Representative Todd Tiahrt - 4th Congressional District of Kansas

| Lifelong Learning |

Education and retraining are the keys to ensuring that the American worker is the most competitive in the world.

Modern economies are driven by knowledge and skills.

Just as America's public education system changed the notion that schooling is for the upper classes, we now need to change the notion that education ends at 18 or 22. Job retraining and skills enhancement are not in addition to schooling, they are a part of a larger continuum, a lifelong pursuit of education.

Most importantly, for the short and long term, we need to help give Americans access to not only higher education but also continuing education. Job training and retraining are necessary to keep up in today's environment.

Our public school system has given generations of Americans the tools to pursue their dreams, and it can certainly help prepare boys and girls for the demands of the new century. Now we need to make sure that our children are learning the fundamentals, that they become familiar with technology, and that math and science curriculums are enhanced so they can compete in the economy of the future.

Rather than importing high quality technical talent, we should help our colleges and universities produce graduates who enter science and engineering careers. Our bachelors' program production rates of scientists and engineers are among the lowest in the world.

Candice Davis: An American Lifelong Learning Success Story

Candice C. Davis, of Bellevue, Washington, is in her 50's and heaps praise on the counselors at Bellevue Community College who helped her through three years of coursework to become a radiologist after she got laid off from her state government job during budget cuts. Before the layoff, she was making about $11 and hour taking photos for driver's licenses; now she is making $21 an hour, with health benefits, taking x-rays for a medical clinic. She expects to get a raise since earning her certificate as a specialist in mammography. "I'm really happy," she said, describing the training program as "absolutely wonderful."

Davis said she completed college and an advanced degree in interior design more than a decade ago, which enabled her to work for a year for the Boeing Company as a drafter on the 777 aircraft. She left Boeing in 1991 and reinvented herself a few times, working as a travel agent, retail cashier, and government employee.

"A Difficult Lesson; Job Retraining, Though Touted, Often Fails the Test," Nell Henderson. The Washington Post. April 16, 2004. pg E01

According to the US Chamber of Commerce:

In 1950, 80% of jobs were classified as unskilled; today about 85% are classified as skilled.

Almost 80% of today's jobs require some postsecondary education and training.

80% of the top 50 fastest-growing occupations will require education beyond high school.

There is troubling evidence that we are failing to meet these educational needs. Consider these facts:

An estimated 25% of America's young people do not even complete high school.
8th graders in the U.S. ranked 19th in the world in math, behind top competitors Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Japan.
By the end of the 1990s, more than one-third of job applicants lacked sufficient reading and math skills to do the jobs they sought --up from 19% a few years earlier.

73% of all postsecondary students are non-traditional students. That is to say, they are not individuals who graduate from high school and go immediately to a four-year college, and depend upon parents for financial support.

This large and growing segment of our population is mostly comprised of working adults who are seeking additional education and training to return to the workforce, remain current in their field, increase their earnings potential, pursue another job, or consider a career change in today's demanding economy.

According to a Poll by Voter Consumer Research:

91% of people favor creating more programs and providing more funding for retraining programs that help people who lose their job prepare for a new career.

Furthermore when asked, "If you could do only one of the following, which would you do? Make it more difficult to lay people off so we don't lose as many jobs to foreign companies OR retrain workers who lost their job to help them start a new career?

62% said retraining was more important, while only 35% said we should make it more difficult to lay people off.

Competitiveness

Carly Fiorina, recent CEO of Hewlett Packard, notes, "China graduates 40 million people a year from college, the United States about 2.2 million. In India, the figures are similar--the odds against the United States from just these two nations alone are simply overwhelming."

India and China are clearly intent on using education as a "soft" weapon against the United States. We will never see an explosion, we will never be able to trace fissionable materials, we will never discover germ factories. Their "secret factories" are out in the open and called schools, technical colleges, and universities.

Their goal is to produce legions of people with degrees, usually technical and scientific, who can encircle our meager forces in another few decades, consigning the U.S. economy to the second tier, and with it the standard of living for our children and grandchildren.

Our only effective defense is to greatly improve the quality and productivity of our own education system. ("Education Is Our Most Vital Weapon." By Christopher T. Cross. ContraCosta Times. March 28, 2004)

Across America, employers of all sizes share the view that a skilled workforce is essential to maintaining competitiveness.

Chambers consistently report that workforce development is among the top three concerns of their business members. (US Chamber of Commerce)

The training of scientists and engineers has fallen in the past three decades.

The overall decline in the education of mathematicians, physical scientists, and engineers is cause for concern because demand for these skills is outpacing the economy-wide growth in demand for all workers.

Our competitors are moving fast to bolster the skill levels of their workers.

For now the U.S. has the best higher education system, which is why foreign students come here for training. But they are not staying.

28% of our PhD graduates in science and engineering are foreign born, and increasingly returning to their native homeland.
Over 90% of the 18,000 students who returned to China in 2002 hold a masters or doctoral degree from abroad.
Taiwan, South Korea, India, Mexico, Thailand, Malaysia, and Japan also send large numbers of students to the United States and are reaping the benefits through growth of the high-technology industries whose most important ingredient is the brainpower of trained researchers.

"Fair or Foul: The Challenge of Negotiating, Monitoring and Enforcing U.S. Trade Laws" Testimony of Thomas J. Duesterberg, Ph.D., President and CEO Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI before the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia, Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, December 9, 2003

Even the traditional lead of American researchers in science publications is being slowly whittled down.

The business community spends more than $60 billion per year on training.

Yet 60% of our companies are prevented from upgrading technologically by the low educational and technical skill levels of our workers.
We should partner with them to make sure that we build upon that base and make American workers the most attractive to hire.

And we must not forget that the skill building begins at an early age. If American children are receiving an inferior basic schooling, no amount of federal job training can undo the damage.