American students are not receiving the foundation they need in science, he said. Teachers, Sensenbrenner stated, are the key. One of the four witnesses was Howard G. Voss, Chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Arizona State University. We will need to recruit about two million K-12 teachers by 2007 and almost all grade school teachers are science teachers. That two million assumes that all recruited will stay in teaching.
History indicates otherwise.
The task will be especially hard because it is not acceptable to hire people to merely occupy the front of the classrooms as we have too often in the past. I am convinced that nothing short of societal changes will do. National leadership is essential as is strong leadership by the higher education complex and by the professional and scientific societies, with help from industry and business. Creating the conditions for recruiting teachers is a shared responsibility. In a previous hearing the most obvious cause was highlighted.