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Business-Higher Education Forum Urges Swift Passage of Reintroduced COMPETES Reauthorization
Calls on House leaders to pass legislation that includes provisions to improve STEM education
Contact: Pamela Lessard 202-367-1284, Alex Sittig 202-367-2393
Washington, DC (May 19, 2010) —The Business-Higher Education Forum (BHEF) today welcomed action by U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science and Technology Chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN) to reintroduce The America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 and urged Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Republican Leader John Boehner to act in a bipartisan fashion to quickly take up and pass the legislation.
The 2007 law was enacted with broad bipartisan support, including that of BHEF, and authorized several key programs to strengthen education in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
“We greatly appreciate the strong leadership of House Science and Technology Committee Chairman Bart Gordon in keeping alive a bill that is so crucial to our nation’s scientific and economic leadership,” says BHEF Executive Director Brian K. Fitzgerald. “We now hope that the House leadership will see the urgency in passing this legislation, which includes bolstered provisions to improve STEM education, as well as critical investments in our nation’s research and innovation infrastructure.”
In a May 3 letter to House leaders, Fitzgerald wrote: “With reauthorization, we have the opportunity to strengthen provisions designed to improve STEM education for all students throughout the entire education pipeline, including higher education. Specifically, we encourage bipartisan support for the provisions in the committee-approved bill to increase the numbers of students who earn STEM degrees and choose STEM careers, including those provisions that transform STEM undergraduate and graduate education, and encourage stronger collaborations between business/industry and higher education. These provisions will encourage a systemic approach that bolsters postsecondary STEM education as well as K-12 education.”
BHEF, through its Securing America’s Leadership in STEM Initiative, is working to increase the number of STEM college graduates by strengthening the math and science teaching workforce and pursuing promising strategies to strengthen the education pipeline that leads to STEM careers. BHEF has authored, “An American Imperative: Transforming the Recruitment, Retention, and Renewal of Our Nation’s Mathematics and Science Teaching Workforce,” which lays out a comprehensive plan for creating a robust, world-class teaching workforce.
In addition, BHEF provides in an open-source environment the first-ever simulation and modeling tool for the U.S. STEM education system, the BHEF U.S. STEM Education Model, developed by Raytheon Company, which enables researchers, policymakers, and educators to explore scenarios that can strengthen education and workforce outcomes. Learn more at www.stemnetwork.org.
About the Business-Higher Education Forum
BHEF brings together a coalition of corporate, academic, and foundation chief executives who provide leadership to improve U.S education and competitiveness. Learn more at www.bhef.com.
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