Orrin Hatch: “I have an amendment to S. 761, the America COMPETES Act. My amendment would allow competency-based institutions of…”

“I have an amendment to S. 761, the America COMPETES Act. My amendment would allow competency-based institutions of higher learning to access grant programs which will help them train math, science, and critical foreign language teachers. I applaud the goals of increasing the numbers of math, science, and critical foreign language teachers in our schools, including high-need schools. Our ability to compete as a nation is directly tied to our ability to educate our young people and retrain those who are in industries that are no longer viable. We now have the finest system of higher education in the world. There is no doubt that if we provide the proper incentives, many brilliant innovators and educators will take up the clarion call. I come before this body today to introduce my amendment because many of today's teachers are teaching an older generation of students. The U.S. economy is in a state of continual change, and with that change comes displacement of workers and a need to retrain and retool. These nontraditional students often receive their training from accredited schools who assess student development based on a student's ability to demonstrate competency in the material being taught. Under the bill as drafted, these competency-based universities would not be able to access the grant money for teacher development. My amendment would remove this bias and allow competency-based universities access to the teacher development grant money.”