Ron Kind: “I thank the gentlewoman for Georgia for raising this issue. I am a member of the Committee on Education and the…”

“I thank the gentlewoman for Georgia for raising this issue. I am a member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce along with the Committee on the Budget, and we are looking at under the majority party's budget reconciliation proposal of having to come up with close to $15 billion worth of cuts out of the education and workforce authorization budget at a time when, as the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) has just indicated, we need to be ramping up our investment in the workforce development of this century with our students and with the youth so that they have the skills and the tools that they need to compete successfully in what is a rapidly shrinking world and an incredibly competitive global marketplace. The reports are coming out almost daily in regards to how we are underfunding or not supporting programs to encourage more math and science and engineering students in this country. Earlier this year I spent 2 weeks in China doing a higher education tour there. They are investing heavily in their education infrastructure. They are graduating more English speaking engineers from their own Chinese schools than we are here in the United States.…”