On May 3, the House Education and the Workforce Committee held a hearing on building American competitiveness. The hearing focused on the success of current federal programs in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
Committee Chair Howard McKeon (R-CA) said, “The goal for today’s hearing can be summed up in three words: ‘What’s out there?’ We’re here today to gain a better understanding of what federal programs already exist to improve math and science education, how effective those programs are, and perhaps, what we can do to improve upon them.”
Affirming that “the health of the U.S. economy is directly tied to our science and technology industries,” Government Accountability Office Director of Education, Workforce, and Income Security Cornelia Ashby stated that, “as the U.S. becomes a more diverse society, minorities, in addition to women, will continue to represent a continuously increasing share of the workforce, yet women and minorities have tended to be underrepresented in STEM education programs and career fields.” Ms. Ashby outlined the participation of women and minorities regarding STEM-related university degrees and employment. Although from the academic years 19941995 to 20032004 “the proportion of women earning degrees in STEM fields increased at the bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral levels,” she said, the GAO October 2005 report indicates that “men continued to constitute over 50 percent of the graduates in most STEM fields.” University officials and students contributing to the report cited mentoring for women as a crucial factor and proposed “more outreach, especially to women and minorities from kindergarten through the 12th grade.”
Ms. Ashby said that, between 1994 and 2003, “the estimated number of women employees in STEM fields increased from about 2.7 million to about 3.5 million.” This increase, however, “did not result in a change in the proportion of women employees in the STEM fields relative to men.” She added, “Specifically, women comprised an estimated 38 percent of the employees in STEM fields in 1994 and an estimated 39 percent in 2003, compared to 46 and 47 percent of the civilian labor force in 1994 and 2003, respectively.” Referring to a 2004 GAO report, Gender Issues: Women’s Participation in the Sciences Has Increased, but Agencies Need to Do More to Ensure Compliance with Title IX, and a September 2000 report of the Congressional Commission on the Advancement of Women and Minorities in Science, Engineering and Technology Development, Ms. Ashby said, “University officials and congressional commissions noted the important role that mentors play in encouraging employment in STEM fields and that this was particularly important for women and minorities. One professor said that mentors helped students by advising them on the best track to follow for obtaining their degrees and achieving professional goals. In September 2000, a congressional commission reported that women were adversely affected throughout the STEM education pipeline and career path by a lack of role models and mentors.”
Assuring the committee that “the federal government spent approximately $2.8 billion in fiscal year 2004 to fund over 200 programs designed to increase the numbers of students in STEM fields and employees in STEM occupations and to improve related educational programs,” Ms. Ashby nevertheless stressed that “only half of these programs had been evaluated or had evaluations underway, and coordination among STEM education programs was limited.” She said that a subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council’s Committee on Science, established in 2003, surveyed “federal agency education programs designed to increase the participation of women and underrepresented minorities in STEM studies” as part of its mandate to “focus on STEM education issues at all levels.”
As part of her concluding remarks, Ms. Ashby noted, “In terms of employment, despite some gains, the percentage of women in the STEM workforce has not changed significantly, minority employees remain underrepresented relative to their employment in the civilian labor force, and many graduates with degrees in STEM fields are not employed in STEM occupations. Women now outnumber men in college enrollment, and minority students are enrolling in record-high levels at the postsecondary level as well. To the extent that these populations have been historically underrepresented in STEM fields, they provide a yet untapped source of STEM participation in the future.”
Other witnesses included Department of Education Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development Assistant Secretary Tom Luce, who outlined President Bush’s American Competitiveness Initiative; and President and Chief Executive Officer of the American Electronics Association, William Archey, who stressed the need for legislation addressing the “critical shortage of homegrown high-skilled talent.”
