Governor’s Workforce Investment Board
Biosciences Industry Initiative Conference
May 23, 2008
STEM & Our Workforce
Our challenge and opportunity, of course, is to continue developing our workforce so our State will not only meet the demands of the 21st century, but become that world leader that we talked about.
The efforts of the Workforce Investment Board are going to be very critically important in this regard. Our administration continues to make workforce investment a top priority.
I have had occasions to sometimes call employers that are thinking about coming to Maryland, are about to come to Maryland, and are expanding in Maryland, and I always ask them to explain to me what it is about our State that attracts them. And almost always they say one of two things; it's either location, because of their proximity to all of you and the other Federal institutions here, or workforce. And oftentimes it's location and workforce and just different ways they articulate that when it comes to their ranking.
Is the rent important? Yes, the rent is important. Are the schools important? By gosh, they are. Is the quality of life important? Quality of life is very important.
But you know what? All of those things are the things which lead to the great workforce.
So at the center of our workforce creation strategy is the conception, the modeling, the creation of a comprehensive strategy for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math – STEM, for short.
For all the virtues of our workforce and education system, our bioscience partners warn us of the troubling sentiment in the industry that we're really slipping behind as a country. A sentiment that our schools aren't providing the STEM training necessary is not a problem unique to Maryland; it is a nationwide issue, as students in foreign countries graduate with better STEM training than our children are receiving in our country.
Our Statewide vision for STEM education calls for better preparing every student at every age in every region of our State. Those who plan to enter the workforce after high school need better STEM training, and so too do students planning to pursue a college degree.
So we had to do it across the board. And you know what? It's not only STEM, it's also career and technical education.
If, as a people, we can marry both of those, then we'll be cooking. Because for every PhD that we create, you'll also create the need for other people across the whole continuum of workforce.
And what a wonderful American concept, that here in West Baltimore as you extend into the heart of some of the greatest unemployment pockets in our State, that this economy is troubled there, that we can -- by reasserting and promoting the highest ends of our creativity -- we can also bring opportunity to those of our neighbors who are most in need of the opportunity to develop that economic independence, and begin to climb those rungs to the ladders of a legacy wealth that can really be changing in a positive way for our entire State.
A recent study found that 38 percent of bioscience jobs in Maryland could be filled by individuals with less than an associate's degree if they had the proper training.
Extending our bioscience sector isn't only about creating more jobs for PhDs; it's about bringing more opportunity to all our people. And that's why we're not only looking for STEM students from our universities, but looking to graduate them from our middle schools, from our high schools.
Our administration is engaged in a lot of activity. We are seizing as many opportunities as we possibly can. We’re continuing to change the tires of the car and move forward together.
And what are some of the choices that we've been making? Well, I'm glad you asked.
We are making history -- this year the largest investment we have ever made in public education K-12, a $5.3 billion investment. That includes $741 million for school construction.
Well, what does that mean in the perspective of time? In the first two years of our predecessor's administration, they invested $241 million in school construction. Today, as a people, we're investing $741 million over the comparable time, the two year time period.
Secondly, we're making record commitments to our community colleges. I love community colleges. Many of you have relationships with your community colleges. They are some of the most nimble, facile, fast-moving and dollar stretching people on the planet. I love our community college presidents.
We have increased together, as a people, operational funding by 39 percent for our community colleges in these first two years of the O'Malley/Brown Administration.
We’re making a record commitment to our community colleges, increasing funding by 39% versus the first two years of the prior administration and investing $150 million in facility upgrades.
We're making important investments in our four year colleges and universities. We saw college tuition increase by 42 percent over the prior four years. We are now embarking on our third year in a row of zero percent increase at our four year, in-state colleges. This is an issue very near and dear to me because I have a 17 year old and a 16 year old, I'm really hoping they stay in-state.
The Higher Education Investment Fund. We created for the first time ever a dedicated stream of funding for higher education and created the Higher Education Investment Fund.
But we're also using some of those dollars to invest in extended education for students pursuing degrees in nursing and other health related fields. And we’re using it to invest in education needs associated with the BRAC process, which is expected to bring, as you know, 60,000 new jobs to Maryland -- many, if not most, of which will require STEM skills.
We’ve also created what we call our P-20 Council that Secretary Perez alluded to, to help insure that curricula from kindergarten through graduate school, grade 20, are aligned. And I thank June Streckfus and Bret Kirwan for co-chairing that effort on STEM within the P-20 Council.
So anyway, those are real, those are tangible steps. It’s not only a process and dialogue and collaboration, things that are greatly undervalued in most governments, but it’s also real investment of your dollars and a better future for our shared economy.
Our first action step for the P-20 Council is, of course, the development of the STEM Education Plan so we can start bench-marking each other. So we can hold each other accountable for making progress towards a much more aggressive STEM agenda.
Conclusion
Just think about what it could mean for our State if we were able to increase the size of the bioscience sector by 10 or 20 percent. What it would mean for our economic future, our competitiveness, our global competitiveness, our character.
At the end of the day our greatness as a State is going to be determined by what we do in the here and now, to invest in each other, invest in our potential, invest in our skills, and our capabilities.
I am committed with all of you to taking tremendous advantage of the opportunity we’ve been given by future generations and by so many of you in this room and in our generation, and really bringing greater balance to that body so it operates at its highest and best for the future of Maryland, for the future of our country and also for the future of the world.
And I really, really want to thank all of you for overcoming the cynicism deeply ingrained in us as Americans to participate with our government in anything. This is something very, very important to all of us.
And I thank you so much for giving of your time, your talent, your energy and also your commitment and your hope for a better future. Thanks very much.
