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Joint Committee on Education: Hearing on House Bill 4375; An Act To Reform Education; Testimony of Chris Anderson
Testimony of Christopher R. Anderson, President
Massachusetts High Technology Council, Inc.
January 11, 2006
Thank you, Chairwoman Haddad and Chairman Antonioni for the opportunity this afternoon to speak on behalf of Governor Romney’s education reform package, House bill 4375. I appreciate the extent to which the Committee is reaching out to hear from stakeholders of education reform since it has been just over two months (November 3) since Analog Devices’ Ray Stata and I testified in Gardner Auditorium as part of the Education Listening Tour.
The Massachusetts High Technology Council was formed in 1977 by high tech CEOs whose mission was to help make Massachusetts the most competitive state in which to create, operate, and expand high tech businesses. That remains our mission today. Council members employ hundreds of thousands of skilled workers in all of Massachusetts’s key technology sectors, including computer hardware, life sciences, software, medical products, defense technology, semiconductor, and telecommunications. Our board includes the executive leadership of tech employers such as Analog Devices, Boston Scientific, Dynamics Research, EMC, and Genzyme.
Governor Romney deserves a great deal of credit for his education reform package which shows recognition of the key challenges facing the Massachusetts economy. Quite simply, we need to get more children interested in math and science and have them taught by the best math and science teachers in the world. And at its core, the Governor’s plan sets out to do that and reflects the national sense of urgency among technology CEOs on this issue.
Many of the Governor’s recommendations echo what the High Tech Council has been saying for decades. There needs to be a focus on ways to attract more skilled teachers to the classroom, and, once they are there, give them the training and tools to help them succeed and provide incentives for them to stay. The Governor’s proposal brings the system for recruiting and retaining the best math and science teachers into the 21st century; until now it’s been mired in the 19th century.
First and foremost, we need to attract, train and retrain the best teaching candidates for our science, technology, engineering and math – known as STEM – instruction. The Governor’s goal of adding 1000 new math and science teachers is ambitious, but it is a challenge that must be met. In fact, it is pacing a national movement led by Lamar Alexander and others to recruit 10,000 new math and science teachers every year.
To do this the Governor recognizes that the best math and science teachers will have competitive employment opportunities in the private sector and addresses both the issues of quality of life in the classroom and competitive pay. The Governor’s plan would provide enhanced math and science teacher training, and provide bonuses for STEM teachers and the highest performing teachers.
It also aims to create new learning opportunities for students by requiring all schools to offer Advanced Placement courses, creating new academy schools and restoring the dual enrollment program that gives high school students a taste of college. The Governor has also recognized that the system needs to adapt to meet the diverse needs of the state’s workforce through his plan to combine academic and occupational training to provide certain students with a real career path after high school. His laptop initiative is a creative effort to leverage local innovation to benefit students in and out of the classroom.
The Governor’s plan calls for nearly $200 million over two years in new state investment in education – most of those funds being directed to math and science initiatives. But he wisely accompanies this investment with enhanced state oversight, including the return of<
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