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22-178 PDF 2005

HOW THE PRIVATE SECTOR IS HELPING STATES

AND COMMUNITIES IMPROVE HIGH SCHOOL

EDUCATION

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EDUCATION REFORM

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION 

AND THE WORKFORCE 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

June 28, 2005

Serial No. 109-23

Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and the Workforce

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/house 

or 

Committee address: http://edworkforce.house.gov 

(II)

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE 

JOHN A. BOEHNER, Ohio, Chairman

Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin, Vice Chairman 

Howard P. ‘‘Buck’’ McKeon, California 

Michael N. Castle, Delaware 

Sam Johnson, Texas 

Mark E. Souder, Indiana 

Charlie Norwood, Georgia 

Vernon J. Ehlers, Michigan 

Judy Biggert, Illinois 

Todd Russell Platts, Pennsylvania 

Patrick J. Tiberi, Ohio 

Ric Keller, Florida 

Tom Osborne, Nebraska 

Joe Wilson, South Carolina 

Jon C. Porter, Nevada 

John Kline, Minnesota 

Marilyn N. Musgrave, Colorado 

Bob Inglis, South Carolina 

Cathy McMorris, Washington 

Kenny Marchant, Texas 

Tom Price, Georgia 

Luis G. Fortun ̃ o, Puerto Rico 

Bobby Jindal, Louisiana 

Charles W. Boustany, Jr., Louisiana 

Virginia Foxx, North Carolina 

Thelma D. Drake, Virginia 

John R. ‘‘Randy’’ Kuhl, Jr., New York 

George Miller, California 

Dale E. Kildee, Michigan 

Major R. Owens, New York 

Donald M. Payne, New Jersey 

Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey 

Robert C. Scott, Virginia 

Lynn C. Woolsey, California 

Rube ́n Hinojosa, Texas 

Carolyn McCarthy, New York 

John F. Tierney, Massachusetts 

Ron Kind, Wisconsin 

Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio 

David Wu, Oregon 

Rush D. Holt, New Jersey 

Susan A. Davis, California 

Betty McCollum, Minnesota 

Danny K. Davis, Illinois 

Rau ́l M. Grijalva, Arizona 

Chris Van Hollen, Maryland 

Tim Ryan, Ohio 

Timothy H. Bishop, New York 

John Barrow, Georgia

Paula Nowakowski, Staff Director 

John Lawrence, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EDUCATION REFORM 

MICHAEL N. CASTLE, Delaware, Chairman

Tom Osborne, Nebraska, Vice Chairman 

Mark E. Souder, Indiana 

Vernon J. Ehlers, Michigan 

Judy Biggert, Illinois 

Todd Russell Platts, Pennsylvania 

Ric Keller, Florida 

Joe Wilson, South Carolina 

Marilyn N. Musgrave, Colorado 

Bobby Jindal, Louisiana 

John R. ‘‘Randy’’ Kuhl, Jr., New York 

John A. Boehner, Ohio, ex officio 

Lynn C. Woolsey, California 

Danny K. Davis, Illinois 

Rau ́l M. Grijalva, Arizona 

Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey 

Robert C. ‘‘Bobby’’ Scott, Virginia 

Rube ́n Hinojosa, Texas 

Ron Kind, Wisconsin 

Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio 

Susan A. Davis, California 

George Miller, California, ex officio 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

Hearing held on June 28, 2005 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of Members: 

Castle, Hon. Michael N, Chairman, Subcommittee on Education Reform, 

Committee on Education and the Workforce .............................................. 1

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 3

Woolsey, Hon. Lynn C., Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Education 

Reform, Committee on Education and the Workforce ............................... 4

Statement of Witnesses: 

Hudecki, Dr. Phyllis, Executive Director, Oklahoma Business and Education Coalition, Oklahoma City, OK .......................................................... 23

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 25

Shore, Bill A., Director of U.S. Community Partnerships, 

GlaxoSmithKline, Research Triangle Park, NJ .......................................... 6

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 8

Sterling, Sarah Revi, Program Manager, University Relations, Microsoft 

Corporation, Redmond, WA .......................................................................... 15

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 17

Watson, Mike, Vice Chairman, BellSouth Foundation, Atlanta, GA ........... 20

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 22

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HOW THE PRIVATE SECTOR IS HELPING 

STATES AND COMMUNITIES IMPROVE HIGH 

SCHOOL EDUCATION 

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

U.S. House of Representatives 

Subcommittee on Education Reform 

Committee on Education and the Workforce 

Washington, DC 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 3 p.m., in room 2175, 

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mike Castle [Chairman of the 

Subcommittee] Presiding. 

Present: Representatives Castle, Osborne, Ehlers, Woolsey, Scott, 

Hinojosa, Kind and Kucinich. 

Staff Present: Amanda Farris, Professional Staff Member; Kevin 

Frank, Professional Staff Member; Jessica Gross, Legislative Assistant; Lucy House, Legislative Assistant; Kimberly Ketchel, Communications Staff Assistant; Deborah L. Samantar, Committee 

Clerk/Intern Coordinator; Alice Cain, Minority Legislative Associate/Education; Lloyd Horwich, Minority Legislative Associate/

Education; Ricardo Martinez, Minority Legislative Associate/Education; and Joe Novotny, Minority Legislative Assistant/Education. 

Chairman CASTLE. Good afternoon. A quorum being present, the 

Subcommittee on Education Reform and the Committee on Education and the Workforce will come to order. We welcome obviously 

those who are going to be speaking with us today and all the visitors who are in the room as well. Our meeting today will hear testimony on how the private sector is helping States and communities 

improve high schools. 

Under Committee Rule 12(b), opening statements are limited to 

the Chairman and the Ranking Minority Member Ms. Woolsey. 

Therefore, if other Members have statements, they may be included 

in the hearing record. I ask unanimous consent for the hearing 

record to remain open 14 days to allow Members’ statements and 

other extraneous material referenced during the hearing to be submitted in the official hearing record. Without objection, so ordered. 

STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL N. CASTLE, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EDUCATION REFORM, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE 

Chairman CASTLE. Today marks the third in a series of hearings 

our Committee will hold to examine the status of secondary eduVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:26 Nov 17, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\DOCS\22178 NNIXON
2

cation and various efforts to strengthen high schools across the 

country. This Committee has already heard from Governors about 

their high school reform efforts and from a variety of nonprofit organizations about the partnerships they have across the country 

and the innovative ways in which they are driving changes in our 

high schools. Today we will hear from some of the private sector 

corporations and business partnerships that are increasing innovation and improvement in our Nation’s high schools. 

During our last hearing, I mentioned a number of statistics to 

suggest high school reform is surfacing as a necessity. For those of 

you who were at that hearing, I apologize for being redundant, but 

I think it is important to note this recent research that indicates 

one-quarter of America’s high school students read below basic levels. America’s 15-year-olds performed below the national average in 

mathematics, literacy and problem solving, placing 27th out of 39 

countries. Thirty percent of students do not graduate from high 

school. And 50 percent of African American and Hispanic students 

do not graduate. These are unacceptable statistics and are very 

similar to the challenges we saw in our elementary schools prior 

to the enactment of No Child Left Behind. 

High schools no longer are about simply moving students from 

ninth grade to graduation. We must now ensure all students are 

leaving their secondary education with the skills necessary to reach 

their next goal. Whether that goal is college, the military or the 

workforce is irrelevant. All students now need a strong foundation 

of skills and knowledge to excel in life after high school. 

The testimony that today’s witnesses will provide makes the important point that the modern workplace is very different than it 

was when America’s high schools were first designed. In many 

cases even the most basic job applications must be completed on 

computers—good thing I am not applying—requiring almost every 

person to have at least a basic understanding of technology. 

Technology is only one piece of the pie. A student graduating 

from high school must have a broad skill set of reading, analytical 

skills, communication and technology in order to succeed 

postgraduation. I am sure that every person in this room has heard 

me say more than once that I am an advocate on behalf of No Child 

Left Behind. It is the right thing to do, and the law is making significant headway in closing the achievement gap, particularly in elementary schools when all children should be learning basic skills 

like reading and math. 

I commend the President, the States, the National Governors Association, local school districts and both nonprofit and for-profit organizations for recognizing we need to address our Nation’s high 

schools. I am not yet sure there is Federal role or what that role 

should be, but I remain committed to learning more and doing 

whatever I can to make high schools part of the education reform 

dialog. 

The private sector is uniquely qualified to help address the challenges of high school reform, because businesses recognize the importance of a strong secondary education in preparing students for 

future success. That is why so many in the business community 

have joined with States and local communities to encourage innoVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:26 Nov 17, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\DOCS\22178 NNIXON
3

vation and meaningful reforms that will strengthen high schools 

and better prepare students for the future. 

We have begun to hear fascinating stories about what is currently happening across the country with respect to high school reform. I look forward to hearing from today’s witnesses concerning 

the need for reform and the partnerships they have formed. I 

thank the witnesses for joining us today, and I look forward to 

hearing your testimony. 

[The prepared statement of Chairman Castle follows:]

Statement of Hon. Michael N. Castle, Chairman, Subcommittee on 

Education Reform, Committee on Education and the Workforce 

Today marks the third in a series of hearings our Committee will hold to examine 

the status of secondary education and various efforts to strengthen high schools 

across the country. This Committee has already heard from governors about their 

high school reform efforts, and from a variety of non-profit organizations about the 

partnerships they have across the country, and the innovative ways in which they 

are driving change in our high schools. Today we will hear from some of the private 

sector corporations and business partnerships that are increasing innovation and 

improvement in our nation’s high schools. 

During our last hearing, I mentioned a number of statistics that suggest high 

school reform is surfacing as a necessity. For those of you who were at that hearing, 

I apologize for being redundant, but I think it is important to note this recent research, which indicates: 

• One quarter of America’s high school students read below basic levels; 

• America’s 15-year-olds performed below the international average in mathematics literacy and problem-solving, placing 27th out of 39 countries; 

• 30% of students do not graduate from high school; and 

• 50% of African–American and Hispanic students do not graduate. 

These are unacceptable statistics, and are very similar to the challenges we saw 

in our elementary schools prior to the enactment of No Child Left Behind. High 

school is no longer about simply moving students from ninth grade to graduation. 

We must now ensure all students are leaving their secondary education with the 

skills necessary to reach their next goal. Whether that goal is college, the military, 

or the workforce is irrelevant—all students now need a strong foundation of skills 

and knowledge to excel in life after high school. 

The testimony that today’s witnesses will provide makes the important point that 

that modern workplace is very different than it was when America’s high schools 

were first designed. In many cases, even the most basic job applications must be 

completed on computers, requiring almost every person to have at least a basic understanding of technology. Technology is only one piece of the pie. A student graduating from high school must have a broad skill set of reading, analytical skills, 

communication, and technology in order to succeed post-graduation. 

I am sure that every person in this room has heard me say more than once that 

I am an advocate on behalf of No Child Left Behind. It is the right thing to do, and 

the law is making significant headway in closing the achievement gap, particularly 

in elementary schools when all children should be learning basic skills like reading 

and math. I commend the President, the states, the National Governors Association, 

local school districts, and both non-profit and for-profit organizations for recognizing 

we need to address our nation’s high schools. I am not yet sure if there is a federal 

role, or what that role would be, but I remain committed to learning more and doing 

whatever I can to make high schools part of the education reform dialogue. 

The private sector is uniquely qualified to help address the challenges of high 

school reform, because businesses recognize the importance of a strong secondary 

education in preparing students for future success. That’s why so many in the business community have joined with states and local communities to encourage innovation and meaningful reforms that will strengthen high schools and better prepare 

students for the future. 

We have begun to hear some fascinating stories about what is currently happening across the country with respect to high school reform. I look forward to hearing from today’s witnesses concerning the need for reform, and the partnerships 

they have formed. 

I thank you all for being here this afternoon, and look forward to hearing from 

our witnesses. 

4

Chairman CASTLE. I will now yield to the gentlelady from California, the Ranking Minority of the Subcommittee, Representative 

Woolsey. 

STATEMENT OF HON. LYNN C. WOOLSEY, RANKING MEMBER, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EDUCATION REFORM, COMMITTEE ON 

EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding today’s 

hearing, and thank all the witnesses for being here. I look forward 

to hearing what you have to say. 

We are going to hear from various corporations that have been 

on the front line of high school reform, knowing full well that your 

corporations and all corporations have a huge stake in the success 

of our education system, and we appreciate that, and we know that 

is where you are coming from. 

As we move forward, I hope that we will also hear from school 

administrators, from teachers, from parents and students about 

their experiences and what they think we can do differently. Certainly our high school system needs reform and greater resources 

if our country is to compete in the 21st century economy. There are 

also many outstanding high schools and educators who can and 

will lead the way, and I think it is essential that we listen to them 

also. 

There isn’t much doubt that high school reform is a critical issue. 

As we will hear today, about one-third of entering ninth-graders do 

not graduate from high school. Among minority students, barely 

half graduate from high school. Only about half of the students 

who do graduate go on to college, and many of them are not really 

ready for college. About one-third need remedial courses. And of 

those students who go directly from high school to the workforce, 

nearly half do not have the skills that they need. That might have 

been OK in the industrial age, but it is not nearly good enough for 

today’s knowledge economy. And regardless, it is not good enough 

to just meet the moral obligation that each generation has to educate its children. 

In his recent article, It’s a Flat World After All, Thomas Friedman explains that America’s historical and economic advantages 

have disappeared now that the world is flat, and anyone with 

smarts, access to a Google and a cheap wireless laptop can join the 

innovation fray. But it will be impossible for our country to continue to lead the world in innovation if our high school system is 

not among the best in the world. 

There are many aspects to high school reform, but I am especially pleased that two of our witnesses include the importance of 

increasing girls’ interest in science and math so that our technology 

workforce can draw from the greatest possible pool. As Dr. Susan 

Hockfield, the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said recently, squandered talent is one of the key issues of 

women in science and engineering. 

Another thing we should do right off the bat is to fully fund the 

No Child Left Behind Act. The vast majority of NCLB, we call it, 

funds go to elementary schools. But if we fully funded NCLB this 

year, we would increase support for high schools by 79 percent. Unfortunately, the education appropriations bill that the House reVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:26 Nov 17, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 H:\DOCS\22178 NNIXON
5

cently passed cut funding for No Child Left Behind by about 3 percent and cut funding for education technology by about 40 percent. 

This issue is about both resources and reform, and I look forward 

to hearing our witnesses talk about the efforts that their companies 

have undertaken to reform America’s high schools and how a private-public partnership will help every high school student achieve 

to the level required for the student’s success and for the success 

of the United States economy. I look forward to hearing from you. 

Thank you. 

Chairman CASTLE. We have a very distinguished panel of witnesses before us, and I thank them for coming today. Mr. Bill 

Shore serves as director of U.S. Community Partnerships at the 

GlaxoSmithKline Corporation. In this capacity, Mr. Shore is responsible for building relationships with key external stakeholders. 

He also heads the corporate contributions committee, which determines GlaxoSmithKline’s corporate investments in the U.S. Mr. 

Shore has served on the board of directors for groups, including the 

North Carolina Business Committee for Education and the North 

Carolina Public School Forum. He is a former member and chairman of the board of the Durham Public Education Network and is 

currently chair of the U.S. Business Education Network for the 

U.S. Chamber of Commerce. 

Ms. Sarah Revi Sterling serves as senior program manager of 

university relations at Microsoft. She currently leads Microsoft’s efforts to increase participation of women in computer-related majors 

and improve retention of women with technical expertise. Ms. Sterling also chairs the Workforce Alliance of the National Center for 

Women and Information Technology, a team of senior-level employees from the technology sector, including Hewlett-Packard, Intel, 

Cisco, IBM, Google and Microsoft. 

Mr. Mike Watson, a senior director of community relations for 

BellSouth Corporation and vice chairman of the board of the 

BellSouth Foundation. In his capacity, he is responsible for all community programs for the corporation, including the BellSouth 

Foundation community relations programs, corporate giving program, volunteerism as well as executive customer relations and 

customer information programs. Mr. Watson’s telecommunications 

career spanned over 30 years. Prior to his telecommunication career, he served his country for 4 years as an officer in the United 

States Navy. 

Dr. Phyllis Hudecki is the executive director of the Oklahoma 

Business and Education Coalition, a business-led nonprofit organization dedicated to improving public education in Oklahoma. This 

organization is sponsored by 31 of the State’s leading corporations, 

which allows them to support a number of initiatives, including the 

Oklahoma Scholars Program, to encourage students to take rigorous courses in high school. Prior to her current position at the 

Oklahoma Business and Education Coalition, Dr. Hudecki has 

served in a number of roles, including associate director of the National Center for Research and Vocational Education at the University of California, Berkeley; State director for career technical vocational education at the Iowa State Department of Education, and 

program specialist at the U.S. Department of Education in Washington, D.C. 

6

I would like to remind the Members we will be asking questions 

after the entire panel has testified. Committee rule 2 imposes a 5-

minute limit on all questions. I think you all understand the rules, 

too. You are going to get lights, green for 4, yellow for 1, and when 

it gets to red, you want to start thinking about wrapping up if you 

could. 

I have introduced you individually. Let me just welcome you collectively and thank you for being here. You are all part of what we 

hope will be the solution in dealing with education in America perhaps from a different angle than what we are used to. We deal 

with a lot of teachers and administrators, but the private sector 

has gotten more and more involved very beneficially, and we are 

delighted to hear what you have to say, and I am sure we are going 

to have a few questions. 

We will go across, and we still start with Mr. Shore. 

STATEMENT OF BILL A. SHORE, DIRECTOR OF U.S. COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS, GLAXOSMITHKLINE, RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC 

Mr. SHORE. I am with a high-tech company, can you tell? 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, good afternoon. I am Bill Shore, director of U.S. community partnership for 

GlaxoSmithKline. Thank you for inviting me to speak today on an 

issue that is very important to our company and very important to 

the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and very important to businesses, 

large and small, reform of high school education in America. 

Let me begin by telling you why the issue of K-through–12 education and specifically high school education is so important to my 

company, the U.S. Chamber and to me personally. I work for a 

company that is headquartered in the Research Triangle Park in 

North Carolina, and as you may know, that Research Triangle 

Park is pretty well known and well respected. We have IBM’s largest facility in the world there. We have GlaxoSmithKline, and we 

have other companies. And it is critical to our continued success to 

have a top-notch high school education system in that area to be 

able to draw talent from. 

We have been very fortunate that North Carolina continues to be 

a leader in the U.S. in terms of educational improvements due to 

the excellent leadership by former Governor Jim Hunt and our current Governor Mike Easley. We have strong leadership. We are 

very fortunate to have strong leadership in the business community 

in our area. And GSK, I am proud to say, has been in the forefront 

of leading a coalition of public-private partners to focus on school 

reform efforts. 

I have in my written testimony a lot of the details associated 

with what we have been doing as a company over the years, and 

it really is quite a list. I do want to mention the philosophy that 

draws our involvement to public schools. As you would imagine, we 

are asked to fund a lot of projects and programs. We contend that 

we are not—if we are not making a difference in the classroom, we 

are wasting our time and resources. We learned through experience 

years ago you just can’t write a check and expect to make a difference. The money is gone quickly, and the impact is sometimes 

minimal. 

7

If anyone asks why high schools must reform, the answer to that 

question lies in the presentation that was made by the superintendent of public schools in Durham, North Carolina, recently, 

and it mirrors what we have already heard this morning. 30 percent of high school students fail to graduate. Fifty percent of minority ninth-grade students failed to complete high school in 4 years, 

and over 2,000 U.S. public U.S. High schools the senior class is 60 

percent smaller than the freshman class that entered 4 years earlier. Thirty-three percent of freshman must enroll in remedial 

courses. We have situations where in companies, in community colleges and university systems, high school graduates have to take 

remedial programs. 

GSK is a high tech company that relies on being able to hire the 

cream of the crop. We have to be able to compete globally. We 

would love to able to home-grow our talent as opposed to hiring 

them from other places. We have to have top-notch high schools to 

be able to do that. We draw a parallel between our business and 

the world of K-through–12 education. It takes an average of 14 

years and around $800 billion to get one drug on the market. That 

is the length of time it takes a child to enter first grade and complete all the way through 2 years of college. 

We think putting resources on the front end of this education 

issue is so critical. Currently we spend somewhere between 30,000 

and $60,000 to keep one person in prison a year. That is a lot more 

than we spend to pay teachers on an annual basis, and more than 

it costs for a college education in some cases. 

The most important element to me is leadership. We are lucky. 

We have strong leadership by the business community. We have 

strong leadership by elected officials, and it shows in them being 

able to see our State increase as well as it has. 

How is our company contributing to K through 12? K-through–

12 education is the No. 1 social issue that almost every company 

looks to. There are public-private partnerships, and about 70 percent of the Nation’s schools are providing goods and services to 

about 35 million students. 

The most important way a private sector can improve high 

schools is not by writing a check, but being willing to have a dialog 

and be a partner in the process of improvement. One of those 

things we are doing in the U.S. Business Education Network is creating an organization that is going to build relationships and capture the information on a national basis that is going on in every 

State. Three thousand local Chambers of Commerce and the business community are going to be able to interact in that way. 

I was at the national education summit 2 years back hosted by 

IBM. Lou Gerstner, who is the current CEO, said—talking about 

how the U.S. ranks in the world in terms of science and math. Of 

course this is going to be important to our company. We are like 

18th or 19th. He said, if we rank the same in the world in Olympic 

basketball, we would quickly bring the pros in. I have to agree with 

him. We need a little outrage and the same kind of rallying around 

the flag that we had during the 1960’s for the space race, because 

I think this issue is that important. We have to fix our high 

schools, and as a company we want to be able to be a partner in 

doing that. Thank you very much. 

8

Chairman CASTLE. Based on our how Olympic basketball team 

did the last time, we may need to bring in somebody else. Thank 

you for your testimony. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Shore follows:]

Statement of Bill A. Shore, Director, U.S. Community Partnerships, 

GlaxoSmithKline, Research Triangle Park, NC 

Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee on Education Reform, I am 

pleased and honored to be here today. Thank you for your kind invitation. My name 

is Bill Shore and I am the Director of U.S. Community Partnerships for 

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) pharmaceuticals. 

GSK is a world leading research-based pharmaceutical company with a powerful 

combination of skills and resources that provides a platform for delivering new 

medications for today’s rapidly changing health care environment. GSK’s mission is 

to improve the quality of human life by enabling people to do more, feel better, and 

live longer. Our social investment focuses on both health and education. 

Headquartered in the United Kingdom and with U.S. operations based in the Research Triangle Park, NC and Philadelphia, PA, the company is one of the industry 

leaders with an estimated seven percent of the world’s pharmaceutical market. 

GSK has leadership in four major therapeutic areas—anti-infectives, central nervous system (CNS), respiratory, and gastro-intestinal/metabolic. In addition, it is a 

leader in the important area of vaccines and has a growing portfolio of oncology 

products. 

The company has a consumer health care portfolio comprising over-the-counter 

(OTC) medicines, oral care products and nutritional health care drinks, all of which 

are among the market leaders. 

GSK has over 100,000 employees worldwide in 110 countries. The company has 

a leading position in genomics/genetics and new drug discovery technologies. 

It is interesting to note that it takes an average of 14 years and $800 million to 

get one drug to the market. . .the same length of time it takes for a student to 

enter first grade and complete two years of college. 

I am here today to testify on behalf of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the world’s 

largest business federation, representing more than three million businesses of 

every size, sector and region. Chamber members, like GSK, are concerned about advancing the education of our high school students and strengthening the economic 

base of their communities. Through greater education reform of our high schools 

comes the strengthening of our skilled workforce. Local and state Chamber members 

represent broad networks of employers across the nation. This network, unlike any 

other entity, is uniquely positioned to bring together people and business to assist 

in the advancement of high school reform. The Chamber is committed more than 

ever to quality education issues and workforce development. 

I serve on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Center for Corporate Citizenship 

(CCC), a 501(c)3 nonprofit Chamber affiliate that supports businesses helping out 

their communities. The CCC is an instrumental arm of the Chamber in championing the need to strengthen U.S. student achievement. 

In addition to representing the Chamber, I will provide a personal and corporate 

perspective on the subject matter of today’s subcommittee hearing, which is the critical role of education reform at the secondary education level, its impact on our 

country’s global competitiveness, and preparing our workforce for the 21st century. 

I have spent much of my career working on education issues and reform for GSK 

and more recently in conjunction with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. I have been 

on the board of trustees for North Carolina Central University in Durham, a historically black university. I have chaired Public Education Network programs and committees at the local, state, and national levels. Additionally, my wife and one of my 

daughters are educators, with my daughter teaching students with learning disabilities. Corporately and personally I believe I have a perspective on American education that is hands-on and current. 

As we all know, the primary focus of the past 20 years has been on grades K–

8, and rightfully so. If students can not read, write, and do math at the 8th grade 

level, when they leave middle school, their chances of succeeding in high school are 

greatly diminished. Now, it is time for us to focus on the high school experience. 

We need to ensure that a high school diploma is more than a certificate of attendance. There are many organizations, educators, elected officials, and businesses that 

have been shining a spotlight on this issue over the past few years, and now the 

center of our attention is on how to provide an excellent K–12 education for all students. 

9

1The 2003–2004 Survey on the State of Corporate Citizenship In the U.S. was conducted by 

the CCC and Boston College with a grant from Hitachi. The survey examined attitudes and expectations of leaders of small, medium and large companies regarding the definition and role 

of corporate citizenship and its alignment with standard business practice. This survey showed 

that education was the number one issue in which the business community felt it should be 

playing an active role. 2The Council for Corporate & School Partnerships Guiding Principles for Business & School 

Partnerships at 4, available at http://www.corpschoolpartners.org/pdf/guiding—principles.pdf. 

Currently, companies, community colleges, and universities on a national level 

have to provide remedial training for many high school graduates who are not adequately prepared to be successful in the next step of their education or in their jobs. 

The efforts of this subcommittee on high school reform, hopefully, will help address 

the problem. 

In my opinion, the most important element of being successful in helping states 

and communities improve high schools is leadership. We must have strong leadership from the business community, the educational community and from elected officials to ensure strong and effective public-private partnerships. We need leadership 

to agree on a vision of where we want to be as an educated society. We need to 

focus on high standards, effective accountability measures, and rewards for excellence. 

In North Carolina we have benefited from that leadership. Thanks to the vision 

and determination of former Governor Hunt, current Governor Easley, and the 

strong leadership of the private sector, North Carolina has developed a reputation 

as a state that is making great strides in K–12 educational improvement over the 

past 10 years. The business community has been critical to this success. 

GSK is proud to be one of the companies that has provided strong leadership to 

help ensure the type of partnership environment that exists in our state will help 

students be successful. On behalf of GSK, a number of employees have put a great 

deal of time, effort, and resources into our role as a community leader. For example: 

The Vice Chairman of our pharmaceutical business, Robert Ingram, attended two 

National Education Summits, as the guest of Governor Hunt. These summits were 

hosted by Lou Gerstner at IBM and were coordinated by the National Governors 

Association. Each governor invited one CEO from his or her state. I was fortunate 

to be included with the small contingent from North Carolina. 

GSK and IBM led the effort to conduct a North Carolina Business Education 

Summit following the national summit. Governor Hunt and Mr. Ingram were Honorary Chairs and I served as co-chair of the planning committee along with my 

counterpart at IBM. We brought leaders in K–12 education, business, elected officials, and the statewide university system to discuss reform efforts in our state. 

In addition to the statewide summit, I have been fortunate over the years to serve 

as chairman of the Durham Chamber of Commerce Public Education Committee, 

the North Carolina Communities in Schools Board of Directors, the Durham Public 

Education Network, and now the U.S. Chamber’s U.S. Business Education Network 

Task Force. 

I have been privileged to serve as a board member of the North Carolina Business 

Committee for Education, the Public School Forum of North Carolina, the North 

Carolina Standards and Accountability Committee, the Durham Technical Community College Foundation Board, the North Carolina Central University Board of 

Trustees, the Conference Board’s Business Education Council, and a number of 

other local and statewide initiatives that have addressed K–12 education improvement efforts. I served in these roles because GSK cares very deeply about the education of our students, the quality of our teachers, and the role of our company in 

helping these students to succeed. I do not think we can spend our time, resources, 

and leadership skills on a more important issue. For us, it is the right thing to do. 

As a high-tech company with long-term requirements for a highly-educated workforce, it is in our best interest to make K–12 education one of our top priorities. 

Mary Linda Andrews, my colleague here today, continues to serve along with me 

and others on education boards and serves as advisor on education-related efforts 

in North Carolina and Pennsylvania. 

Overall, you might ask—how are companies contributing to K–12 education? Companies rank education as the number one social issue that they should help to address.1 According to a study by The Council for Corporate and School Partnerships, 

they contribute approximately $2.4 billion dollars to K–12 education.2 By way of 

comparison, this is more than is spent on all corporate public policy advocacy and 

lobbying combined. And this does not take into consideration the leadership and volunteer time that companies and their employees provide to schools. 

10

There are public-private partnerships in approximately 70% of the nation’s school 

districts, providing goods and services to 35 million students. Individual companies 

focus on different education needs. Some focus on math and science (GSK, Bayer, 

Siemens, Westinghouse), others on history (Siemens), others on ethics (Deloitte), 

others on social studies and cross-cultural skills (Target), and still others on literacy 

(GSK, Coca–Cola and Verizon). 

Companies also engage with students throughout the learning process, whether 

at pre–K (GSK), after school (Wachovia and GSK), in high school (Microsoft and 

GSK) or in college, MBA, and Ph.D. programs (KPMG). 

Companies also focus on the enabling environment for teachers and students. Organizations like Communities in Schools—which provides social services to needy 

students so that teachers can focus on teaching—receive corporate support in over 

30 states. Office Depot distributes over 250,000 backpacks full of essential school 

supplies to needy children. TimeWarner works with teachers and superintendents 

with organizations like New Leaders New Schools. 

Chicago-based QuamNichols’ CEO Bill Little, and many other corporate leaders 

like him, works with Janet Knupp and her group, the Chicago Public Education 

Fund, in a partnership that addresses a broad range of education issues in Chicago. 

Other geographic-based public-private partnerships have developed in other cities 

around the country—most notably the Boston Compact and the Washington Compact. 

While there are a wide range of success stories, there is an increasing feeling in 

the business community that more needs to be done at a national level. That is why 

a group of leading companies like GSK, and others have come together to create the 

U.S. Business Education Network (USBEN). USBEN is a new business coalition 

staffed by the CCC of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. USBEN is dedicated to harnessing the power of the business community to address issues facing the U.S. education system as it prepares our children for the future. USBEN is working to build 

relationships between partners, share success stories, and link practices to policies 

to ensure lasting change. I am privileged to chair this task force. 

The point is, business support for education is not about philanthropy—cash contributions are just the tip of the iceberg. Business engagement with education can 

span a wide spectrum, including: • developing/understanding the skills required to be successful at companies like 

GSK; • advocacy; • advice about process management; • motivation; • mentoring; • standards and accountability; • capacity building; and 

• encouragement. 

Already some of the top business supporters of education have started to come together, but more needs to be done. We fully recognize that students are ultimately 

responsible for their own success, and that teachers are on the front lines of making 

that happen. GSK, the business community, and the Chamber are deeply concerned 

about the future of our educational system. It affects our society and our economy 

in so many ways. We want to continue to increase our engagement and support for 

improving student achievement and the effectiveness of our education system to respond to 21st century workforce requisites and economic conditions. 

I should also note that the Chamber is already involved in specific educational 

efforts to promote education and skills training of our workforce after graduation 

from high school. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Center for Workforce Preparation 

(CWP)—in partnership with local chambers, other workforce development organizations, and funders—has been instrumental in defining and demonstrating the 

unique role of local chambers in workforce development and education. CWP’s priority goals include promoting and supporting effective education and training initiatives concerning workforce excellence; conducting and supporting research that will 

develop more effective worker training programs; initiating and documenting promising education and workforce preparation programs that can be replicated by chambers of commerce and their small business members at the local level. 

Now, I’d like to share why GSK has been a supporter of education and its continued reform for decades. There are many reasons for this support: 

1) It is part of our corporate focus to give back to the communities where our employees live and work. 

2) We want to help ensure that our employees have the best education possible 

for their families (all corporations want this). 

3) We need a highly-educated workforce for our business. 

11

4) We believe that education is the key to helping resolve many of today’s social 

issues. It is much less expensive to proactively educate a child than to have 

that child live in poverty with potentially enormous future societal costs, including incarceration, if that child cannot become a productive adult member 

of the workforce. Estimates of the cost per year in prison range from $30,000 

to $60,000 per year. That is more than we pay teachers per year in many of 

our communities. 

The magic bullet for education reform does not exist. There must be a concerted 

effort at the local, state, and national levels. In conjunction with the U.S. Chamber 

of Commerce and the U.S. Department of Education, GSK is helping to lead the way 

as we jointly take a more meaningful look at how education can be reformed and 

how that will impact the U.S. position in our global economy. Our nation’s education 

system forms the basis for skills that the U.S. workforce develops. It is the bedrock 

for research and development, and it contributes fundamentally to the development 

of our communities and the cohesiveness of American society. 

I will highlight some of the ways GSK is partnering on the state and local levels 

in North Carolina. 

The North Carolina New Schools Project—an initiative of North Carolina Governor Mike Easley and his Education Cabinet funded in part with an $11 million 

grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—aims to create 40 to 50 new 

and redesigned high schools across the state. The New Schools Project will reform 

high schools and better prepare students for the workforce and college. GSK has 

provided leadership on the Advisory Board and has underwritten town hall meetings with superintendents and business leaders in school districts that will benefit 

from these efforts. 

The first round of funding from the New Schools Project is focused on health 

science schools. Each of the grant recipients is committed to creating new high 

schools and schools within existing schools that have a focus on the health sciences. 

They will be developed in conjunction with regional health care and higher education partners. These schools will be academically rigorous. GSK will continue to 

support the next round of schools, which will focus on middle college and early college high schools in partnership with the community colleges and public and private 

colleges and universities. 

Many school systems in the U.S. have experienced their share of struggles: 30% 

of high school students fail to graduate; 50% of minority 9th grade students fail to 

complete high school in four years; in over 2,000 public U.S. high schools the senior 

class is 60% smaller than the freshman class that entered four years earlier; only 

32% of high school graduates are ready to attend a four year college; 33% of the 

freshmen must enroll in a remedial course; and 50% of the freshman class fail to 

earn a degree in six years. 

The number and types of industrial working class jobs have dramatically decreased. Good middle class jobs now require skills acquired through high levels of 

education, and almost all jobs require complex problem-solving, effective communication skills, and the ability to exercise independent judgment while working in 

groups. 

How will communities resolve this situation? In Durham, NC, Dr. Anne 

Denlinger, superintendent of Durham Public Schools (DPS), is focused on high 

school reform because there is stagnant growth in student achievement, unacceptably high suspension and dropout rates, too few students graduating in four years, 

increased state graduation requirements, and there are too few students—particularly African–American and Hispanic—in higher level classes. 

DPS created a High School Reform Committee, with teams from each high school 

that will meet twice a month for one year to develop strategies for high school improvement. The goal is to ensure that all students will graduate from high school 

ready for the next level of their education or ready to work at a skilled job. 

This results-oriented committee will collect and analyze data, determine best 

practices, and design strategies. They will examine current and historical data and 

‘‘benchmark’’ against national standards. They will increase academic rigor and expand support; increase relevance and improve relationships; align structure, calendar, and schedule for more personalized education; involve parents, community 

agencies, and businesses in high school reform; and recruit, retain, and develop 

highly qualified teachers. 

Further, they will adopt three measurable goals and after nine months’ work, will 

agree on five broadly focused areas. They will brainstorm and agree upon high-leverage district strategies for each area. Schools will develop action plans to align 

with districtwide strategies, and school teams are expected to share committee work 

with faculty, staff, and parents. 

12

Durham has a vision for reforming its high schools and it has a vision for its students: By 2013, 100% of students graduate from high school in four years; by 2009, 

90% of graduates complete a college prep course of study; and by 2009, 80% of graduates meet University of North Carolina system admission requirements. 

Already, Durham has increased graduation requirements, provided staff development for all high school teachers in using effective teaching strategies for the block 

schedule, designed support courses for ECP students, provided schools with SAT 

prep software, and held an AP teacher assembly on access and equity. 

The school system has or is implementing an Early College High School, a City 

of Medicine Academy, Ninth Grade Academies, and Middle College High Schools. 

Shouldn’t we, as a country, have such a vision and expectations? 

GSK provides leadership on the executive board of the North Carolina Business 

Committee for Education (NCBCE). Together we want to improve tomorrow’s employees through education reform. 

NCBCE has established a Center for 21st Century Skills to design curriculum, 

teacher training, and student assessments to support students in acquiring knowledge and skills to prepare them for further education and for the present and future 

workforce. The Center will work closely with the New Schools Project with an initial 

focus on high school reform. The Center will also work with the North Carolina 

Science, Math, and Technology Education Center; the North Carolina School of 

Science and Math; the Board of Science and Technology; and governing boards of 

education (State Board of Education, Community College, and University) to research and propose options to create new or expand existing math and science summer programs across the state and to establish regional math and science programs 

for high achieving high school students. The Center will also support efforts of the 

Futures for Kids program that connects students with the workforce needs of their 

home communities. GSK provided the seed funding for the Futures for Kids program and has continued in an advisory capacity to the program. GSK recognizes 

that it takes a collaborative effort to reform schools. 

GSK staff took a leading role in the review of the North Carolina science curriculum to help reform it so that inquiry-based science kits would be available as 

part of the curriculum. 

GSK supports the Public School Forum of North Carolina (Forum) with funding 

and leadership. The Forum is a not-for-profit policy think tank and partnership of 

business leaders, educational leaders, and governmental leaders in North Carolina 

that has made a significant contribution to schools across the state. The Forum has 

set the public policy framework for North Carolina’s entry into school accountability 

with the passage of the School Improvement and Accountability Act. The Forum has 

proposed major changes to the way in which North Carolina funds its schools—

changes that have resulted in over $100 million of supplemental funds going to low 

wealth and small schools each year and the establishment of the North Carolina 

School Technology Fund. The Forum has created a one-of-a-kind Institute for Educational Policymakers, a capacity-building center that focuses on members of the 

General Assembly, the State Board of Education and reporters who cover their actions. 

High school reform means that all students have access to the same quality education, including teachers, special services, and educational materials. The quality 

of a child’s education should not depend on the wealth of their family or the wealth 

of their neighborhood. To help equalize the education of disadvantaged children or 

children whose schools are at a disadvantage, GSK supports multiple programs. 

GSK recognizes that teacher development is an integral key to student success. 

When you impact one teacher, there is a cascading effect on thousands of students 

over the teacher’s career. GSK provided a three-year, $300,000 grant to the National 

Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) to increase the number of 

science teachers pursuing National Board Certification in the Research Triangle 

Park area of North Carolina and in the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia areas of Pennsylvania. 

GSK was instrumental in establishing the Destiny Traveling Science Laboratory 

Program and we continue to be a major sponsor of the University of North Carolina’s traveling science laboratory, Destiny, since its inception in 1999. Destiny is 

a fully selfcontained lab that accommodates 12 lab stations for a total of 24 students. Destiny visited 90 under-served secondary schools and reached 4,000 students during 2004. The program encourages women and minority students to pursue 

science careers. 

GSK gave a three-year grant to Juniata College and Drexel University for transition and start-up costs of the Science in Motion (SIM) program. SIM endeavors to 

improve performance in science and math among high school students statewide in 

Pennsylvania. The program models teacher preparation recommended by the NaVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:26 Nov 17, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\DOCS\22178 NNIXON
13

tional Science Board. A mobile educator serves high school teachers by visiting 

classrooms once a week to facilitate introduction of advanced equipment and modern 

technologies. 

For over 18 years, GSK has been supporting public education networks in North 

Carolina and Pennsylvania. These community-based public school advocacy groups 

link human and material resources to strengthen public schools. They leverage private contributions to ensure the greatest possible impact in every school and also 

are a facilitator of community involvement in public schools. Some of the programs 

that GSK supports are K–8 Science Initiative, local education summits, Food for 

Thought Teacher grants, Leadership Academy, and Task Force on Teacher Excellence. 

GSK is a supporter of the Kenan Fellows Program, an innovative model to promote teacher leadership, address teacher retention and advance K–12 science, technology and mathematics education. Kenan Fellows are public school teachers selected through a competitive process to participate in a prestigious two-year fellowship, all while remaining active in the classroom. During these two years, Kenan 

Fellows work in partnership with distinguished scientists, university faculty, and 

the Department of Public Instruction, developing curriculum and teaching resources 

that bring cuttingedge research into the hands of students. Kenan Fellows are scientists, inventors, authors and leaders in our classrooms bringing curriculum to life! 

Student scholarships are important because far too many high school students are 

not as motivated if they do not believe that they have a chance to continue their 

education due to finances. Since 1994, the GSK Science Achievement Award has 

been a competitive award available to graduate students in chemistry, medicine, 

and the biological sciences through the United Negro College Fund (UNCF). UNCF 

is the nation’s oldest and most successful minority higher education assistance organization. GSK also has provided support for the minority scholars program through 

the American Chemical Society. 

The GlaxoSmithKline Opportunity Scholarships are awarded annually to persons 

who ‘‘have the potential to succeed despite adversity and have exceptional desire to 

better themselves through further education or training.’’ The endowment for this 

GSK program currently stands at more than $700,000. 

GSK endowed four North Carolina community colleges with a total of $400,000. 

Eligible students must be enrolled in an electrical/electronics technology, electronics 

engineering, biotechnology, computer engineering technology, industrial pharmaceutical technology or industrial systems technology program, or currently pursuing 

an associate’s degree in science or other approved science or engineering related curriculum. Students must also demonstrate financial need. Selected students carry the 

distinction of the ‘‘GlaxoSmithKline Scholar.’’

In addition to GSK’s corporate focus on education, the North Carolina GSK Foundation provides about two million dollars a year in grants to programs supporting 

education in the state. The Foundation also runs the GSK’s Women in Science (WIS) 

program, which is committed to reversing the trend of under representation of 

women in fields like chemistry, medicine, mathematics and pharmacology. The WIS 

program pairs outstanding undergraduate women at North Carolina colleges and 

universities with GSK women scientists working in laboratories and other environments conducive to further study and research. Our scientists, as mentors, guide 

students along pathways to learning more about rewarding careers in the sciences. 

The students, as scholars, gain a vicarious view of corporate life as mentors show 

them, by example, that women can succeed in science. 

Over the years, GSK has been proud to provide funding, employee volunteers and/

or leadership to many organizations focused on improving our K–12 education system. In addition to the programs listed above, other programs include the following: 

American Association for the Advancement of Science—Science in the Summer 

America Reads 

Challenger Center for Space Science Education—Sally Ride Science Festivals and 

Club 

Children’s Literacy Initiative—provides literacy training for Teach for America 

Children’s Village—literacy curriculum for students and teachers 

City Year Greater Philadelphia—tutoring and mentoring to low performing 

schools 

Communities in Schools 

Durham Academy—minority scholarships for high school students 

Durham Academy—Summer Science Institute for high school students in North 

Carolina 

Franklin Institute—Partnerships for Achieving Careers in Technology and Science 

Greater Philadelphia Cares—Reading STARS, a volunteer-based literacy program 

14

Hill Center—teacher training to recognize and work with students who have 

learning disabilities (includes an evaluation component) 

Lincoln Hospital School of Nursing—scholarship endowment for minority students 

Lowes Grove Middle School—corrective reading literacy program 

MSEN—science education leadership institute 

National Humanities Center—teacher leadership and professional development 

North Carolina Central University—Biotechnology Institute 

North Carolina Infrastructure for Science Education (NC–ISE) programs—preparing science teacher leaders as facilitators for statewide training of K–12 teachers 

for implementation of inquiry science in North Carolina schools 

North Carolina School of Science and Math 

North Carolina State University—learning technology programs for high school 

students 

Peace College—leadership development for pre-college girls 

Philadelphia Education Fund—state and national Middle Grades Matter programs 

Project Graduation—scholarships 

PTAs support through our ‘‘GSK Investment in Volunteer Efforts’’ program 

Science Fair support in North Carolina and Pennsylvania—teacher workshops 

and judges 

Summer Technology Institute—for teachers in North Carolina 

Teach4NC—Web site showing individuals from all professional backgrounds how 

to obtain their North Carolina teaching license 

Thomas Jefferson University—science outreach program that brings science classrooms through a mobile zebrafish lab and teacher workshops for Philadelphia public 

schools 

Total Quality Education Efforts 

Teach for America—support for science teachers 

United Innoworks Academy—summer science workshops 

U.S. Department of Education—No Child Left Behind blue ribbon schools conference 

Wistar Institute of Anatomy & Biology—high school summer science fellows 

In conclusion, we must not relax our efforts to win the high school reform battle. 

On the contrary, it is imperative that we strengthen our efforts by making this a 

nonpartisan goal, as we did with the space program in the 1960s. My sense is that 

our education issues are more compelling than ever before. The country expected us 

to be competitive in the race for space travel and with combined, concerted efforts 

and strong leadership we rose to the top. We can and we must have the same expectations for educating our youth as they prepare to lead in the 21st century. It is 

incumbent upon us to lead the way to changing the horrifying educational statistics 

we continue to hear. 

GSK is in the business of helping to improve the quality of human life for millions 

of people around the world. This should be the same goal of the United States as 

we educate our students—our leaders of tomorrow. Everyone shares this common 

goal of providing an excellent education for all of our students in order to provide 

an opportunity for an improved quality of life. 

If we do our part, our children will do more because they are better educated. College graduates make $1 million dollars more in their lifetime than non-graduates. 

They will feel better, not only about themselves and their accomplishments, but 

they are more likely to be in better health and live longer. Statistics show that educated people take better care of themselves. 

These trends will enable the U.S. to thrive and take a stronger position in a global economy that is becoming increasingly competitive. As a corporation, we have the 

right to expect great things from our students and we have the responsibility to assist schools in their understanding of what is needed to prepare students for jobs 

and for higher education. 

I would like to emphasize what many of us already know—U.S. students are slipping globally in math and science. The views of the Report to the Nation from the 

National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century 

are particularly instructive. The report notes: 

Our children are falling behind; they are simply not ‘‘world-class learners’’ 

when it comes to mathematics and science...The Third International Mathematics and Science Study tested the students of 41 nations. Children in the 

United States were among the leaders in the fourth-grade assessment, but 

by high school graduation they were almost last. Here at home, the National Assessment of Educational Progress basically substantiates our students’ poor performance...In short, our children are losing the ability to reVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:26 Nov 17, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\DOCS\22178 NNIXON
15

3 Before It’s Too Late: A Report to the Nation From The National Commission on Mathematics 

and Science Teaching for the 21st Century at 4 (2000). 

spond not just to the challenges already presented by the 21st century but 

to its potential as well...3

This is of great concern to GSK and should be to all Americans, but especially 

to you, as leaders of our country. As a corporation strongly linked to and dependent 

upon a highly-educated workforce, we have to ask what we can do as collaborators 

to help strengthen and reform our educational system. As a team, we must ensure 

that our high school students are prepared to meet the work and educational challenges of the 21st century. Our global competitiveness depends upon it. 

Thank you. I am happy to take questions. 

Chairman CASTLE. Ms. Sterling. 

STATEMENT OF SARAH REVI STERLING, PROGRAM MANAGER, 

UNIVERSITY RELATIONS, MICROSOFT CORPORATION, 

REDMOND, WA 

Ms. STERLING. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, 

my name is Sarah Revi Sterling, and I represent the Microsoft Corporation, where I manage our gender equity programs in computer 

science through our External Research Team at Microsoft Research. I also represent the National Center For Women and Information Technology, an organization committed to increasing the 

participation of girls and women in information technology and 

computing, where I am the chairperson of the Workforce Alliance. 

I want to thank you for the opportunity to appear here today to 

discuss how the private sector is helping States and communities 

improve high school education and to highlight the challenges relating to the role of women in science and technology education. 

The future of U.S. competitiveness depends on our capacity to 

cultivate and maintain a diverse, innovative and technically 

trained workforce. U.S. students across the board are opting out of 

computer science often because of the false impression that there 

will be no jobs waiting for them when they graduate. But the situation among women is much worse. The number of women interested in computer science as a major has dropped 80 percent between 1998 and 2004, and has dropped 98 percent from its peak 

in 1982. Some computer science departments at top research institutions have no women in their incoming freshman class. And out 

of the female students who do enter computer science, the attrition 

rate is between 40 and 60 percent. This trend away from computing starts earlier than college, but at the middle and high 

school levels. 

To meet these challenges, the National Center For Women and 

IT, or NCWIT, was formed recently with the mission to ensure all 

women are fully represented in the influential world of information 

technology and computing. NCWIT is a growing coalition of over 40 

companies, academic institutions, the National Science Foundation 

and nonprofits working aggressively to understand and solve this 

problem. 

At the high school level, NCWIT’s programmatic priorities include stimulating girls’ interest in IT and promoting a positive 

image of female technology workers and the innovative work that 

they do. NCWIT has partnered with the Association for Computing 

Machinery, the Computer Science Teachers Association, the Girl 

16

Scouts of the USA and many high-tech companies to form a Kthrough–12 Alliance with the focus on attracting more girls into 

the study of computer science and assembling standards for computing education. 

NCWIT’s K-through–12 Alliance and industry members are committed to sharing their promising practices to promote the recruitment, retention and advancement of girls and women in IT. Promising practices focused at the high school level include symposia to 

prepare girls for IT careers, summer camps that provide opportunities for girls to experience the multifaceted areas of computer 

science, programs for both students and parents to inform them 

about IT courses and careers and mentoring programs. 

The alliances that comprise NCWIT are committed to pursuing 

fresh thinking in building up the female technical workforce as the 

last 20 years of efforts have not positively affected this pipeline. 

Companies like Microsoft, Intel, Google and others are putting 

their best creative minds not just on new products, but on finding 

ways to engage younger students earlier. 

In addition to supporting an array of efforts with private- and 

public-sector partners like NCWIT, Microsoft has committed to invest over $35 million through our Partners in Learning program, 

a long-term commitment by Microsoft to partner with governments, 

schools and teachers to support the systemic changes needed to address many of the challenges I have already outlined. Partners in 

Learning also strives to address the unique expectations students 

have of schools, such as ensuring they have access to and the capability to effectively use advanced technology tools as part of their 

learning environment. 

In addition, Microsoft has been developing an educational prototype called the School of the Future scheduled to open in west 

Philadelphia in 2006. The School of the Future is rooted in the vision of an empowered community where learning is continuous, relative and adaptive. 

Microsoft has also funded a series of pilots with universities to 

increase the numbers of women from regional feeder schools choosing to major in computer science. These programs in their third 

year are showing success and increasing the number of female high 

school graduates excited about starting academic careers in technology. 

Mr. Chairman and Madam Ranking Member, the gender gap in 

IT threatens the ability of the U.S. to compete globally. We know 

that a more diverse talent will yield different products and better 

ideas, contributing to stronger U.S. economic performance. Girls 

and women must play an important role in fostering new innovations if the U.S. is to remain competitive. Working together, the 

public and private sectors can and must make swift and substantive changes in our educational and business institutions to 

promote an inclusive culture of innovation. America needs the talent of all its citizens, our competitiveness, security, and ultimately 

the health of our democracy depends upon this. Thank you very 

much. 

Chairman CASTLE. Thank you, Ms. Sterling. We appreciate that. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Sterling follows:]

17

Statement of Sarah Revi Sterling, Program Manager, University Relations, 

Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA 

Chairman Castle, Ranking Member Woolsey, Members of the Sub–Committee: 

My name is Sarah Revi Sterling and I represent Microsoft Corporation, where I 

manage our gender equity programs in computing in the External Research team 

of Microsoft Research. I also represent the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), an organization committed to increasing participation of 

girls and women in information technology (IT) and computing, where I am chairperson of NCWIT’s Workforce Alliance. I want to thank you for the opportunity to 

appear today to discuss how the private sector is helping states and communities 

improve high school education and higher education, and to highlight the challenges 

we face as a nation as it relates to the role of women in science and technology education—in particular women in information technology and computing. 

Mr. Chairman, the dearth of young women choosing technical courses and career 

paths is more than a gender equity issue. Department of Labor projections forecast 

that our economy will add nearly 1.5 million professional IT jobs by 2012—but the 

numbers of both male and female students joining the technical workforce is diminishing greatly each year. The ability of the U.S. to remain competitive as a leader 

in math, science and engineering is one of America’s greatest national security and 

competitiveness concerns. The future of U.S. competitiveness depends on our capacity to cultivate and maintain a diverse, innovative, and technically-trained workforce. 

While U.S. students across the board are opting out of computer science as an undergraduate major often because of the false impression that there will be a limited 

number of jobs available upon graduation, the situation among women is worse. who 

choose computer science as an undergraduate major has declined every year since 

1984. Mr. Chairman, the stark reality we face as a nation is that nearly one-third 

of American high school students will not graduate, and more than half of those who 

do are not ready for a four-year college in many instances because American high 

schools were designed for an industrial and not a knowledge economy. 

As Bill Gates recently stated ‘‘...the heart of the economic argument for better 

high schools...says: we’d better do something about these kids not getting an education, because it’s hurting us. But there’s also a moral argument for better high 

schools, and it says: We’d better do something about these kids not getting an education, because it’s hurting them.’’ Educating students to be the future creators of 

software, devices, and communication systems is the only way we are going to be 

able to be globally competitive in innovation, research and development. Bureau of 

Labor Statistics projections from 2002 show that information technology jobs will 

out-strip IT degree production by nearly a factor of two to one. This will cripple our 

competitive edge in high-tech industry unless high school curricula reform, teacher 

training practices, and perceptions about computing change nationwide. 

The gender gap in America’s technical workforce represents our most significant 

opportunity to build an innovative and highly trained workforce for the U.S. to 

maintain its competitive edge. As corporations are increasingly aware, the gender 

gap creates significant negative economic consequences. Catalyst, a top professional 

gender research and advisory organization, has authored several studies and business cases that show a direct relationship between the diversity of a company’s 

workforce and company earnings. The group of companies with the highest representation of women on their senior management teams had a 35 percent higher 

return on equity and a 34 percent higher total return to shareholders than companies with the lowest women’s representation. 

A diverse talent pool creates more cutting edge and dynamic technology. Employing gender diversity in the innovation process yields a much wider range products 

and better ideas, contributing to stronger U.S. economic performance. We at Microsoft see firsthand the value of diversity in the research and development labs—a 

richness of perspectives creates far stronger products that take a broader array of 

consumer needs into account. Unfortunately, we simply cannot find enough women 

to hire into these jobs. 

The U.S. faces the challenge of attracting sufficient numbers of women and men 

candidates both to pursue degrees and careers in IT and computing. While it is true 

that women earn more than half of all bachelor’s degrees conferred, they are conspicuously absent from technology fields of study. Newly reported data compiled by 

the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles shows the percentage of all incoming students interested in majoring in computer science has plummeted over the last four years. Between the fall of 2000 and 

the fall of 2004, the percentage dropped by 60 percent and is now 70 percent lower 

than its peak in the early 1980s. 

18

The number of women interested in computer science as a major has fallen 80 

percent between 1998 and 2004 and 93 percent since its peak in 1982. According 

to NCWIT data, in 2000, women accounted for only 28 percent of all degrees in computer and information sciences, down from 37 percent in 1984, and the percentages 

are lower at major research universities. Out of the female students who do pursue 

computer science degrees, the attrition rate is between 40 to 60 percent by the time 

they graduate. Although women make up nearly half the total U.S. workforce, they 

represent only 25 percent of all professional IT workers and represent only 11 percent of corporate officers at the top 500 U.S. technology companies. 

The absence of girls and women in information technology careers limits the way 

that technology is developed, marketed, and consumed. Attracting, recruiting and 

retaining girls and women helps widen the talent pool, offering industry not only 

more qualified candidates to fill available positions, but a far greater chance at creating valuable new intellectual property and product lines. Women’s participation 

in IT, as both its creators and its consumers, guarantees that it will be a dynamic 

force in our future; and technology’s pervasive impact on all our lives makes women’s participation an imperative. 

These industry and academic trends relate directly to a problem that is demonstrable in high school. Based on the National Center for Education Statistics recent 

report, Trends in Educational Equity of Girls & Women: 2004, even high school girls 

take mathematics and science courses that are at least as rigorous as the courses 

of their male counterparts. While computer use among girls has more than doubled 

since 1984, girls represent only 15 percent of test-takers in Advanced Placement 

(AP) computer science—the lowest female representation of any AP test. In a 2002 

study conducted by the Women’s Foundation of Colorado, the majority of girls surveyed expressed a greater desire than boys to work in a profession that had positive 

societal impact. Although technology is the very foundation on which these young 

women will be able to fulfill their professional aspirations, most girls do not yet perceive IT as a profession in which this is likely or even possible. Particularly at the 

middle and high school levels, educators, businesses, and the media must work to 

change the image of IT as a relevant, exciting discipline; the basis for communication and innovation, in all aspects of our lives. Consistent reinforcement of a ‘‘geeky’’ 

image and the absence of mentors, teachers, and other role models in IT, confirm 

the stereotype of technology as inhospitable or incompatible to girls and women, and 

are cited as a major reason why girls show declining interest in math and science 

at the high-school level. We need high schools to aggressively communicate the message that the computing field will be the source of future innovations across society, 

particularly in academic areas that were once distinct from computing, but are now 

oftentimes intensively computational in nature. 

To meet these challenges the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) was recently formed with the mission to ensure that women are 

fully represented in the influential world of IT and computing. NCWIT is a growing 

coalition of over 40 respected corporations, academic institutions, government agencies and non-profits working aggressively to understand and solve this problem. As 

a community of change-agents NCWIT is committed to investing in research and 

education, determining best practices for progress, and implementing these solutions across the country. NCWIT believes in building a national ‘‘infrastructure’’ in 

order to support the systematic and focused approaches required to solve the gender 

gap in IT and computing. 

Through a nationally connected effort of programs, networks, and research, 

NCWIT is working to guarantee that women’s perspectives and skills contribute significantly to the creation, development, consumption and application of IT. NCWIT 

is building a national infrastructure and working to connect all phases of the education and career pipeline, including K–12. Key to NCWIT’s success is its ability to 

assess and disseminate effective practices to benefit girls and women in the IT field, 

to reuse what already works, to measure success with an annual scorecard, to raise 

the visibility of the issue, and to mobilize educational, industrial, and governmental 

communities focused on change. NCWIT works to cross-leverage and coordinate 

work from many organizations reducing duplication, encouraging reuse and improving efficiency, and generally creating a cogent national implementation plan. 

NCWIT is organized using a distributed model of existing efforts, established 

thought leaders, and assessment teams to provide a model that will encourage efficiency, support existing programs, unify like-minded efforts, and leverage consolidated efforts for national impact. NCWIT’s geographically diverse group of hubs, including academic institutions, industry initiatives, professional groups, and other organizations, acts as the flexible foundation for the creation and application of programs, research, and outreach. 

19

NCWIT is targeting promising practices and working to turn them into best practices that can be replicated and used by various institutions and organizations 

across the country. 

At the high school level, NCWIT’s programmatic priorities include stimulating 

girls’ interest in IT and promoting a positive, current image of technology workers, 

and the kinds of innovative work women can do in computing. NCWIT is partnering 

with the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA), a number of technology companies, and the Girl Scouts of 

the USA (GSUSA), to form a K–12 Alliance, with a focus on attracting more girls 

into the study of computer science and assembling standards for computing education. As an NCWIT hub, GSUSA is responsible for initiating, implementing, tracking, and measuring programs aimed at increasing girls’ participation in IT and computing. With its high-profile reputation and national reach, GSUSA has extensive 

community contact and experience with influencing policy issues affecting girls. 

NCWIT’s Academic Alliance and Workforce Alliances, such as the K–12 effort, are 

committed to sharing their promising practices to promote the recruitment, retention, and advancement of girls and women in IT. Promising practices focused at the 

high school level include symposia to encourage girls to take courses that will prepare them for IT careers; summer camps that provide opportunities for girls to experience computer science through modeling and visualization programs, basic programming skills, and web site design; hands-on programs at universities with activities for both students and parents to inform them about university technology programs and encourage girls to pursue IT degrees; and mentoring programs. NCWIT 

is committed to pursuing fresh thinking in building up the technical female workforce—the last 20 years of efforts have not affected the technical ecosystem positively. Companies like Microsoft, Intel, Avaya and others are putting their best creative minds not just on new products, but on finding new ways to engage students 

early and to dispel the myths and stereotypes that pervade the industry. 

As part of Microsoft’s commitment, in 2006 NCWIT will publish the first annual 

Scorecard, a metrics-based research report that informs the public on the status and 

progress of girls and women in information technology. Such a publication does not 

exist today, and will serve as a critical tool in our collective efforts to increase the 

visibility of the issue, track long-term national progress, and educate all concerned 

stakeholders, including employers, legislators, teachers, and parents. Research for 

the Scorecard will be conducted and supervised by statisticians and social scientists, 

and the professionally printed report will be made available free and distributed nationally. 

In addition to supporting an array of efforts with private and public sector partners, Microsoft has addressed the significant challenges aligning the culture of education in America with the exigencies of the knowledge economy. For example, recent data indicate a growing disconnect between school systems and the students 

they serve: fewer than one-quarter of high school graduates feel that they were significantly challenged and faced high expectations in order to graduate from high 

school. In addition, an overwhelming majority of graduates say that they would 

have worked harder if their high school demanded more of them and set higher academic standards. Only 28 percent of 12th graders say that schoolwork is often or 

always meaningful—down from 40 percent in 1983. Only 21 percent of 12th graders 

say that their courses are very interesting. Common among these surveys is an undercurrent of frustration that schools and teachers have not recognized, much less 

responded to, the underlying uniqueness of the students they serve. 

In an effort to address these challenges in the public education system, Microsoft 

has committed to invest over $35 million through our Partners in Learning program–a long-term commitment by Microsoft to partner with government, schools 

and teachers to support the systemic changes needed to address many of the challenges outlined above. Partnering schools receive financial and other types of support to develop new approaches to education that keep students engaged in their 

education while equipping them with the skills to succeed in the Innovation Economy. Partners in Learning also strives to address the unique expectations students 

have of schools, such as ensuring they have access to, and the capability to effectively use, advanced technology tools as part of their learning environment. 

In addition, Microsoft has been building an educational prototype called the 

‘‘School of the Future’’–scheduled to open in West Philadelphia in September 2006. 

The School of the Future is rooted in the vision of an empowered community where 

learning is continuous, relevant, and adaptive. The school will serve as an educational model that nurtures student achievement through holistic reform of secondary education through the application of research and development practices as 

well as best-of-class technology solutions in nearly every area of the learning comVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:26 Nov 17, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00023 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\DOCS\22178 NNIXON
20

munity, including curriculum delivery, community collaboration, back-office support, 

content creation, and dissemination of content and assessment. 

At the undergraduate level, Microsoft also has funded a series of pilots with universities to increase the numbers of women from regional feeder schools choosing 

to major in computer science. These programs, in their third year, are showing incremental success in the numbers of female high school graduates excited about 

starting their academic careers in technology. These programs seek to engage female students who would not normally classify themselves as math or science oriented but are interested in the human factor and creative aspects of computing, 

such as user interface design, artificial intelligence, and graphics. The early successes of these programs are now being emulated at several other universities who 

share concerns regarding negative perceptions held by high school girls about computing as a meaningful career. 

Mr. Chairman, the gender gap in information technology threatens the ability of 

the U.S. to compete globally. A diverse talent pool creates cutting edge and dynamic 

technology. Employing gender diversity in the innovation process yields different 

products and better ideas, contributing to stronger U.S. economic performance. Girls 

and women can and must play an important role in fostering new IT innovations 

if the U.S. is to remain competitive. Working together, the public and private sectors 

can and must make swift and substantive changes in our educational and business 

institutions to promote a culture of innovation that is inclusive and diverse. America 

needs the talent of all of its citizens: our competitiveness, security, and ultimately 

the health of our democracy depend on it. 

Chairman CASTLE. Mr. Watson. 

STATEMENT OF MIKE WATSON, VICE CHAIRMAN, BELLSOUTH 

FOUNDATION, ATLANTA, GA 

Mr. WATSON. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, 

thank you for the invitation to speak with you today. In its 2000 

Pathways to Prosperity report, the Governors Workforce Education 

Task Force in one of our Southern States found that 65 percent of 

the jobs in this century will require a 2-year degree or certification, 

yet only 32 percent of that State’s ninth-graders will pursue a 2-

year degree or certification; 20 percent of the jobs will require a college degree; 28 percent of the ninth-graders will pursue a 4-year 

degree. The final 40 percent of the State’s ninth graders will pursue unskilled jobs because they either drop out of high school or 

lack the skills needed for employment. Only 15 percent of the jobs 

available will call for unskilled labor. 

The bottom line, workers are not ready for the modern workplace. The world of technology requires strong mathematics and 

science skills plus the ability to read, to write well, to think and 

reason, and to explain complex concepts. 

At BellSouth, we believe that systemic and lasting change can 

only happen if our school leaders have the competence and capacity 

to drive reform in their districts. That is why the BellSouth Superintendent Leadership Network, a group of 50 superintendents 

across the Southeast, will focus on high school improvement over 

the next 2 years and provide their analysis, insight and input to 

State, regional and national high school redesign efforts. 

We also recognize when it comes to student achievement, the 

quality of teaching and instruction is a major predictor of a child’s 

academic success. A Missouri task force on K-through–16 education 

concluded that improving teaching quality is the single most important factor in eliminating the achievement gap. 

Last year BellSouth launched a major new initiative. BellSouth 

Quality in the Classroom Teaching Initiative, a $10 million proVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:26 Nov 17, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 H:\DOCS\22178 NNIXON
21

gram designed to assist teachers in professional development, retention and workplace conditions, top issues facing teachers nationwide. 

As a technology company, we recognize that technology plays an 

integral role in education and can have a significant impact on student achievement. The BellSouth Foundation will be launching a 

new strategy in September that we believe will be instrumental in 

improving high schools in the Southeast. Called the BellSouth 

Foundation e-Learning Initiative, this strategy is designed to bring 

engaging, rigorous online instruction to students throughout our region, particularly low-income and minority students, to help address the growing achievement gap. 

A key component of the strategy will include support for Stateled virtual high schools. We believe that virtual schools and online 

learning are a growing resource for education leaders as they seek 

innovative and cost-effective ways to accommodate growing student 

populations, meet diverse curriculum needs and provide a qualified 

teacher in every classroom. Students benefit by having access to a 

broader curriculum and by engaging in anytime, anywhere learning. 

Our strategy for virtual learning complements the work of the 

National Governors Association, and we commend Governor Warner for spearheading the Redesigning American High Schools Initiative. We are excited about partnering with NGA and offering our 

support to Governor-led efforts that incorporate virtual learning 

into their high school redesign efforts. 

Another key component of our e-Learning strategy is to expand 

access, allowing students to take advantage of virtual learning opportunities. Most low-income students do not have access to technology and online educational content in their homes. Hence, these 

students lag behind in student achievement. By expanding access 

to online learning to students in underserved communities, we will 

support schools’ efforts to improve achievement for low-income students. 

We plan to maximize the impact by leveraging the expertise of 

our employees in support of these initiatives. Currently we have 

over 100,000 active and retired volunteers. Our focus on e-Learning 

provides an outstanding opportunity to engage our volunteers and 

to utilize their skills in the community. This is an ambitious endeavor, yet we believe our support of this growing virtual learning 

movement will benefit high schools and make it possible for students at all levels to achieve high-quality courses of instruction 

personalized to their needs. 

For decades, the focus has been on improving K-through–8 education, and we have made great strides. It is time to broaden our 

focus and extend those same standards to high schools. Together 

we can make a real difference in public education for our students, 

for our society and our economy. We look forward to doing our part 

in this important national effort. Thank you. 

Chairman CASTLE. Thank you, Mr. Watson. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Watson follows:]

22

1 Closing the Achievement Gap Report, http//www.nga.org 

Statement of Mike Watson, Vice Chairman, BellSouth Foundation, Atlanta, 

GA 

Thank you for the invitation to speak with you today about private sector initiatives to improve high school education. 

In its 2000 Pathways to Prosperity report, the Governor’s Workforce Education 

Task Force in one of our southern states found: 

• 65% of the jobs in this century will require a two-year degree or certification—

yet only 32% of that state’s 9th graders will pursue a two-year degree or certification 

• 20% of the jobs will require a college degree—28% of the 9th graders will pursue a four-year degree 

• The final 40% of the state’s 9th graders will pursue ‘‘unskilled’’ jobs—because 

they either drop out of high school or lack the skills needed for employment. 

Only 15% of jobs available will call for ‘‘unskilled’’ labor. 

The bottom line: workers are not ready for the modern workplace. The world of 

technology requires strong mathematics and science skills, plus the abilities to read, 

write well, to think and reason, and to explain complex concepts. 

BELLSOUTH’S SUPPORT FOR HIGH SCHOOL REFORM

Education Leadership 

At BellSouth, we believe that systemic and lasting change can happen only if our 

school leaders have the confidence and capacity to drive reform across their districts. That is why, the BellSouth Superintendent Leadership Network, a group of 

50 superintendents from across the Southeast, will focus on high school improvement over the next two years and provide their analysis, insight and input to state, 

regional and national high school re-design efforts. 

Teaching Quality 

We also recognize that when it comes to student achievement, the quality of 

teaching and instruction is a major predictor of a child’s academic success. A Missouri task force on K–16 education concluded that improving teaching quality is the 

single most important factor in eliminating the achievement gap.1

Last year, BellSouth launched a major new initiative–BellSouth Quality in the 

Classroom Teaching Initiative, a $10M program designed to assist teachers with 

professional development, retention, and workplace conditions, top issues facing 

teachers nationwide. 

BellSouth’s strong commitment to teacher quality and professional development 

is enhanced by other corporate colleagues such as IBM. 

In our home state of Georgia, 75 state school superintendents who participated 

in the Georgia Leadership Institute for School Improvement have received training 

on leadership and change management through use of the IBM Reinventing Education Change Toolkit. All of these initiatives support the teaching, learning and 

student achievement objectives and outcomes of No Child Left Behind. 

e–Learning 

As a technology company, we recognize that technology plays an integral role in 

education and can have a significant impact on student achievement. The BellSouth 

Foundation will be launching a new strategy in September that we believe will be 

instrumental in improving high schools in the Southeast. Called the BellSouth 

Foundation e–Learning Initiative, this strategy is designed to bring engaging, rigorous, online instruction to students throughout our region–particularly low-income 

and minority students—to help address the growing achievement gap. 

A recent study released by Harvard University found that nationally, only 50 percent of Black, Latino and Native American students earn a high school diploma, and 

that problem is particularly acute in the South–where we live and work. We feel 

a sense of urgency to turn these dismal statistics around and we’ll strive to do that 

through our e–Learning initiative. 

A key component of this strategy will include support for State–Led Virtual High 

Schools. We believe that virtual schools and online learning are a growing resource 

for education leaders as they seek innovative and cost-effective ways to accommodate growing student populations, meet diverse curriculum needs, and provide a 

qualified teacher in every classroom. Students benefit by having access to a broader 

curriculum and by engaging in anytime, anywhere learning. 

23

Our strategy for virtual learning complements the work of the National Governors 

Association, and we commend Governor Warner for spearheading the ‘‘Redesigning 

American High Schools Initiative.’’ We’re excited about partnering with NGA and 

offering our support to Governor-led efforts that incorporate virtual learning into 

their high school redesign efforts. 

Another key component of our e–Learning strategy is to expand access allowing 

students to take advantage of virtual learning opportunities. Most low-income students do not have access to technology and online educational content in their 

homes; hence, these students lag behind in student achievement. By expanding access to online learning to students in underserved communities, we will support 

schools efforts to improve achievement for low income students. 

We plan to maximize the impact of our e–Learning focus by leveraging the expertise of our employees in support of these initiatives. Currently, we have over 

100,000 active and retired volunteers. Our focus on e–Learning provides an outstanding opportunity to engage our volunteers and utilize their skills in the community. 

This is an ambitious endeavor yet, we believe that our support of this growing 

virtual learning movement will benefit high schools and make it possible for students at all levels to receive high quality courses of instruction personalized to their 

needs. 

Conclusion 

For decades, the focus has been on improving K–8 education and we’ve made 

great strides. It’s time to broaden our focus and extend those same standards to 

high schools. Together, we can make a real difference in public education—for our 

students, our society and our economy. We look forward to doing our part in this 

important national effort. 

Thank you. 

Chairman CASTLE. Dr. Hudecki, you are on. 

STATEMENT OF PHYLLIS HUDECKI, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

OKLAHOMA BUSINESS AND EDUCATION COALITION, OKLAHOMA CITY, OK 

Dr. HUDECKI. Thank you. It is a real pleasure to have an opportunity to share with you some very concrete work that is going on 

in Oklahoma. 

Several leading corporations and CEOs about 5 years ago decided 

that they wanted to do something to invest in improving public 

education in Oklahoma, understanding the economic and social imperative for having strong public schools, so they got together and 

formed this organization in 2000. We are 5 years old. We now have 

31 companies, very prominent companies, who sponsor the organization. But rather than decide how to tell educators how to do their 

business, they decided to work in partnership with educational 

leaders and with others in the State in moving some key education 

policies and in raising expectation about what should happen in 

our public schools as our kids graduate. 

One of the first things we did is deal with infrastructure issues. 

We partnered with the State department of education in doing a 

feasibility study of developing a statewide student data system so 

we would have accurate data about each student and where they 

are. We could keep track of our dropout rates better. And you can 

imagine all of the good information that would come out of having 

a very good data system. 

We have partnered with the State department, the higher education system, the Governor and legislators on various initiatives. 

And typically what we do is fund half of the initiative and then ask 

24

for public-sector match of our private-sector funding, so it truly is 

a partnership. 

One of the most exciting things we have done is actually on the 

local level. We have participated in the State’s Scholars Initiative, 

and this impacts high school students directly. The goal of the program is to get high school students to take more rigorous courses 

in high school so they are better prepared for college and work 

when they graduate. Business leaders are trained as volunteers to 

talk to eighth-graders, recruit them and give them incentives, recognition, and upon graduation they are better prepared to be successful after high school. 

One quick example comes from Ardmore, Oklahoma, which is a 

small town down the Red River. Ardmore High School, the year before they initiated this, the Scholars Program only had seven students sign up for high school physics, so the class was canceled. 

The first year of the State Scholars Initiative, they had 34 students 

sign up for high school physics. They have the same kind of results 

with lab science classes and foreign language. What is happening 

is that now they are needing to find more teachers to teach upperlevel math and science classes and foreign language, and we think 

that is a good problem to have. Hopefully we can find a way to help 

solve that. 

The next thing that we did, which is also very exciting, we also 

worked with Governor Brad Henry and the legislature and educational leaders this recent past legislative session in enacting the 

ACE legislation, which is Achieving Classroom Excellence in Oklahoma. Its is a very aggressive agenda which will reform high 

schools and middle schools and the outcomes for students in those 

systems. It was very much a bipartisan initiative, and what we did 

was develop a provision that every student in ninth grade will be 

enrolled in the college prep curriculum unless their parents go to 

school and sign a consent form which will unenroll them. We will 

have a requirement that students must pass 4 out of 6 end-of-instruction tests to receive a high school diploma. We will also require mastery of eighth grade reading and math standards, or 

there will be interventions put in place for students. And the State 

will be paying for up to 6 hours of high school students currently 

enrolled in college course work. Those are the major provisions, but 

there are others as well. 

You know what? We know that was the easy part. Getting that 

passed will be the easiest piece of that. The most difficult will be 

the implementation. The law also builds in a task force, and the 

business community will participate with the education leadership 

in developing the details for implementing this very important 

piece of legislation. 

We believe, based on our experience in Oklahoma, that one of the 

advantages that business-led coalitions bring to the effort is that 

we have continuity. When policymakers and administrations 

change, the business community is typically still present and can 

bring continuity to the discussions and to the concepts. And so that 

has been our experience in our State, and I believe it is the same 

in others. 

One other important initiative, and we are with 18 States in this 

initiative, is the American Diploma Project, which really got a lot 

25

of emphasis during the recent national education summit with Governors and CEOs and higher education and K–12 public school 

leaders who are all concerned about high schools. We have joined 

this America Diploma Project, and there are commitments that 

must be made in terms of writing standards, providing assessments, ensuring that students are ready to go to college or to work, 

and higher education will make a commitment to ensuring that 

once they admit students, the students can graduate from college. 

We are very excited about all of these initiatives, and we commend what you are doing with the Subcommittee in really trying 

to get your hands around what to do with high schools. One of my 

CEOs said, I know that there are people who think it is cruel to 

raise expectations and to have stakes attached to high school graduation. He said, I think it is more cruel to turn students loose after 

high school into a world of higher education and business, both of 

which are unforgiving and unrelenting, and they are not prepared. 

We are very excited to be a partner with public education in 

Oklahoma and look forward to sharing any tips or advice we might 

have based on our experiences with you. 

Chairman CASTLE. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Hudecki follows:]

Statement of Phyllis Hudecki, Executive Director, Oklahoma Business and 

Education Coalition, Oklahoma City, OK 

My remarks will focus on the specific involvement by Oklahoma business leaders 

in education reform. The business community in Oklahoma recognizes the economic 

and social imperative for having a strong, high quality public education system. 

During early 2000, several CEO’s from some of Oklahoma’s leading businesses 

began the Oklahoma Business and Education Coalition (OBEC). The organization, 

now five years old and sponsored by 31 companies, is designed so business and education leaders work together on an agenda agreed upon by representatives from 

both communities. We started with infrastructure issues such as supporting the development of a statewide student data system, benchmarking curriculum standards 

and analyzing alignment of state tests with state standards. With each initiative 

OBEC partners with public entities such as the state education agency, the higher 

education system, the legislature, or the governor, and provides matching funds to 

support the cost of the effort. 

While most of the work of OBEC has been focused at the state level, we have one 

program with direct impact on students in local high schools. During 2003, Oklahoma was chosen as one of the first six implementation states for the State Scholars 

Initiative. OBEC coordinates the initiative which involves getting local business 

leaders to make presentations to eighth graders encouraging them to take more rigorous courses in high school. We have had immediate results indicating the successful impact of this program. For example, during the year prior to starting the State 

Scholars Initiative, Ardmore High School had only seven students signing up for 

high school physics, so the class was cancelled. During the first year of the Scholars 

pilot the enrollment jumped to 34 in the physics class. Similar results have been 

reported for foreign language and lab science classes. We plan to expand this program statewide and have been exploring partnerships with the Native American 

Tribes to help us reach students in rural areas of the state. 

OBEC also advocates for higher standards and expectations for high school graduates. Today, Oklahoma students can earn a diploma by meeting minimal standards, far below what it takes to be ready for college or new economy jobs. During 

the most recent legislative session, OBEC partnered with Governor Henry and other 

education leaders to support passage of a landmark education reform bill, ACE 

(Achieving Classroom Excellence). Major provisions of the legislation include: 

• College prep curriculum as the default curriculum, starting in 2006–07

• Beginning in 2008–09, high school students must pass four out of six end-ofinstruction tests to receive a high school diploma 

• Eighth grade mastery of reading and math standards 

• State paying for high school students concurrently enrolled in college 

coursework 

26

While passage of the legislation was monumental, the real challenges are still in 

front of us. Implementation issues will be worked out through a task force consisting of both education and business leaders. OBEC will remain vigilant in making sure the standards remain high and funding is provided to ensure support for 

student success. 

Based on our experience in Oklahoma, business-led coalitions can be pivotal in 

education reform. We have a huge stake in the success of our schools and their 

graduates. We provide continuity to state education policy which is often subjected 

to shift in direction as policymakers change after each election. 

Oklahoma is not unique, however. Other states have vital leadership provided by 

business leaders who want to improve education. Several months ago, Oklahoma 

Governor Brad Henry and I attended as well as others, the National Summit on 

High Schools, co-sponsored by Achieve and the National Governors Association. 

Business leaders played a key role in organizing the summit, the fourth such event 

over the past decade and the first to focus exclusively on the urgent need to redesign our high schools. 

Forty five governors attended the Summit, along with K–12 and postsecondary 

leaders and corporate CEOs from some of the most powerful companies in the nation. They confronted sobering data on the performance of our schools and the impact that is having on our global competitiveness. For example: • One third of high school students drop out without earning a diploma, and the 

numbers are much worse in urban schools where nearly half of 9th graders 

won’t complete high school. • A sizeable number of those who do graduate are unprepared for the demands 

of college and the workforce. According to one study, only a third of high school 

graduates are college ready. • Nearly a third of high school graduates who go to college have to rake remedial 

courses in reading or math, and most students who take such courses drop out 

without earning a college degree. • In a nationwide poll conducted by Achieve earlier this year, employers estimated that 45% of high school graduates are lacking the skills necessary to 

work in their companies. • In terms of our international competitiveness, the U.S. ranks 16th out of 20 

OECD nations in our high school graduation rate and 14th out of 20 in our college graduation rates. 

The business community finds this data deeply disturbing and in states across the 

country we are joining with reform minded governors and educators to close the 

achievement gap. But in order to do this we must first close a different kind of 

gap—a gap in the expectations we’ve set for our students and schools. 

According to Achieve, only a handful of states require their students to take a rigorous set of math and English courses in order to earn a high school diploma. In 

most states, students can graduate without college and work ready skills. Even 

states that have put high school graduation exams in place typically only require 

students to demonstrate eighth or ninth grade competency. 

That’s why one of the main action steps that emerged from the National Education Summit was the establishment of the American Diploma Project Network, a 

group of 18 states, including Oklahoma, that have committed to close the expectations gap and restore value to the high school diploma. Governors, K–12 commissioners of education, business leaders, and higher education officials in these states 

have pledged to take four decisive actions: 

First, they will raise high school standards to the level of what is actually required to succeed in college or in the workforce. This will require our postsecondary 

institutions in each state to work together to be more transparent about the knowledge and skills entering freshman must have in order to enroll and succeed in credit-bearing rather than remedial courses. And it will require employers and colleges 

together to verify that the state’s standards for high school students measure up. 

Second, the states will require all students to take a rigorous college and workready curriculum. Research conducted by Achieve and others show that students 

need the math skills taught in a good Algebra II course to be well prepared for both 

college and work. Yet only 3 states require students to take Algebra II in order to 

earn a high school diploma. 

Third, the American Diploma Project states will develop tests of college and work 

readiness that all students will take in high school. Testing is important at the high 

school level, but we must make sure we give tests that provide useful information 

to students, families and schools. One of the most important tests college- bound 

students take is a placement exam—the one that tells them if they can enroll in 

real college-level courses, or must take remedial classes. Students typically don’t 

take those exams until they arrive at college at the beginning of their freshman 

27

year. Each year about one third of first year college students are surprised to learn 

they must take, and pay tuition for, courses that won’t even earn them credit. Imagine if students got to take those tests while they were 11th graders, and could make 

up any skill deficiencies while still in high school, before they enroll in college. 

They’d be better prepared, and save taxpayers and families money at the same time. 

Fourth, these leadership states will hold high schools accountable for graduating 

all students ready for college and work, and hold colleges accountable for the success of the students they admit. 

The hearings this subcommittee is holding about high school reform are very important. I commend you for taking the time to educate yourselves and the American 

public about the steps we must take. I understand that you may not take up legislation on this issue until later in this session, perhaps as part of the NCLB reauthorization where you can deal with high school issues in a comprehensive fashion. 

Yet there is a simple but very important step you can take sooner, and I urge 

you to consider it. Consider, as part of the Higher Education Act reauthorization, 

providing incentives for all 50 states to follow the lead of the 18 states in the American Diploma Project. Modest amounts of money can provide the impetus for the 

governors and business leaders to bring postsecondary and K–12 education leaders 

together to align high school standards, assessments and curriculum with the demands of college and work. 

It is vital that states are encouraged to aim high with their standards and testing 

programs. There will be many pressures on them to lower standards, but by lowering our expectations we will do a real disservice to our students. The standards 

in the real world are unforgiving. By helping all states set the right expectations 

for what high school students should learn, Congress will ensure that broader reforms enacted later will pay off. 

Business leaders nationwide are steadfast in their desire to raise expectations for 

high school graduates so that they can compete with their peers around the globe. 

We know that the nature of work is changing. We know that the competition is 

more intense. We know that other countries, including China and India, are demanding more of their high school students. And we know that our graduation rates 

in high school and college are flat lined. If we don’t raise our expectations, young 

people won’t survive in this market or earn a living wage. 

We do young people no favors by handing them a high school diploma when they 

do not have the skills they need to succeed. We owe it to them to aim higher. 

Thank you for inviting me to share some of our experiences in Oklahoma. 

Chairman CASTLE. We appreciate the testimony of all of you, and 

I will lead off the discussion here. Let me just say one thing. It is 

not a question, but I mentioned it, and a couple of you referenced 

it as well. If I was the czar and I was in charge, and believe me, 

nobody is a czar in this place, and I was writing legislation for high 

schools, I would start with a universal definition of graduation 

rates and the reverse of that, the dropout rates, if you will. The 

confusion about that, because the States use different standards, is 

unbelievable. And it is quite difficult if you ever tried to get into 

it and grasp it, and it is highly deceptive and very unfair. You deal 

with it when you get to high school. I think that is a tremendous 

problem. 

I am going to ask you, Ms. Sterling, an impossible question, and 

asking for a brief answer, and if you can’t answer, we will go from 

there. Every item I read about women in education indicates they 

are graduating from high school at a high rate, certainly going to 

college at a higher rate now than men, academically exceeding men 

in many, if not common, instances across the country. Why is there 

a lack of interest in computer sciences or maybe broader technology 

among women? Is there something we can do about that, or just 

something innately that they are going to have to do about it? To 

me there is great economic opportunity there, and academically 

women do every bit as well, if not better, than men. Why do we 

have to focus on that? 

28

Ms. STERLING. Thank you, Chairman Castle. That is my favorite 

question. 

Women are entering college at 58 percent higher than men. And 

women are quite prevalent in many of the academic communities 

and are outpacing men in biology and law, and they are seeing it 

in pharmacy schools. 

Women don’t know what computing is, especially if you have to 

declare a major your first year coming in. What women see in their 

high school experiences is that the people that gravitate toward 

high school computer science courses are interested in writing 

games and hacking computers. They see that geek element, and it 

is a bit repulsive, especially to women who have such broad interests and to well-rounded men who have broad interests. They see 

the lifestyle in this negative stereotype, of if you become a computer science major, you are going to live in a lab and sit in front 

of a terminal for your 4 years of college. 

Dispelling those myths earlier is something that the media, public sector, private sector and teachers need to do, because once 

women understand that computer science is actually this underlying set of tools where they can make a huge societal impact and 

change, they understand that, yes, they can design intelligent user 

interfaces and work in artificial intelligence and machine translation and really fulfill their professional and personal goals. There 

is a huge image change campaign that we need to work on at the 

earlier levels. 

Chairman CASTLE. Let me ask perhaps the others, since you had 

a chance to answer that, I always worry about—and I cite some of 

these—I have visited a lot of the businesses in Delaware and outside of Delaware, and I have seen a lot of the business efforts in 

terms of education, and I worry about the communication or lack 

of communication amongst each other with the education people 

who are there. Is it truly a coordinated effort. I worry about what 

we are doing. Huge amount of money and effort being put into it. 

I worry that your corporations have a committee that makes the 

decision to do something, but it is not the best thing you could be 

doing. 

Are you talking to each other? Do you have a network so you are 

actually talking to each other and talking to the educators? Do you 

have an assessment of what you are doing to determine if it really 

makes sense that these kids are improving, or is it a gut reaction 

or anecdotal reaction to what you hear? 

Mr. WATSON. I will take a shot at that. We consider all of the 

things that we do around education not successful if they aren’t 

partnerships. We work very closely with superintendents, with 

principals, with teachers and also with students to get feedback to 

help determine what direction we need to take in terms of our programs. We also work very closely with other corporations, including 

Microsoft and a number of companies that we have partnered with, 

around initiatives. So the answer to that is yes. 

Mr. SHORE. I would like to agree with what he said because I 

think you touched on something. 

Chairman CASTLE. I am a little bit of a ‘‘doubting Thomas,’’ in 

case if you didn’t understand the edge of my question. 

29

Mr. SHORE. We don’t want to waste our time and effort, and we 

are not teachers, and we are not principals and not superintendents, and we are not teaching in the classroom, but we receive the 

product of what is coming through our system applying for jobs. It 

is very important for us to be able to have good communications 

with the educators, because we, over the years, found out that we 

can create this incredibly wonderful—what we think are wonderful 

programs to fund and support, and we think we are doing incredible things, go to the school and say, we would like to help, but 

here is something that doesn’t tie in at all with their strategic 

planning. 

A few years ago, we started doing strategic planning, and I am 

talking about how businesses are involved, like the Durham Public 

Education Network, the partnerships like she was talking about. 

And we do strategic planning now at the same time as the schools, 

so we understand what their strategies are, what their goals are, 

and how they are going to be rewarded or penalized for not meeting their goals, and we tend to follow along with that. But it is a 

very difficult line to walk because you want to make the biggest 

impact for your dollars, and if you are not in lockstep, in some 

cases you are not going to be able to do that. 

That is one thing we are dealing with the U.S. Chamber, with 

the Business Education Network is to be able to start capturing a 

lot of what is going on around in various States, because—and I 

am not sure we need to create any new programs. There is a lot 

out there that works now. 

Dr. HUDECKI. I would like to respond to that. The work we are 

doing in Oklahoma is coordinated for our agenda with the education leadership. But on a national level, it occurs to me that 

there is quite a large network facilitated by ACHIEVE, an organization made up of Governors and CEOs, and that agenda is very 

much focused on high school reform right now, and there are 18 

States that are partnered in that. And so the businesses, Governors 

and education leaders from the States that are participating in the 

America Diploma Project network are very much focused on communicating about standards, expectations, and literally sitting 

down and hammering out in each State the standards expected for 

students to be successful when they graduate from high school, the 

way we are going to measure and assess that knowledge, and the 

way that higher education and the workplace will be dealing with 

that. 

In Oklahoma, for example, our CEOs will look at those standards 

and verify and publicize that they have agreed to those. Higher 

education will be at the table as well as the State superintendent 

and public education representatives. 

So there are a couple of examples of concerted efforts. I am sure 

there are some that aren’t, but at least the big ones are working 

together. 

Ms. STERLING. I share your cynicism, because at Microsoft, we 

knew we didn’t know it all, and we were never going to be able to 

capture all the practices that were out there. The biggest missing 

piece we have had is the assessment piece and knowing if what we 

are doing has impact, which has actually formed the National CenVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:26 Nov 17, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00033 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 H:\DOCS\22178 NNIXON
30

ter for Women and IT because we need the metric and assessment 

piece. 

Chairman CASTLE. Of course, there are other elements that go 

into assessments besides what you are doing, which makes it complex, which I understand. I am not going to ask this question now, 

but later, and that is this: When I visit with my schools and look 

at the finances of the schools, I learn there is a tremendous amount 

of disparity there on how schools do. I am talking about schools, 

not school districts or what the Federal Government is doing, or 

what the State government is doing, or what their local taxation 

is, but just how they manage the money and what they do. And it 

seems to me—and frankly, I have seen schools right next to each 

other where one is coming along very well, and the other one isn’t 

doing well at all. And I found out that they managed their money 

very well in terms of where they placed it with respect to teachers 

or whatever. And it seems to me that if there is anything the corporations probably have an advantage over education, it may be in 

the area of managing money and finances, et cetera. 

I wonder if you venture into that. Mentoring and a lot of the 

other things you do are fine. Do you enter the finances? I don’t 

mean asking for more money by coming to Congress. Ms. Woolsey 

asks me for that all the time. But in the general sense of trying 

to help these schools. 

Hold that, and I will try to get back to it in another round. I am 

going to yield to Ms. Woolsey. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. And he usually says no. 

You know, I think we can give Bill Gates a lot of credit for the 

discussion we are having today because it was his announcement 

a few months ago that he was going to India to hire his top 20 new 

engineers, at least in the last couple of years, and the awakening 

that we had to get better and sharper at all of this. So we can 

thank him for that. And thank him for you, Ms. Sterling, for putting effort into girls in technology. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. I have legislation called Go Girl. And the legislation emphasizes girls starting in the fourth grade and getting them 

and their families prepared and interested in at least considering 

science, math and technology as they go on in school, because 

fourth-graders, they start losing interest. And part of that, I believe, is because, as you said, girls have so many interests, and sitting in front of a computer playing very violent computer games is 

not something that very many girls are going to find interesting. 

So we have to find different ways. 

What I am going to ask you is at what age do you think it is 

smartest to start getting young girls—I think they should be young 

girls or young women—interested in science, math and technology 

and computing? How do we get their parents interested? How are 

teachers responding to extra emphasis on girls? And how is Microsoft, with your monies for technology, how much of that is focused 

on women? 

Ms. STERLING. Thank you, Congresswoman Woolsey. 

I don’t think you can start early enough with priming women’s 

interest in technology, because you can give a cell phone to any 5- 

or 6-year-old now, and they probably know how to turn it on and 

know they are supposed to talk into it. Children are so much more 

31

adaptable than my generation was at technology. I went to college 

without the Internet, and I couldn’t imagine going back to grad 

school without it. 

The earlier we can start, the better. I have been working with 

the Girl Scouts to see how early can we start looking at things like 

the very interesting technology badge. If you have a tech badge, 

you have to have teachers and parents who can teach the tech 

badge, and that is sometimes a harder issue. That is really rolling 

the rock uphill, changing the adult’s perception as well. 

I don’t think you can start early enough in this space. Certainly 

a lot of early childhood development and cognitive studies show 

that students do need—they excel in these areas that are continuous, relevant and adaptive. This is what we are basing the School 

of the Future on. Just for one example of that, students nowadays 

in middle school have four to seven e-mail addresses. When they 

turn on a computer, they have six different applications going. 

They know how to manage multiple windows. We need to make 

sure that the content and the opportunities are there to capture 

that shorter adoption and adaption span that students have. 

In terms of Microsoft specifically, I didn’t quite understand your 

question about our investment. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. You said something like $35 million invested in 

technology. I mean, that is not all focused on girls. Is there a special cut for focusing on females? 

Ms. STERLING. Out of that $35 million, the basis for that is to 

lift all boats, obviously. We know what works for women in making 

computing more attractive also works for men. If we can broaden 

the pipeline, this is wonderful across the board. There are certain 

funds within that. I, for one, have a several-million-dollar budget 

that is devoted specifically to females and looking at retention and 

attraction programs with women. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. What funding mix do you get, private, State and 

any Federal, in your programs? Mr. Shore. 

Mr. SHORE. Primarily for us it is joining with other companies, 

to get to the Chairman’s point a few minutes ago, to address issues 

in fairly large projects that are much bigger than just one company 

can help to fund. Sometimes it is a combination of things. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Mostly private? 

Mr. SHORE. Mostly private. And it runs the gambit, so to speak, 

depending on what we are talking about doing in our local school 

systems. It is hard for a major company to pick individual schools 

because there are so many of them. We tend to work with the community education foundations and the statewide network, and we 

help work with the department of public instruction and come up 

with the programs. A lot of times it is a mixture of different funding sources. 

Ms. STERLING. Congresswoman, we have a mix of funding options. The High School of the Future is something we are adding 

personal capital, mental capital, human capital. We have open 

head count dedicated to this and to helping the Philadelphia School 

District basically understand strategic business practices, but they 

themselves are actually funding the changes. So we are looking for 

that kind of coalition between public and private partnerships. 

32

We also work with organizations like NCWIT, where all the 

high-tech companies will fund a membership coalition like the 

Workforce Alliance, and we will decide to do one or two major research projects to stretch our dollars the furthest. 

Mr. WATSON. Most of ours are private partnerships. We are going 

to be a partner with NGA in their high school initiative, though. 

Other than relationship partnerships, from a funding standpoint, 

that is something new for us to fund. 

Dr. HUDECKI. And our organization is funded totally from private 

funds. But when we start any type of adventure with an initiative 

or a project, if something we are working on with the State, the 

State department of education, we typically have matching funds 

from the public sector. We also have a small amount of Federal 

money given to us to start the Oklahoma Scholars, the State Scholars Initiative. And the agreement was we would have seed money 

for 2 years, and then the State or our organization would continue 

that with private-sector funding. 

You might be interested to know, in Oklahoma we have a very 

large population of Native Americans, and the tribes have indicated an interest in helping us spread the State Scholars Initiative 

to the rural parts of the State. We are excited to work with the 

tribes in a formal fashion. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for letting me go over. 

Chairman OSBORNE. [presiding.] Thank you, Ms. Woolsey. 

And, Mr. Shore, I would like to start with you and ask you a couple of questions. Obviously your company has devoted a lot of time 

and resources in education. And have you done any evaluation of 

the impact of these efforts? Do you have any outcomes that you 

have been able to observe? 

Mr. SHORE. That is the one thing we ask ourselves all the time, 

are we being effective with our funding. And it is a little difficult 

to know exactly how you are doing because we are not in the classrooms teaching the kids. We are depending on helping to make 

teachers and the classrooms more effective and have better outcomes. 

There are a number of initiatives. We have funded the Hill Center, which is a school for learning disabilities. What we have done 

is—and we do it with the public school teachers statewide. The Hill 

Center staff teaches public schoolteachers on how to deal with kids 

with learning disabilities. So we see the improvement in those 

teachers in those classrooms with the ability to handle kids who 

learn a little differently. We hear test scores going up and see the 

kids doing better in class. And it boils down for me are our students doing better? Is their achievement better? If it is, then we 

are funding the right things in the right way. But we haven’t figured out how we are going to say we have been successful in that. 

It is a tough issue for us. 

Chairman OSBORNE. Thank you, Mr. Shore, and I am not going 

to ask you any questions, Ms. Sterling, because Ms. Woolsey grilled 

you enough. But I would comment that Tom Vander Ark from the 

Gates Foundation was here last week, and Tom was talking about 

a boy problem, and which I think the Chairman has already alluded to. We appreciate your efforts and what you are trying to do 

for women. 

33

Mr. Watson, I would like to ask you a question regarding your 

e-Learning Initiative, and particularly what this has done for lowincome and minority students. Have you directed any of that in 

those areas? 

Mr. WATSON. Mr. Chairman, I think it is really too early for us 

to be able to answer that question. We have got about 30,000 students in our Southern States who are currently enrolled in virtual 

high school courses. The vast majority of those are in the State of 

Florida; in fact, about 20,000 of the 30,000 are in the State of Florida. 

Mr. WATSON. We do know this, we do know that some of the 

poor, low-income school districts, for example, in—let’s just take, 

for example, in the area in south Florida around Lake Okeechobee, 

where advanced placement courses, where college calculus, for example, may or not be offered, those students, with the use of virtual learning, now have the ability to take courses like that from 

a teacher at Leon High School in Tallahassee. 

So we know it is going to change the outcome. I think it is a little 

early to be able to say that it has been dramatic differences, but 

it is coming. 

Mr. OSBORNE. Well, thank you. I serve a very rural area, and we 

find that some of our students in very small towns are not able to 

take advance courses, and so we feel E-learning is very important. 

Dr. Hudecki, I am always interested in what is going on in Oklahoma, being from Nebraska. And I know that you commented on 

some legislation I believe that had been passed where you were indicating that all ninth graders would take a college prep program 

unless their parents requested otherwise. And I wonder if you 

would comment on that a little bit more because it seems kind of 

ambitious to me. And obviously, when you look at the numbers, not 

all ninth graders are going to go through a college program. And 

I realize that ninth grade is kind of early to make that decision as 

to who will and who won’t, but what did you decide or why did you 

back that type of initiative? 

Dr. HUDECKI. For several years we have had an initiative in 

place from our higher education system called the Oklahoma Higher Learning Access Program, OHLAP, which was intended to fund 

economically needy students to be able to go to college, and it required them to participate in a core of courses that would be considered a college prep course. The track record for those students 

is very, very, very good. And they are kids, again, from economically disadvantaged families. Once they get into college the data 

shows that they have better success. 

So we thought that since we don’t really know which kids are 

going to go to work or to college, and inevitably, in Oklahoma about 

80 percent of our kids at some point within 6 years after graduation do go to college, either a 2-year or 4-year college, so we 

thought it would be better to cast a broader net and really have 

every student prepared the best that we could prepare them when 

they leave high school, since we don’t know which way they are 

going to go. So it will help them if they are going to the workplace, 

it will also help them if they are going to college. 

The important part of that whole initiative, as we all know, will 

be giving them the remediation and the intervention they need in 

34

high school. We think it does not make sense for students to enter 

a 2-year college, a technical college, or 4-year university and find 

out at that point they are not prepared; we think it is better to find 

out in 10th or 11th grade that they still have gaps in terms of their 

knowledge and skills, and fix it at that point rather than waiting 

until they are turned loose. 

Mr. OSBORNE. Thank you. I think there is somebody else that 

wants his Chair, and I will give it back to him. 

Chairman CASTLE. [Presiding.] Mr. Kind is recognized. 

Mr. KIND. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank our guests 

today for your testimony on this very important topic, one that is, 

fortunately, receiving a little bit more attention throughout the 

country. 

You know, it is no surprise that those of us serving on the Education Committee feel very deeply about the quality of education, 

the education reform that we need to take. Sometimes it is hard 

though to engage the rest of our colleagues in Congress with the 

number of issues that are coming through our offices and across 

our desk each and every day, and that is why it is so vitally important for businesses, large and small, throughout America to weigh 

in and let your voices be heard. 

Ms. Sterling, Bill Gates has been very, very helpful recently in 

regards to the statements he has made, especially targeting the 

need for high school education reform in this country. I had a 

chance to have lunch with him about a month ago when he was 

coming through Washington and we talked a little more about that, 

and I asked him to be even more blunt in order to get this country 

to wake up in regards to the reforms that we need to take by basically stating that either you do this or companies like Microsoft 

won’t be able to hire our children when it comes time for graduation. This is going to be true for other companies throughout the 

country. 

But it would also be helpful for the CEOs of this country, those 

involved in education reform, to expend a little bit of political capital when it comes to budget time around this place. I mean, we 

recently passed a budget last week that calls for over $800 million 

in cuts for No Child Left Behind and, as Ms. Woolsey pointed out, 

a 40 percent cut in education technology funding. And it is nice to 

be talking about this, but when the real leverage occurs it would 

also be helpful if there was a little bit of political capital spent in 

regards to support for a lot of the education program in the funding. Because part of the problem has been a funding issue, especially since Washington now is trying to pass on mandates to the 

local level but without providing the resources to get it done. And 

that, I think, is going to be very important. 

But when you talk about education reform, and this is true even 

at the high school level, I don’t see how we can move forward without some serious thinking about home reform as well, because so 

many of the habits the students bring to the classroom start in the 

home. And I had the opportunity over the Easter recess, along with 

Mr. Hinojosa here and Ms. McCarthy on the Committee and Buck 

McKeon, to go to China for a couple of weeks on a higher education 

tour. And what was really striking in regards to our visit over 

there is how hungry they are for education, how committed they 

35

are. And you walk away from a trip like that almost feeling a little 

bit sorry for those Chinese students. Many of them are single children in a family, bearing the full weight and pressure from their 

parents who are hovering over them each and every day to perform 

well in the classroom. And it is not just their parents, but it is both 

sets of grandparents that are hovering over them, making sure 

that they are doing everything they can to excel in the classroom, 

given the level of competition over there, but also the realization 

of how important education is. And I am not quite sure whether 

or not we can figure that out to encourage the right type of habits 

starting at the home—turning off the TV, getting the kids away 

from the Game Boys, and maybe some of these high-tech toys that 

they have become very fond of recently—but we also have to try 

to figure out that a little bit. 

And I agree with you, Mr. Chairman, that a good place to start 

is having a universal definition on graduation rates that deal with 

the dropout, but it is a first stop. We have got to figure out a way 

to encourage kids to stay in the classroom, to perform well and to 

graduate. 

And one of the more interesting ideas I recently heard is for 

every child born in this country, set up an education fund for them 

right away and fund it for the next 5 years, and provide some 

matching funds or private funds to go into that account as well. 

And it would be in their name and it could grow for the next 12 

to 13 years, and it would be there for them under the condition 

that they graduate from school and that they are performing well 

in school. And maybe we could target it to the higher needs area, 

make it needs-based or something like that, but we have got to try 

to incentivize graduating in this country again and performing 

while even in the high school years. 

Let me just leave this question to you because the administration 

has also been thinking about high school reform. What they would 

like to do is just extend the principles of No Child Left Behind to 

the high school level, which to many of us gives us pause or hesitation because it sounds like a lot more Federal mandates going 

back to the local level to try to incentivize the reform that has to 

take place. Obviously the concern with huge budget deficits is that 

the resources won’t follow the mandates, and we are going to get 

into the same type of problem we currently have with No Child 

Left Behind. 

But based on your experience, do you think it is going to be necessary for the Federal Government to place requirements to or establish mandates or to provide the guidance in order to spur the 

type of education reform at the high school level? Or are these 

school districts in the high schools capable, with your assistance, 

with the help of local officials, State government to do this on their 

own? 

And I will just leave that open to anyone who wants to touch 

that. 

Mr. SHORE. Well, I will touch it——

Mr. KIND. Gingerly, I am sure. 

Mr. SHORE. Gingerly. There are—it has been mentioned two or 

three times today about having consistency among States, if you 

will, in terms of standards so you know what high school diploma 

36

means from State to State. As a company like ours, we are hiring 

people not just from North Carolina, not just in Philadelphia. We 

are interested in what the standards are and what the educations 

is like in every State because we are recruiting, as we all are, from 

every State. So we want it to mean the same thing. 

But I think the whole, whatever you call it, No Child Left Behind, I think the whole standards and accountability effort is becoming so ingrained now, and I think the expectation level for high 

schools is getting greater, and I just see it in our own community, 

that I think with the pressure from the business community and 

with support from the business community and a lot of others, I 

think we are seeing changes being made without having legislation 

in place yet. I think it would help bring consistency if there were 

something there, but I am not sure not having it is going to keep 

good things from happening. 

Dr. HUDECKI. I would like to offer that in Oklahoma, at least in 

terms of the State policy I just described a while ago, I think we 

are ahead of the Federal Government, but not every State is there. 

And in no way am I going to speak for our education leadership 

in the State on this particular issue, but I would say that the work 

that we are doing with the 18 States that are in the American Diploma Project led by Achieve may be on to something that is voluntary. It may take a modest amount of funding from each State 

to push that, but it wouldn’t be a real big leap if the Federal Government entered into some type of arrangement by providing a 

modest amount of money to each State to participate in that program. You could do it under the Higher Education Act or whatever 

you want to, but that would be not terribly expensive. And it would 

give States kind of a template from which to work with Governors, 

business leaders, and higher education and public school leaders to 

come together and really ratchet up the standards and assessment. 

So that might be some food for thought for you. 

Ms. STERLING. Mr. Congressman, we also believe that everybody 

is needed in this equation. We supported the bipartisan efforts behind getting No Child Left Behind passed. We are supportive of the 

Higher Education Act. And while school districts and corporations 

are certainly not going to wait to try to do something innovative 

in the space and find out new things that work, this is all of our 

responsibility. 

Mr. KIND. Thank you, thank you very much again. Thank you, 

Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CASTLE. Thank you, Mr. Kind. 

Mr. Hinojosa is recognized. 

Mr. HINOJOSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I also want to commend you for coming to talk to us today on 

the issue of math, science and engineering, which are very, very 

important to us in Texas. 

I want to direct my comments and questions to Sarah Sterling 

of Microsoft. 

It is no secret that we are losing or competitive edge in producing 

experts in math, science and engineering, and we must redouble 

our efforts to engage young people in those fields. If we do not engage and provide quality educational opportunities for the fastest 

37

growing population, Hispanic Americans, we will be permanently 

ceding leadership in this area. 

In my congressional office we have dedicated a lot of time to 

work with the University of Texas. Pan-American, in its GEAR-UP 

program, founding an initiative called the Hispanic Engineering 

Science and Technology Initiative, referred to as HESTEC. Every 

year we celebrate HESTEC week on campus there, and we bring 

together our leading corporations like yours, Microsoft, Dell, Lockheed Martin, Ford, State Farm, and many, many others. We bring 

our key Federal agencies like NASA, Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, and we dedicate an entire day to 

Latinas—daughters and mothers. You talked about there being 58 

percent women starting college, well, we are trying to show them 

that there is a career path they could consider. 

Additionally, we need a special focus on access to quality laboratory science in our high schools. During this last reauthorization of 

the National Science Foundation, I worked with Senator Kerry and 

Senator Kennedy to include a provision to improve our high school 

laboratories in the most needy school districts. As part of that effort, NSF has commissioned the National Academy of Science to 

study what a well-furbished high school laboratory of this 21st century should look like. 

So I ask you, what do you see as promising practices in engaging 

young people in math and science? And what do you think is essential in one of these new modern high school laboratories? 

Ms. STERLING. Thank you, Congressman Hinojosa. 

I think you hit the nail on the head when you talked about the 

21st century education and academic leadership. I also applaud the 

efforts at what the UT system has done. I am not very familiar 

with Pan-American, but I work a lot with University of Texas of 

El Paso, and it is always the women in the electrical and computer 

engineering department, University of Texas, El Paso, that always 

are first or second place in a service-learning competition that I 

work on with them. It is amazing how tied in they are with community needs and supplying engineering and computing solutions 

to NGO’s, nonprofits, and other community centers in the area. 

They are on to something that would work at the high school 

level, which is to—and something that Microsoft is hugely in favor 

of, and we are trying to work on this with our Partners in Learning 

Initiative, is bringing the tenets of engineering down to the high 

school level. When students get to college they are so excited with 

the college courses that are actually there. They get to pick these 

amazing courses that just the name of them excites them. There 

is a way to bring these advanced topics in engineering into high 

schools because what they need to see is that technology and the 

sciences and the maths and the engineering courses, tenets that 

are going to serve them later on, are things that are applicable to 

what they already know with a small basis in math and life 

sciences and physics. And what it also teaches is teamwork and the 

collaboration skills, the software skills they are going to need to 

succeed later on in life. And they work on projects. If we bring in 

engineering earlier into the curriculum, they work on projects 

where they see the end result, the tangible end results of these 

projects while they are already students. And they go, wow, I really 

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can have an impact, I am smart, I can produce this with the help 

of my teammates and classmates. 

So we are very excited to bring in engineering principles early on 

and engage all students. 

Mr. HINOJOSA. Thank you for describing what would work. 

I would like to ask the last question to Dr. Hudecki of Oklahoma. 

Susan Davis from California and I reintroduced the Graduation 

for All Act, and it now has more than 80 co-sponsors. This legislation provides States with the resources to target school districts 

with the lowest graduation rates. Funds are used to establish literacy programs at the secondary school level and provide onsite 

professional development for high school faculty through literacy 

coaches. 

The legislation strengthens the accountability for graduation 

rates. We can’t call high school reform successful if only half of our 

students benefit from increased rigor and raised expectations. Do 

you believe that this type of Federal legislation would complement 

your efforts to reform high schools? 

Dr. HUDECKI. Well, on the surface it sounds like it would very 

much complement it. We discovered, through our work with business leaders that their expectations for what students ought to 

know and be able to do now when they graduate from high school 

are almost identical to the requirements to go into college. So it 

makes no sense whatsoever to have sorting mechanisms in place or 

different kinds of expectations for different types of students in 

terms of what they are going to do when they leave the school system. 

So we are very much advocating that we educate all students to 

a higher level and want to define what that level is. So I think that 

would be a very good fit. 

Mr. HINOJOSA. I am pleased to hear you say that you agree with 

that, but we need both your organization, the foundation, corporate 

America to support us with this legislation because it requires big 

funding to be able to get it done. Our authorization level request 

is for $1 billion, and I think that it is going to take that type of 

investment to be able to move us forward and be able to compete. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman CASTLE. Thank you, Mr. Hinojosa. 

We have gone through a round of questions, and I don’t want to 

prolong this too long, but I did have a couple of follow-up things 

I wanted to ask. And if the others want to, they are certainly welcome to as well. 

I want to go back to what I stated before. We have arguments 

here, you sort of heard a little bit of it, do we underfund schools, 

are we not doing enough at the Federal level? I could argue that—

I am not going to pick arguments here today—I believe that we do. 

But schools are basically funded at the Federal level, the State 

level, and obviously local property taxes for the most part. But I 

have noticed, particularly at the State level and at the district level 

and even at the school level, there is huge disparities in the way 

people actually manage those dollars. 

And I attended a very interesting session on this at an Aspen Institute meeting, where I learned more about education than I do 

almost anything else I do, in which we really parsed this and 

39

looked carefully at it. And they compared a couple of schools with 

about the same budget dollars coming in, but decisions being made 

very differently by the principals in the schools in terms of how the 

money is going to be spent. Do you have a band, do you not have 

a band; what do you do for labs; how many, you know, cafeteria 

workers do you have versus something else, or whatever. And it 

was proportionate to the academic achievement in the schools; 

those who put more into the educational aspect seemed to do a better kind of thing. And I have seen this again and again, that understanding those numbers and those finances is as important as 

what the finances really are. 

And that is what I asked when I stopped and didn’t ask you to 

answer before, is to whether or not you know of any corporations 

or corporate entities that are actually helping with that aspect of 

it; that is, really analyzing and understanding the finances within 

a school, which I think corporations are particularly suited to do. 

And I am not asking for just a general answer, but do any of you 

know anything specific that is going on in that area within the 

framework of what you are doing or what anyone else is doing? 

Mr. WATSON. We have—for the Atlanta Public Schools we have—

well, we don’t, Dr. Beverly Hall, who is the superintendent for Atlanta, has what she calls a CEO roundtable. And a number of 

CEOs from major corporations, and even some mid and small businesses, sit on this CEO roundtable and advise her on issues that 

are facing those businesses from a hiring standpoint. It gives her 

a chance to ask them questions about managing a business, which 

she is also the CEO of a large business. 

So in that regard, IT professionals that work in the business 

have a chance to work with her IT people, finance professionals in 

the businesses have a chance to work with her finance people. So 

it is an opportunity for her, not as superintendent of the school but 

as the CEO of a large business, to interface with other businesses 

and have a chance for those professionals to work with her staff in 

that area, yes. 

Ms. STERLING. Mr. Chairman, we also—a large component of our 

Partners in Learning program is to teach strategic business and financial processes to the academic arena, the practitioners, the 

teachers and the administrators. These are the exact same curricula that we teach Microsoft employees, developers and engineers 

that come in on how to be business savvy and how to have financial acumen. 

Chairman CASTLE. Let me ask you another question—and this is 

back to my concern about both the knowledge and coordination of 

the various programs. And don’t get me wrong, you are wonderful 

examples of what one can do, and I praise you greatly, and I 

praise, frankly, any business that is willing to get involved in helping making good our schools—and by the way, I do like Achieve a 

great deal. I think they are doing wonderful things in the country. 

But I also do worry about what the coordination aspect of this is. 

I don’t know if there is a national clearinghouse for the various 

businesses that get into these projects. But as I said, I have been 

to schools and I have seen what some of the corporations are doing, 

and quite candidly I question that. To be really honest with you, 

Ms. Sterling, I really question what one high-tech company is 

40

doing—not yours—but what one high-tech company is doing that 

runs pretty big things for schools. I just was unimpressed when I 

went to their school. And I am wondering, who is looking at this? 

The, schools, in my judgment, will accept any help you want to give 

them. If you are willing to give them computers and mentors, they 

are going to accept it. And they may be a little reluctant to critique 

it and to say this probably isn’t the best way to do this, or whatever. 

So I am not 100 percent confident that we are getting 100 percent out of all of the dollars being spent by all the businesses in 

this country—and I don’t even know exactly what that total is—but 

from my judgment it is substantial. And the businesses have a 

huge vested interest in what is going on in the schools, but my concern is, you know, maybe you are watching your own particular 

programs. But my question to you, if you understand it, is broader 

than that, to what is happening on a broader level with all of the 

various business contributions to the schools. Is there any clearinghouse or anything of that nature that is really looking at them and 

taking somebody aside and saying, you know, what you are doing 

is probably not the best use of your money and your personnel? Do 

you sense that happening anyplace out there beyond just what you 

are doing? 

Ms. STERLING. Well, Mr. Chairman, I can certainly tell you about 

failures that I have done in a space when I go out and see, wow, 

I am going to do women’s gaming camps in high schools and I am 

going to engage women in learning how to write games. And after 

a week of this they look at me and they never want to touch a computer again. So I have thrown good money after bad. 

Chairman CASTLE. Is that the reason why no women are going 

into the computer business? 

Ms. STERLING. And I cannot stress enough how all of the best intentions in the world are not solving our technical pipeline problem. And I cannot stress enough that as a country, we have fully 

backed National Center for Women IT as the assessment in metrics 

gatekeeper and benchmark organization because this is not our 

core competency. We need the social scientists to say quit doing 

that, it hasn’t worked the last 17,000 times you have tried. 

Chairman CASTLE. Anybody else? 

Mr. SHORE. I think the Superintendent of Schools in Atlanta 

ought to be patted on the back because she is doing something that 

a lot of other superintendents aren’t. We would love for a superintendent to come knock on our door. If I were a superintendent, 

the first thing I would do is meet with every CEO in the community and say, I have got some really difficult goals to meet, I can’t 

do it by myself and I need your help. I don’t think any business 

would turn that down. Rarely do we see superintendents coming to 

us. They don’t pick up the phone and say I have got this. It is always the other way around. 

We are going to do the best we can to try to help out because 

it is in our interest. We want good employees coming out of these 

schools. So we would love to see it more of a two-way street in 

terms of what I was talking about earlier, with a dialog in the partnerships actually having something that is two ways, so that—you 

41

will waste your money and your time if you don’t tie in with their 

goals and what they need to accomplish. 

Chairman CASTLE. That is a good point, the reverse aspect of it; 

maybe they should be seeking help as well. 

Ms. Woolsey, do you have anything further? 

Ms. WOOLSEY. No, sir. Thank you very much. It was amazing. 

Chairman CASTLE. Well, let me thank you all of you very much 

for being here as well. We will take all of the information you gave 

us and go through it and hopefully learn ourselves. But we appreciate—I know some of you came from a distance, so we appreciate 

you being here and we appreciate your contributions. And with 

that, we stand adjourned. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 3:35 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

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