[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
PRIVATE SECTOR PROGRAMS
THAT ENGAGE STUDENTS IN STEM
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JANUARY 9, 2014
__________
Serial No. 113-60
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
_____
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COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair
DANA ROHRABACHER, California EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
RALPH M. HALL, Texas ZOE LOFGREN, California
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
Wisconsin DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas ERIC SWALWELL, California
PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia DAN MAFFEI, New York
STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
MO BROOKS, Alabama JOSEPH KENNEDY III, Massachusetts
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois SCOTT PETERS, California
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana DEREK KILMER, Washington
STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas AMI BERA, California
BILL POSEY, Florida ELIZABETH ESTY, Connecticut
CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming MARC VEASEY, Texas
DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona JULIA BROWNLEY, California
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky MARK TAKANO, California
KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota ROBIN KELLY, Illinois
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma
RANDY WEBER, Texas
CHRIS COLLINS, New York
VACANCY
------
Subcommittee on Research and Technology
HON. LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana, Chair
STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
MO BROOKS, Alabama FEDERICA WILSON, Florida
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois ZOE LOFGREN, California
STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas SCOTT PETERS, California
CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming AMI BERA, California
DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona DEREK KILMER, Washington
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky ELIZABETH ESTY, Connecticut
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma ROBIN KELLY, Illinois
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
C O N T E N T S
January 9, 2014
Page
Witness List..................................................... 2
Hearing Charter.................................................. 3
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Larry Bucshon, Chairman, Subcommittee
on Research and Technology, Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...................... 1
Written Statement............................................ 5
Statement by Representative Daniel Lipinski, Ranking Minority
Member, Subcommittee on Research and Technology, Committee on
Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives.. 6
Written Statement............................................ 7
Statement by Representative Lamar S. Smith, Chairman, Committee
on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 8
Written Statement............................................ 9
Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking
Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House
of Representatives............................................. 10
Written Statement............................................ 11
Witnesses:
Panel I
Mr. Dean Kamen, Founder, For Inspiration and Recognition of
Science and Technology (FIRST), Founder and President, DEKA
Research & Development Corporation
Oral Statement............................................... 12
Written Statement............................................ 14
Mr. Hadi Partovi, Co-founder and CEO, Code.org
Oral Statement............................................... 26
Written Statement............................................ 28
Dr. Kemi Jona, Director, Office of STEM Education Partnerships,
Research Professor, Learning Sciences and Computer Sciences,
Northwestern University
Oral Statement............................................... 53
Written Statement............................................ 56
Dr. Phillip Cornwell, Vice President for Academic Affairs,
Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Rose-Hulman Institute of
Technology
Oral Statement............................................... 78
Written Statement............................................ 81
Discussion....................................................... 85
Panel II
Ms. Ellana Crew, 12th Grade, South River High School, Edgewater,
Maryland
Oral Statement............................................... 109
Written Statement............................................ 111
Mr. Brian Morris, 12th Grade, Chantilly Academy, Chantilly,
Virginia
Oral Statement............................................... 113
Written Statement............................................ 115
Mr. Daniel Nette, 11th Grade, George Mason High School, Falls
Church, Virginia
Oral Statement............................................... 116
Written Statement............................................ 117
Mr. Vishnu Rachakonda, 12th Grade, Eleanor Roosevelt High School,
Greenbelt, Maryland
Oral Statement............................................... 119
Written Statement............................................ 121
Discussion....................................................... 123
Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Mr. Dean Kamen, Founder, For Inspiration and Recognition of
Science and Technology (FIRST), Founder and President, DEKA
Research & Development Corporation............................. 134
Mr. Hadi Partovi, Co-founder and CEO, Code.org................... 137
Dr. Phillip Cornwell, Vice President for Academic Affairs,
Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Rose-Hulman Institute of
Technology..................................................... 142
PRIVATE SECTOR PROGRAMS THAT ENGAGE STUDENTS IN STEM
----------
THURSDAY, JANUARY 9, 2014
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Research and Technology
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:06 a.m., in
Room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Larry
Bucshon [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Bucshon. The Subcommittee on Research and
Technology will come to order.
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to today's hearing titled
``Private Sector Programs that Engage Students in STEM,'' which
we all know is a very important subject.
In front of you are packets containing the written
testimony, biographies and Truth in Testimony disclosures for
today's witnesses. I now recognize myself for five minutes for
an opening statement.
I am happy to call to order the first Research and
Technology Subcommittee hearing of the new year. Today we will
learn about private sector initiatives in science, technology,
engineering and mathematics, or STEM, education and how these
companies, businesses and organizations engage students in
these important fields.
A report released by the National Science Board in 2012
indicates that the science and engineering workforce
historically grows faster than the total workforce. Although
the science and engineering growth rate has maintained a higher
rate than the total workforce, the last decade has seen much
lower growth.
One of the most essential aspects to keeping America at the
forefront of STEM innovation, advancement and development is
engaging students at a young age and keeping them interested in
pursuing STEM degrees and careers.
As a cardiothoracic surgeon and father of four children
between the ages of 9 and 20, I understand that such programs
and activities are necessary to enhance America's economic
growth and competitiveness. With the federal government
spending nearly $3 billion across 13 federal agencies on STEM
education programs each year, we must ensure the government is
leveraging rather than duplicating private sector STEM
education initiatives.
Our hearing today will provide a unique opportunity for our
first panel of witnesses to discuss the innovative projects and
programs taking place at their private sector business and
educational institutions, and for our second panel of witnesses
to discuss their personal experiences with these types of
initiatives.
I look forward to hearing from all of our witnesses and I
would like to thank them for their participation and offering
their time and insight into the private sector's success in
STEM education.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bucshon follows:]
Prepared Statement of Subcommittee on Research and Technology Chairman
Larry Bucshon
I am happy to call to order the first Research and Technology
Subcommittee hearing of the year. Today we will learn about private
sector initiatives in science, technology, engineering and mathematics,
or STEM, education and how these companies, businesses and
organizations engage students in these important fields.
A report released by the National Science Board in 2012 indicates
that the science and engineering workforce historically grows faster
than the total workforce. Although the science and engineering growth
rate has maintained a higher rate than the total workforce, the last
decade has seen much lower growth.
One of the most essential aspects to keeping America at the
forefront of STEM innovation, advancement and development is engaging
students at a young age and keeping them interested in pursuing STEM
degrees and careers.
As a cardiothoracic surgeon and father of four children between the
ages of 9 and 20, I understand that such programs and activities are
necessary to enhance America's economic growth and competitiveness.
With the federal government spending nearly $3 billion dollars
across thirteen federal agencies on STEM education programs each year,
we must ensure the government is leveraging rather than duplicating
private sector STEM education initiatives.
Our hearing today will provide a unique opportunity for our first
panel of witnesses to discuss the innovative projects and programs
taking place at their private sector business and educational
institutions, and for our second panel of witnesses to discuss their
personal experiences with these types of initiatives.
I look forward to hearing from all of our witnesses and I would
like to thank them for their participation and offering their time and
insight into the private sector's success in STEM education.
Chairman Bucshon. At this point I recognize the Ranking
Member, the gentleman from Illinois, for an opening statement,
five minutes.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you, Chairman Bucshon. I want to thank
all of our witnesses for being here today.
One of the reasons that I had joined this Committee when I
first came to Congress is because of my strong interest in
working to improve math and science education in this country.
I am one of only a dozen engineers in the House and Senate, and
my wife was a math major in college and, unlike me, her STEM
training led her directly into a career as an actuary. So from
my own family experiences and what I have seen and heard from
others, I am very aware of how important it is that we do a
good job of engaging and educating our students at all levels
in STEM fields.
But with the release last month of the latest PISA results,
we were reminded yet again of the troubling statistics on the
state of U.S. math and science education. U.S. K-12 students
rank in the middle of the pack in international comparisons of
math and science aptitude. We see the problems at all job
levels. I am constantly hearing from manufacturing companies in
my district that they have a hard time finding employees who
have even basic math and science skills. In higher education,
we have far too few students pursuing and completing degrees in
certain STEM fields to meet the needs of domestic industry. For
example, less than 2.4 percent of college students graduate
with a degree in computer science, despite tremendous demand
for these skills, and that number has dropped over the last
decade.
Our troubles start from the earliest grades and are part of
a negative feedback cycle that we have to break. Students who
aren't learning the necessary skills by the time they graduate
high school are much less likely to pursue, and to succeed, in
STEM fields in college. When we lose an undergraduate student
from a STEM field, we lose a scientist or engineer who could
potentially pursue a career in teaching the next generation.
We know these to be complex problems with no easy or one-
size-fits-all solution. That is why partnerships between the
private sector, Federal and state governments, colleges,
universities, local school districts, national labs, science
museums, zoos and aquaria, and all types of nonprofits are more
important today than ever. The United States still has some of
the best K-12 schools, colleges and universities in the world,
and our top students at all levels compete easily with the top
students from around the world. That is why I am glad we have
witnesses here today that can speak to the types of STEM
partnerships needed to engage young minds at an early age and
keep them engaged in STEM fields. In particular, Northwestern
University's Office of STEM Education Partnerships connects K-
12 teachers and students to world-class STEM resources of
Northwestern University and corporations in the state of
Illinois such as Boeing, Baxter, Google, Hewlett Packard, IBM
and more. I am especially proud as a graduate of Northwestern
with my degree in mechanical engineering.
Today's hearing focuses on private sector and university
STEM engagement programs. I look forward to hearing from these
accomplished individuals who have dedicated their careers to
improving STEM engagement and learning in their communities and
across the Nation. I also look forward to hearing from the
students who have participated in the FIRST Robotics
competition.
But I also want to say a few words about the Federal role
in this partnership. The federal government invests $3 billion
in STEM education across 14 agencies. While that is a large
dollar figure, it is important to put that number in
perspective. Less than half of that is focused at the K-12
level. Federal investments in K-12 education overall account
for only ten percent of total U.S. funding for K-12 education,
and the Federal share of STEM funding is likely much less than
ten percent. So the Federal role is limited, but it is also
unique and necessary.
The National Science Foundation is the single most
important source of research, development, and testing of
innovative new models for STEM education. The federal
government also has an unrivaled ability to convene
stakeholders and to leverage private sector investment in STEM
education. Entrepreneurs like Mr. Kamen and Mr. Partovi did not
have to start from scratch. They are smart businessmen
investing in, perfecting, and expanding evidence-based ideas
and programs. So while the federal government cannot begin to
solve our STEM education challenges alone, we would be remiss
to ignore the important role the government does play. I hope
that this Committee will continue to exercise its oversight
authority to ensure that we get the most out of our relatively
small but critical Federal STEM education programs.
I want to thank Chairman Bucshon again for calling this
hearing, and the witnesses as well for taking the time today to
offer their insights and experiences.
With that, I will yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lipinski follows:]
Prepared Statement of Subcommittee on Research and Technology
Ranking Minority Member Daniel Lipinski
Thank you, Chairman Bucshon, and thank you to all of the witnesses
for being here today. One of the reasons I joined this Committee is
because of my strong interest in working to improve math and science
education in this country. I am one of only a dozen members of the
House and Senate who has an engineering degree. My wife was a math
major in college and--unlike me--her STEM training led her directly
into a career as an actuary. From our own family experiences and what I
have seen over the years, I am very aware of how important it is that
we do a good job of engaging and educating our students at all levels
in STEM fields.
But with the release last month of the latest PISA results, we were
reminded yet again of the troubling statistics on the state of U.S.
math and science education. U.S. K-12 students rank in the middle of
the pack in international comparisons of math and science aptitude. We
see the problems at all job levels. I constantly hear from
manufacturers back home that they have a hard time finding employees
who have even basic math and science skills. In higher education we
have far too few students pursuing and completing degrees in certain
STEM fields to meet the needs of domestic industry. For example, less
than 2.4% of college students graduate with a degree in computer
science, despite tremendous demand for these skills, and that number
has dropped over the last decade.
Our troubles start from the earliest grades and are part of a
negative feedback cycle that we must break. Students who aren't
learning the necessary skills by the time they graduate high school are
much less likely to pursue, and to succeed, in STEM fields in college.
When we lose an undergraduate student from a STEM field, we lose a
scientist or engineer who could potentially pursue a career in teaching
the next generation.
We know these to be complex problems with no easy or one-size-fits-
all solution. That's why partnerships between the private sector,
Federal and state governments, colleges, universities, local school
districts, national labs, science museums, zoos and aquaria, and all
types of nonprofits are more important than ever. The U.S. still has
some of the best K-12 schools, colleges, and universities in the world,
and our top students at all levels compete easily with the top students
from around the world. That's why I'm glad we have witnesses here today
that can speak to the types of STEM partnerships needed to engage young
minds at an early age and keep them engaged in STEM fields. In
particular, Northwestern University's Office of STEM Education
Partnerships connects K-12 teachers and students to the world-class
STEM resources of Northwestern University and corporations in the state
of Illinois such as Boeing, Baxter, Google, Hewlett Packard, IBM, and
more.
Today's hearing focuses on private sector and university STEM
engagement programs. I look forward to hearing from these accomplished
individuals who have dedicated their careers to improving STEM
engagement and learning in their communities and across the nation. I
also look forward to hearing from the students who have participated in
the FIRST Robotics competition.
But I also want to say a few words about the federal role in this
partnership. The Federal Government invests $3 billion in STEM
education across 14 agencies. While that is a large dollar figure, it's
important to put that number in perspective. Less than half of that is
focused at the K-12 level. Federal investments in K-12 education
overall account for only 10 percent of total U.S. funding for K-12
education, and the federal share of STEM funding is likely much less
than 10 percent. So the federal role is limited, but it is also unique
and necessary. The National Science Foundation is the single most
important source for research, development, and testing of innovative
new models for STEM education.
The federal government also has an unrivaled ability to convene
stakeholders and to leverage private sector investment in STEM
education. Entrepreneurs like Mr. Kamen and Mr. Partovi did not have to
start from scratch. They are smart businessmen investing in,
perfecting, and expanding evidence-based ideas and programs. So while
the federal government cannot begin to solve our STEM education
challenges alone, we would be remiss to ignore the important role the
government does play. I hope that this Committee will continue to
exercise its oversight authority to ensure that we get the most out of
our relatively small, but critical federal STEM education programs.
I want to thank Chairman Bucshon again for calling this hearing,
and the witnesses as well for taking the time to offer their insights
and experiences with us today. And with that, I yield back.
Chairman Bucshon. Thank you, Mr. Lipinski.
I now recognize the Chairman of the full Committee, the
gentleman from Texas, Mr. Smith.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, let me comment on the atmosphere I ran into
when I entered the room before the hearing officially began and
the gavel came down, because it was an atmosphere unlike almost
any other hearing I have walked into. The atmosphere was almost
festive, and people were excited because they are interested in
this subject, and I think we are excited also about what we are
going to hear from our witnesses today in the case of both
panels. This is a subject that fascinates us, I think, and we
all realize it is absolutely a key to the future prosperity of
this country. So it was fun to walk into that kind of an
environment.
Mr. Chairman, to achieve the innovations of tomorrow, we
must better educate American students today. The federal
government spends nearly $3 billion each year on science,
technology, engineering and math education activities. These
programs are found primarily at the National Science Foundation
and the Department of Education.
Today we will hear from leaders and experts from private
sector organizations that focus on engaging students in STEM
education. Two of them were established for this express
purpose. We need to learn what is taking place outside of the
federal government so we can be sure we are not spending
taxpayer dollars on duplicative programs, and we need to more
effectively use taxpayers' dollars to gain the most benefit for
our students and our country. It is critical to understand what
is working and how we can build on that success.
The leaders of these organizations and the student
participants here today are in a good position to provide us
with useful information.
A well-educated and trained STEM workforce will promote our
future economic prosperity. But we must persuade our Nation's
youth to study science and engineering so they will want to
pursue these careers. Great strides are being made in STEM
education by the organizations represented here today, FIRST
and Code.org, and by institutions like the Rose-Hulman
Institute of Technology and Northwestern University.
Unfortunately, American students still lag behind students
of other nations when it comes to STEM education. American
students, according to one poll, rank 26th in math and 21st in
science. This is not the record of a country that expects to
remain a world leader.
We need to ensure that young adults have the scientific and
mathematic skills to strive and thrive in a technology-based
economy. You can't have innovation without advances in
technology, and the STEM students of today will lead us to the
cutting-edge technologies of tomorrow.
The students participating in our second panel are proof
that a STEM education can prepare our next generation of
scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs and leaders.
Mr. Chairman, thank you, and I look forward to hearing from
our witnesses today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:]
Prepared Statement of Full Committee Chairman Lamar S. Smith
To achieve the innovations of tomorrow, we must better educate
American students today. The federal government spends nearly $3
billion dollars each year on science, technology, engineering and math
(STEM) education activities. These programs are found primarily at the
National Science Foundation and the Department of Education.
Today we will hear from leaders and experts from private sector
organizations that focus on engaging students in STEM education. Two of
them were established for this express purpose.
We need to learn what is taking place outside of the federal
government so we can be sure we are not spending taxpayer dollars on
duplicative programs. And we need to more effectively use taxpayers'
dollars to gain the most benefit for our students and our country.
It is critical to understand what is working and how we can build
on that success. The leaders of these organizations and the student
participants here today are in a good position to provide us with
useful information.
A well-educated and trained STEM workforce will promote our future
economic prosperity. But we must persuade our nation's youth to study
science and engineering so they will want to pursue these careers.
Great strides are being made in STEM education by the organizations
represented here today, FIRST and Code.org, and by institutions like
the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and Northwestern University.
Unfortunately, American students still lag behind students of other
nations when it comes to STEM education. American students according to
one poll rank 26th in math and 21st in science. This is not the record
of a country that expects to remain a world leader.
We need to ensure that young adults have the scientific and
mathematic skills to strive and thrive in a technology-based economy.
You can't have innovation without advances in technology. And the STEM
students of today will lead us to the cutting-edge technologies of
tomorrow.
The students participating in our second panel are proof that a
STEM education can prepare our next generation of scientists,
engineers, entrepreneurs and leaders. I look forward to hearing about
the STEM programs and activities of our witnesses.
Chairman Bucshon. Thank you, Chairman.
I now recognize the Ranking Member, the gentlelady from
Texas, Ms. Johnson, for her opening statement.
Ms. Johnson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank
you for holding this hearing.
I would like to start by asking all of the students that
are present to stand. I want to congratulate you, and I am
truly impressed by your leadership and your accomplishments.
You should be very proud because you will be our leaders of
tomorrow. Thank you for standing.
Unfortunately, too many students across the country do not
have the opportunities to participate in inspiring STEM
activities or to receive a high-quality STEM education. Once
again, our students were just in the middle of the pack in the
latest international test of science and math proficiency. I
had a long visit just last night with the minister of education
from Japan, and we talked about that a lot.
We can no longer depend on our top few percent to maintain
a strong and vibrant economy with good, high-paying jobs in our
own communities. Our competitive edge will be lost if we do not
vastly improve STEM education in this country for all of our
students.
We know that this is a complex challenge that no entity can
solve alone. There is no silver bullet. And there is a role for
all the key stakeholders, public and private. Today we hear
from two entrepreneurs and two education leaders in STEM
education. I congratulate them for their important work and
thank them for taking the time to provide their insight to this
Committee today.
But I also want to emphasize the important and unique role
of the federal government in improving STEM education. Many
Federal STEM programs, including those supported by the
National Science Foundation and the Department of Education,
are making a difference in universities, community colleges,
and K-12 across the nation. There are also many valuable
programs being funded through other Federal science agencies,
such as NASA, NOAA and the Department of Energy. These agencies
are filled with thousands of scientists and engineers who can
make a difference in their own communities for students across
the country. As working STEM professionals, the real life work
that they do using STEM is so inspiring to our students. Take
an astronaut to the classroom. You will see what I am talking
about.
But the Federal role is more than that. The National
Science Foundation is the premier STEM education research
organization in the country. For decades, NSF has been a leader
in developing the most effective and inspiring STEM curricula
and programs in and out of the classroom. When the private
sector invests in STEM education, they are looking for proven
programs with proven outcomes. The National Science Foundation
more than any other organization is responsible for building
that evidence base. I hope this Committee will continue to
exercise its responsibility to conduct oversight of NSF's and
other agencies' STEM education programs.
Today, though, I look forward to hearing from the experts
on the first panel about their programs and how we measure that
impact. I also look forward to hearing from the students about
what initially sparked their interest in STEM, and what role
their teachers, parents and other mentors have played in
helping them to reach their goals.
I thank all of you for being here today to share this
experience. I want to see the United States move from 26 to
one. When I came here over 20 years ago, we were number 18. We
are going backwards. We are challenged. We have got to meet
that challenge. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Full Committee Ranking Member
Eddie Bernice Johnson
Good morning and thank you Chairman Bucshon for holding this
hearing. I want to start by congratulating the students who are here
today and welcoming you to the Committee. I am truly impressed by your
leadership and your accomplishments, and you should all be very proud.
Unfortunately, too many students across the country do not have
opportunities to participate in inspiring STEM activities or to receive
a high quality STEM education. Once again, our students were just in
the middle of the pack in the latest international test of science and
math proficiency. We can no longer depend on our top few percent to
maintain a strong and vibrant economy with good, high-paying jobs in
our own communities. Our competitive edge will be lost if we do not
vastly improve STEM education in this country for all of our students.
We know that this is a complex challenge that no one entity can
solve alone. There is no silver bullet. And, there is a role for all
the key stakeholders, public and private. Today we hear from two
entrepreneurs and two education leaders in STEM education. I
congratulate them for their important work and thank them for taking
the time to provide their insight to the Committee today.
But I also want to emphasize the important and unique role of the
federal government in improving STEM education. Many Federal STEM
programs, including those supported by the National Science Foundation
and the Department of Education, are making a difference in
universities, community colleges, and K-12 schools across the nation.
There are also many valuable programs being funded through other
federal science agencies, such as NASA, NOAA, and the Department of
Energy. These agencies are filled with thousands of scientists and
engineers who can make a difference in their own communities and for
students across the country. As working STEM professionals, the real
life work that they do using STEM is so inspiring to our children.
But the federal role is more than that. The National Science
Foundation is the premier STEM education research organization in the
country. For decades, NSF has been a leader in developing the most
effective and inspiring STEM curricula and programs in and out of the
classroom. When the private sector invests in STEM education, they are
looking for proven programs with proven outcomes. NSF, more than any
other organization, is responsible for building that evidence base. I
hope this Committee will continue to exercise its responsibility to
conduct oversight of NSF's and other agencies' STEM education programs.
Today though, I look forward to hearing from the experts on the
first panel about their programs and how they measure impact. I also
look forward to hearing from the students about what initially sparked
their interest in STEM, and what role their teachers, parents, and
other mentors have played in helping them to reach their goals. Thank
you all for being here today to share your experiences with us.
Chairman Bucshon. Thank you.
If there are Members who wish to submit additional opening
statements, your statements will be added to the record at this
point.
At this time I am going to introduce our first panel of
witnesses. Our first witness today is Mr. Dean Kamen. Mr. Kamen
is an inventor and entrepreneur and the founder of For
Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology,
otherwise known as FIRST, and founder and President of DEKA
Research and Development Corporation.
Our second witness is Mr. Hadi Partovi. Mr. Partovi is an
entrepreneur and an investor who was on the founding teams of
Tellme and iLike, and worked on Facebook, Dropbox and others as
an investor and startup advisor. He co-founded the education
nonprofit Code.org. Mr. Partovi is a graduate of Harvard.
Our third witness is Dr. Kemi Jona. Dr. Jona is a Professor
of Learning Sciences and Computer Science at Northwestern
University. He is the founder and Director of Northwestern's
Office of STEM Education Partnerships. Dr. Jona holds a Ph.D.
from Northwestern and a B.S. in computer science and psychology
from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Our fourth witness, from my district, is Dr. Phillip
Cornwell, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Professor of
Mechanical Engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
in Terre Haute. Dr. Cornwell received his B.S. degree in
mechanical engineering from Texas Tech University and his M.A.
and Ph.D. from Princeton.
Our witnesses should know spoken testimony is limited to
five minutes. There will be some latitude given.
And I now recognize Mr. Kamen for five minutes to present
his testimony.
TESTIMONY OF MR. DEAN KAMEN, FOUNDER,
FOR INSPIRATION AND RECOGNITION
OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (FIRST),
FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT,
DEKA RESEARCH &
DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION
[video]
Mr. Kamen. You have to do what the voice of God tells you.
Firstly, thank you, Chairman Smith, thank you, Chairman
Bucshon, thank you, Ranking Member Lipinski, and thank you,
Ranking Member Johnson. Each one of you has made comments that
make this seem like it is going to be real easy. I think
everybody understands the problem, everybody understands the
importance of reinvigorating the entire generation of American
kids to be leaders in the world in science and tech.
Maybe this is unusual for you. I don't know much about
Washington but it seems like everybody comes here asking for
something. I can tell you, I as DEKA Research am not asking you
for anything for me or my company, and I as the founder of
FIRST am not asking you for anything for FIRST. FIRST has 3,500
corporate sponsors now. FIRST has 160 universities that are
desperate to help get these kids into their system. They gave
us last year over $18 million in scholarships to give out at
our championship. We will have more this year.
I am not asking you for them, but there are a few tens of
millions of kids in this country that don't have access to
FIRST. They are not capable of leveraging what these 3,500
corporate sponsors that are donating 120,000 world-class
scientists and engineers. You can't buy these people. You
couldn't afford them, and you can't buy passion. They do it
because they care, because they are serious adults and
professionals and parents. They know that we have got to
invigorate kids to do something like this, so I am here to ask
you to figure out how to get FIRST available to all these
schools, and by doing that, you will be able to leverage what
FIRST has put together over the last 25 years, and I think it
will be a winner for everybody.
My little red light is on, so I guess I have to shut up.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kamen follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Bucshon. Thank you very much.
I now recognize Mr. Partovi for his testimony.
TESTIMONY OF MR. HADI PARTOVI,
CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, CODE.ORG
Mr. Partovi. Thank you very much. My name is Hadi Partovi.
I learned to program early when I was young. I studied
computer science at Harvard, and this set up my career with an
early job at Microsoft.
Sorry. I think you already heard me. I started my early
career as a computer scientist. I learned to program young and
I studied computer science at Harvard, and this set up my
career with a great job at Microsoft. I co-founded multiple
companies and was an early investor in some of our country's
most successful startups.
Starting from nothing, I am now living the American dream,
and this is because of my foundation in computer science.
Computer science fuels the American dream, and I am here not to
testify on behalf of the organization I founded, Code.org, but
I guess in support of the field, in support of computer
science, and the reason is because 90 percent of our schools
don't teach computer science.
I want to play a short video from the supporters of
Code.org to give you, in their words, why this field is
important.
[Video shown.]
So my organization's goal is to bring computers science to
all the schools of this country, and people often confuse what
is computer science. When I went to school, every student and
every school would teach how to dissect a frog or how
electricity works, and I believe in this 21st century, it is
equally important to learn how to dissect an app or how the
Internet works, and this is fundamental not only to millions of
careers in technology but even for students who don't ever want
to pursue a career in technology. For people who want to become
doctors or lawyers or accountants or elected officials, it is
important to understand how the world around us works.
Speaking about the careers in computer science, the Bureau
of Labor Statistics projects 1.4 million jobs over ten years
being created in this field, and the National Science
Foundation projects only 400,000 graduates going into the
field. That adds up to a million jobs in the gap between jobs
and students, which adds up to $500 billion in salaries.
What is more, these jobs are in every state and every
industry. This isn't about Google or Microsoft having trouble
hiring skilled laborers. Only one-third of computing jobs are
in technology. The rest are in banking, manufacturing,
government, retail, et cetera.
If there is one thing I want you to remember from today, it
is the charts I am showing up here.
[Chart]
The chart on the left shows you the amount of time high
school students spend in all of STEM and the small sliver that
is computer science. The chart on the right shows the jobs in
all of STEM and the very giant segment that is computer
science, and you wonder, why is there a mismatch there? Because
90 percent of our schools do not even teach this field. And of
the tiny sliver that do study computer science, only 15 percent
are girls, and less than eight percent are Hispanic Americans
and African Americans. It is a huge problem for our country,
and our policies don't support it. In 33 of 50 states, computer
science doesn't even count towards high school STEM
requirements, and of the billions of dollars of federal money
that you all mentioned being spent on STEM, almost none of it
goes to computer science because of regulatory barriers we want
to have you guys help remove from the system.
People often ask me, can our students learn this, can our
teachers teach it, why are we not focusing just on basic math,
which we are already failing at, and we proved last month that
our students can learn it. We ran a campaign called the Hour of
Code. It was kicked off by the President, the House Majority
Leader, Senators and Newt Gingrich in partnership with 100
companies--Google, Microsoft, Apple--the government, the
College Board and many others. We had 20 million students
participate with 17 million in the United States. One out of
every four students in U.S. schools learned an hour of code and
half of them were girls. It is an amazing accomplishment. To
put this into context, the College Board AP Computer Science
Exam has 32,000 students participating; the College Board AP
Calculus Exam, 300,000; all of U.S. FIRST clubs, 350,000
students; the math SAT, 1.7 million. The Hour of Code had 17
million participants, and it goes to show that our kids can
learn this.
So we have proven that America wants this, our students
want it, our parents want it, and I am not talking about Code,
I am talking about computer science. The question for you is,
how do you answer the parent who asks, why isn't this
foundational field being taught in my children's schools and
how can the U.S. government remove the barriers that get in the
way right now.
I have a very short video to show, 30 seconds of a girl who
came back, one of the 17 million students in America who came
back to her mom or dad after learning one hour of code.
[Video shown.]
Every kid in America can learn computer science. Ninety
percent of our schools don't teach it. We can help fix this.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Partovi follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Bucshon. Thank you.
I now recognize Dr. Jona for five minutes for his
testimony.
TESTIMONY OF DR. KEMI JONA, DIRECTOR,
OFFICE OF STEM EDUCATION PARTNERSHIPS,
RESEARCH PROFESSOR, LEARNING SCIENCES
AND COMPUTER SCIENCES,
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
Dr. Jona. Well, good morning, Members of the Committee. I
would like to thank Ranking Members Lipinski and Johnson and
Chairmen Bucshon and Smith for inviting me to testify today.
The mission of my office is to connect K-12 teachers and
students to the world-class STEM resources of Northwestern
University and beyond. To date, we work with a growing network
of over 200 Chicago-area schools, over 600 teachers who reach
approximately 48,000 students, and since I am sitting next to
Hadi, I am proud to announce that next week Chicago Public
Schools is launching Code.org's computer science curriculum for
all of its high schools, so we are really pleased to be part of
that.
My testimony today focuses on three models that we have
found successful in engaging industry partners in STEM
initiatives. All three examples illustrate the importance of
building in both scalability and sustainability, and all three
have leveraged private sector support to expand and sustain
federal investments. We are fortunate to work with many
industry partners including Boeing, Hewlett-Packard, IBM,
Motorola and Siemens.
The first example that I would like to share today is our
work with Baxter International, a global health care company
located outside of Chicago. Their generous support has created
a Biotechnology Center of Excellence at Lindblom Math and
Science Academy, which is a grade 7-12 public school located on
the southwest side of Chicago that serves a predominantly
minority and low-income student population. This Center of
Excellence provides teachers with professional development, lab
equipment and other resources focused on the important field of
biotechnology. These are provided not just to Lindblom teachers
but to teachers from across the district. In the last few
years, we have trained 168 teachers from 115 different schools
reaching over 20,000 students. This Center of Excellence model
is building self-sustaining capacity in the Chicago Public
Schools to improve the teaching of biotechnology across the
entire district.
One of the curriculum offerings available to teachers is an
innovative set of high school biology labs we developed in
partnership with my colleague, Dr. Teresa Woodruff in our
medical school. These labs are based on Dr. Woodruff's NIH-
funded research in oncofertility. The Center of Excellence
model demonstrates the power of partnerships between the
private sector, universities and public schools. The federal
NIH dollars invested continue to pay dividends as hundreds of
teachers and thousands of students each year benefit through
the ongoing support provided by Baxter.
A second example I would like to share with you today is
called Illinois Pathways. Illinois Pathways is a State of
Illinois-led STEM education initiative that has created new
public-private partnerships known as STEM learning exchanges.
Each of the nine exchanges coordinates investments, resources
and planning in STEM industry sectors like information
technology, manufacturing, energy and research and development.
This effort launched with $2.3 million in Federal Race to the
Top money and which was then leveraged to $8.5 million in
public and private matching funds. The Illinois Business
Roundtable, an organization made up of CEOs and other industry
leaders, has been a key driver of this initiative in our state.
Northwestern is a proud member of the Research and
Development Learning Exchange. One of our signature projects is
a mentor matching engine. This online resource pairs students
with private industry mentors to conduct independent research
in STEM fields. You can think of it as sort of like a Match.com
for student researchers. By conducting mentors and students
online, this Web site helps to level the playing field by
facilitating access to mentors for students all across the
State, especially in our rural and urban areas. The STEM
exchanges have been instrumental in organizing previously
uncoordinated private sector, university and school
participation in STEM, and they serve as statewide distribution
platforms for STEM education resources.
The third and final example I would like to share is our
out-of-school program called FUSE. It is a project funded by
the MacArthur Foundation and the National Science Foundation as
well as companies including Motorola Mobility, Siemens and IBM.
The goal of FUSE is to engage youth, especially those from
underrepresented groups, in STEAM topics--and we add the arts
and design to STEM--while fostering the development of
important 21st century skills like creative problem solving,
persistence and grit. Challenges are the core activity of FUSE
studies, and I would like to play a short clip now that
illustrates some of the fun and engaging challenges that we
have developed with our private sector partners.
[Video shown.]
So FUSE currently has 20 challenge sequences in areas such
as robotics, electronics, solar energy, jewelry design, and 3D
printing. Some of the ones that are on the video exemplify
this. The jewelry designer challenge is in particular very
popular with girls, and it uses all of the same design and 3D
printing skills that you need for advanced manufacturing and
other skills. So FUSE is yet another example of a platform that
can be scaled up to engage large numbers of youth in STEM or
STEAM fields. For our industry partners, the modular challenge
format that you see here and a focus on out-of-school-time
learning is often more appealing than in-school curriculum
development that can be very slow and bureaucratic. FUSE
provides a dissemination network as new challenges are offered
to youth at our growing network of 17 sites around the Chicago
metro area.
So to wrap up, my key message today is that what has been
missing from the recent discussions of federal STEM policy is a
recognition of the importance of creating robust dissemination
mechanisms, mechanisms that support the scalability and
sustainability of high-quality STEM education programs
developed with either federal or private sector support. To
really engage students with high-quality STEM education, we
need the leadership and support of both the federal government
and the private sector to create distribution platforms like
the iTunes App Store or the Android Play Store for our
smartphones to create the similar kinds of distribution
platforms for STEM education resources like the examples I
highlighted today.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Jona follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Bucshon. Thank you very much.
I now recognize Dr. Cornwell for five minutes for his
testimony.
TESTIMONY OF DR. PHILLIP CORNWELL,
VICE PRESIDENT FOR ACADEMIC AFFAIRS,
PROFESSOR OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING,
ROSE-HULMAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Dr. Cornwell. Chairman Bucshon, Chairman Smith, Ranking
Members Lipinski and Johnson, thank you so much for inviting me
to be here today.
As you were told, my name is Phil Cornwell. I am Vice
President for Academic Affairs and a Professor of Mechanical
Engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Rose-Hulman
is a university focused entirely on math, science and
engineering education. For the last 15 years, U.S. News and
World Reports has ranked us as number one in our category,
which is basically engineering programs at schools that don't
offer a Ph.D. We have about 2,200 students, which makes us a
small school but a midsized college of engineering. Our
placement rate last year was about 99 percent and is always 99
percent. Our average starting salary is about $67,000.
The mission of Rose-Hulman is to provide our students with
the world's best undergraduate science, engineering and
mathematics education in an environment of individual attention
and support. What that means is that we hire faculty members
who have a passion for their technical field but also a passion
for students in undergraduate education. Our goal is to
graduate technically outstanding, well-rounded, liberally
educated STEM professionals; and even though our primary focus
is undergraduates, we do have a number of outreach activities I
wanted to share with you.
One of our most successful is called Operation Catapult,
which is a three-week summer program. Students come to campus,
they live on campus, and they participate in lots of
activities; but most important, they work on a technical
project that has a faculty member as the mentor. About 30
percent of the students that attend Catapult end up coming to
Rose-Hulman. The other 70 percent study STEM at other
universities. So, it is a great way of solidifying their
interest in STEM.
We also have a program called Homework Hotline, which has
been around since 1991. That is a math and science tutoring
program for students in grades 6 through 12. If a student has
problems with math and science homework and they can't get help
at home, they can call Rose-Hulman where Rose-Hulman students
are available as tutors to help the students not just get the
answer, but understand the material.
We also do a lot with industry, and I will just mention one
unique program that is called Rose-Hulman Ventures. Rose-Hulman
Ventures is basically an engineering consulting business that
operates on the Rose-Hulman campus. Students that work with
Rose-Hulman Ventures are student interns that work under the
supervision of a professional project manager with client
companies on projects that are important to the company. It
could be working on a coding project, it could be developing a
prototype, it could be developing a product. It is just
something that is important to the client, and the clients
typically pay time and materials. Companies range from small
startups like Fast BioMedical or NICO to large companies like
Alcoa, Cummins or Dow Agro.
One of the reasons for this Committee hearing, I believe,
is the recognition that we need more STEM professionals in the
United States; and for me, there are two key things that we
need to accomplish that. One is to increase the pipeline and
increase the number of students interested in STEM, which is
largely what we are talking about today; but, secondly, we also
need to, once those students enter college, graduate more of
them and help them be successful. As far as the pipeline, I
think programs like FIRST Robotics, curriculum like Project
Lead the Way, and many other programs do a fantastic job of
energizing students and helping students see engineering or
computer science as a possible career option, which I think is
absolutely critical. But I also think it is equally important
to strengthen our math, science and, I would add, computer
science curriculum in the high schools, so when they get to
college, they are prepared to be successful in the very
rigorous curricula that are required for all of those majors.
As far as retention and graduation rates, if we forget the
pipeline issue and look at the students that currently enter
college with an interest in studying engineering, which is my
area of expertise--less than 50 percent graduate. At Rose-
Hulman, it is 80 percent. It varies widely from school to
school. But if we could increase that number by just ten
percent, if I did my calculations correctly, that means within
six years we could graduate 100,000 additional engineers
without doing anything to the pipeline. We are just helping
more of our students graduate.
How do we do that? There is actually a lot of research on
the topic. Some things that I think are important include an
early connection of students to the discipline; and, again,
FIRST Robotics does a great job of that. Most freshman design
programs do that. It is very frustrating to have a really smart
student drop out of engineering and they say ``well, it is
because I don't like engineering,'' but as a freshman, they
have never had any engineering. It just drives you crazy.
Secondly, I do think having faculty members whose first
priority is teaching and working with students and helping them
be successful is important in terms of persistence and
graduation rate. I can share some stories about that if you are
interested. I also think undergraduate research and internships
are important for retention and graduation rates.
So what can the federal government do? Certainly, continue
to support undergraduate research--I think that is critical.
Perhaps incentivize companies to offer early internships. Most
companies offer internships for juniors and possibly sophomores
because they consider that a critical part of their
recruitment, but it is much harder for students to get a
meaningful internship as freshmen. You could also incentivize
students who study STEM through perhaps lower interest rates
for student loans or perhaps loan forgiveness. There are lots
of ways to possibly incentivize this.
I tell prospective students at Rose-Hulman all the time
that a STEM education is great no matter what they want to do.
If they want to go to industry, if they want to go to graduate
school, if they want to go to medical school or business
school, if they want to become a politician, engineering STEM
is great; and I applaud this Committee for taking the
leadership role in promoting STEM research as well as STEM
education.
So again, thank you so much for giving me the opportunity
to testify.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Cornwell follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Bucshon. You are welcome, and I would like to
thank all the witnesses for their testimony, and I will remind
the Members of the Committee that the rules limit questioning
to five minutes. The Chair at this point will open the round of
questions, so I recognize myself for five minutes.
As a cosponsor of the Computer Science Education Act, I
share many of the concerns that you do, and I am quite pleased
that my home State of Indiana is one that allows a rigorous
computer science course to satisfy core high school graduation
credit, particularly since according to the Conference Board,
there are 4,864 open computing jobs in Indiana right now. That
is changing by the minute, I am assuming.
According to your analytics, 264,000 Indiana students did
the Hour of Code in December 2013. Mr. Partovi, what do you see
as the next steps for those students if they want to pursue
studying computer science?
Mr. Partovi. Thank you very much for that question. We were
astonished to find 17 million students in this country do the
Hour of Code, and we were actually prepared to offer more than
one hour in terms of instruction. The one hour was enough to
demystify the field for teachers, parents, students to all
realize that computer science is something that anybody can
learn, but we also had a follow-on curriculum that any student
could learn online or any teacher could teach online. We are
already within one month at the point that over 10,000
classrooms are teaching a full computer science class to almost
500,000 students.
To put this into context, in October-- at any point in
history there has been at most 10,000 classrooms in the country
teaching computer science. In one month, we have doubled it. In
terms of the number of students studying it, we have almost
tripled or quadrupled it within one month because of the
follow-on from the Hour of Code. It shows this is an incredibly
popular topic with students, parents and teachers, and our only
ask, and not for Code.org but for the field of computer science
is like you have sponsored in the CSEA to remove the federal
government barriers that prevent this field from spreading to
our public schools. Thank you very much.
Chairman Bucshon. Thank you.
Mr. Kamen, what differentiates your program and their
offerings from other private sector STEM initiatives because
you have been very successful, and why do you think it has been
successful and what principles and techniques do you use in
your programs that would you suggest to apply to the Federal
STEM education programs?
Mr. Kamen. I think the primary reason we have been
successful, we are different, is our premise right up front
was, 25 years ago, the world of parents and politicians and
government leaders and corporate leaders was, we have an
education crisis. My mother is a teacher, and she reminds me of
that every day. We have a lot of great teachers. I am an
inventor. What do inventors do? We look at the same problems
everybody else looks at and see them differently. And I said,
you know, my mom is probably right, she always is. We don't
have an education crisis; we have a culture crisis. You get the
best of what you celebrate in this country, and she pointed
out, it is not what we don't have enough of--dedicated
teachers, surgeons that are willing to commit themselves to
public service.
America is built on people that get together and solve a
problem. Our problem is, we have such a passion in our culture
because we have become rich, that we can spend time on leisure,
and we have made superheroes from two places, Hollywood and
sports, and particularly for women and minorities, they are
sucked into spending their time until they are 18 or 19
developing skill sets that aren't likely to lead to great jobs.
So I said let us get those industries that need these people,
let us get these world-class tech companies together, let us
them create superheroes, let us use the model that works,
sports and entertainment, and let us let the private sector
solve the cultural problem. You get the best of what you
celebrate. Let us start celebrating science and technology.
Chairman Smith said it was a festive atmosphere in here. I
would encourage everybody here to see, because you can't
believe it when I say it. We started with one event at the end
of our season in 1991 in a high school gym in Manchester, New
Hampshire. We had 23 teams. They came to the one event and it
was over. With 55 percent compound annual growth for 25 years,
now we have 29,000 schools around the world, and our March
madness starts the first weekend in March. We have more than 60
cities around the United States holding spectacularly large
events throughout March. There is one near every one of you.
Every one of you has a school in your district that is involved
with FIRST. Since we get the best of what we celebrate, it
wouldn't be hard to invite you to the Final Four or the Super
Bowl. You would go. You would find the time.
I would ask two things. You each need to go to one of the
events in your state and support these kids. First of all, it
is a lot of fun. Bring your own kids and grandkids. Second of
all, you will see what happens when kids develop self-
confidence and become aware that they can do the kinds of
things that will lead to great careers, and I will also invite
you to our championship on April 25th and 26th under the Arch
in St. Louis. We will fill a 76,000-seat arena.
We succeed because we have got industry behind us. They in
their own self-interest want these kids to become world-class
scientists and engineers and inventors. That is what they need.
That is what this country needs. We have succeeded because it
is the private sector. I was told 25 years ago you will never
pull this off because you are going to run out of giant
companies that can support all the schools, and I thought that
was my biggest problem. These companies just keep delivering.
They are mentors. They are scientists. They are engineers. The
staggering thing to me is, the school side. All they need to do
is give that math teacher or science teacher the same stipend
to be the coach of the team as you give the football coach for
that extra effort after school, and believe it or not, the
schools have 100-year history of figuring out how to fund those
other programs. That relatively small commitment, the
appropriate public side commitment to make sure particularly
the underserved schools can take advantage of FIRST is what you
guys need to do, and then we will be in every school in this
country.
Chairman Bucshon. Thank you very much.
I now recognize the Ranking Member, Mr. Lipinski, five
minutes.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank all
the witnesses for their testimony. It is exciting to hear a lot
of these things that are going on. I know that more needs to be
done.
I want to ask Dr. Jona a little bit about what you have
done at Northwestern. It is very impressive what you have done
from what you have shown us here, what you have in your written
testimony. I want to ask, because we always face, especially
with this issue, we have people come and talk about great
things that they are doing and it is always, okay, how do we
expand this, how do we replicate it, especially what you have
done at Northwestern in the Chicago area, is how do we
replicate it. So what were some of the challenges that you
faced in establishing and growing the Office of STEM Education
Partnerships and what lessons can be taken by other
institutions who want to establish something similar?
Dr. Jona. Thank you for that question. The work that we do
with our faculty and would be similarly done at other
institutions is largely funded by NSF's broader impact
requirement, and while this is an incredibly helpful
requirement and stream of funding, there really is never enough
of those funds to go around. We are sort of living on the
margins, if you will. And what I guess I would like to see is
NIH and perhaps other STEM mission agencies adopting similar
requirements or similar funding streams to broaden out that
pool. My written testimony includes a number of recommendations
for strengthening and expanding NSF's broader impact work, but
I would say that a key--that is a key source for other new
offices like mine to get up and running and off the ground.
Mr. Lipinski. Are there any other things the federal
government can do? Obviously Northwestern is in a unique
position. It is in a large urban area. It is a private
university. Are there things that maybe the federal government
could do to help or any suggestions you would have other
schools that might be looking at doing this and may not be in
the position Northwestern is in?
Dr. Jona. Yeah, I feel very strongly that the federal
government could play an important role in providing seed
funding, for example, for offices like mine, especially at
smaller institutions or rural institutions to help them kind of
get jump-started and off the ground. Another important role
would be to support a national network of these offices so that
we could begin to support each other and share the best
practices that we have developed over time with these smaller
and newer offices. In addition, this network could then serve
as sort of a national distribution network for facilitating the
broader dissemination of federally funded STEM resources that
are developed at any of our institutions.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you. I have so many other questions
that I can ask.
Let me go to this. I know, Mr. Partovi, the Chairman had
asked some questions, talked to you about what you had done
with the Hour of Code. I know there are about 830,000 students
in the State of Illinois who took part in the Hour of Code.
What you put up there is very stark how many jobs there will be
and how few students will be coming out of college for those
jobs. Is this something that is--how do we make that better
understood? It seems like at least when I was in college, maybe
because I was an engineer, I was always looking, okay, where
are the jobs supposed to be in maybe directing, giving us a
sense of where to go. Why is that not happening? Is it because
of the lack of background and students just saying I can't--
that is not something I can do or not something I am interested
in? Why do you think it is that there isn't a response to this
job demand that we know is out there and will continue to be
out there?
Mr. Partovi. Thank you very much. This is a great question.
In fact, one thing I have trouble getting people to realize is
that, you know, there is a common thread that there is a crisis
of not having enough STEM professionals in the country. If you
look at the actual data, most STEM fields have too many
graduates, whether--there are more math graduates than math
jobs, there are actually more engineering graduates than
engineering jobs, more life sciences graduates than life
sciences jobs, and then way more computer science jobs than
computer science graduates, and if you look at student
decisions, by the time they get to college, many students have
decided their passion, and if they are in one of the 90 percent
of schools that doesn't even teach computer science, they never
have any background to think I could do this. So the way to
solve the problem isn't just building awareness. They know that
oh, if I could be the next Mark Zuckerberg, that is an amazing
future. That already is the new American dream. The problem is,
they think I can't do it because high school never exposed them
to it.
Mr. Lipinski. Okay. I see my time is up, so I thank
everyone for their testimony.
Chairman Bucshon. I now recognize Chairman Smith for five
minutes.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We have gotten a lot of good advice today that I think we
ought to take to heart. Dr. Cornwell mentioned the corporate
component, the need to strengthen our curriculum and increase
the percentage of majors in engineering and I assume other STEM
subjects as well. Dr. Jona talked about supporting our STEM
students outside the classroom. Mr. Partovi mentioned the
barrier that we face with some regulations, and I want to come
back to that in a minute, and the fact that a lot of schools
don't even teach computer science and the big gap between what
is taught and what is needed in the STEM-type jobs, and Mr.
Kamen has talked about encouraging STEM students through
robotics.
And Mr. Kamen, let me direct my first question to you. You
mentioned at the very last part of your testimony, part of this
came from your mother, who is a teacher, the need to change our
culture and celebrate some of these subjects. Let me ask you to
expound a little bit on that as to how we might do that in a
practical way.
Mr. Kamen. As I said, one of the things that makes America
great and we all brag about it is, it is the land of
opportunity, but if you are not searching for the right
opportunity, you are not going to find it, and we have
celebrated almost to obsession the kinds of activities,
particularly for kids that don't have professional parents and
people around them, so that they not only aren't aware of or
don't have access to learning computer science but I am afraid
that many of them, the women and the minorities, if they did
have access wouldn't do it. They are convinced at a very young
age it is too difficult, it is too hard, it is not for them.
They want to go and become good at things for which we all know
realistically they are no jobs. So we said we are going to
convince kids through celebrating science and technology all
kids will realize they can do this, and as I said before, we
succeeded, and I really encourage you all to go to one of our
events and celebrate with these kids. We have 89.6 percent of
the kids that have come through our program either go on to
college to study some technology or go directly into fields to
learn technology and get great jobs.
The frustration to us is industry, everybody is behind it
but the school systems, as you know, are a little bit--they
lack the resources.
Chairman Smith. Right. Let me follow up on that in a
minute. Just a minute. Thank you, Mr. Kamen.
Mr. Partovi, I think you mentioned a few minutes ago about
the regulatory burdens. I checked, and I think I know the
problem, and that is that in the definition of core academic
subjects, there is no mention of computer science. Clearly,
that definition of core academic subjects is out of date. A
bill has been introduced by a colleague of ours, Susan Brooks,
to change that definition, and in fact, that bill has been
cosponsored by our Chairman, by Mr. Lipinski, Ms. Esty and I
think derek Kilmer as well. I certainly will be adding my name
but if Members of the Committee want to know what they can do
about it to, to bring a greater focus on computer science and
to make sure it is part of the core curriculum, one answer is
to support that particular piece of legislation. So thank you
for calling that to our attention.
Let me ask all the panelists, a couple of you all have
taught for many years. We all know what we need to teach. What
should we be doing differently as to how we teach these
subjects? And maybe start with Dr. Cornwell and work back down
the panelists.
Dr. Cornwell. Well, for me, one of the keys to teaching
engineering and computer science is engagement in the material.
So one----
Chairman Smith. And I will have to ask you all, because of
limited time, maybe 30 seconds----
Dr. Cornwell. Right. So what I see exciting in terms of
pedagogy and education is flipped classrooms. If there is a
passive portion of a class where I am just lecturing and
students are listening, that is a waste of time, put that
online and then redesign the in-class portion to be much more
active, much more engaging, and much more project-based. That
has worked fantastic in courses like mechatronics and design
courses; but engaging students in the material is really
critical, even though you still need that lecture material; use
effectively--effective use of technology and increased active
engagement to me is a key.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Dr. Cornwell.
Dr. Jona?
Dr. Jona. I guess I would take a little bit of issue with
Mr. Kamen's assertion that one of the big challenges is that
STEM is too difficult. I actually think that the problem is
that it is too risky for kids to do in school. If you took his
exact program and tried to put it in school, kids would be
failing all the time because the only way to succeed is to try
and learn from your mistakes, but that is not an environment in
school where assessment is so predominant now. So kids are more
worried about their GPA than about taking risks and trying hard
things and so a lot of them tend to shy away from the STEM
fields for that very reason.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Partovi?
Mr. Partovi. I have a really quick answer, which is making
it more fun, and we actually built tutorials. You saw that
little girl's reaction. Our tutorials feature Angry Birds,
lectures by Mark Zuckerberg or Chris Bosh and literally feel
like a game. The kids don't even know that they are learning.
They feel like they are playing when they use these tutorials.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you.
And Mr. Kamen?
Mr. Kamen. I entirely agree. You have to make it fun. You
have to make it rewarding. You have to show them superstars
that they can aspire to be like because that is what drives
kids to put passion into things in this country, and we have
got to get kids passionate about science and technology and
make them believe it is available, it is accessible, it is fun,
it is rewarding and it is a great career.
Mr. Smith. Okay. Great. I might add one other idea that is
not original. I heard it yesterday from the CEO of a tech
company but it might address some of the concerns about the
subjects being either too difficult or not interesting enough
or whatever, and that is, allow students to basically progress
at their own pace so they are not keeping up with the class,
they are not discouraged from taking those subjects, so that
might be another consideration as well.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yield back.
Chairman Bucshon. Thank you.
I now recognize Mr. Kilmer, five minutes.
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all for
being here.
I think this is a very important conversation. I have got
24,002 reasons to care about this, 24,000 open computing jobs
in Washington State right now, and two little Kilmer girls. I
have got a 4-year-old named Tess and a 7-year-old named Sophie,
and Sophie's newest passion is the codable and hopscotch apps
on the iPad, which teach coding concepts, and she totally geeks
out on it.
Let me start on the 24,000. I just invite you, and maybe I
will start with Mr. Partovi and invite others to chime in. Be
more directive to us. I mean, outside of CSEA, and Dr. Jona,
you mentioned the potential of trying to have the government
promote distribution platforms for some of these things. Are
there other things that Congress ought to do to step up not
just to fill the 24,000 jobs in my state but to ensure that we
have a workforce for the next generation?
Mr. Partovi. Sure, absolutely. You know, I looked at this.
The core issue in computer science which is driving these jobs
is the high school pipeline, and the reason the CSEA bill is--
you know, it is a no-brainer. It only removes barriers, doesn't
increase funding. It does what constitutionally the federal
government should be doing, which is giving more control to the
states, but if you want to go beyond that, I wouldn't say to
increase funding but look at the existing $3 billion in STEM
funding or the existing $1.5 billion in K-12 STEM funding, how
much of that is going to computer science? I would say today
almost none of it because in a high school when they get STEM
funding, STEM means biology, chemistry, physics, environmental
sciences and calculus, and I have nothing against those things
but they don't even think of computer science as a STEM topic.
We all think of STEM as robotics, engineering, computer
science, coding. That is not what our schools think, so the
STEM funding you are providing, billions of it, goes where the
jobs aren't actually.
Mr. Kilmer. I would invite others to chime in if there are
other suggestions for Congress.
Mr. Kamen. I will give you a suggestion. I know that the
two sides of Congress seem to be polarized on a lot of issues.
I can tell you from my day job, I have 500 engineers who work
on a lot of projects for a lot of big companies, most of which
heard about our members of FIRST as well. But in my day job, I
now have 30 openings. We have been hiring as fast as we can. We
can't find tech people just like the rest of these people. I
have people here on H-1B visas. It costs me a lot of time and a
lot of money to acquire these people and to get them in. We are
happy to pay the money because they are so valuable, but of
course, I would rather give the jobs to homegrown people.
We know that you have a bill going through that is going to
increase the H-1B fees to tech companies. You know, what would
make that a lot easier for these tech companies to swallow is
to know that some of that money is being used to solve their
long-term problem. If you could say whichever said, hey, it is
not even a new tax, it is not even new money, take that H-1B
fee money, put some of it aside to solve the problem so that
down the road we don't have to keep doing it this way, and I
would suggest that if you could take some of that money and
make it available to these schools so that they can internally
leverage all the things you have just heard about, the amount
of time and money it would take to internally build a robotics
program to bring in world-class scientists and engineers to be
in classrooms, you can't do it, you don't need to do it. They
are there. They are free. Let the schools leverage these
programs by just giving them the stipend for the coach, the
ability to pay the fee to get to the event and figure out how
to focus that money on the schools that need it most and that
way you are solving multiple problems. I hope you get
consensus. I know industry would be way more supportive of
paying higher H-1B visa fees if they thought it is solving
their problem.
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you. With the minute I have left, let me
ask--let me focus on the two, and that is, Mr. Partovi, you
mentioned the failure to see adequate representation of women
and minorities in the STEM fields. Again, how do you think the
federal government is doing in terms of some of its programs to
broaden diversity in the STEM fields and can you give direction
whether it be through NSF programs or others to what we ought
to do to raise our game?
Mr. Partovi. Sure. First of all, what I showed was not
about STEM, it was just about computer science, because that is
my focus. The two issues are slightly different. The female
participation is a cultural one, girls being--just the culture
all around them making them think this is not for me, whereas
the African American and the Hispanic American issue is much
more just availability. There is equal or even greater interest
level among African Americans or Hispanic Americans in computer
science but the schools don't teach it, and that is the bigger
problem that I would suggest that you guys focus on. The
cultural issue, I think efforts like FIRST and efforts like
Code.org will actually change the culture. The fact that we got
10 million girls learning an hour of code last month, that is
going to start to have a trickle effect, and we are going to do
that year after year.
Chairman Bucshon. Thank you very much. I now recognize Mr.
Massie, five minutes.
Mr. Massie. Mr. Kamen, that idea of taking the H-1B visa
fees and using it solve our problems makes way too much common
sense for Washington, D.C. I love that idea.
As a participant when I was in grade school and high school
of science fairs, I was always frustrated that the science
fairs wanted a hypothesis, and there was just one iteration of
the scientific process. So what really encourages me about what
you have done with the FIRST program is to teach failure, that
it is okay, in fact, you are going to fail multiple times in an
hour. Even if you write code, you run the code and it is going
to fail and you find the bugs but the same thing mechanically,
so I think that is great that it also teaches that failure is
okay, and it motivates those classroom topics like
trigonometry. We want those kids to care about trigonometry.
Why would you care about it unless you could see where you
could use it?
But I want to ask you about something I know you are
passionate about. You are trying to promote the superstars as
engineers. I would think the equivalent of an Emmy or Grammy
would be a patent. You know, kids in your programs I am sure
would love someday to get a patent, because to use sort of an
engineering analogy, you are trying to push a string uphill if
you are trying to encourage these kids and the parents to get
excited about a degree or an education in STEM unless there is
something pulling the string, and what is pulling the string
should be that incentive, that Emmy, that Grammy, that
professional achievement. But isn't it a little
counterproductive for Congress as we have recently done to
advance this narrative of trolls, that if you invent something
and then you go--and then a big company takes your idea and you
try and live the American dream and use the justice system and
get your rights asserted in court that you might be a big hairy
troll? I would argue maybe we should talk about patent hobbits
instead of patent trolls. They are a lot more cuddly. But I
would like to hear your views on Congress's recent decision to
change the patent system.
Mr. Kamen. So sadly, that is a big topic and it is hard in
a few seconds----
Mr. Massie. You can have the rest of my time.
Mr. Kamen. I would violently agree with you that A, as an
incentive and as a prize, as an Emmy, it has got to stay there.
It has been very valuable. It is what has led the United States
for the last couple hundred years to be clearly the global
leader in innovation. It is not a coincidence that you name it,
the Wright Brothers or Edison or the Google boys are here. It
is not a coincidence. It is the lifeblood of America is
innovation and the freedom to do it, and we had a patent system
that supported it, and by the way, we have students that do
have patents. It is fantastic. We have middle school students
that have applied for patents through robotics and we are--we
work with the Patent Office. We have had their director as a
key person in our organization over the years. They come to our
championship.
But back to the current issue of patents, I think the
intersection of bad actors, people that are being called
trolls, they are conflating to the general public the bad
actors with the incredible importance of the patent system, and
I think mostly because of misguided understanding. You know, my
guess is most people in Congress understand certain other kinds
of intellectual property. Dollar bills are an intellectual
property. You can't run your car on them. You can't buy--you
can't eat them. You can buy food or fuel. A deed to your home
is intellectual property. A credit card is intellectual
property. We have a society that depends on them. We know that
there is a lot of credit card fraud in this country but I
haven't heard Congress say let us stop letting people use
credit cards. I know that there are counterfeiters out there,
there are bad actors, and we should go after them and put them
in jail but I haven't heard anybody say let us close the Mint
and the Treasury. But because of bad actors that have made,
frankly, small levels of outrage and inconvenience to people,
they have--because there isn't a broader understanding of the
power and importance of patents for small companies to raise
money, for companies to protect themselves internationally.
I was at the CDS yesterday in Las Vegas watching all sorts
of Chinese companies parade their little Segway copies around,
and I am not sure what we can do about it anymore because the
United States that used to be the pillar of we don't make
compulsory licensing, it was the country that believed in, you
can own private ideas and private property, suddenly even the
debate about how we are so drastically undermining the
importance and value of patents and being able to keep it is, I
think, emboldening the rest of the world to do what they are
doing and this country's major economic future is depending on
intellectual property and innovation. This is the wrong time to
be weakening it.
Mr. Massie. My time is expired, but before we touch the
patent system again, I would love to have you come back. Would
you be willing to testify on that subject? Because I think it
is important. Otherwise we are pushing the string uphill to get
these kids to become inventors.
Mr. Kamen. My whole company depends on the--I have 500
people. We don't make or sell a product. We work for these
giant companies giving them better solutions for their next
products. I would go anywhere to testify on this because my
company's future and I think this country's future depends on a
strong patent system, and calling this a reform is a euphemism.
Mr. Massie. Thank you very much, Mr. Kamen.
Chairman Bucshon. Thank you very much.
I now recognize Ms. Esty for her questions.
Ms. Esty. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Ranking
Member, and thank all of you for joining us here today. As a
parent of a child who did FIRST, I went to those competitions
well before being in Congress and I had a chance to go back
last year, and I would recommend it to all my colleagues. It is
very exciting and it really gets you--gets your juices flowing
about what is possible, and for those who haven't done it, I
would also say bring an astronaut to your schools, which I did
in December, and I took them into a pilot program in one of my
underserved communities into a middle school where half the
students were girls, and it was incredibly exciting. These
astronauts were treated like rock stars, and they told stories,
and NASA is very good at this, and I would--this is the sort of
thing we can do because I really want to drill down a little
bit of what more we can do about the specifics for the
underrepresented.
If you look in a state like mine like Connecticut, I had a
caller this week from Newtown, Connecticut. He is looking for
five programmers right now and he can't find them, and we have
students who are graduating and are going to graduate with huge
amounts of debt and they won't have jobs and they will be
baristas.
So we really have to think about what we can do and how far
back do we need to go. Certainly, we need to do it in high
schools and we need to have those computer science programs,
but should we be looking even further back? Should we be
looking at elementary schools? What are we doing in elementary
schools? I have got bills out there to try to support teaching
in elementary schools because I do think that idea, I am not
competent at this, I am not good at that, often starts because
I have seen it with my kids. I saw it in classrooms, and
disproportionately, I have to say, minority students and girls
were led to believe they weren't good at these fields.
So I would like you to think about that, and think about
the role that competition plays, interactive actions where you
fail, you try again, you fail, you try again, but you keep
doing it because it is like Angry Birds and it is not like a
test. So whoever wants to chime in on driving it even before
high school the use competition and, again, what constructively
the federal government's role be in that?
Mr. Partovi. Thank you very much. Well, I talked about the
Hour of Code, how we got 17 million kids to do that. There are
not 17 million high school kids in this country, so a huge
number of those, millions, literally, were in elementary school
and middle school, and we showed them that you don't even need
to be 13 or 14. There is eight-year-olds, nine-year-olds doing
the Hour of Code. In terms of diversity standpoint, we had more
girls try computer science and coding in U.S. schools in
December than all kids in the history of the United States. We
have very much flipped this idea that I can't do it completely
on its head, and if we just continue to do that, people--as
long as they make it fun, which computer programming is, we can
show kids that they can do it.
The biggest issue I believe actually is not the cultural
one. I think the biggest issue is the access and especially
among the underrepresented minorities, the fact that computer
science, the schools that do teach it are suburban schools.
They are not urban schools, they are not rural schools, so the
underprivileged kids don't even have access.
Ms. Esty. Mr. Kamen?
Mr. Kamen. So again, we are in violent agreement that you
have got to get their attitudes adjusted at a much earlier age.
Otherwise they can't get on the train. It is moving too fast
when they get to high school, and again, our sports model has
been incredibly effective. We started it in high school but the
proof that it works and it is a ground-up effort is the popular
demand was, we need to have the equivalent of Little League
because there is a World Series, there is college and then
there is high school and junior varsity. Within five years of
starting FIRST, which is now 20 years ago, there was such
demand among the parents, ``What am I going to do for the
younger brothers and sisters that come and watch this thing.''
So we didn't form a Little League, we formed Lego League, and
the Lego company has a huge operation in Connecticut. The
Chairman of Lego flew over from Bilund, saw what we were doing
and said I will give you your Little League. We now have tens
of thousands of teams, and we not only have Little League now,
to your point, we have junior FIRST Lego League for the
kindergarten on up, and it is a continuum now driven by the
demand created by the superstar mentality of this whole thing.
And one more comment about NASA. You talked about bringing
astronauts. Just so that you all know, NASA--yes, I have Boeing
with hundreds of teams and every aerospace giant and every
pharmaceutical giant and every semiconductor industry company,
they are all there, hundreds and hundreds of them, but the
largest single source of teams for FIRST is NASA because all
their facilities around the country supply mentors, they supply
grants to underserved schools. Their Administrator, Charlie
Bolden, came and was our guest speaker at our championship, and
the kids love NASA and space and technology. They love it all
if you don't make it intimidating. So NASA has been a great
partner. If you could find a way to get other government
agencies that have technology people to get involved, it would
be great.
Ms. Esty. Thank you very much, and I am out of time.
Thanks.
Chairman Bucshon. All right. Thank you.
I recognize Mr. Schweikert.
Mr. Schweikert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and forgive the
buzzers. It is just one of those things that goes on around
here.
And forgive me if I am--Mr. Partovi? You just said you
don't believe it is cultural, but Mr. Kamen about 20 minutes
ago said it was, so I want to see the two of you debate each
other.
Sorry. Some of us have sort of perverse senses of
entertainment.
But I really would like to back up a theme that both the
right and the left here have touched on and then backed away
from. Is there something cultural in our sense of expectation?
We all--let us face it, most of us in this room, particularly
those with gray hair, think back to when we took our calc and
trig and those things and it hurt. It was painful. Now, when I
couldn't do the homework, I didn't want to go to school the
next day because there was always that freaky smart kid that
made fun of us. Sorry for anyone in the room, MIT with a bunch
of patents.
And yet I am told today that the United States, the only
thing we score the top of the world in is self-esteem. Have we
done something perverse to our next generation and the
generation after that culturally and saying it is not always
warm, fuzzy and teddy bears and puppies. It is hard--it is hard
work. It is going to be painful, and guess what? That is how
you get there. And that is why I am looking for consistency in
thought where someone says it is cultural, it is built into our
expectations of each other and avoidance of pain, and it isn't.
What is it?
Mr. Partovi. I would like to clarify what I said. I
actually completely agree with you. The country has a cultural
sort of impediment. People don't think I should work hard and
get an A plus, it is geeky to be an A student, you would rather
make it onto the football field than be the kid with lots of
books and you know, the smartest kid in the room. What I was
trying to say is that with computer science, there has been an
additional cultural impediment of just oh, my God, it is all
ones and zeros, I will never, ever be able to touch that thing,
and people place in their minds computer science and
programming as this thing that is harder than trigonometry,
harder than calculus, way out there, and what I think we can
easily prove when you see that 8-year-olds can do it, and not
just one 8-year-old but millions of 8-year-olds, at least that
one piece, which is disconnected from reality, gets more
grounded. But we still need to have a culture that celebrates
the successes, treats, I guess, engineers and scientists as
rock stars and teaches Americans that you have to get A's to be
cool.
Mr. Schweikert. Well, speaking of rock stars, the gentleman
to your right, I mean, Mr. Kamen, you're touching and working
with a lot of these young people. It is my vision of sort of
cynicism that our avoidance of what is difficult, our constant
concern about people's self-esteem is an impediment to the
understanding of this is reality. Reality sometimes is hard.
Mr. Kamen. So once again, I am in violent agreement with
you including the guy next to me.
Mr. Schweikert. Could we avoid the word ``violent''?
Mr. Kamen. I am in substantial agreement with you,
Congressman, and I would tell you, first of all, one of our
taglines at FIRST is always, it is the hardest fun you will
ever have, and we then go on to point out to these kids, you
are going to fail, we have given you a job that you can't
possibly do with the limited resources and limited time we have
given you to have to work in complex groups, you are going to
fail, but that is a microcosm of the real world for people that
eventually succeed, and we literally then go on to tell them
all that stuff as you pointed out, we say, you know, why do you
learn trigonometry, why do you learn all these things, you have
never had a place to use them. You are going to quickly find
yourself trying to do something that without understanding
arithmetic and algebra and trigonometry and some calculus, you
are not going to have the tools to do well, so we make it
relevant but we make it fun, and as another place I
substantially agree with you, we allow them to fail, to learn
from those failures, and we say to them, you know, in sports
you go out and you started with tee ball, the ball didn't move
but you had to see a path. And then we say to them, in sports,
if you didn't get it, you have a chance tomorrow. You don't get
a grade, you don't get a D, you get a coach that nurtures you,
and we are going to put you in teams where you can be failing
and failing and failing but learning and learning and learning.
Mr. Schweikert. I was trying to go to something that is
much more cultural, and I know, Mr. Chairman, we are up against
time, and for Mr. Cornwell [inaudible]--down the food chain of
education in our society, and so I know we are out of time, Mr.
Chairman, but I don't know if we will get another round. Thank
you for your patience.
Chairman Bucshon. Thank you very much.
I now recognize Dr. Bera.
Mr. Bera. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you, Ranking
Member Lipinski, and thanks to the witnesses.
Mr. Kamen, I enjoyed the video as well as the sports
analogy. You know, as somebody who grew up with a pretty good
outside jump shot, I think it became evident in about 8th grade
that I wasn't going to be Jerry West or Wilt Chamberlain.
Fortunately, though, in the public schools I went to, I had
teachers that believed in me and pushed me and, you know, I
excelled in science and the life sciences and went on to
medical school and a doctor.
But they were allowed to meet me where I was and they were
allowed to push us and encourage us to imagine and dream and
think, and as I toured--you know, being a professor at a
medical school, associate dean of a medical school, I spent a
lot of time looking at what we are doing in K-12 as well as
undergrad and grad school, and much of what we are doing in the
STEM fields is memorization and regurgitation, and we really
need to expand and get back to imagination, you know, to
encouraging folks to solve problems and teaching our kids at an
early stage not just to memorize and regurgitate but to think.
Coding allows you to do that, right? I mean, coding and, you
know, the innovation labs. You know, in my district, Intel has
a major presence and, you know, what they are doing. When I
talk to the Project Lead the Way kids, they are allowing them
to imagine. It doesn't have to cost a lot of money. It has to,
you know, allow us to change a curriculum, though, that is very
much testing-based. And it's not that easy to test computer
science or test on a multiple choice test imagination. You
know, I had wood shop, metal shop, auto shop, you know, and you
had to do mathematics in a very different way in those, and you
had to dream of a project, put it on paper and make it happen.
You know, I am glad that Mr. Partovi is here. You know,
last month I visited Toby Johnson Elementary School in my
hometown of Bell Grove in my district and watched these kids,
7th and 8th graders, doing their Hour of Code using your
curriculum. Again, not a lot of money, not a lot of investment,
just a desire and a recognition that this was important.
I guess my question to any of you on the panel is, how do
we start changing the curriculum to allow that imagination
curriculum, that innovation curriculum to take place at an
earlier stage? Because we have got to do it in the elementary
schools and, you know, we have got to push imaginations.
Dr. Jona. Well, I think we have seen a number of questions
around this theme. I think if the science and math classrooms
in our country look like FIRST Robotics, we wouldn't have to
have this conversation because we would see how much fun kids
have. Unfortunately, if you look at most math and science
classrooms, it is a very sort of punitive, assessment-driven,
risk-averse environment for kids, and that is not an
environment where science and engineering thinking, or even CS
thinking, can really happen. And so, you know, it is very
antithetical to the spirit of engineering, as we have heard Mr.
Kamen say over and over, you have to try, you have to fail. But
kids when they come home from school and, you know, my four
kids are the same way, failure is a bad thing and failure is
something that you avoid at all costs because once it hits your
GPA, it is all over and then your, you know, college career is
over and whatnot. So it is a systemic issue that, you know, has
to do with the culture of assessment and sort of the punitive
nature of school, and it turns a lot of kids off to harder
subjects, quote, unquote, because they are afraid to try
because it is hard and they are going to fail.
Dr. Cornwell. May I make one other comment on that? I think
it is critical to have teachers who are content experts who
have the ability to let the class go in different directions.
If the teacher doesn't feel comfortable with the material, they
are probably going to be very rigid on how they do that. And
the current pay structure doesn't allow necessarily for
different pay for computer scientists who could, with a
bachelor's degree, get a job for $100,000. Why would they go
into teaching? It is a very challenging value proposition, but
I think we need teachers who are content experts that can truly
get students excited because teachers can have such an
incredible impact on students.
Mr. Kamen. And to be somewhat of an optimist here, I am not
sure you have to change the whole curriculum, and that is sort
of our point as to why FIRST works. Kids are not going to
bounce the ball for three hours a day because you put it in the
curriculum and tell them to do it. They will do it 45 minutes
once a week and some--but they will go out after school and do
it seven days a week because they are inspired to do it.
We don't claim that the NBA is part of curriculum but we
have a culture that says to these kids, ``do it.'' And as you
pointed out, you can do it after school and fail a lot and fail
a lot and get a few of those shots in and keep going because
you didn't get a quiz; you didn't get a test. It is a perfect
environment to encourage people to fail and get better.
So using the same analogy, we say--and we have heard people
up there say--kids don't want to learn trigonometry because it
seems really hard and, more importantly, it has no value. In
the curriculum, leave it alone. The schools will do a great
job. That gym teacher will do a great job of teaching kids the
basics. They will go out and become experts because of their
passion. You still need those analytic skills. You need to
learn arithmetic and geometry and trigonometry, but you are
only going to really learn them well if you have some
motivation to use them after school when you really develop the
skills.
So by that same now-tired sports analogy, I will tell you
let the curriculum do what the curriculum is supposed to do:
give them the basic tools, not by memory, but give them the
basic tools. That is analysis. But synthesis is taking all
those tools and doing things with it. Bouncing a ball is work.
Playing basketball is fun. You do one because of the other.
They don't have a ``because of the other.'' Particularly kids
in underserved communities don't have a ``why am I doing this''
answer. If you let them have FIRST in and around their culture
and their community, they are going to need to learn to code
because their robot won't move without it. They are going to
need to learn algebra or they can't figure out voltage and
current.
If we can meld the fact that schools ought to have a
curriculum that is analysis-based, teach them everything that
came before us, but then give them opportunity to use synthesis
to create new imagination, all of that stuff should be working
hand-in-hand, not one or the other.
Chairman Bucshon. Thank you very much, Dr. Bera.
I now recognize Mr. Collins.
Mr. Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank all of you. And I am intrigued with a
couple of thoughts here, and I am going to maybe direct these
more to Mr. Partovi and Mr. Kamen because it is obvious to me
that both FIRST and Code.org are existing without federal
funding. This is the private sector and entrepreneurs and those
that really care about the future of our country doing what you
are doing, and thank you for that.
So my comment is, as a new Member of Congress, I came here
with a core philosophy that big government generally doesn't
have the answers. And in Congress, all too often, especially
when you look at the debate on the right and the left, there
are those who think government can solve all the problems.
We are here in Congress--and some of the questions have
been directed to you, what can we do in Congress? Part of my
philosophy is nothing, that education starts with parents. And
especially as we talk about feeding the pipeline, the K-12,
parents care about their kids' future. It is the parents' job
to make sure--go to the local school board. The local school
board is hiring the teachers and setting a curriculum that
works. And that school board answers to the taxpayers and
ultimately you go to the state. Last, you go to the federal
government. I don't think we should be involved in this
education debate. What you are doing doesn't have any Federal
involvement. I would say the answer is the parents motivating
the school board.
And I am someone that has lived this. My son went to a high
school that did not have Regents Diplomas. As a result, they
didn't teach to the test. And by not teaching to the test, they
could exceed everything the public high school was doing. So
when it came time to graduate, he is now an electrical
engineering student at Villanova with a minor in mechatronics.
He won the physics competition, he won the SumoBot competition
and came in second in the Trebuchet pumpkin-throwing
competition. It was all about fun--throwing pumpkins, SumoBots
crashing together--but it didn't come from the federal
government. I don't think it can come from the federal
government. I think it comes from parents pushing a school
board and perhaps at the state level. And I just would love to
hear a few comments from Mr. Partovi and Mr. Kamen. This
philosophy of mine is we are here asking. I don't think it is
our job.
Mr. Partovi. So I would agree with you in terms of the
philosophy, and it is--you know, constitutionally I would say,
you know, the federal government doesn't have that many strings
it can pull to mandate things at schools or parents. But I have
one thing I would suggest that I have a slight disagreement
with my colleague in that computer science currently isn't even
in the curriculum and----
Mr. Collins. Well, excuse me. What if we didn't have a core
curriculum?
Mr. Partovi. So that would be one way of achieving it, but
the issue we have right now is that the federal government----
Mr. Collins. And I agree with you.
Mr. Partovi. Yes. The federal government does decide--right
now, it does specify in the ESEA this is the curriculum in a
way that actually excludes computer science.
Mr. Collins. Right. And that is why we shouldn't have it.
Mr. Partovi. If you could abolish the ESEA you might get to
a certain place, but whatever it takes to allow the schools--we
have had one million parents petition via us. One million
parents have signed a petition saying we want this in every
school. They go to their school board and then their school
board says, well, you know, we have this federal government
funding that comes this way but it defines the curriculum this
way.
Mr. Collins. Unintended consequences.
Mr. Partovi. Yes, but either way, we need to at least
remove what I consider federal government barriers to schools
actually responding to the parental pressure that they are
receiving today.
Mr. Collins. It is the least we could do.
Mr. Kamen?
Mr. Kamen. So I will say I don't think we are in
disagreement. I believe that schools need to have way more
access to computer technology in general, and kids through
those schools need to get their earlier taste of it at a much
lower age. So I think we are in agreement there. And I think he
is in substantial agreement with you that creating systems--
government by definition is high inertia. It is big. It takes a
long time to change. That is generally good because organized
societies don't like chaos and they are afraid of change. So
the things that you want to be big and stable, government is
okay.
Nothing is changing faster than the world of tech, and
within the world of tech, nothing is changing faster than code.
So they are not keeping up, to his point, and they should get
out of the way of trying to mandate at the micro level for
sure.
I only have then two comments for you. One is I need your
son's resume because we are desperate for more good
mechatronics guys. Send him my way. He sounds like interesting
young man. But I think another place where government should
come in is to make sure there is a fair playing field. I mean
that is what I think governments are really about. And these
days, you can't expect a kid to compete in a fair way if he
gets into--or out of high school or drops out of high school
without certain kinds of skills. It is pretty clear your son
was not at risk of not developing----
Mr. Collins. Right.
Mr. Kamen. --those skills, but there are plenty of families
in this country or communities in this country that don't have
the resource or even awareness or good judgment to go demand
changes----
Mr. Collins. Right.
Mr. Kamen. --in schools, so there is some place for the
government, which is, as I keep saying, don't run this program.
We don't want you to run this program. The last thing we need
is you to help us make FIRST part of curriculum. But make sure
the schools that have that teacher or that principal that is
ready to say we have got to leverage this incredible program--
--
Mr. Collins. Um-hum.
Mr. Kamen. --make sure they are encouraged to do it and
have the resources to do it.
Mr. Collins. No, thank you. Just to add, you know, because
you do brag about your kids, my son is going to do his junior
year internship in Tel Aviv working for the Israeli Space
Program.
Mr. Kamen. And I will tell you I will be over in Tel Aviv
on March 2 where we are having a massive FIRST event. It is
their ten-year anniversary. Shimon Peres is presiding over it.
FIRST has a higher percentage of the schools in Israel involved
than we have in the United States.
Chairman Bucshon. Thank you very much.
I now recognize Ms. Kelly.
Ms. Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, witnesses.
As I have sat here, my questions have changed over and over
and over listening to all of my colleagues, and I will admit
that I fall right into that stereotype. I ran away from science
and math, and it was scary to me. But I think you hit the nail
on the head as far as access and opportunity.
I represent the Chicagoland area starting, you know, if you
know Chicago, 53rd by U of C going south, so most of my
district is suburban and rural and they don't have the
opportunities, they are shaky.
In some of my area's school boards. We have worked to bring
updated computers to the high schools and to the elementary
schools so the kids even have, you know, something to work on.
So that is where I see government being the safety net, and it
is not fair and equal at all, not even in the Chicagoland area
if you compare the south suburbs to the northern suburbs and--
because of how we fund schools and property taxes and on and on
and on. And if we don't do something about that, I don't think
we will ever be fair and equitable.
We started--I came in in April, special election, a STEM
council and a STEM academy, so I have tech people and different
people around the table with community colleges to see what we
could do as far as changing the curriculum and what jobs are
out there and what training people need. And then I go to
different areas in my district and actually expose the kids. I
took them to the Museum of Science and Industry, had them meet
different people, had people come to them, tech people come to
them, but, you know, we service 750,000 people and it is--you
know, so I go to one school, then another school, then another
school, and what did the kids say? Are you coming back next
Saturday? Or, can we do this? And, no, I can't. I have to keep,
you know, taking turns. So we are trying to get our businesses
involved in even adopting schools so they have some, you know,
steadiness or some constant, you know, in their lives to keep
them interested. And--so I say that.
And also the other thing is, you know, I have a doctorate
so I definitely believe in education, but many of my
manufacturing companies and advanced manufacturing companies,
they say part of the issue is we go to school and we major in
psychology like I did and then we can't find a job, and they
feel that if kids graduate with the tools they need and get
two-year certifications, they can get really good jobs, too.
And I just wanted to know how you felt about that.
Dr. Cornwell. I would just say I strongly agree with you.
Not everyone needs a college education. We hear the same thing
in Indiana as far as advanced manufacturing. For students who
get a great technical education, there are wonderful jobs. So,
I don't think everyone needs to go to college. I do think
college is more than just job training, however. It really is a
life-growing experience, but I do think it also should end with
a job and meaningful employment. But I agree with----
Ms. Kelly. And not $80,000 in loans you can't pay back.
Dr. Cornwell. Well, that is right, or even $5,000 if it
doesn't lead to a job. To me, our students at Rose-Hulman may
have a higher debt, but they all get very good-paying jobs; so
it is a good investment.
Ms. Kelly. Um-hum.
Mr. Kamen. They are all looking at me, but I think I am
having a disproportionate time here.
I would tell you that you say you, you know, ran away from
it. Obviously, you have a Ph.D. You didn't run away from
education.
Ms. Kelly. Right.
Mr. Kamen. I think, and I will just keep saying it, and it
is not a disagreement, I think our culture certainly takes
kids, particularly women and minorities and--at a very young
age and puts in front of them people they can relate to from
the world of sports and the world of entertainment. And the
reason I think we agree is I think we have got to get to them
very young and have them as passionate about developing skill
sets that will lead to great jobs whether it is out of college
or a tech job. But once you get them passionate, you have got
to deliver the tools they need, and it isn't putting pins into
frogs anymore. Everything he is saying is the skill sets--once
we can turn them on to say I can do this stuff, whatever this
tech stuff is, the tools you have got to give them have got to
be 21st century tools to do the right stuff.
And again, I will say it is not an either/or. The schools
have to have curriculum. They have to have all the things
that--you guys have to solve that problem of where the money
comes from and where it goes and property taxes. But more than
that, you could give the schools everything they want. And when
I first started FIRST, I wanted our tagline to be, you know,
``you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.''
I wanted it to be ``you can lead a kid to knowledge but you
can't make him think.'' And what I wanted to do was say get the
schools as good as they can be, and that is your collective
problem. I don't know how you do that. But it wouldn't matter
if you had the best schools in the world if it is a 50 percent
dropout rate because the kids would rather do something else.
So let's get the schools to have the right tools and let's
let the culture of America, the companies of America, the
people that need these kids give them the right kind of
inspiration to work hard at developing the muscle hanging
between their ears. It is the only one that has unlimited
potential. And the kids that need to know that most culturally
are the kids you are talking about, and you should find ways to
get the schools that you have been visiting to get some teacher
to be a coach, to get on a team. We have the companies that
will connect them. You need to get the superintendents to know
that having afterschool passion-based activities that matter to
the future of these kids and to this country are as important
as the other activities, and that is an appropriate role of
leadership.
Ms. Kelly. Thank you.
Chairman Bucshon. Thank you very much.
I now recognize Mr. Hultgren.
Mr. Hultgren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for
being here. This has been a very interesting, very helpful
hearing.
One of my biggest frustrations with this place, Congress,
is the busyness of it, and here we are talking about what I
think is one of the most important subjects we could possibly
be talking about and there is just a lot of other things going
on. You hear beeps and buzzes and things, and that references
the other activities, votes, committees, whatever, that we are
being called to. I am so frustrated by that. I wish we could
have this hearing in front of the entire Science Committee but
also in front of the entire Congress. I think it is so
important.
If you talk to Members of Congress, every single one would
say one of our top priorities has to be STEM education, that if
we are going to be an innovative nation, we have got to be a
nation that is committed to STEM education. But how do we make
that happen? And I think that is where we struggle. You hear it
up here is what is our role? And finding that right balance of
what is the best way to motivate, mentor, and educate our
students, specifically in STEM education, so that we can have a
bright future as a nation. We are struggling with that. We need
your input. We need your help.
I also am--have enjoyed this so much but really am looking
forward to the next panel of young people, which is really, I
think, the--where the excitement is of seeing that from them. I
talk to scientists. I represent Fermilab and have some
wonderful physicists and they get so excited talking to other
people about science.
That challenge we have is, again, what is our role as
government? And I think it is telling the story and taking away
impediments, you know, of things that will allow young people
to get excited and to be able to make the most of these
opportunities. That is what we have got to do and finding every
possible way to get rid of unfunded mandates that aren't doing
anything to excite our kids but are taking away opportunities
from them to pursue their real passions and real opportunities
there.
I want to thank Dr. Jona from Northwestern. You all have
done a great job working with my staff and great job in
Illinois working to bring STEM resources to local districts. I
also want to just, you know, give a thanks and a shout out to
Mr. Partovi and also to Mr. Kamen on a couple different fronts.
One: last month, I went with my 12-year-old and 9-year-old
and--to do an hour of coding in Elgin. We went to Elgin
Technology Center, and I did the Angry Birds Hour of Code and
was successful. I was able to maneuver and code my way through
an hour and loved it and was really encouraged. And the lesson
for me out of that was if I can learn how to do this, anybody
can learn how to do this.
I am serving on this Committee but don't have the pedigree
that some of my colleagues have in these areas, but I really
did see an excitement there, and what I was most excited about
was my kids who were with me and how excited they got, my 9-
year-old and my 12-year-old, of doing this. And also my mentor
in this process was a 13-year-old, who is on the robotics team
in Elgin. ``Got Robot?'' is the robotics team that went to St.
Louis last year, great team. They are--this kid is--the whole
team is phenomenal. I am so proud of them, but they are so
excited. And my 9- and 12-year-old also got to meet with the
Got Robot? team to see their latest robot.
But with it, what I was really excited about was they
brought their brothers and sisters along, little brothers and
sisters, who are doing the Lego robots. And boy, my 9- and 12-
year-old were kind of intimidated by the robot, but then they
saw the Lego robots and they said we can do that. That wouldn't
be that hard. And they could start seeing, okay, now I see how
this works together, that we can do this.
So I just want to commend you for what you are doing, and
we want to be helpful. A couple of things just in the minute I
have left: there are some challenge in this, too, is how do
we--you know, one of the things I recognize is we see a lot of
people who are going to college to pursue this and then are
dropping out, maybe some for right reasons to pursue a career,
others because they just didn't see it as what they thought it
was going to be. So I just would ask what can we be doing to
encourage people who should be staying in this to stay in it?
Are there more internships, mentorships, other relationships
that we can be encouraging or building that will help people
who really are our best and brightest staying in this?
Certainly, we want to do it on the early side, and I think
FIRST is doing a great job at this. Code.org is doing a great
job of this. But what else can we be doing to make sure young
people who should be in this, stay in this?
Mr. Partovi. I would like to say a few words that actually
address your questions and some of the previous comments. You
know, there was this conversation about kids don't like
trigonometry, they don't like calculus, they don't like tests,
and what we have showed and you saw with your own kids is that
kids like making apps. They like making cool stuff. And, you
know, with respect to the role of the federal government,
without the federal government's help we have managed to get
this into tens of thousands of schools. And in fact, even at
the elementary level, even in rural schools in one month our
curriculum that you saw, a 20-hour-long course is already in
almost 10,000 schools at almost no cost with no funding other
than what I have managed to raise.
But the most important role for you guys I believe, however
you want to do it, is to remove the barriers. And the goal I
would think of it is basically put the ``T'' into STEM. When
you think of STEM, your mind goes to us, the types of things we
represent, but when you talk to a school about STEM, what they
think about is predominately life sciences and math and maybe
physics in between and the technology part isn't even there.
And I showed you on the chart that more than 50 percent of STEM
jobs are in computer science. Dean talked about the H-1Bs. More
than 50 percent of H-1B visas are for computer scientists, but
in our K through 12 system, STEM and the funding that comes to
STEM and the definition does not include computer science. That
is--that should be something that the federal government can
play a role in because currently it does actually provide
barriers.
Mr. Hultgren. Yes. My time is up. There is so much more
that I would love to talk with you all about. I really would
echo that we would love to have you come back and have some
more focused testimony on this and get other committees engaged
and involved in this. I am a cosponsor of the Computer Science
Education Act, which is a small step in the right direction but
there is so much more we can be doing there to recognize how
important that is.
The last thing I will do is--will say is how important
parents and teachers are. I just feel like that is the linchpin
on this. So much is--I see so many parents who are intimidated
by this and teachers who are intimidated by this, and anything
we can be doing for them to see this is a great opportunity for
your kids to have a great future and maybe change the future.
And so Got Robot?, for example, this robotics team in my area,
happens to be a homeschooled team, and so those parents are
incredibly dedicated to their kids' education certainly, but
also to that team, and it pays off such rich dividends, which I
just was so inspired by and my own kids were inspired by as
well.
So thank you all. I wish we had a lot more time but also
looking forward to hearing from students who are engaged in
this. With this, I yield back. Thanks, Chairman.
Chairman Bucshon. Thank you.
Without objection, the Chair recognizes Ms. Edwards for
five minutes.
Ms. Edwards. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and to the Ranking
Member. I really appreciate your allowing me to sit in on this
Committee. This is not my Subcommittee.
I wanted to just sort of talk to you because I come to this
from a couple of different places. And, Dean Kamen, when you
visited my son's school, Capitol Hill Day School, when he was
in 8th grade, I know for him and all of those of students, it
was very inspiring. And it wasn't that they were necessarily
going into or studying those fields but it gave them a
different avenue and approach to the work that they were doing.
And I was a student--when I was a student, I had a great
aptitude for science and math at all of the higher order
sciences and math, and I wouldn't say I was discouraged from
going into those fields at higher ed, but I was not actively
encouraged, and as a result, I didn't. And it wasn't until
after high school, after college, and a different direction
that I happened upon Lockheed Engineering. I got a job there. I
ended up first doing, you know, analysis and writing and
software testing and then development that I discovered that in
fact I did have a very practical aptitude.
And so it worries me that sometimes we are--you know, we
are in a situation now where we don't necessarily discourage
students but we have to have more encouragement for students
who may not think of that as their first choice because they
may not have the parents at home who understand that or who
are, like a lot of parents, intimidated by all of those higher
order sciences and maths.
And then as a worker in the sector, we--at Lockheed we
wanted--a lot of the companies that were doing business at NASA
wanted a relationship with the school system but it was so
incredibly difficult. When could our engineers be in the
classroom? Could they only be in there for an hour or two a
day? Could the students come to our facilities, all of those
things, and we are still working out some of those kinks in
terms of the relationship with the private sector that gives a
much more practical vantage point of how to do work in and with
our school systems.
And then, lastly, as a Member of Congress, every year I do
a college fair. We invited--this last year, we had about 165 or
so colleges and universities. And the focus of that is we bring
in employers as well to do demonstration projects around STEM
fields. We actually had a computer coding project that was run
by one of our local companies, and, you know, each one of them
participating because it helps for students to say where is it
that I am going? What is the direction I am proceeding in? And
then we had the National Association of Black Engineers, and so
for the first time--my district is majority African-American--
that these African-American students who are going to the
college fair could actually see engineers who look like them,
who are doing projects with them, so that they could see a
direction they were going in.
And so I just share that with you because I don't think it
is one thing or another thing, and I think sometimes the
federal government has to set a floor but it can't be the be-
all and end-all. And in our next panel we are going to hear
from two students who come from counties that I represent in a
State where we have said we can't just have one science or
technology school; we have to have that kind of learning taking
place in all of our schools. And it is a real transformation
from the time that I was at Lockheed and out at Goddard to
where we are now.
But I just--I applaud you for the--for what you shared with
us but I also know that the private sector is going to have to
step up and work with our schools and our institutions of
higher learning so that we are getting a better match of people
who are coming out with degrees and the kind of work that is
done in the workplace because we have such a mismatch now that
it is the reason that you have to struggle with those H-1B
visas. And God love those people who are coming in to our
companies, but it is because we have a terrific mismatch
between the students we are producing, the skills that they
have, and the workforce needs, and we have to marry those up.
And I just--I close my comments because I really came here
for our second panel, but I applaud what you do and I hope, Mr.
Chairman and to the Ranking Member, that in Congress we can see
across the aisle to begin to get this right from a policy
perspective in the Congress. And I thank you for being here.
Chairman Bucshon. Thank you very much.
Now, without objection, the Chair recognizes Mr. Kennedy
for five minutes.
Mr. Kennedy. I will be quick. I promise. Thank you, Mr.
Chair. I appreciate that. I appreciate the opportunity.
To the witnesses, thank you for indulging yet another
Member that is not on this Subcommittee but is on this
Committee and has great interest in this topic. Thank you all
for being here.
I wanted to build a little bit off of my colleague
Congresswoman Edwards' question or point I guess. I am very
interested and actively engaged in a number of STEM initiatives
in Massachusetts and through the work of this Committee. One of
the challenges I have seen in Massachusetts is a bit of the
mismatch that Ms. Edwards pointed to, but a demand from the
private sector to provide more talented engineers and
scientists, computer scientists. But as we try to structure
what that actually is and looks like, our reluctance of some in
the private sector to recognize that this is--to look at STEM
and STEM initiatives as a long-term investment in their own
business and business model rather than a short-term corporate
philanthropy initiative that, given a bunch of iPads or a
school field trip or something and taking a photograph and
sending that out in their newsletter, that is how it is
approached more so than a strategic overall development of an
overall strategic plan. And I was wondering if you could give
any recommendations to me or to this Committee as to how to get
the private sector more involved in some of these long-term
efforts? Whoever wants to take it.
Mr. Kamen. Well, for one thing, as you have heard a number
of times, I think a lot of the problem is not to do anything;
it is to stop doing things that are counterproductive and get
rid of hurdles and barriers that might have made sense when we
were an industrial society. You needed rows of student lined up
and seeds here and then they take the summer off to, you know,
bring in the crops, which I am sure a lot of them are doing
today.
But the idea that, for instance, a scientist, a Ph.D. in
mechanical engineering, can't go into a school because they are
not qualified to teach, that is fine. We don't want to create
an issue there, but, for instance, let the students get credits
for being on FIRST programs. Let them get college credits. We
know the colleges are desperate for our graduates and our
alumni. Find ways to take down the barriers that we have
historically had between industry and schools, make it easier
for the teachers to get credits for being involved with
industry and learning how to bring coding into the school.
I mean there is so much structure which, again, makes--you
know, inertia is a difficult thing to overcome, but knocking
down barriers and creating the right incentives and--I will
keep saying it--just showing up and cheering for kids that are
doing something, it--you can't underestimate--you said you
weren't actively discouraged but you look at how many other
things were stealing your attention, the co-mission as opposed
to the omission. I think you were actively discouraged because
of so much else in our culture that was sending you to
different places for different reasons. You were lucky, but
there are a lot of kids in this country that are going to get
past an age where they can develop the skill sets for these
great jobs because they were distracted by a whole lot of
nonsense. And government can help get rid of some of that
nonsense.
Dr. Jona. Yes. I would just add, you know, there is a broad
range of incentives that the private sector has to invest in
R&D and build plants and bring in jobs. It might be worth
considering some incentives to foster that long-term thinking
that you are talking about, whether it be tax credits or other
kinds of incentives. It could be anything from as simple as
providing summer teacher internships at businesses so that they
can keep current with engineering and scientific practices or
coding practices. You know, a lot of the small startup
companies are way too small to afford to host these internships
like larger companies do except that is where all the
excitement and activity is these days.
So I think there are some creative opportunities to
incentivize business participation, you know, over the long
haul. As you said, it is a self--partially self-interested
workforce development issue, but it could benefit our STEM
education.
Mr. Kennedy. Thank you.
Mr. Partovi. If I may answer, you know, I agree with you
that many of the efforts you may see from large companies are
either trying to just hire the next engineer or trying to, you
know, hire high school immigrants or do a laptop giveaway to
take a photo opportunity, but we have actually built a very
strong coalition of some of the top tech companies thinking
long-term, and they are investing in elementary school
education, which isn't going to pay them back dividends. It is
paying the country dividends.
And just to give you a sense, we may be one of the only
nonprofits that can claim Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon,
Facebook, LinkedIn, SalesFirst, Juniper, all collectively
participating not in small levels but Google put--changed their
logo for the Hour of Code. Apple put it into every single store
in the United States. Microsoft and Bill Gates and Mark
Zuckerberg delivered video lectures for us. Amazon hosted our
infrastructure. These are all very long-term investments in
changing the system, and these companies actually want to form
a public-private partnership to bring computer science to all
of America's schools.
Mr. Kennedy. Thank you and I yield back my negative time.
Chairman Bucshon. You didn't have any time left.
Well, I would like to thank all the witnesses. And also we
didn't talk about it much today but I do think the retention
issue of students that do initially go into STEM is a big deal,
and there is some--I am a big Gladwell fan and his most recent
book ``David and Goliath,'' he talks about the fact that the
mismatch between the student and the school, which school that
they choose, is important in that area. If the student chooses
a school that doesn't match them either challenge-wise or
otherwise, they have a tendency to drop out and feel like they
are not--they can't compete. And so school mismatch is a big
problem.
But I would like to thank all the witnesses. The Members of
the Committee will have--may have additional questions for you
and we will ask you to respond to those in writing. The
witnesses are excused from this part of our hearing. We are
going to take a very short break. If everyone that can stay
seated, please do, because we are going to try to transition as
quickly as possible to the next hearing.
Thank you very much.
[Recess.]
Chairman Bucshon. All right. We are glad to begin our
second panel. If everyone could be seated, we will proceed.
This is going to be a fascinating part of the hearing
because we are actually going to hear from those for whom STEM
education is most important, and that is the actual students.
Thank you for being here. I know it may not have been easy
to get permission from your parents and teachers to come, but I
think when you told them you were going to testify in front of
Congress, maybe they gave you a little latitude, and obviously
you are here.
We know that not every program gets every student excited,
but we are interested in learning from your experiences and
perspectives whether it is through FIRST, Code.org, VEX
Robotics, Project Lead the Way, the Science Bowl, or something
else.
Our first witness for our second panel is Ms. Ellana Crew.
Ms. Crew is in the 12th grade at South River High School in
Edgewater, Maryland. Our second witness is Mr. Brian Morris.
Mr. Morris is in 12th grade at Chantilly Academy in Chantilly,
Virginia. Our third witness is Mr. Daniel Nette. Mr. Nette is
in the 11th grade at George Mason High School in Falls Church,
Virginia. And our final witness is Mr. Vishnu Rachakonda. Mr.
Rachakonda is in the 12th grade at Eleanor Roosevelt High
School in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Our witnesses should know that spoken testimony is limited
to five minutes after which the Members of the Committee will
have five minutes each to ask you questions. Your testimony
will be included in the record of the hearing.
I now recognize our first witness, Ms. Crew, for her
testimony. Welcome.
TESTIMONY OF MS. ELLANA CREW,
12TH GRADE, SOUTH RIVER HIGH SCHOOL,
EDGEWATER, MARYLAND
Ms. Crew. Thank you, Chairman Smith, Chairman Bucshon,
Ranking Member Lipinski, and Members of the Committee. I am a
little different than most of the other kids here for two
reasons, one being I am legally blind, not fully blind but not
fully sighted, caught in the middle, also because I am actually
not going into a STEM career, but it still definitely has
changed a lot and encouraged lots of things for me just being a
part of FIRST. I have never been able to play sports. I
couldn't see well enough to do it and I was always, you know,
your immediate target for dodgeball in all my classes. They
went out of their way to try and I was always the first one
out. So sports were never a thing, games were hard. Lots of
other activities were always difficult.
And I first heard about FIRST through a friend of mine who
was on the team and her sister was as well. They had been doing
it for a while. And the way she talked about it, it seemed like
such a great atmosphere and it seemed like a really good
opportunity, so I applied for the next year and got into it on
the business side.
And once I was in, after a while, I just got adjusted and
you meet all kinds of people. You see all kinds of things and
progress. It is very interesting to see. And, I mean, robots
are cool. But there is a place for everybody really. I didn't
have to worry about being judged for anything. I didn't have to
worry about whether or not I could do it. I could not work on
the robot directly or anything, so I couldn't be on build
because I couldn't quite see well enough to do that, but there
is--you can certainly been involved. And when you watch it
happen, it is really, really very cool.
That is all I have to say.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Crew follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Bucshon. Thank you very much. It is a fascinating
perspective that you don't have to be interested in a STEM
field to benefit from a STEM education and what it can offer
students in all areas of whatever their interests are.
I now recognize our next witness, Mr. Morris.
TESTIMONY OF MR. BRIAN MORRIS,
12TH GRADE, CHANTILLY ACADEMY,
CHANTILLY, VIRGINIA
Mr. Morris. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Members
of the Committee.
I am a veteran FIRST member with my involvement spanning
seven years and several programs offered by FIRST such as FLL
and FRC. FIRST has been an integral part of my development as a
person, as a student, and as an aspiring engineer, and it has
challenged and trained me in ways normal classroom schooling
never has. And because of FIRST, I feel more prepared to face
the challenges and obstacles of the real world than I ever
imagined I would.
My involvement with FIRST dates back to the 7th grade when
five of my friends and I decided to give robotics a try through
FIRST Lego League. While I originally thought of FIRST programs
only as games to play for entertainment, I soon realized they
were so much more. FIRST isn't just about the competition. It
is also about the life and learning experiences of being on a
team, working with technology, solving problems, and inspiring
others to do the same. This is really what got me hooked on
FIRST: competing, learning, and having fun all at the same
time.
I couldn't say what my favorite part of FIRST is. There is
really so much I have enjoyed. I have had the chance to work on
long-term projects, seeing them go from the drawing board to
physical, finished products, which is my favorite part of
engineering. I have learned invaluable technical skills, as
well as how to manage and lead large groups. The FIRST
community puts the program above any individual goal or
interest, and it is overwhelmingly helpful and supportive
thanks to the principle of gracious professionalism. The
outpouring of passion and enthusiasm at FIRST events is truly
refreshing, and watching the enthusiasm of so many young people
for science and technology gives me hope for the future.
FIRST has helped me discover my passion for engineering,
and because of FIRST, I can definitively say that I want to
pursue electrical engineering and computer science as a career.
I have applied to several top engineering schools in Virginia
and the Nation, and I hope my experience with FIRST will give
me an edge up in admissions. But no matter what university I
end up at, I am sure the skills I learned with FIRST will serve
me well in my studies and beyond.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Morris follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Bucshon. Thank you very much. And I am sure they
will.
I now recognize Mr. Nette for his testimony.
TESTIMONY OF MR. DANIEL NETTE,
11TH GRADE, GEORGE MASON HIGH SCHOOL,
FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA
Mr. Nette. Thank you, Members of the Committee.
I first learned about FIRST from my older brother, who was
a founding member of Team 1418 at my school in 2004, making
this our 10th year. He--I--he currently serves as the
tournament director for a FIRST Lego League tournament held at
our local middle school.
Unlike many of my science and mathematics classes, FIRST
provides the opportunity to apply hands-on solutions to real
challenges. As we compete--complete the challenge, we also
learn valuable skills like team building, communication,
leadership, and especially the four elements of STEM. Through
the program, I have refined my ability to seek my own solutions
to problems and develop my own desire to learn. Working with
robots has helped me learn about idea development, material
properties, pneumatics, metalworking, and motors by applying
concepts that I learned in the classroom to a real life
problem. FIRST gives us a challenge each year and then we go
through the process of brainstorming, designing, prototyping,
building, and of course rebuilding multiple times until a
working solution is achieved. In addition to the processes, the
pressure of a six week time constraint to complete the task at
hand, I know I will encounter these deadlines and utilize these
problem-solving skills in my future career.
Many students involved in the program experience for the
first time the importance of interaction and communication with
adults such as mentors and judges. While that was not a problem
as so much for me because of my experiences in becoming an
Eagle Scout, I discovered the power to spread the ideas of
FIRST at a dinner conversation last year with a family friend
who became very interested in the program. She invested in a
Lego robotics kit and took it on a mission trip to a school in
Rwanda so that the students there could begin to learn about
robotics. She then went on to serve as a judge at a recent FLL
tournament and hopes to become a mentor in the near future.
As a student, I have always had an interest in mathematics
and science but it wasn't until the last few years, through my
experience with FIRST, I realized that I would like to pursue a
career in STEM. I plan to apply to Virginia Tech and hope if
accepted to be able to work with robots to solve real-life
challenges.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Nette follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Bucshon. Excellent. Thank you very much.
I now recognize our final witness, Mr. Rachakonda.
TESTIMONY OF MR. VISHNU RACHAKONDA,
12TH GRADE, ELEANOR ROOSEVELT HIGH SCHOOL,
GREENBELT, MARYLAND
Mr. Rachakonda. Thank you, Chairman Bucshon, Ranking Member
Lipinski, and other Members for being here and listening to my
testimony.
My name is Vishnu Rachakonda. I attend Eleanor Roosevelt
High School. I am in the 12th grade. Actually, we have a
significant number of students from Ms. Edwards' district
herself. My experience with FIRST is that I started with FLL in
the 7th grade just like Brian, and I spent four years in FRC
now. And I just have to say my fellow students touched a lot--
very well on the educational aspects and values of FIRST, and I
would just like to talk a little bit about my personal story.
I think with FRC, especially FIRST in general, I described
it in three ways: spirited, challenging, and fun. I am a
basketball fan, I am a football fan, I am a tennis fan, so I
love, you know, hearing everyone talk about basketball here and
seeing Chris Bosh on the screen. But for me FRC has been so
spirited, so different from every other educational activity I
have been to. There is a subculture behind it. There is, Dean
Kamen--Mr. Kamen, he is my James Naismith. Woodie Flowers, the
guy who comes up with the challenges behind it, all the mentors
who do it, they are my Lebron, they are my Kobe. They are the
people who are my role models with respect to engineering, and
I think that is very unique to FIRST and in general to these
kind of STEM activities.
I think that FIRST--the challenges that are before me have
pushed me to engage these fields--these STEM fields differently
and more thoroughly than anything I have ever done in class. I
took AP Physics B, I took AP Physics C, I have done all these
AP classes, and I have gotten the grades, but being in FIRST, I
can't say I am the best engineer in my club because I am not. I
have gotten higher grades than the best engineer but Kyle beats
me at being an engineer. So I think that in challenging me, it
has been very unique and more different, and I think that is
very valuable.
And finally, it has been fun. I think we have all alluded
to how being fun, I think, is critical in engaging students in
STEM and whatever--in STEM and these fields. And FRC has
certainly done that and FIRST programs have certainly done
that. I think importantly the fact that we get to interact with
these professional mentors has made a huge difference in my own
life. You know, I work with Mr. Healy, who is here, you know,
with me today, and I think that these people have become role
models, you know, in pursuing an engineering career and then
also giving back to the community. I think that FRC has made a
personal change in me on that level.
I would just like to tell a short story about how I have
come to appreciate FIRST more. Recently, I went to Japan on a
trip to present some original research, which I hope to come
back to, but original research. And at that conference for high
school students it was--you know, there is something called
World Premier Research Institutes in Japan. They are modeled
off American universities and how we have phenomenal research
institutions. They are doing the same thing in Japan to try and
replicate what we do. And when I was there, they were asking me
what do you guys do in school? What do you guys--you know, what
is it that you do that allows you to do such good research?
Because we are presenting unique research that Japanese high
school students there were not capable of doing, not for lack
of intelligence but for lack of facilities, for lack of
support. And when I told them about FIRST, about what we did,
about how we manage a $25,000 budget, how students build these
120-pound robots, they were absolutely flabbergasted. I mean
these were top scientists but they were saying kids can do
that? Are kids smart enough to do that? What? But the point was
that it allowed me to appreciate FIRST and the programs that
these--you know, these unique private sector STEM programs are
engaging in. You know, Code.org, all of our students on our FRC
team, they learn coding through Code Academy, through Code.org,
all these websites, and it is really opening up new avenues for
us.
So, you know, I guess hopefully three things that I guess
maybe this discussion would include would be teacher support,
which I think Mr. Kamen was talking about extensively. I think
it is very difficult at my school to get people--to get
teachers to support programs. I had to--Science Bowl, you
mentioned that. I need to find a new sponsor for my Science
Bowl team this year because my old teacher said she couldn't do
it this year, and it was hard I mean because teachers just said
I have so much work. I have so much work in terms of testing or
whatever it is that they weren't able to be, you know, sponsors
or whatever. So hopefully, you know, some way teachers can be,
you know, more focused on--or allowed to sponsor these kind of
private sector STEM programs like FIRST because it all starts
with the school, and if you don't have that school support, no
team can survive.
You know, internships and stuff like that, I think real
world experience, practical STEM experience like FRC, like
internships are critical, and I think that, you know, up here,
Dr. Jona was talking about GPA and stuff like that. I think it
comes back to college admissions. I think that is an important
aspect to this STEM engagement for students. And, yeah, I
just--on a personal note, I plan to, because of FIRST, major in
biomedical or electrical engineering when I get to college. I
don't know where yet but hopefully I will learn by the end of
March. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rachakonda follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Bucshon. Thank you for--all of you for your
testimony. I am not sure at your age that I could have
testified that well in front of Congress. Truly--and I still
can't. Thank you, Mr. Massie, for pointing that out.
Fascinating to hear from the students, and I want to remind
the Committee Members the rules limit questioning to five
minutes.
And at this point I will recognize myself for five minutes
to ask some questions.
Ms. Crew, in your testimony you noted that your--the focus
on the business side of FIRST. Can you tell me about what the
business side entails as part of an FRC team?
Ms. Crew. The business side kind of--they do a lot of work.
There is all kinds of sub teams. We do--we manage all of the--
like the awards that we enter, Chairman and--everything. The
graphics especially is a huge part of the business side. I am
on community service personally, which we--you know, we reach
out. We donate; we do whatever we can to help. But there are
multiple sub teams and they all have a really big part in it. I
don't know where we would be without graphics. I don't know. We
probably wouldn't have won anything without the awards team. It
is a very large, intricate, complicated thing. I don't know if
all teams are run like that, but at least mine is. It is a very
good system.
Chairman Bucshon. And, Mr. Morris, do you want to have a
comment about that?
Mr. Morris. Yes. I would just like to elaborate on the less
technical aspect of the team. A lot of these teams, mine in
particular, are run like a corporation. There is a leadership
structure and there is a product that the team produces that is
a robot, but there is also all the support that goes into
running an organization. So you have funding people. All of
these teams are self-funded. They don't get funding through the
school, so we have people who have to go out. They have to seek
corporate sponsorship. They have to find mentors if there is no
infrastructure in place to help get the mentors. And all of
this is done by students. So even non-STEM people--I--as the
executive of my team, I have not just engineers, I have
marketers, I have business people, I have graphics design and
website people. And these are all people that you need to run a
FIRST team, so it is not just about the engineers even though
that is obviously the focus, but we say this to people when we
are recruiting for the team. There is a place for anyone no
matter what your skill set. If it is public speaking or writing
or anything, there is a place for you. And that is kind of
the--what the business side is about.
Chairman Bucshon. That is fascinating.
And I will start with Mr. Rachakonda on this next one. Have
the activities you participated in during the robotics club,
the FIRST competitions, changed your approach to your other
schoolwork? And as a follow-up, have the activities changed how
you think about problems or challenges outside of school?
Mr. Rachakonda. Yes. I definitely think that, you know,
that these challenges have really--Mr. Kamen talked about how
synthesis--analysis and synthesis. I think that I have taken
stuff from FRC where I have learned about certain robot parts
or have learned about certain technologies and--or, you know,
coding or whatever it is and I am able to understand that and
cross-apply it to whatever I am doing in school. So, you know,
we have technology classes in school. I am cross-applying what
I learned in FIRST, what I learned in FRC to what I am learning
in technology.
And, you know, the--being in FIRST has allowed me to be in
multiple internships, research-focused internships. From those
research-focused internships I am now cross-applying that to in
class, you know, we have to produce a research paper by the end
of the year as part of the program that I am in. You know, you
are in an internship and then from there you produce a
scientific paper. And so some of the skills that I have learned
from FRC in terms of time management, whatever it is, technical
skills, I am able to apply that in that respect. So, yes, there
definitely is a mixing between those two.
Chairman Bucshon. Mr. Nette?
Mr. Nette. From what I have experienced with FIRST, I have
been mostly kind of a nuts-and-bolts guy if you will doing most
of the physical work on the robot, and that was what inspired
me to get into the computer science classes that we have at our
school was because I wanted to learn more about how you make
those things do what they are designed to do. And so definitely
what FIRST has planted the seed for me to learn more about what
it is all about, how you make things work. So it got me started
and now I am seeking my own route outside of FIRST through my
classes to learn more about the rest of things, and hopefully,
I can come back to FIRST with my new knowledge and help
possibly with the programming. Thank you.
Chairman Bucshon. Excellent.
Mr. Morris, how has--the things that you were learning in
FIRST, has that changed your perspective on your other
schoolwork or your activities outside of school?
Mr. Morris. It hasn't so much changed the perspective I
would say but it did--what I have learned in FIRST I have
definitely been able to apply outside of school as with what my
fellow witnesses were saying. FIRST takes up a lot of your time
and you have to learn how to manage that time. You have to
learn how to prioritize, and as well from being the leader of
the team, I have learned how to lead people. These FIRST teams,
they are volunteers. You can't fire them if they are not doing
their job. So how do you motivate these people and engage them?
And that is something that is not just--I can't just apply to
FIRST but I can apply to science fair or any other group
project where students--how do I get these people motivated?
That is a big part of it.
Chairman Bucshon. Ms. Crew, do you have comments on that
subject?
Ms. Crew. It definitely does affect your time management I
think most of all since you are there--once the season starts,
you are usually there pretty much almost every day of the week.
So you have to figure out when you do your homework and all the
other things. That is about all I have to take from it though
since I am not quite involved with the computer science aspect
of it so----
Chairman Bucshon. Okay. Thank you, everyone.
I now recognize the Ranking Member, Mr. Lipinski, for his
questions.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to say
that all of you, your testimony has been extremely impressive.
I sit here and I think that when--well, now that Mr. Massie is
gone, I can say this. You have probably put all of us--we all
sitting up here probably look and say if only I were that good
when I was that age. I can certainly say that for myself. But
obviously, you all have great opportunities ahead of you for
whatever you want to do. And I am sure if there are any parents
out there, teachers out there, you have to be extremely proud
of your child here. And I am sure Mr. Kamen sitting there is--
has to be extremely proud.
I taught college before I was elected to Congress, but it
is just very impressive what you have been able to do, and I
just encourage you to keep it up. Obviously, you have put in a
lot of hard work.
Mr. Morris, you talked about the hours. How many hours do
you spend--did you spend on FIRST?
Mr. Morris. FIRST--the FIRST season is structured a lot
like a sports season, so, first of all, we have our off-season
and so that is we are preparing for our season. It is--that
is--it is hard to kind of estimate how much but I would say at
least three hours a week at least, and sometimes there will be
big spates of work where we would be off at an outreach event,
we will be volunteering for, you know, eight to ten hours a
day.
And then we get to the build season, which is when we
construct our bot, and that is--at least on my team that is
four to six hours every day after school as well as eight hours
on Saturday, and that increases over the duration of the build,
over the duration of the six weeks. And after the build, a few
months later we go kind of back into preparation mode, and then
we have got our competition and competitions are three days of
very intense 24/7 work basically but also they are a lot of
fun. So that is just kind of the summary of the hours. I don't
know if some of these other teams work differently, but that is
how my team works.
Mr. Lipinski. Anyone else want to comment on--Mr.
Rachakonda?
Mr. Rachakonda. Yes. On average I would say I probably
spend 10 hours a week on FIRST-related activities, on robotics
club-related activities. And the work never stops. You know,
they say, you know, like football never stops or whatever. You
are still working on an off-season. You are still working on an
off-season for FIRST. We have a team calendar the entire year.
Every month we have to have something done. You know, June
through August we have to manage--that is when we really try
and set up our plan for the next year. That is when we want to
get our corporate sponsorships, and that is ideally when we
want to get everything rolling in because January through March
we have to build our robot. And, trust me, nothing else is
happening until the robot is done. So, you know, November
through December we have to train our new members, we have to
teach them programming, teach them how to use the skills.
Safety training has to be done because we are working with
power tools.
So, yes, there are a lot of different aspects to it which I
think is one of the most unique things about FRC. It is not
just about the robot but you really are running--you know, I
like to call it the world's toughest corporation because all
your talent is gone in four years, everyone is volunteer, and
the people who are leading it are all volunteer. And so it is
very unique and that is what I think is very important about
it. I guess my other students can also talk about that.
Mr. Lipinski. Anyone else want to--Mr. Nette?
Mr. Nette. I would violently agree with everything that has
been said here. It certainly takes----
Mr. Lipinski. Didn't you learn not to use that word here?
Mr. Nette. It certainly takes a substantial amount of time,
but yes, in the off-season you definitely have lots more time
to go into the outreach aspect of FIRST, which is just as much
a part of it as the build season is. It is about helping other
people, gracious professionalism. Even during the build season
we will help with other teams. We take a few under our wing and
sometimes help them get started. So, yes, it is definitely a
great experience and it doesn't end at the end of build season,
but it definitely picks back up.
Mr. Lipinski. Is there anything that--what can be done? Is
there anything we could do, anything you could do what--in
terms of encouraging more students to get involved? And I want
to start with Ms. Crew because you obviously--you are coming at
this--we are talking about all this technical, you know, stuff
about the robotics and you are involved in a different part of
FIRST. So is there anything that can be done to encourage more
people--more kids to get involved?
Ms. Crew. I think it definitely needs to be in more schools
and it needs to be more--there needs to be more awareness about
it. There is not nearly enough, you know, information on it.
You know, at school they will always do announcements about
what your sports teams did and reminding you to come out to the
game and all that, and robotics is kind of--it is like an
accidental secret. Nobody really has heard of it unless you
have--you know somebody in it most of the time or we do
something really incredible and it is on the announcements. So
I think it definitely needs to be more--the word needs to be
spread.
Mr. Morris. Yes, I don't think that is really the fault of
the teams. I think you have heard people mention outreach a
lot. Spreading the message of FIRST is something that Dean is
big on and the entire organization is big on, but like just
trying to get access to the gym to use our robot to get like--
not to demean the sports teams at all, but to have the same
kind of formality with the school is certainly something that
would help you because we certainly think that this is just as
important.
Mr. Lipinski. Mr. Rachakonda?
Mr. Rachakonda. I am sorry, just briefly. I think
unknowingly or like whatever, it used to be that STEM and these
kind of things were niche activities. They were just something
that, you know, maybe in the '70s people would build train
tracks, but that is not what it is anymore, you know, sample,
model train tracks. But now it has become an athletic activity
at least in the model of FRC. We have 50 students on our team.
That is not your usual club. We run a budget of $25,000. That
is not your usual club.
And so that is where I think that if there was more
awareness in terms of how to deal with these kind of STEM
activities and recognizing this is not just another academic
activity, this is not just Quiz Bowl, which I am also a
participant in and it is great, but it is not just Quiz Bowl.
It is something different and we need to recognize that and how
we treat it. And, you know, Mr. Partovi was talking about how
we treat computer science and everything, but in terms of
activities, too, when you do realize that, that it is quite
different.
Mr. Lipinski. All right. Thank you very much.
Chairman Bucshon. I now recognize Mr. Hultgren for five
minutes.
Mr. Hultgren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you all for being here. And I just want to commend
you for really going above and beyond. That--to me, that is
really kind of the story of your work is this is above and
beyond, an incredible commitment but also an incredible
opportunity. And I really sense that, that you recognize what a
great opportunity you have been given.
A couple questions I have, one is I wonder if you could
just talk briefly about how your parents first responded when
you mentioned that you were interested in doing this and when
you started talking about I guess some of the responsibilities,
maybe driving or whatever that would be involved for them. How
did they respond? We can just kind of go down the line or
whoever wants to speak up.
Mr. Rachakonda. Well, my mike is already on, but, yes, I
think--well, for me at least, even from getting started in
engineering and getting started in STEM, my entire family is,
you know, in a STEM field. My dad is an engineer, my
grandfather was an engineer. All of them went to West Virginia
University actually, interesting, but I think that my parents
were definitely very supportive of how I have approached this.
And my dad, you know, he also--he is involved in a tech company
or whatever and he has given me advice on how to approach
running--because I am the president of my club, how to approach
running, you know, whatever I do in FRC, whatever I do in
FIRST. And so my parents have definitely been very supportive
of it and I think that is what makes the difference for
successful FIRST teams, successful FRC teams. You always see
parent engagement, and I think that is something that is very
important for, you know, the success of STEM programs
especially because they can be very expensive and they can be
very time-consuming.
Mr. Nette. Of course my parents were very excited that I
was ready to join the robotics team. At the time, our high
school started in the eighth grade, which it does no longer.
But--so I started on our FRC team in the eighth grade. That was
the year where the game was Logo Motion, and at the end of the
game there was a challenge to have a mini robot that would
climb a pole at the end of the match as fast as it could, and
so we kind of--the rest of the team graciously let us--let the
eighth and ninth graders, who were trying to get into the swing
of things, handle the mini bot challenge, and so that was kind
of our own undertaking and we worked through that problem on
our own.
So, yes, I just kind of jumped right into it and hopefully
in the near future we are trying to start a FTC team in our
school district so that the student at the middle school don't
necessarily have to wait until high school because there is
that gap between FLL and FRC.
Mr. Morris. All right. There is a philosophy among FIRST--
some FIRST teams that adults are only there to sign the checks,
but in my experience you can't run an organization like this
without parents. They not only have to be supportive--my
parents are very supportive--but they also have to be involved
and they have to--I think the biggest part of that is having
them understand the advantages FIRST has for these kids because
when these kids are spending four hours a day, six hours a day,
eight hours on weekends working at the school and their parents
are just like, what? What are you guys doing? What are you
getting out of this? So the teams can--we can talk at the
parents about, you know, what are the advantages of this? Why
do you want your kids doing this? But I think it gives more
credence to the--it gives more kind of weight to the argument
when other adults are telling the other adults this is why this
is important, this is why you should be not only happy but
supportive of your kid for doing this because there are people
on the team whose parents don't want them to be in FIRST, and I
think that is really quite sad.
Ms. Crew. My family had some kind of mixed emotions for a
while. My mom was not happy about it taking up so much time
during the build season because you are there basically every
single day. We have Wednesdays off at my team but every other
day you are there and longer on weekends than the other days.
So she wasn't exactly happy about that and it is very time-
consuming and she didn't know how I was going to get there. My
dad, though, he was pretty interested in it. He thought it was
really cool so he kind of helped convince her of it. And he
actually got involved in it, too, as a mentor. He is now the
documentation mentor at our team, so he just drives my sister
and I--my sister is now on the team, too--to it every day and
it generally kind of works.
Mr. Hultgren. That is great. If I could, any parents who
are here, if you don't mind just raising your hand, any
parents?
Thank you. I know it is a huge commitment and I just want
to commend you for your involvement and engagement.
I would love to get into more talking about mentors as
well. Certainly, parents are part of that but also some of the
other mentors that you have mentioned, certainly some who are
in the room, some who have joined with you today. But I saw
that so clearly with my team Got Robot? back in my area that
relationships and the commitment of mentors, giving so much of
their time and not getting paid, if they are paid, really not
much at all, but seeing this vision of pouring into you the
opportunity that they wish they would have had when they were
your age, and that is really, really cool.
So I would ask are they any mentors in the room as well?
So thank you all so much for your commitment as well of
being mentors. That is amazing.
One of my fears is that we see with challenges we are
facing in Congress some of the cuts that are coming are to the
Department of Energy, to STEM education mentorship programs,
and we have got to do everything we can to fight against that.
That is exactly what we need more of is more mentorship. And
when--especially when we see teachers being so stretched or
maybe not even having the passion or the desire to put in this
time commitment, yet a mentor is willing to do that, some
teachers certainly willing to be mentors as well, but this is
something I want to continue to focus on and make sure that the
funding is there for that and we do everything we can to
encourage this.
So thank you. I just am inspired by the work that you are
doing. Thank you, parents. Thank you, mentors. And anything you
all can be doing and that we can be doing as Members of
Congress just to be spreading the word of how important this is
and how much this makes sense.
I will wrap up if I can, Mr. Chairman, just by talking
about Mr. Rachakonda--is that right--talked about going to
Japan. It sounds like an incredible experience--but how they
are modeling what we have done, my fear is that we are going to
lose that cutting-edge that we are really the place that is--
the rest of the world looks to as the innovative nation. And
there are so many other nations that are ready to do that, and
I think STEM education and programs like FIRST are absolutely
key for us of what type of nation are we going to be in the
next 5, 10, 20 years. I want to make sure that we are
continuing on that forefront, that we are the nation that every
other nation is looking to to see how does America do it and
then let's follow what they are doing rather than falling
behind, and that is my fear.
Thanks, Mr. Chairman, for your indulgence.
Chairman Bucshon. Thank you. Without objection, the Chair
now recognizes Ms. Edwards for five minutes.
Ms. Edwards. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to the Ranking
Member. And again, I really do appreciate your enabling me to
sit in today.
I am here today principally because two of the students are
from the counties that I represent, and I feel very proud of
the work that we are trying to do in our school systems to
enable this kind of learning. But I am curious from each of you
what aspects of your academic curricula during the school day
contribute and how does it contribute to what you are doing in
your club activities?
Mr. Rachakonda. Well, I think that definitely--that, you
know--I mean it is a STEM activity at heart, right, and I think
that definitely my physics curriculum, everything I do in
chemistry, all these different things are definitely--have
helped me in understanding what goes on. I think that, you
know, some of the advanced classes that I have taken have
helped me understand what goes on at the heart of these
robotics very clearly, and I feel that, you know, they were
talking about the curriculum earlier, and I am not well versed
enough to say anything to pass judgment on those curriculum,
but I feel that I have learned a lot in school that has been
useful in FIRST, and I felt the same way vice versa. So, you
know, the subject matter is the subject matter and maybe in
different schools it is being taught differently, taught worse,
taught better, whatever it is, but I think that at heart for me
that the academic subjects are very applicable in FIRST and all
these STEM activities.
Ms. Edwards. Thank you.
Ellana, I wonder if you could share with us--because you
are in a different part of the aspect of the program--the parts
of your academic work that facilitates what you are doing with
FIRST or not?
Ms. Crew. Mine doesn't actually have a whole lot of
contribution. I am in just standard classes. I was never in
STEM. I was hardly ever allowed to really be in honors because
like the special ed department was worried that I wouldn't be
able to handle the workload and before like tenth grade they
were kind of right. I didn't have the greatest work ethic. But
I do sometimes need a lot of people work, so I guess the way
they have you work together does kind of help.
Ms. Edwards. Thank you. Either of you--of our other two
panelists?
Mr. Morris. A lot--the--I will have to--actually have to
say that a lot of like the physics and the calculus we learn in
school, you don't get a chance to like--what you are doing in
FIRST is--it is more hands-on, so sometimes you have trouble
like kind of rectifying the--reconciling the--what you have
learned in school, what you have learned in FIRST, but it is
like--I don't see any--there is--I don't think there is like a
better way of doing it than FIRST because FIRST--what you have
in school is you have your curriculum. What you have in FIRST
is you are hands-on, and those things aren't mutually exclusive
but FIRST teaches the hands-on I think better then, you know,
school ever possibly could.
Mr. Nette. The math and science classes of course prepare
us somewhat for what you are going to do on FIRST, but in math
when you take a test or something, they tell you what equation
you have to use to solve the problem, but when you are doing
this in the real world, you have to figure that part out
yourself also. You have to figure out what equation to use,
then which numbers to put where and all that. Being a junior I
haven't gone into some of the more advanced math and science
classes yet, but on another note, one of the things that our
team is trying to do this year is to engage some of the
students from aspects outside of STEM like the English students
and the history students, too, because there is of course
functions that they can do on our team. There are awards that
you have to write essays for and all accounting and all that,
so economics classes and everything play into it. So we are
trying to reach out beyond STEM and have some position for
everyone in all the classes on our team.
Ms. Edwards. Thank you. I want to just get to one thing.
Our earlier panel talked about this idea of failure, and it is
a thing that I have been kind of wrapped up in since I have
been in Congress because I think sometimes we don't put
resources into things because something fails and then you
experiment with it. Can you all share with us what you have
done that failed that you learned from and the value of that?
Mr. Morris. I will actually--I will start on this. The
first game--the competition--you are designed to fail. They
give you way too many requirements with way too little time,
and so you are going to mess up. I am sure every team here has
had, you know, robots that maybe didn't have--you know, didn't
perform as awesomely as they had hoped because--but it is
really--the core of the engineering challenge of FIRST is not
just building the robot, it is prioritizing to say, all right,
what aspects of this are we going to concentrate on and how are
we going to concentrate on that? And if you fail, then--I mean
you just--it is not like--this is FIRST. This isn't a--real
life and so you--this is a place where you can fail and learn
from your failures without the consequences being too heavy.
Chairman Bucshon. Thank you very much.
Thank you for all of our witnesses. Again, as Mr. Massie
pointed out, you have probably done a better job testifying in
front of Congress than maybe I would. I have four kids and I
have found this to be one of the most fascinating hearings I
have ever attended. I mean that sincerely. So I would like to
thank all the witnesses for your very valuable testimony.
And the Members of the Committee may have additional
questions for you and we will ask you to respond to those in
writing. The record will remain open for two weeks for
additional comments and written questions from the Members.
At this point, the witnesses are excused and the hearing is
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:55 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
Appendix I
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Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
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