Vernon Ehlers: “earlier a colleague from Maine registered concern about the results of the third International Mathematics and Science…”

“earlier a colleague from Maine registered concern about the results of the third International Mathematics and Science Study, which indicated that in the area of mathematics we were at the bottom of the list of Nations who took the test, with the exception of Cyprus and South Africa. And in science we are very little better. We only passed up Italy, Lithuania, Cyprus and one other country. This is indeed a sad state of affairs. I appreciate my colleague's interest, and I also want to mention that the Speaker of the House, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrich), and the chairman of the Committee on Science, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), earlier during the previous session decided that this was a serious problem that had to be addressed by the Committee on Science. Mr. Sensenbrenner has commissioned me to head up the effort on the part of the Committee on Science to look into math-science education as well as our Nation's science policy.”