suggested as way to attack this problem:

It would improve K-12 math/science education by providing four-year scholarships of up to $10,000 a year to 10,000 future teachers of math and science.

We would establish summer academies for teachers at national laboratories and universities so that they can get hands-on experience with the latest breakthroughs and technologies and consequently, take new and innovative ideas back to their classrooms

It would provide funding to increase the number of Advanced Placement classes in math and science around the country;

It would create specialty math and science high schools in each state through federal government grants. We have several of these, including one in Connecticut already, which I sure you’ve heard of.

This bill would develop internships and summer programs for middle and high school students at national labs and other scientific research facilities all across our country.

The bill will then increase the talent pool by providing four-year scholarships of up to $20,000 a year to 25,000 students who would pursue a bachelor’s degree in science, engineering or math.

These are just some of the things, (there’s a lot more in the bill). It’s basically designed to jumpstart these initiatives to keep us from falling behind. Falling behind is dangerous because if we’re not prepared to meet the challenges of the 21st century, and the global economy, then America’s standard of living is going to fall, and our place in the global economy is going to fall as well.

At the end of the day it’s always nice to have Nobel Prizes come to you country, but just as importantly, we want to win markets, and you’re only going to win markets if you’ve got a population well educated and well-versed in these critical disciplines.

If you’re listening to this or reading this, and you have some additional ideas about how you think we can do a better job, of increasing student education in math, science and engineering, please let me know. (I don’t want to just hear about what’s wrong, but how we can make things right.)

This bill represents just some of the ideas in the report, and if you want a copy of the whole legislation, click here: PACE Energy Act; PACE Education Act; PACE Finance Act. You can find the report here, it’s a rather comprehensive study with some ideas (about how to attack the problem).

This bill we’ve introduced in the last couple of weeks we thing is a major step in doing something right. If you’ve got additional ideas, again, please let us know.