N.B. I am extremely grateful to the National Science Board Office (NSBO), and its dedicated and talented cadre of professional staff, who helped prepare my testimony. These include, but are not limited to, Reba Bandyopadhyay, Elise Lipkowitz, Nadine Lymn, Andrea Rambow, and John Veysey.
On May 16, 2024, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Director, Sethuraman Panchanathan, and I testified before the Research and Technology Subcommittee of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. I testified in my role as the departing chair of the National Science Board.
Nominally, the hearing was about the FY25 NSF budget, but I took the opportunity to talk about the need for us to step back and view the challenges and the opportunities much more strategically. The relevant documents are all on the subcommittee web site, including the hearing charter, opening statements by the committee chairs, and a video of the entire hearing. My extended opening statement can be read it at this link: Reed Written Testimony May 2024 .
I made two key points in my opening statement and my extended written testimony:
- The performance of U.S. students in STEM continues to lag, and we have lost even more ground relative to the rest of the world. Our K-12 STEM education system is simply not adequately preparing enough students for the 21st century knowledge economy.
- China has surpassed the United States on even more STEM performance indicators, and it is closing the gap on research and development (R&D) funding. The Economist made similar points in a recent article, entitled, “China Has Become a Scientific Superpower.”
I also offered two key recommendations:
- The need to pass and fund a 21st century version of the National Defense and Education Act (NDEA) to address STEM education quality and inequities, and rekindle the passion for discovery among both our students and our citizens. (By way of reference, the 1960s NDEA response to the Sputnik crisis, cost ~$20B in 2017 dollars)
- The need to improve government coordination of STEM strategy, with accountability for outcomes against a clear and compelling national science and technology strategy. Our global economic competitiveness and our national security depend on it.
This country, indeed most of the western world, is deeply divided, and our sense of optimism, a bedrock principle of the American ethos, is waning. Our belief that the future can be – and will be – by our determined effort, better than the present, is being shaken. It was not always so, nor need it be so in the future.
If we want to ensure the fruits of science and technology continue to redound to our national security, prosperity, and well-being, we must act, and act now. We need to mobilize all our country’s assets – government (at all levels), industry, academia, and non-profits – to address our growing challenges and the clear and manifest opportunities for discovery-fueled innovation. An even brighter future is still out there, but we must rekindle our passion, and shake off our malaise of uncertainty.
What that, here is my oral opening statement to the committee. You can watch it as well.
My Opening Statement
Chairman Lucas, Ranking Member Lofgren, Chairman Collins, Ranking Member Stevens, and Members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.
I am here with a message of appreciation and progress, but also one of concern.
Science and technology are critical pillars of our nation’s hard and soft power – our national security and our economic prosperity. Breakthroughs such as generative AI are reshaping the very fabric of our society.
Meanwhile, we face increasingly fierce global competition in areas critical to our country’s future – in AI, semiconductors, quantum computing, and biotechnology, to name just a few.
Although the U.S. is still the best place in the world for science and technology innovation, the warning lights for the future are flashing red:
- The modest gains U.S. students made in math test scores over the past 20 years were erased during the pandemic. Alarmingly, the declines were the largest or students from groups already underrepresented in STEM.
- With each Science and Engineering Indicators report, China has outperformed us on yet another key metric. It has surpassed us on STEM doctoral degree production, research publications, and patents, and it is closing the gap on R&D expenditures.
I remember a time when we believed anything the U.S. could dream, we could do.
Today, it feels like we have lowered expectations. We’ve lost sight of “… all the wonder that would be.”
While other countries invest heavily in the future, our real federal R&D funding is flat. And, we are failing to develop the domestic STEM workforce needed to remain globally competitive.
We are not moving at the speed of our competitors.
Let me be clear. Global science and technology leadership is neither an abstraction nor an empty slogan. It is the wellspring of our national power, safety, prosperity, and happiness.
The future remains ours to win. But, only if we act with vision and commitment to secure it for our children and grandchildren.
I am here not merely to ask that you fund NSF at the FY25 request level, or get us back on the CHIPS & Science authorization path.
I am here to ask for more. I am asking us to dream better dreams.
In that spirit, I humbly offer two ideas for your consideration.
First, the U.S. should pursue a “National Defense Education Act” – an “NDEA 2.0” – to develop domestic STEM talent at ALL educational levels.
The genius of the NDEA was that it created STEM inspiration and opportunity where little existed before. As someone born a poor child of the Arkansas Ozarks, I sit here today as living testimony to its enduring power.
An NDEA 2.0 could invest directly in recruiting, retaining, and upskilling preK-12 STEM teachers nationwide and create more pathways to enter STEM teaching via non-standard paths. It could also create a national undergraduate STEM service program and expand graduate fellowships in critical areas.
I believe an NDEA 2.0 is practically and economically necessary to change our STEM education trajectory — and it is morally and ethically right.
STEM jobs pay better and are more recession-proof. And, no society should leave parts of its population or regions of its country behind in the race to the future.
Second, I ask you to hold a hearing to explore the structural obstacles to implementing and delivering on a whole-of-government national strategy for science and technology.
As we face rising competition from centrally directed nation states, our federal S&T structure still reflects a slower moving yesteryear.
We need structures that can drive our national science and technology strategy across agencies – quickly and nimbly – and work with our industry and academic partners, while also being held accountable for progress toward national goals.
Now I am not advocating for fully centralized control. But the bottom-up, distributed process we use now is insufficient.
If we are to compete successfully in the global race to the future, we must think, organize, and act in some fundamentally different ways.
We must not coast on the glories of the past. A brighter future begins with better dreams.
We must “dare mighty things” and then do what we dream.
It is in the daring and the doing that the U.S. asserts and secures its power and place in the world.
The need is real. The opportunity is great. The time is now.
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