Transcripts For CSPAN3 Private Sector STEM Programs 20140930

Documentary on the topic, the three branches and you. Show varying points of view and must be submitted by january 20th, 2015. Go to studentcam. Org. Grab a camera and get started today. Next, a hearing on private sector efforts to improve science, technology, engineering and math edition, otherwise known as stem. Segway inventor and a panel of High School Students participating in a National Robotics competition program. This is a little under subcommittee on research and technology will come to order. Good morning. Welcome to todays hearing. Todays program is engaging student and stem, which you know is a very important subject. In front of you is truth and testimony disclosures for todays witnesses. And now i recognize myself for five minutes for an Opening Statement. Im happy to call to order the First Research and Technology Subcommittee hearing of the new year. Today we learn about initiatives and Science Technology or mathematics in stem, education and how these companies, businesses, and organizations engage students in the important fields. A report released by the National Science board in 2012 indicates that science and Engineering Work force historically grows faster than the total work force. Although science and engineering growth rate maintained a higher rate than the total work force the last decade has seen much lower growth. In one of the most essential aspects into keeping america the at forefront of Stem Education advancement and development is engaging students at a young age and keeping them interested in pursuing stem degrees and careers. As a cardio tho rasic surgeon and father of four children between ages of 9 and 20, i understand that such programs and activities are necessary to enhance americas 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 that 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 businesses 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 all for participation and offering their time and insight into the private sector success in Stem Education. At this point, i now recognize the Ranking Member, gentleman from illinois for an Opening Statement for five minutes. Thank you, chairman. 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 into congress is because the strong interest in working to improve math and Science Education in this country. Im only im 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 in actuary. From my own Family Experience and what i have seen and heard from others, im very aware of how important it is that we do a good job of engaging and educating student at all levels in stem fields. With the latest results we are reminded yet again the troubling statistics on the state of u. S. Math and Science Education. U. S. K1 student ranking in the middle of the pack in International Comparisons in math and science aptitude. We see the problems, im 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 degrees . Certain stem fields to meet the needs of domestic industry. For example, less than 2. 4 of College Student 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 earliest grades and are part after negative feedback cycle that we have to break. Student who arent learning the necessary skills by the time they graduate high school are much less likely to pursue and succeed in stem fields in college. When we lose an undergraduate student from stem field we lose a scientist or engineer who could choose a career in teaching the next generation. We know these to be complex problems with no easy or one size fits all solution. Thats why partnerships between the private sector, federal and state governments, colleges, universities, local school district, national labs, science museums, zoos an aquarium, aul and all types of nonprofits are nor important today than ever. U. S. Still has some of the best k12 schools, colleges, universities in the world. Top student at all levels compete easily with top student from around the world. Thats why im glad we have witnesses here today that can speak to today to types of stems and keep them engaged in stem fields. In particular Northwestern University office of Stem Education partnerships connects k12 teachers and students to world class stem resources of Northwestern University. In corporations in the state of illinois such as boeing, baxter, google, hewlettpackard, ibm and more. And im a proud graduate of northwestern in chemical engineering. Today private sector and University Stem engagement programs is the topic. I look forward to hearing from individuals who dedicated their careers to improving stem engagement in learning in their communities across district. Across the nation. I also look forward to hearing from student who have participated in the first robotics competition. We also want to say a few words about the rules in the partnership. The federal government spent 14 billion across 14 agencyes. It is important to put that number in perspective. Less than half of that is focused at k12 level. Federal investments and k12 education overall account for only 10 of total u. S. Funding for k12 education and stem funding is likely much less than 10 . So the federal role is limited but is also unique and necessary. The National Science foundation is a single most important source of Research Development and testing of Innovative New molds for some education. The federal government also has an unrivalled ability to Leverage Private sector in Stem Education. Entrepreneurs like mr. Kayman and mr. Partovi did not have to start from scratch. They are smart businessmen investing in, perfecting, and expanding evidencebased 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 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 program. Thank you, chairman, for calling this hearing. And witnesses for taking the time today to offer insights and experiences. And with that, i yield back. Thank you mr. Lopinski. I now recognize the chairman of the full committee, gentleman from texas, mr. 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 ive walked into. And the atmosphere was almost festive. People were excited because they are entering this subject. And i think were excited also about what were going to hear from our Witnesses Today and the case of both panels. But this a subject that fascinates us, i think, and we all realize 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, you must better educate American Students today. The federal government spends nearly 3 billion each year on signs, technology, engineering and math education activities. These programs are found primarily at National Science foundation and 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 that we can be sure we are not spending taxpayer dollars on dupe olympictive programs and we need to more effectively use taxpayers dollars to gain more benefit for our student and our country. It is critical to understand what is working and thousand build on that success. Leaders of the organizations and students are a pants here today are in a good place to give us good information. Pants here tod are in a good place to give us good information. A good stem work force will help our prosperity but we must persuade our youth to go into Science Technology for these careers. Great strides are made today. Like institutions of rose home 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, ranked 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 technologybased economy. You cant have innovation without advances in technology and the stem student of the day will lead touts 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,antant prem entrepren leaders. Thank you. I now recognize ms. Johnson for her Opening Statement. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for this hearing. I would like to ask all of the student that are present to stand. I want to congratulate you. Im truly impressed that by your leadership and your accomplishments, that 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 ipt National Tests of science and math proficiency. Add 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 the strong and vibrant economy with good highpaying jobs in our 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. Theres no silver bullet. And there is a role for all the key stake holders, public and private. Today we hear from two two entrepreneurs and two leaders in Stem Education. I congratulate them for their important work and thank them for taking time to provide their insight to this committee today. But i also want to emphasize the importance 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 k12 across the nation. There are also many valuable programs being funded through other federal size 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 im talking about. But the federal role is more than that. The National Science foundation is premier Stem Research organization in the country. For decades, nsf has been a leader in developing a most effective and inspiring stem crick u la and programs in and out of the classroom. When the private sector invests in stem, they have proven outcomes. The National Science administration 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 nsf and other age he is not is Stem Education programs. Today, though, i look forward to hearing from the experts on the first panel about their program. 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 26th to 1. When i came here over 20 years ago, we were number 18. We are going backwards. We are challenged. We got to meet that challenge. Thank you. Thank you. If there are members who wish to submit additional Opening Statements, your statements will be added to the record at there point. This time, im going to introduce our first panel of witnesses. Our first witness today is mr. Dean kayman. Mr. Kayman is an interventer, entrepreneur, founder of for inspiration of and recognize of science and technology otherwise known as first. Founder and president of decka research and development corporation. Our second witness is mr. Hoti patovi, he is an inventor, entrepreneur, on the founding teams of tell me, worked on facebook, drop box, and others as an investor and startup adviser. He cofounded education nonprofit code. Org. Mr. Partovi is a graduate of harvard. Our third witness is dr. Kimmie jonah. Dr. Jonah is a professor of learning sciences and Computer Science at Northwestern University. He is the founder and direct over northwesterns office of Stem Education partnerships. Dr. Jonah holds ph. D from northwestern and bs in Computer Science and psychology from university of wisconsin madison. Our fourth witness, from my district, is dr. Phil ip cornwell, Vice President for Academic Affairs and professor of Mechanical Engineering at rose holeman institute in terre haute. He received his bs in Mechanical Engineering and ma and mba from princeton. Spoken kem is limited to 5 min puts. There will be latitude given. And i now recognize mr. Kayman for five minutes to present his testimony. This is the super bowl. The super bowl of smarts, that is. A livechanging competition. Its kids having fun. Competing, working together, to dream up, design, and build robots. Just an exhilarating feeling. Youre like, im using power tools. Having the hardest fun theyll ever have. And theyre becoming our next generation of engineers and innovators. First for inspiration and recognition of science and technology. My teachers were some of the greatest influences on my life. By challenging and trusting me, these mentors got me to understand that i could do anything that i put my mind to. First mentors are changing kids lives everyday. Professional engineers. Teachers. Parents. Teaming up with young people, not just to build robots, but to build confidence and self respect. Im around p em that i get along with, that we talk computerlingo with. First founded by one of our greatest inventors, dean kayman. He sees that kids look up to sports heros and movie stars. We said we have a culture obsessed with sports and entertainment, lets inspire kids to be like Shaquille Oneal does thousands of hours a week bouncing a ball. Scientists and engineers ought to stand side by side as athletes and entertainers as role molds. Here at the white house we will lead by example. We will show young people how cool science can be. Go first 250,000 kids age 6 to 18 compete at all different levels. In two first lego leads, the first tech shop. At the high school level, the first robotics competition. The only difference between this sport and all of the others is every kid on our teams can turn pro. Theres a job out there for every one of these kids. Student who take part in first are 50 more likely go to college and twice as likely to major in science or engineering. I definitely know i want to go into engineering. Once they taste the power of knowledge, that it can be fun and rewarding, they wont go back. Theres no doubt first works. 10 or 15 or 20 years from today, some kid in those stands will have cured alzheimers or aids or cancer or build an engine that doesnt pollute. Look at these kids. Theyre the future. I feel like can i go and do anything i want to do because of this program. Someone took the time to guide and ip spiinspire me. It changed my life. Take some time. Go to u. S. First upon the org. Ns. It changed my life. Take some time. Go to u. S. First upon the orupo. You have do what the voice of god tells you. Firstly, thank you, chairman smith. Thank you, chairman bouchan. Thank you, Ranking Member lopinski and thank you Ranking Member johnson. Each one of you has made comments that make this seem like its 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 dont know much about washington, but it seems like everybody comes here asking for something. I can tell you, i as research, am not asking for anything for me or my company. As, as founder of first, am not asking you for anything for first. First has 3500 corporate sponsor now. First has 160 universities desperate to help get these kids into their system p. They gave us last year over 18 million in scholarships to give out at our championship. Asking you for them, but there are a few tens of millions of kids in this country that dont have access to first. Theyre not capable of leveraging what these 3500 corporate sponsors, that are donating 120,000 world class scientists and engineers, you cant buy these people. You couldnt afford them and you cant buy passion. They do it because they care. Because theyre serious adults. And professionals and parents. They know that you got to invigorate kids to do Something Like this. So im here to ask you how to figure out how to get first available in 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. Thank you very much. I now recognize mr. Partovi for his testimony. Thank you very much. I learn froed gram early when i was young. I studied Computer Science at harvard. This set up my career with an an early job at microsoft. Sorry. Sorry. I think you already heard me. I start mid early career as an early scientists. I studied Computer Science at harvard. This set up my career with a great job at microsoft. Ive cofounded multiple companies and was an early investor in some of our countrys most successful startups. Im living the American Dream and this is because of my foundation of Computer Science. Computer science fuels the American Dream. Im here not to testify on behalf of the organization, co. Por co. Org. But the 90 of our schools dont teach Computer Science. I will show you a short video to give you in their words why this is important. Software and computers, it used to be that that was kind after separate area of the world. But now software touches all these Different Things that you use. I think if you look in everything, theres more phones and tablets an laptops and web sites and everybodys on social media and i mean, it is just all these Different Things and everybody is just moving faster. So just being in a position to kind of understand that language thats going to be the future, i mean, i think it is a i think its a good thing to do. It is absolutely crucial know thousand code and to understand all technology and even if you dont choose to, you know, make a living and Fulltime Software developer, understanding how software works, which is something that affects everything around you from purchases to, you know, how you eat and just how everything works these days. It is really important to know how it works so that you are not sort of a victim of other peoples choices. It is important for these kids, right now, starting at 8 years old, to be a citizen on this planet. Whatever country youre from, to read and write code. If you wait until youre an adult, you probably will never do it. I always felt like if i didnt learn how to program, it would be like not learning how to read. The future would just be closed to me. When i think about what we with are teaching in schools, 5, 10, 15 years from now, i think that Computer Science or at least basic programming is going to be as important of a skill as being able to do basic reading and writing. And i think were going to look back and wonder why it took us so long to get to that point. So my organizations goal is to bring Computer Science to all of the schools of this country. People often confuse, what is Computer Science p. When i went to school, every teacher taught how to dissect a frog or how lelectricity works. I believe it is fally important know how to dissect an app. This is not just career in technologies or for even for kids who dont want to pursue a career in technology. Even if they want to be a doctor. The National Science Foundation Projects only 400,000 graduates going into the field. Thats a million jobs in the gap between jobs and student, there are 500 billion in salaryes. Whats more, these jobs are in every state and in every industry. This isnt about google or microsoft having trouble hiring skilled laborers. Only onethird of competing jobs are in technology. Rest are banking, manufacturing, government, retail, et cetera. If there is one thing i want you to remember today, it is the charts im showing here. The chart on the left shows you the amount of Time High School Student Spend in all of stem and the small sliver that is Computer Science p. If rs 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 of our schools do not even teach this field. Of the tiny sliver that do study Computer Science, only 15 are girls and less than 8 are hispanic americans and africanamericans. A huge problem for our country and our policies dont support it. In 35 of 50 states stem doesnt count for high school requirements. Of the money you mentioned being spent on stem, almost none of it goes to Computer Science because of the barriers, we want you to help remove from the system. People often ask, can student learn it . Can teachers teach it . Why arent we not focussing on basic math that we are failing at. We proved last month our student can learn it. An hour of code was kicked off by the House Majority leaders, the white house, google, microsoft, apple, and many others, 20 million student participated with 17 million in the United States, one 1 out of every 4 students learned an hour of code and half were girls. An amazing accomplishment to put this into context. Ap computers and science exam has 32,000 students participating. All of u. S. First clubs 350,000 students, the math s. A. T. , 1. 7 million, the hour of coded 17 million participants. And it goes to show that our kids can learn this. Im having an issue with my slides. Student want it, parent want it. And im not talking about code. Im talking about Computer Science. How do you answer the parent who asks why isnt this foundational field taught in my kids schools. How do you remove the barriers that get in the way right now. I have a short video to show, 30 secretary after girl who came back, one of the student in america who came back to her mom or dad after learning one hour of code. I got it on my ipad. What is it. Its a its hour of code lightning, i think. Have you done it before . Yes at school. Is it fun. Yes. And my school is doing it p. Yes, i love it. Is coding super fun . Yes. Are you coding . Mmhm. Tomorrow . You want to learn to code . All right, once it loads, im going to teach you. Every kid in america can learn Computer Science. 90 of our schools dont teach it. We can help fix this. Thank you very much. Thank you. I now recognize dr. Joan why for five minutes for his testimony. Five minutes for his testimony. Good morning members of the committee. I would like to thank Ranking Members and chairmen for inviting me to testify today. The mission of my office is to connect k12 teachers and student to the world class stem resources of Northwest University and beyond. Today we work with a growing network of over 200 chicago schools. 48,000 students. Aim proud to announce that next week slig Public Schools is launching co. Org Computer Science curriculum for all of its high schools. Today we focus on three models for stem initiatives. All three examples illustrate the importance of building in both scaleability and sustainability. On all three leveraged private Sector Support to expand and us is pain federal investments. We are fortunate to work with many Industry Partners including boeing, hewlettpackard, ibm, motorola and seamans. I would like to share our work today with baxter international, a Global Health care Company Located outside of chicago. Their generous support created a Biotechnology Center of excellence at lindh bloom math and science academy, which is grade 712 Public School on the southwest side of chicago that servees a predominantly minority population. This gives teachers Lab Equipment and other resources focused on the important field of biotechnology. Not just these teachers but teachers across the district. We have trained 168 teachers from 115 different schools, reaching over 020,000 student. This center of excellence model is building self sustaining capacity in the chicago Public Schools to improve teaching of biotechnology across the entire district. One of the curriculum offerings to teachers is an innovative set of biology labs we developed with my colleague dr. Teresa woodruff in medical stool. This is nih funded research in fertility. Center of excellence model demonstrates the power of partnerships between the private sector, universities and Public Schools. The federal nih dollars invested tps to pay dividends and hundreds of teachers and thousands of student each year have the support from baxter. I would like to share a second one with you, illinois pathways. A state of illinois Stem Education initiative that has created new publicprivate partnerships known as Stem Learning exchanges. Each of the nine exchanges coordinate investments, resources an planning in stem Industry Sectors like information technology, manufacturing, energy, and research and development. This effort launch with 2. 3 million with federal race to the top money, then leveraged to 8. 5 million in public and private matching funds. Illinois business roundtable, an Organization Made up of ceos and other Industry Leaders are a Key Initiative in our state. Northwestern is a proud member of the research and Development Learning ex change. One of our signature projects mentor matching. This online resource pairs student with mentors to conduct independent research in stem fields. You can think of it like match. Com for student researchers. By connecting student and teachers online, this helps level the Playing Field by accessing meanters to student all across the state, especially in rural and urban areas. Stem exchanges from been serving as statewide distribution plat forms 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 Mcarthur Foundation in the National Science foundation as well as Companies Including motorola knowbility, seamans and ibm. In topics, we add the design to stem while fostering the development of important 21st century skills like creative problem solving, persistence and grit. I like to play a short clip that illustrates some of the fun and engaging challenges we have with our private sector partners. So fuse currently has 20 challenges sequences in areas of robotics, electronics, solar energy, jewelry and 3d printing. Some of the ones on the video exemplify this. The jewelry designer challenges 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 after platform that can be scaled up to engage large numbers of youth in stem or steam fields. For Industry Partners, pot modular format that you see here and focus out of school time learning is often more appealing than inschool curriculum that can be very school and bureaucratic. The disem nation network, offered to use at growing network of 17 sites around the chicago metro area. Rs 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. The to support the sustainability of high quality testimony Education Programs vel woepd 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 andbcasd private sector to create distribution platforms like the Itunes App Store or Android Play Store for smart phones to create similar kind of distribution plat forms for Stem Education resources like the examples i highlighted today. Thank you. Thank you very much. I now recognize dr. Cornwell for five minutes for his testimony. Chairmen, Ranking Member lopinski and johnson, thank you so much for inviting me today. Im dr. Cornwell from institute of technology. The university focused entirely on math, science and engineering education. For 15 years we have been ranked as number one in our cat cor category. Which ranges in schools that dont offer a ph. D. So we have about 2200 student which makes us a small school but midsize college of engineering. Our placement rate last year was about 99 . Always 99 . Average starting salary is about 67,000. And we provide our student with the worlds best undergraduate Stem Education in the environment of individual attention and support. That means we hire members with a passion for their technical field and also student in undergraduation. Our goal is to graduate technically outstanding well rounded lib stem professionals. We have a number of outreach activity to share with you. One of our most successful, operation catapult thp. Thats threeweek summer o program. They work on a technical project that has a faculty member as mentor. About 30 of students end up coming. About o 70 study stem at other universities. It is a great way to solidify their interest in stem. We also have a program called homework hot line. Which has been around since 1991. Basic there i what that is, a math and Science Tutoring Program for student in grade 6 through 12. If a student has problems with math and science project and cant get help at home, they can call. Where student are available as tutors and helping students not just get the answer but to understand the material. We also do a lot of industry. I will welcome one unique program. Rose home adventures is basically an Engineering Consulting business that operates on the campus. And student that work with rose holeman venture are student interns that work under the super vision of professional project manager with Client Companies on projects that are important to the company. Could be a coding project. Could be a developing a prototype. Could be developing a product. Just something that is important for the client. And client typically pay time and materials. And companies range from small startups to large companies. One of the reasons for this committee hearing, i believe, is for recognize that we need more stem professionals in the United States. For me, there are two key things to accomplish that. One is to increase the pipeline. Increase the number of student interested in stem. This is largely what we are talking about today. Secondly, once the student enter college, to grad yit more of them and help them be successful. Programs like first robotics, many programs do a fantastic job of energizing students. Helping student in engineering Computer Science as a possible career option which i think is absolutely critical but i also think it is actually important to strengthen math science and at a Computer Science curriculum in the high school so when they get to college they are prepared to be successful in the very rigorous curriculum required for all of those. As far as retention and graduation rates, if you look at student that currently enter l college with interest in engineering, and i will talk about engineering because thats my area of expertise, less than 50 graduate. It varies widely from school. If we can increase that number by just 10 , if i did calculations correct, that means within six years we could graduate a hundred thousand additional engineers without doing anything to the pipeline. Just helping for student graduate. How do we do that . Theres a lot of research on the topic. Things that i think are important is early connection to student to the discipline. First ro bbotics does that. It is frustrating to have a freshman drop out of engineering because they say they dont like engineering and they havent had any engineering. Dries drives you crazy. Second, faculty members helping student be successful is important for graduation rates. I can share stories about that if youre interested. I also think undergraduate research and ininterpretships are important. What can the federal government do . Certainly continue to suppor supportunder undergraduate research. Thats critical. Offering early internships. Juniors and sophomores. They consider that important for recruitment. This is hard for students to get a meaningful internship as freshman. Also, studying stem for lower Interest Rates for Student Loans or loan forgiveness. There are ways to incentivize that. I tell student all the time, that education is grat great no matter what they want do. Industry, graduate school, medical school, business school, politician, engineering is great. Stem is great. And i applaud this committee at taking the leadership role in promoting Stem Education. Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to testify. Youre welcome. I would like to thank all of the witnesses for their testimony and remind members of the committee that rules limit questioning to five minutes. The chair will open the round of questions. I recognize myself for five minutes. As cosponsor of commuter Science Education act i share many of the cannerns that you do and im quite pleased that my home state of indiana allows rigorous science course to satisfy Core High School credits, especially since according to the conference board, there are 4,864 open computing jobs in indiana right now. Thats changing by the minute, im assuming. According to your analytic, 264,000 indiana student did the hour of code in december 2013. Mr. Partovi, what do you see as the next steps for those student, if they want to pursue studying Computer Science . Thank you very much for that question. You know, we are astonished to find 17 million student dot hour of code. We were prepared to offer more than one hour in terms of instruction. One hour was enough to demystify the field for teachers wsh parents, student to all realize compute are science is something that anybody can learn. But we also have a followon curriculum that any student can learn on line or any teach core teach online. Over 10,000 classrooms are teaching a full Computer Science class to almost 500,000 students. To put this into context, in october or any point in history, there is at most 10,000 classrooms teaching Computer Science and in one month we double it. Almost tripled or quadrupled it within one month because of the followup of hour of code. It shows an incredibly popular top wick students wsh parents and teachers and not just for code. Org but for Computer Sciences like you have sponsored, to remove the federal government barriers that prevent the field from spreading to Public Schools. Thank you very much. Thank you. Mr. Kayman . What differentiate wur programs and others from stem initiatives because youve been very successful. Why do you think it has been successful and what principles and techniques used in your programs would you suggest to the federal Stem Education program . I think the primary reason weve been successful, is that the 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. She reminds me of that everyday. We have a lot of great teachers. Im an inveptor. What do we look at . We look at same problems everyone else does and we see them differently. I say, my mom is probably right, she always is. We dont have an education crisis. You have a culture crisis. You get the best of what you celebrate. It is not that we dont have enough dedicated teachers. Surgeons willing to commit themselves to public service. America is base owned people that get together and solve a problem. Our problem is we have a such a passion in our culture because we have become rich, we have spend time on leisure. We have super heroes from two places. Hollywood, sports, and particular for women in minorities, they are sucked into spending their time until they are 18 or 19 developing skill sets that arent likely to lead to great jobs. So i said, lets get those industries that need these people, world class Tech Companies together, create superheroes, use them ought networks, Sports Entertainment and let the private sector solve the culture problem. You get the best of what you celebrate. Lets celebrate science and technology. Chairman smith said it was the best atmosphere in here. You cant believe it when i say it, we started with one event at the end of our season in 1991. High school gym in manchester, new hampshire, 23 teams that came to the one event and it was over. With compound annual growth, now 25,000 schools around the world and march madness, with more than 60 cities around the United States holding spectacularly large events throughout march p. There is one near every one of you. Every one of you have has a school in your district that is involved with first. We get the best of what we celebrate, it wouldnt be hard to invite to you the final four of the super bowl, you go. You find the time. I ask two things. You each need go to one of the events in injury state and support the kids. It is a lot of fun. Bring your own kids and grand kids. Second of all, you see what happens when kids develop self confidence and become aware they can do the things that will lead to great careers. I also invite to you the championship. We will fill 76,000seat arena. We succeed because we have industry behind us. They, in their own self interest, want the kids to become world class scientists and inventors. Thats what they need. Thats what this country needs. We succeed because it is private sector. Ways told 25 years ago, youll never pull this off because you will run out of giant companies that can support all the schools. I thought that was my biggest problem. These Companies Just keep delivering. They mentors, scientists, engineers. The staggering thing to me is the school side. All they need do is give that math or Science Teacher the same stippen as you give the football coach for the extra effort after school. Schools have a hundredyear history of figuring how the fund those other programs. The appropriate public skied commitment to make sure that particularly the underserved schools can take advantage of first is what you need do. Then we will be in every school in this country. Thank you very much. I now recognize Ranking Member mr. Lopiski. Five minutes. Thank you. I want it thank all of the witnesses tore their testimony. Exciting to hear a lot of these things that are going on. I no he that more needs to be done. I want to give dr. Jonah a little bit about what you have done at northwestern. Very impressive. What you have here in your written testimony. I wanted to ask, because we always face, especially with this issue, we have people come in and talk about great things that are doing and it is always okay, how do we expand this. How do rereplicate it. Certainly with what you have done at northwest and in the chicago area. How do we replicate it. What were challenges you face in establishing growing the office of Stem Education or Education Partnership and what lessons can be taken by other institutions who wanted to establish something similar . Thank you for that question. The work that we do with our faculty would be similarly done at other institutions. It is largely funded by nsf broader impacts requirements. And while this is an incredibly helpful requirement and stream of funding, there is really never enough of the funds to go around. We are living on the margins, if you will, and what i guess i would like to see is nih and 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 snsf. Thats a key source for other new offices like mine to get up and running and off the ground. Are there other things that our governments can do. Northwest is in a unique position. In a large urban area. Private university. Are there things that maybe they can do to help or suggestions you have for other schools that might be looking at doing this who may not be in that position northwestern is in. Yes. I feel very strongly that federal government could play an Important Role in providing funding were for example, for offices like mine. Especially at smaller institutions or rural i i institutions to help them get jumpstarted and off the ground. Another Important Role would be to support a National Network of these offices so we can begin to support each other and share the best practices that weve developed over time with these smaller and newer offices. In addition, this network could serve as National Distribution network for facilitating the prodder dissemination of federally funded stem resources that are developed at any of our institutions. So other questions that i can ask i want to go to this, i know chairman asked questions about what you had done with the hour of code. I know about 830,000 student in the state of illinois took part in the hour of code. You put up there very stark how many jobs, how few how few student will come out of college for those jobs. Is it something, how do we make that better understood . It seems like, when i was in college, as an engineer, okay, what are the jobs supposed to be and maybe directing a sense of where to go. Why is that not happening. Is it because of the lack of background in student just saying, i cant there is nothing i can do. Or not something im interested in. Why do you think it is that there is no response to this job demand that we know, that is out there and will continue to be out there . Thank you very much. A great question. One thing i have trouble getting p em people to realize that thea Common Threat of not having enough stem professionals in the country. If you look at the data, most stem fields there are too many graduates. There are more engineering graduates than engineering jobs. More lie sciences graduates than Life Sciences jobs. And way more Computer Science graduates than jobs. If student are in one of the 90 of schools that doesnt teach Computer Science, they didnt have the background to think i could do this. The way to solve the problem isnt just building awareness. They know if i could be the next mark zuk areburg, that is an amazing future. That is the American Dream. They think, i cant do it because high school never exposed them to it. I see my time is up. Thank you everyone for the testimony. I recognize chairman smith. Thank you, chairman. Weve gotten a lot of good advice today that i think we ought to take to heart. Dr. Cornwell mentioned a corporate component to strengthen our curriculum and increase the percentage of majors in engineering and i assume other stem subjects as well. Dr. Jonah talked about supporting our stem students outside the classroom. Mr. Partovi mentioned the barriers we face with regulations. I want to come back to that in a minute. The fact that schools dont even teach Computer Science and big gap between what is taught and what is needed in the stem type jobs. And mr. Kayman talked about encouraging stem student through robotics. And mr. Kayman, let me direct my first question to you. You mentioned 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 the subjects. Let me ask you to expound a little bit on as to how we might to that in a practical way. As i said, one of the things that makes america great, is it is the land of opportunity. If youre not searching for the right opportunity, youre not going to find it. We have celebrated almost to obsession the kinds of activities, particularly for kids that dont have professional parents or people around them p. So they not only arent aware of or dont have access to computer sigh ebs, but im afraid of them, that the women and minority would be wouldnt do it if they did have access. It is too difficult, too hard for them. They want to come good at things that they are good at, and realistical realistically, there are no jobs. So we want to celebrate science and technology. All kids will realize they can do this. As i said before, we succeed, and i encourage you go to one of these events and celebrate with kids. 86 of the kids through the program go college to study some technology or go into a field with the technology and get great jobs. Everybody is behind this but the school system, as you know, are a little bit they lack the resources. Let me follow up on that. Thank you, mr. Kayman. Mr. Partovi, i checked and i think i know the problem. That is in the definition of core academic subjects, there is no mention of Computer Science. Ly cler li clearly that is out of date. A colleague of ours introduced to change that provision. A chairman lopisk i and i believe [ inaudible ] i certainly will be adding my name. If members of the Committee Want know what they can do about it to bring a greater focus on Computer Science, and to make sure it is part of the curriculum, one answer is to support that particular piece of legislation. Thank you for calling that to our attention. Let me ask all of the panelists and a couple of you talked 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 panel. For me, one of the keys to teaching Computer Engineering science is engagement in material. I have to ask you all, because of limited time, maybe 30 seconds. Right. But in terms of education, is flip classrooms. If there is portion of class where im lecturing and student are listening, thats a waste of time. Put that on line. Make the classroom much more interactive, projectbased. That is important in classes like meg why tronnics. But engage student in the material. Is it t is critical. Even though you need the lecture material, the effective use of technology and increased active engagement is the key. Dr. Jonah . I would take a little bit of issue with mr. Kaymans analysis that stem is to difficult. I think it is too risky for kids to do in school if you take the exact program, the only way to succeed is to try and learn from your mistakes. That not an environment where it is predominant. Kids are worried about taking risks and lowering their gpa. So they shy away from stem for that reason. I have a quick answer h is making it more fun. You saw that little girls reaction. Our tutorial feature angry birds, lectures by Mark Zuckerberg or cross bosch ahris feels like a game. Kids dont know they are learning. I agree. You have to make it fun. Make it rewarding. You have to show them superstars that they can aspire to be like it. Thats what drives kids to put passion into things in this country and weve 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 a great career. I might add one other idea. It is not original. I heard it yesterday from a tech meeting. With it being too difficult or that would allow student to basically progress at their own pace. So they are not keeping up with the class, not discouraged from taking the subjects. That might be another consideration as well. Thank you mr. Chairman. Yield back. Thank you. Five minutes. Thank you mr. Chairman. Thank you all for peeg here being here. I think this is an important topic. I have 24,000 Important Reasons to be here. 24,000 open jobs and two little girls. I have a 4yearold named tess and 7yearold named sophie. Sophie newest passion is the codable and hopscotch apps, and she totally geeks out on it. Maybe i will start with mr. Partovi and invite others to chime in. Be more directive to us. Outside of csca and dr. Jonah, you mentioned the potential of having the government promote plat forms. 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 make sure we have a work force in the next generation. Sure. I looked at the core issue in Computer Science, which is driving these jobs, the high school pipeline, this is a nobrainer. It only removed barriers. Doesnt increase funding. It does what the federal government should be doing which is giving more control to the state. But if you want to go beyond that, i wouldnt say to increase funding but look at the existing 3 billion in stem funding or existing 1. 5 billion in k5 stem funding and how much of that goes to stem . I would say almost none of it. In high school, stem funding is boyology, chemistry, physics, calculus. I have another against those things pu they dont think of Computer Science as a stem topic. We think of stem as robotics, engineering, Computer Science, coding. That is not what schools think. So stem funding you are providing, billions of it, goes where the jobs arent, actually. I would invite others to chime in. If there are other suggestions for congress. I will give you a subjectings. I know that two sides of Congress Need to be polarize owned a lot of issues. I can tell you from my day job, i have 500 engineers. We work on a lot of projects. A lot of big companies, most of which you have heard about or are members of first as well. In my day job, i now have 30 openings. Weve been hiring as fast as we can. We cant find tech people just like the rest of these people. I have people here on visas. It cost me a lot of time and money to acquire these people and to get them in. Were happy to pay the money because they are valuable. But i would rather give the jobs to homegrown people. We know have you a bill going through that will increase the h1bc Tech Companies. What would make it easier tore Tech Companies to swallow is to know that some of the money is used to solve their longterm problem. If you could say, chafr side, hey, not even a new tax or new money, take that hbd1c money, put some aside to solve problems so down the road we dont have to do it this way, and i suggest if you could take some of that money and make it available to the schools so that they can internally leverage all of the things you just heard about. The comment of time and money it would take to internally build a Robotics Program to bring in world class scientists and engineers in the classroom, you cant do it, you dont need to do it. They are there. They are free. Let schools leverage the programs by giving them the stippen or the coach. Ability to pay the fee to get to the event. Figure out how to focus money on schools that need it most. That way you solve multiple problems. I hope you get consensus. Indust industry would be more supportive if they thought it would solve their problems. Thank you. With the minute and a half i have left, let me focus on two. Mr. Partovi, you talked about failure of adequate representative of women and minority in the stem field. Again, how do you think the federal government is doing in terms of o 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 . Sure. First of all, what i showed was not about stem, just about Computer Science. Thats my focus. The two issues are slightly different. The female is the cultural one. Girls being just, the culture all around making them think this is not for me. The africanamerican and his spannic american is just more availability. Equal or greater interest level among africanamericans or hispanicamericans with science but schools dont teach it. And thats the bigger problem that i would suggest that you focus on