Watson Coleman: “I rise to introduce the Competitiveness Through Education, Technology, and Enterprise Act otherwise known as the COMPETE…”

“I rise to introduce the Competitiveness Through Education, Technology, and Enterprise Act otherwise known as the COMPETE Act. The bill I introduce today is similar to legislation I have introduced in the 109th Congress. I am very pleased to be joined by my very good friend and colleague, Senator Mark Pryor, who shares my commitment to keeping the U. S. competitive not just for today but for tomorrow as well. Earlier this week Microsoft's Bill Gates came before the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to talk about keeping our country competitive. He said that ``the U.S. cannot maintain its economic leadership unless our workforce consists of people who have the knowledge and skills needed to drive innovation.'' Moreover he said that ``we simply cannot sustain an economy based on innovation unless our citizens are educated in math, science and engineering.'' My bill is inspired by the same line of thinking. The COMPETE Act is based on three simple, fundamental ideas: 1. The U.S. needs to remain a leader when it comes to technology and innovation; 2. We must prepare our future workforce and ``up-skill'' our current workforce for our increasingly global and information technology driven economy; and 3. We must better utilize existing private-public partnerships to achieve these goals. The challenges we face are stark especially when it comes to the future competitiveness of our workforce. Today, China graduates four times as many engineers as the U.S.…”