[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
COMPETITIVENESS AND INNOVATION ON THE
COMMITTEE'S 50TH ANNIVERSARY WITH
BILL GATES, CHAIRMAN OF MICROSOFT
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 12, 2008
__________
Serial No. 110-84
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science and Technology
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.science.house.gov
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COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. BART GORDON, Tennessee, Chairman
JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois RALPH M. HALL, Texas
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER JR.,
LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California Wisconsin
MARK UDALL, Colorado LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
DAVID WU, Oregon DANA ROHRABACHER, California
BRIAN BAIRD, Washington ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
BRAD MILLER, North Carolina VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma
NICK LAMPSON, Texas JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois
GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona W. TODD AKIN, Missouri
JERRY MCNERNEY, California TOM FEENEY, Florida
LAURA RICHARDSON, California RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas
PAUL KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania BOB INGLIS, South Carolina
DARLENE HOOLEY, Oregon DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington
STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas
JIM MATHESON, Utah MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
MIKE ROSS, Arkansas PHIL GINGREY, Georgia
BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri ADRIAN SMITH, Nebraska
CHARLIE MELANCON, Louisiana PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia
BARON P. HILL, Indiana VACANCY
HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona
CHARLES A. WILSON, Ohio
C O N T E N T S
March 12, 2008
Page
Hearing Charter.................................................. 2
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Bart Gordon, Chairman, Committee on
Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives.......... 3
Written Statement............................................ 4
Statement by Representative Ralph M. Hall, Minority Ranking
Member, Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 4
Prepared Statement by Representative Jerry F. Costello, Member,
Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 6
Prepared Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson,
Member, Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 7
Witness:
Mr. William H. Gates, Chairman, Microsoft Corporation; Co-Chair,
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Oral Statement............................................... 9
Written Statement............................................ 11
Biography.................................................... 22
Discussion....................................................... 23
COMPETITIVENESS AND INNOVATION ON THE COMMITTEE'S 50TH ANNIVERSARY WITH
BILL GATES, CHAIRMAN OF MICROSOFT
----------
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12, 2008
House of Representatives,
Committee on Science and Technology,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:04 a.m., in Room
2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Bart Gordon
[Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
hearing charter
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Competitiveness and Innovation on the
Committee's 50th Anniversary With
Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft
wednesday, march 12, 2008
10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
2318 rayburn house office building
1. Purpose
This year, the Committee on Science and Technology will celebrate
its 50th Anniversary. On Wednesday, March 12, 2008, the House Committee
on Science and Technology will hold a hearing to highlight this
occasion and receive testimony from Bill Gates, the Chairman of the
Microsoft Corporation, to discuss our country's technological advances
over the past 50 years, the current state of our country's
competitiveness, and a look ahead to the challenges we face.
2. Witness
Mr. William H. Gates, Chairman, Microsoft Corporation
3. Brief Overview
Following World War II and throughout much of the 20th century, the
United States became a world leader in science and innovation, and
economic indicators demonstrated that the United States offered a high
standard of living to its citizens. In fact, the U.S. economy grew
substantially, and economists estimate that about half of U.S. economic
growth was the result of technological innovation.
In the 1990's however, during a period in which the United States
was known as the world's lone ``superpower,'' a number of indicators
suggested that U.S. prosperity was diminishing. In 1990, the United
States had a trade surplus in high-technology products of $54 billion.
That surplus turned into a trade deficit of $50 billion by 2004. A
number of iconic American companies moved assets, jobs, and ownership
overseas. And American students performed poorly in several
international assessments of math and science achievement.
On October 12, 2005, The National Academies released a report on
Prospering in the Global Economy of the 21st Century entitled Rising
Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a
Brighter Economic Future. The Gathering Storm report quickly became
influential in promoting a national agenda on innovation and
competitiveness. Ultimately, recommendations included in the Gathering
Storm report, as well as some of the suggestions included in the
President's American Competitiveness Initiative, became the basis for
legislation signed into law last August--the America COMPETES Act. This
legislation, authored by this committee, makes a significant commitment
to our country's future by investing in math and science education and
federal research.
In what is likely to be his final congressional testimony before
devoting the majority of his time to his philanthropic work with the
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates will
appear before the Science and Technology Committee to share his
thoughts on efforts needed to further strengthen our country's
competitiveness in the global marketplace, discuss what policies are
needed to encourage innovation, and address the role of technology in
our country's economic growth.
The Committee looks forward to hearing the unique perspective of
Mr. Gates, both as Chairman of Microsoft and as Co-Chair of the Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation, on strengthening our country's
competitiveness in the global marketplace. More specifically, the
Committee expects Mr. Gates to address issues crucial to our country's
competitiveness including a commitment to math and science education,
federal investments in research and development, policies that
encourage innovation, and the role of technology in our economic
growth.
Chairman Gordon. This hearing will come to order. Welcome
all. Welcome to today's hearing entitled Competitiveness and
Innovation on the Committee's 50th Anniversary With Bill Gates,
Chairman of Microsoft.
In November of 1957, as a young boy, as a very young boy, I
remember looking out into the sky and seeing the blinking red
dot passing overhead that struck fear into countless Americans.
The launch of Sputnik and the beginning of the space race began
a period of unprecedented investment and research in math and
science education in this country resulting in the development
of new technologies and the advancement of innovation.
During the next 50 years, the United States became a world
leader in science and technology, education, research, and most
importantly innovation and entrepreneurship. These efforts
fueled our economy and allowed each generation of Americans to
inherit a better standard of living than their parents, and as
the father of a seven-year-old, I fear that our children could
be the first generation of Americans that do not inherit a
living standard better than their parents, a reverse of the
American dream. And let me explain why. Sputnik showed us that
we were not the world's technological leader. Today, with rapid
economic and technological advances in other countries, I fear
we are now on the cusp of another Sputnik moment. I fear that
our country has coasted on the investment made for the last 50
years, or as my father would say, we have been eating our seed
corn.
Now is the time to act, and I believe this committee has an
important role to play in helping bring our country back as a
technological leader in the world. Soon after the launch of
Sputnik in March of 1958, this committee was established to
face the challenges presented by the space age. Although the
threat is different, the challenges today remain the same to
secure our country's international prominence in the areas of
innovation and technological development.
The witness before us today needs little introduction. Bill
Gates embodies both the American spirit of innovation and the
theological virtue of charity. He has built arguably the most
successful technological company in the world and then has
turned his financial success into a gift for our society. On
this occasion, the 50th anniversary of this committee, as we
reflect back on the technological advances of the past and look
ahead to the challenges facing our country's competitiveness in
the world, I can think of no other witness better suited and
well-positioned to help share his insights with this committee.
As I have said before, I am very pleased of the work done
by this committee over the past year to develop and shepherd
through Congress the America COMPETES Act. This legislation was
a necessary and important first step in making the commitments
needed to bring our country back to technological prominence,
and though the passing of the COMPETES Act authorization was a
great success, now we have to follow up and be sure that it is
fully funded.
I look forward to hearing Mr. Gates on other efforts needed
to rebuild our strength and again lead the world for another 50
years. It is my hope that we will continue to look for ways to
embrace the global marketplace and not shy away from the
challenges we face.
Before I conclude, I want to quickly acknowledge the
presence of two Members of the House and past Chairman of the
Committee, Mr. Bob Walker on the end over there and Sherry
Boehlert, welcome back. And we have another Chairman, Mr.
Sensenbrenner, with his canine. There is Mr. Sensenbrenner up
on the wall there. Jim Sensenbrenner is still a Member of our
committee. I am pleased that you are able to join us today and
help us to commemorate this 50th Anniversary of the Committee.
With that, I would like to now recognize Mr. Hall for his
opening statement.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Gordon follows:]
Prepared Statement of Chairman Bart Gordon
In November of 1957, as a young boy, I remember looking into the
sky and seeing the blinking red dot pass overhead that struck fear into
countless Americans. The launch of Sputnik and the beginning of the
``space race'' began a period of unprecedented investment in research
and math and science education in this country, resulting in the
development of new technologies and the advancement of innovation.
During the next 50 years, the United States became a world leader
in science and technology, education and research, and--most
importantly--innovation. These efforts fueled our economy and allowed
each generation of Americans to inherit a better standard of living
than their parents.
As the father of a seven-year-old daughter, I fear that our
children will be the first generation of Americans that do not inherit
a standard of living better than their parents. And let me tell you
why.
Sputnik showed us that we were not the world's technological
leader. Today, with the rapid economic and technological advances of
other countries, I fear we are now on the cusp of another Sputnik
moment. I fear that our country has ``coasted'' on the investments we
made 50 years ago.
Now is the time to act and I believe this committee has an
important role to play in helping bring our country back as the
technological leader in the world.
Soon after the launch of Sputnik, in March of 1958, this committee
was established to face the challenges presented by the Space Age.
Though the threat is different, the challenges today remain the same--
to secure our country's international dominance in the areas of
innovation and technology development.
The witness before us today needs little introduction. Bill Gates
embodies both the American spirit of innovation and the theological
virtue of charity. He has built arguably the most successful technology
company in the world and then has turned his financial success into his
gift to our society.
On this occasion of the 50th anniversary of this committee, as we
reflect back on the technological advances of the past and look ahead
to the challenges facing our country's competitiveness in the world, I
can think of no other witness better suited and well positioned to help
share insights with this committee.
As I have said before, I am proud of the work done by this
committee over the past year to develop and shepherd through Congress
the America COMPETES Act. This legislation was a necessary and
important first step in making the commitments needed to bring our
country back to technological prominence. And though COMPETES was a
great success, our work is far from done.
I look forward to hearing from Mr. Gates on other efforts needed to
rebuild our strength and again lead the world for another 50 years. It
is my hope that we will continue to look for ways to embrace the global
marketplace and not shy away from the challenges we face.
Before I conclude, I wanted to quickly acknowledge the presence of
two former Members of the House and past Chairmen of this committee--
Bob Walker and Sherry Boehlert. I am pleased that you were both able to
join us today and help us commemorate the 50th anniversary of our
committee.
Mr. Hall. Mr. Chairman, I thank you, and of course I thank
you, Mr. Gates, for joining us this morning to celebrate the
50th anniversary of the Science and Technology Committee, this
committee, and I want to also take the time to say hello to my
good friends and former colleagues, Bob Walker and Sherry
Boehlert and of course our very able Committee Chairman, Mr.
Sensenbrenner.
You know, men and women of America have always stepped
forward when the challenges were great. Henry Ford introduced
his assembly line innovation with the first Model T's, and men
like Henry Kaiser picked up on it and perfected production
techniques during World War II that allowed us to out-produce
the enemy, producing one cargo ship every 30 days, and one ship
in a record four days. And when polio stalked our nation and
iron lungs claimed our children, Jonas Salk appeared.
We are honored today, Mr. Chairman, with one who graces our
committee room who beat down the doors that shut out
imagination and brought about a revolution in communication
which changed the world. His foundation is now revolutionizing
an assault on malaria, hunger, ignorance, and illiteracy around
the world, and let me tell you, we are really honored by your
presence.
I think it is important for us to take this time and
reflect on the Committee's accomplishments over the last half-
a-century as well as explore why scientific enterprise and the
work of the Committee are just as important to the United
States today as they were in the Cold War when the Committee
was created. The Soviet launch of Sputnik on October 4, 1957,
was a wakeup call to Americans, and I remember the feeling of
going out to the backyard at night and watching the blinking
lights slowly cross the Texas sky. Every night that blinking
light taunted us that America was no longer the most
technologically advanced country in the world. The message was
loud and clear that for the first time, the United States had
to play catch up and catch up we did. In 1958, under the
leadership of Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn, whose Texas 4th
District I now gladly represent, the Select Committee on
Astronautics and Space Exploration was created. Shortly
thereafter, the Committee created NASA and chartered a
permanent House Committee on Science and Astronautics, our
forerunner. About a decade later, the United States landed on
the Moon, proving without a doubt that America was once again
the world's technological leader.
The Science and Technology Committee has come a long way in
50 years, taking on some of America's biggest challenges, but
we continue to be challenged. Experts have been churning out
report after report citing the United States as falling behind
other countries in the field of science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics education as well as long-term
basic research funding. For these reasons, the President and a
Republican-led Congress made its priority to make the United
States more economically competitive by promoting American
innovation and STEM education. We have continued that trend in
this Congress, and I am proud to be a supporter of the America
COMPETES Act, which the President signed into law last year and
which calls for a doubling of basic research funding for
several agencies within our jurisdiction within a decade.
America COMPETES has been the Committee's top priority, but
we played a part in many other important sectors. Research into
advanced technologies can help prepare first responders, secure
our borders, and develop safe nanotechnology-based products,
all the while as Mr. Gates exemplified, improving the economy
and creating skilled jobs. Science then forms good policy, and
I am proud to have been a part of the Science and Technology
Committee for 27 years doing just that. From this seat I have
seen first-hand America's innovative capabilities, and I know
we can always do better. America's preeminence in the global
community depends on what all of us do today, each of us, all
levels of government. Academia, parents, students, and industry
have an important role to keep and also to play in keeping
America competitive and ahead of the innovation curve.
I look forward to hearing your testimony, Mr. Gates. I
understand that both Microsoft and the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation are doing wonderful things, particularly with
regards to STEM education. I am especially eager to hear more
about the 35 secondary STEM schools and regional resource
centers you have established across Texas in partnership with
the Michael and Susan Bell Foundation, the Communities
Foundation of Texas, the Governor, and the Texas Education
Agency. I hope you plan to extend some of these terrific
efforts to reach children in K to 8 grades as well. I would
suggest that perhaps you might want to take a look at what the
Martha and Josh Morris Math and Engineering Elementary School
in my district is accomplishing in this regard to capture the
attention and imagination of our youth. This committee will be
holding a field hearing there in May to show how this local
effort and how well as a partnership such as the ones you
describe can work and serve as models for the rest of the
country. Our Chairman will lead that visit.
Again, welcome. I look forward to hearing from you. I yield
back my time.
Chairman Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Hall. I look forward to
going down and joining you in Texas.
If there are additional Members that would like to make
statements, you can--written statements, opening statements can
be made a part of the record at this point.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Costello follows:]
Prepared Statement of Representative Jerry F. Costello
Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you for overseeing this budget
hearing and thank Mr. Gates for coming to testify before the Committee
today. Your philanthropic work with the Gates Foundation has certainly
been admirable and I thank you for your dedication to and commitment to
the global community.
With the COMPETES bill, the Committee took an important step to
advance the goal of increasing our nation's competitiveness and
investing in our children's math and science education. The Committee
recognizes in order to truly remain competitive for the next fifty
years as we have over the past half century, we must make a serious
commitment to invest in research and development. This commitment will
necessitate a partnership between the State and Federal Government and
the private sector. Your work at Microsoft and the Gates Foundation is
an example of exactly that.
I am concerned, Mr. Chairman, about remaining competitive in a
global market and securing technology jobs for Americans who have
invested the time in professional training and degree programs. Too
often, I hear from constituents in my district who have found
themselves out of work due to out-sourcing, closing factories, and a
failing economy.
I am interested in hearing your thoughts on these issues, Mr.
Gates, as your experience guiding a company on the cutting edge of
technology production for thirty years and your more recent position of
co-chair of your foundation make you an excellent witness for our
hearing today. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for my time.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Today's hearing is important to help us better understand how we,
as a nation, can secure our position as a leader in science and
technology for the next 50 years and beyond.
As we celebrate the Science and Technology Committee's 50th
Anniversary, I am pleased to have Mr. Bill Gates to testify as a world
renowned innovator in technology and philanthropist in health,
education, and poverty.
As other countries challenge the United States to stay at the
forefront in technology and innovation, I know that it is imperative to
educate the next generation in the areas of science, technology,
engineering and mathematics (STEM).
Through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Mr. Gates has been
able to fund the education of many low-income students that would not
have had the opportunity to attend college otherwise.
The $38.7 billion Gates Foundation endowment is, and will continue
to, help young people in need.
Children will have a fair chance to grow up less burdened by
disease.
Students living in poverty will have better access to books,
stimulating teachers, Internet connections, and other tools to help
them compete in the global marketplace.
Many of these students who are minorities and women will go on to
study in STEM fields. This mission has been a passion of mine over the
years.
The Gates Foundation is doing all of these activities, and more.
The size and scale of it is comparable to federal investments in
non-defense research and development.
As a strong supporter of the America COMPETES Act, that serves the
purpose of strengthening science education and research and improving
our technology enterprise, I can say that the Microsoft Corporation has
certainly done its part to keep America competitive in the global
market.
With pioneers like Mr. Gates, this nation will continue to make
technological advances for the next 50 years and longer.
While we make such advances, it is my desire to see more programs
like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Bill Gates is a shining example of innovation and humanitarianism
at its best.
Again, welcome, Mr. Gates.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Gordon. And now, on this occasion, the Committee's
50th anniversary, I believe it is particularly relevant to
receive the thoughts and ideas of one of the country's truly
innovative thinkers.
After founding Microsoft in 1975, Mr. Gates has built the
company into one of the world's leading software and
technological companies. His company's innovations have changed
the way we work, the way we process information, and the way we
learn. His vision and his accomplishments are truly what can
make America an even better country.
Each of us would be hard pressed to have a day pass that we
did not use a Microsoft application in the course of our daily
routine, but more importantly, Bill Gates is uniquely
positioned to share with the Committee the challenges of
building a strong, well-educated workforce and the benefits
that technology can provide. Moreover, Mr. Gates has taken to
heart the adage from those who much is given, much is expected.
With the great financial success Mr. Gates has realized, he and
his wife, Melinda, have undertaken the daunting challenge of
making our world a better place by using the same
entrepreneurial spirit and his to conscientiously give away the
majority of his fortune while encouraging others to similarly
endow to do the same.
Again, we are very pleased to have you and look forward to
your testimony. At this time, I would like to yield to the
gentleman from Washington, Mr. Baird, for some brief additional
introductory remarks.
Mr. Baird. Mr. Gates, I just wanted to, as a proud
Washingtonian, let you know how much we admire what you have
done for our State and our world and your leadership on science
and a committee that is so proud of what you have done and what
you are doing for the future in the areas just mentioned.
Welcome to the Science Committee, and thank you for helping us
to commemorate our 50th anniversary.
Chairman Gordon. Mr. Gates, I told you we are a bipartisan
Committee following Sherry Boehlert's good example, and we are
fortunate to also have a Democrat and Republican from
Washington State, and Mr. Reichert is recognized for any
comments.
Mr. Reichert. There are actually three Republicans in
Washington State. I have backup.
Chairman Gordon. On this committee.
Mr. Reichert. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr.
Gates, thank you so much for being here today. We are excited
to hear your testimony, and I just want to take a moment to say
how proud I am to have you here personally as a constituent
testifying before our committee, and also, I am proud to have
Microsoft in Washington State and am especially proud to have
Microsoft in the 8th District which I am privileged to
represent.
Through your leadership, Microsoft has remained not only a
leading innovator but also a beacon for thousands of small
businesses across the country. That American dream is alive and
well, and that vision of determination, great success, can come
from modest beginnings. Microsoft is truly an engine of our
nation's economic growth, and your company and your
philanthropy continue to make tremendous contributions to
Washington State, to our country, and to the global community.
These are challenging times, and I look forward to hearing your
perspectives on immigration, math and science, foreign aid, and
other critical areas we need to improve so that America can
remain a leader in this increasingly kind of competitive global
economy.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Chairman Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Reichert. Let me mention to
our Members, and I know we don't have a full delegation here
because they knew we were having votes on the Floor.
Unfortunately, our bipartisan spirit does not move over or flow
over to the Floor, so I think we are going to have a little bit
of a contentious morning. We don't want that to stand in the
way of this good testimony.
With Ralph Hall's concurrence, we have some ground rules
here. One, Mr. Gates has got to leave right at 12:00, and so we
are going to have to cut off at 12:00. The second thing is what
I would like for us to do during these votes is to sort of
alternate. I want to keep the hearing going, and so some of you
might go down and vote and come back and ask questions, some
can stay here, but we want to keep the proceedings going. Mr.
Baird?
Mr. Baird. Mr. Chairman, in the interest of most of us can
hear Mr. Gates, is it possible that we pair in a sense? I know
that we, basically, that we keep even numbers on this side so
that we don't affect the Floor tally in any way. There are
eight of us I think on our side of the aisle. You know,
basically match it up in some way.
Chairman Gordon. I think folks will want to go vote, but
what we will try to do is we will ask the staff maybe on each
side to send half down and ask the other half to stay and then
reverse. We will do it the best we can, and I am sure that it
will work out.
Mr. Hall. Kind of an assembly line.
Chairman Gordon. Right. We will now begin the questions,
and the Chairman recognizes himself. Oh, I guess if we have a
rock star, we should let him rock. So, Mr. Gates, you are now
recognized.
STATEMENT OF MR. WILLIAM H. GATES, CHAIRMAN, MICROSOFT
CORPORATION; CO-CHAIR, BILL AND MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION
Mr. Gates. Thank you. It is a privilege to be here.
Chairman Gordon, Ranking Member Hall, Members of the Committee.
I am Bill Gates and I am the Chairman of Microsoft. With my
wife, Melinda, I am also the founder of the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation, and it is an honor to be here to commemorate
your 50th anniversary.
During these 50 years, incredible advances in science and
technology have revolutionized the way people around the world
communicate, run businesses, find information, and much more. I
am optimistic that over the decades ahead, information
technology will continue to transform business productivity and
have a profound positive impact on our day-to-day lives. It
will also help us address important global challenges related
to education, health care, energy, and other issues.
Many of the key advances of these 50 years were pioneered
by researchers working in U.S. universities and for U.S.
companies. United States' preeminence in science and technology
and this nation's unmatched ability to turn innovation into
thriving business have long been the engine of job creation and
the source of our global economic leadership.
I know we all want the United States to continue to be the
world's center for innovation, but our position is at risk.
There are many reasons for this, but two stand out. First, U.S.
companies face a severe shortfall of scientists and engineers
with expertise to develop the next generation of breakthroughs.
Second, we don't invest enough as a nation in the basic
research needed to derive long-term innovation. If we don't
reverse these trends, our competitive advantage will erode. Our
ability to create new high-paying jobs will suffer.
Addressing these issues will take commitment, leadership,
and partnership on the part of government, private, and non-
profit sectors. Let me start by saying that business has a
critical role to play. The private sector must contribute to
building a workforce that has the skills to innovate and
compete. That is why Microsoft is committed to improving
educational quality and encouraging young people to study math
and science through programs like Partners in Learning which
has reached more than 80,000 teachers and three million
students.
Non-profit organizations also have an important role to
play. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for its part has
invested almost $2 billion to help establish or improve nearly
2,000 U.S. high schools and provided over $1.7 billion for
college scholarship programs.
But organizations like these cannot address the issues
alone. Only government has the resources to effect change on a
broad scale. If this nation is to continue to be the global
center of innovation, Congress, the current Administration, and
the next president must act decisively. It starts with
education. Today, graduation rates for our high school students
and their level of achievement in math and science rank at the
bottom among industrialized nations. Thirty percent of ninth-
graders and nearly half of African-American and Hispanic ninth-
graders do not graduate on time. Fewer than 40 percent of high
school students graduate ready to attend college.
As a nation, we must have a fundamental goal that every
child in the United States should graduate from high school
prepared for college, career, and life. To achieve this, we
need metrics that reflect what students learn and the progress
they make. Touch metrics may be difficult to develop, but they
provide the essential foundation for deciding which programs
best improve outcomes in our public schools.
Better data will also help us identify the most effective
teachers and adopt better policies for recruiting, training,
and retaining these teachers for our public schools.
If the problem of high schools is one of quality, the issue
at our universities is quantity. Our higher education system
doesn't produce enough top scientists and engineers to meet the
need of the U.S. economy. According to the bureau of labor
statistics, we are adding over 100,000 computer-related jobs
each year, but only 15,000 students earned Bachelor's degrees
in computer science and engineering in 2006 and that number
continues to drop.
One of the most important steps Congress can take to
address this problem is to fully fund the America COMPETES Act.
Introduced by this committee, this Act would significantly
increase funding for the National Science Foundation's Graduate
Fellowship and Teacher Training Scholarship Programs. As bad as
the disparity between supply and demand looks, these numbers
understate the severity of the problem. Today our university
computer science and engineering programs include large numbers
of foreign students. In fact, the Science and Engineering
Indicators Report showed that 59 percent of doctoral degrees
and 43 percent of all higher ed degrees in engineering and
computer science are awarded to temporary residents. But our
current immigration policies make it increasingly difficult for
these students to remain in the United States. At a time when
talent is the key to economic success, it makes no sense to
educate people in our universities, often subsidized by U.S.
taxpayers, and then insist that they return home.
United States' innovation has always been based in part on
the contribution of foreign-born scientists and researchers.
For example, a recent survey conducted by several universities
showed that between 1995 and 2005 firms with at least one
foreign-born founder created 450,000 new U.S. jobs. Moreover,
as a recent study shows, for every H-1B holder that technology
companies hire, five additional jobs are created around that
person. But as you know, our immigration system makes it very
difficult for U.S. firms to hire highly skilled foreign
workers. Last year at Microsoft, we were unable to obtain H-1B
visas for over a third of our foreign-born candidates. An
example is the story of Arpit Guglani, a talented young man who
graduated from the University of Toronto. He graduated in 2006,
and we offered him a job but he has not been able to obtain an
H-1B visa for two straight years and we were forced to rescind
his job offer. He is exactly the type of science and
engineering graduate that we need to continue to add jobs and
drive innovation.
There are a number of steps that Congress and the White
House should take to address this problem, including extending
the period that foreign students can work here after
graduation. Increasing the current cap on H-1B visas, clearing
a path to permanent residency for high-skilled, foreign-born
employees, eliminating per-country green card limits, and
significantly increasing the annual number of green cards.
I want to emphasize that to address the shortage of
scientists and engineers we must do both, reform our education
system and our immigration policies. If we don't, American
companies simply will not have the talent they need to innovate
and compete.
Finally, we must increase our investment in basic
scientific research. In the past, federally funded research
helped spark industries that today provide hundreds of
thousands of jobs. Even though we know that basic research
drives economic progress, real federal spending on research has
fallen since 2005. I urge Congress to increase funding for
basic research by 10 percent annually for the next seven years.
I fully support Congress' efforts to fund basic research
through the America COMPETES Act.
I believe the country is at a crossroads. For decades,
innovation has been our engine of prosperity. Now, economic
progress depends more than ever on innovation. Without
leadership from Congress and the President to implement
policies like those I have outlined today and the commitment of
the private sector to do its part, the center of progress can
shift to other nations that are more committed to the pursuit
of innovation.
I want to conclude by again congratulating the Committee on
its 50th anniversary and to thank you for this opportunity to
share my perspective. I would be happy to respond to any
questions you may have on these topics.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gates follows:]
Prepared Statement of William H. Gates
Chairman Gordon, Ranking Member Hall, Members of the Committee, my
name is Bill Gates and I am Chairman of Microsoft Corporation. I am
also a Co-Chair, with my wife Melinda and my father Bill, Sr., of the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It is an honor for me to speak here
today on the occasion of the Committee's 50th anniversary.
Today I am here to highlight the gathering threat to U.S.
preeminence in science and technology innovation, and to propose a
four-part plan that I believe will help us maintain our position as the
world's innovation leader.
During the last 50 years, the world has witnessed truly
revolutionary advances in science and technology. We as a nation can
take pride in knowing that American scientists, researchers, and
entrepreneurs have been at the forefront of many of these advances. Our
unmatched ability to turn new ideas in science and technology into
thriving businesses has been the engine of growth and job creation that
has made our economy among the most dynamic and competitive in the
world.
This committee can also take pride in knowing that it is
responsible for many of the key federal policies that provided the
foundation for U.S. technology leadership. Through its efforts, the
Committee has shaped our national approach and guided our investments
in areas such as space travel, aviation, computing and networking,
biotechnology, energy, education, and many other fields.
I share this committee's deep faith in the power and importance of
technology. Having spent the last 30 years with one of the world's
leading software companies, I am amazed every day at the potential for
technology to create new opportunities and improve people's lives. This
view is shared by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which focuses on
finding innovative solutions that can help improve health care and
education, and reduce poverty.
As rapidly as science and technology have advanced over the past 50
years, I believe these advances will pale in comparison to the
innovations of the next 50 years, or even the next 10 years.
In many ways, the incredible advances of the past few decades have
really just laid the foundation for much more profound change in the
years ahead. There are about a billion PCs in use around the world
today. The number of people who use cell phones is close to three
billion. About 300 million people are connected to broadband Internet.
Software permeates every sector of the economy and almost every aspect
of our day-to-day lives.
The implications of these developments are profound. Computing and
software are increasingly available everywhere: in the office and the
home; in our cars; in stores, restaurants, and public spaces. In the
future, we will be able to tap into computing capabilities on an
increasingly broad range of devices. We will have instant access to all
of our personal information--and all of the content, information, and
computing power we want or need--at any time and from any location.
These changes will have a dramatic impact on business. Not only
will productivity and efficiency continue to improve, but we are moving
closer and closer to the time when information systems will have the
flexibility, intelligence, and self-awareness to adapt automatically as
business conditions change. These systems will deliver precisely the
information, services, and applications that employees and customers
need, when and where they need them.
These changes will also have a profound impact on the way people
live--the way we share experiences and communicate with the people we
care about; the way we preserve memories of past events; the way we
access entertainment; the way we learn; and how we interact with our
communities and our governments.
These advances also have the potential to help us address some of
the most pressing global challenges that we face today.
In education, information technology can help us eliminate some of
the barriers that prevent us from providing a high-quality education to
everyone; barriers such as lack of access to great educational content
and relevant curricula, a shortage of effective teachers, and a paucity
of data that would help us improve student performance.
My involvement in education initiatives at both Microsoft and at
the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has shown me the great things that
information technology can do to improve education. One of the
Foundation's earliest initiatives, which it undertook in partnership
with Microsoft, was its U.S. Libraries Program. The goal of this
program was simple: to ensure that every person in the United States
who could reach a public library would have access to the Internet.
Today, 99 percent of U.S. public libraries offer free computer and
Internet services, and some 14 million people regularly use these
services. In my view, the U.S. Libraries Program is a great example of
how the public and private sectors can work together to use the power
of information technology to address important social needs.
In health care, information technology can reduce the cost of
health care and help ensure that patients receive the most effective
care possible. New technologies, such as Microsoft's HealthVault, are
giving people simple, secure ways to manage their family's health
information and providing the ability to control who can access that
information. These technologies put patients at the center of the
health care system by giving them the tools to create a complete
picture of their health and allowing them, for the first time, to make
fully informed treatment decisions.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, for its part, has committed
more than $6 billion to organizations worldwide to promote innovation
in access to health care, including research to develop new tools to
fight diseases that cause the greatest amount of illness and death in
developing countries. For example, the Foundation has provided over
$250 million to support collaborative research between a not-for-profit
and the pharmaceutical industry aimed at developing a preventative
malaria vaccine. Late last year, the Foundation issued a challenge
grant to Rotary International: if Rotary raises $100 million in the
fight to eradicate polio, the Foundation will match it, dollar for
dollar. The Foundation also recently provided funding to support the
International Medical Corps' mobile clinics and other public health
efforts in Kenya, and has committed more than $650 million to the
Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria. With initiatives like the
Product Red campaign, the Global Fund is paving the way for business to
join with government on these issues. These efforts, together with
those of countless other companies and institutions, hold tremendous
promise for alleviating existing inequities in global health care.
Computing and software will also play an increasingly central role
in scientific research. We are rapidly moving into an era of data-
centric computational science in which researchers across a wide range
of disciplines routinely use software and computers as essential tools
for investigation and collaboration. The ability to use computers to
model complex systems is transforming the way we learn about everything
from genomics and biosciences to physics and astronomy. In the future,
scientific computing will play a profoundly important role in advances
that will help us treat diseases, address climate change, and confront
many other critical issues.
* * * * *
As I hope these remarks reflect, I am optimistic about the
potential for technology to help us find new ways to improve people's
lives and tackle important challenges. I am less optimistic, however,
that the United States will continue to remain a global leader in
technology innovation. While America's innovation heritage is
unparalleled, the evidence is mounting that we are failing to make the
investments in our young people, our workers, our scientific research
infrastructure, and our economy that will enable us to retain our
global innovation leadership.
In particular, I believe that there are two urgent reasons why we
should all be deeply concerned that our advantages in science and
technology innovation are in danger of slipping away.
First, we face a critical shortfall of skilled scientists and
engineers who can develop new breakthrough technologies. Second, the
public and private sectors are no longer investing in basic research
and development (R&D) at the levels needed to drive long-term
innovation.
If the United States truly wants to secure its global leadership in
technology innovation, we must, as a nation, commit to a strategy for
innovation excellence--a set of initiatives and policies that will
provide the foundation for American competitive strength in the years
ahead. Such a strategy cannot succeed without a serious commitment
from--and partnership between--both the public and private sectors. It
will also need to be flexible and dynamic enough to respond to rapid
changes in the global economy.
I believe this strategy must place top priority on achieving four
fundamental goals:
1. Strengthening educational opportunities, so that America's
students and workers have the skills they need to succeed in
the technology- and information-driven economy of today and
tomorrow;
2. Revamping immigration rules for highly skilled workers, so
that U.S. companies can attract and retain the world's best
scientific talent;
3. Increasing federal funding for basic scientific research,
to train the next generation of innovators and provide the raw
material for further innovation and development by industry;
and
4. Providing incentives for private-sector R&D, so that
American businesses remain at the forefront in developing new
technologies and turning them into new products and services.
I. Strengthening Educational Opportunities
Like many others, I have deep misgivings about the state of
education in the United States. Too many of our students fail to
graduate from high school with the basic skills they will need to
succeed in the 21st century economy, much less prepared for the rigors
of college and career. Although our top universities continue to rank
among the best in the world, too few American students are pursuing
degrees in science and technology. Compounding this problem is our
failure to provide sufficient training for those already in the
workforce.
This committee, of course, has been a leading advocate for
expanding educational opportunities for American students and workers
in the vital areas of science, technology, engineering, and math
(STEM). The America COMPETES Act, which was drafted by this committee
and passed by Congress last year, includes provisions to train
thousands of new STEM teachers and to provide current teachers with
STEM-related resources through the National Science Foundation's (NSF)
Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program and Math and Science Partnerships
Program. America COMPETES authorized expansion of the Noyce Program, an
important step toward recruiting 10,000 new STEM teachers annually, a
goal that I have advocated previously. It also authorized competitive
grants to increase the number of teachers serving high-needs schools
and to expand access to advanced placement and International
Baccalaureate programs in these schools.
These initiatives--and many others this committee has spearheaded--
represent critical strides in the much-needed effort to reform our
faltering educational system, and I commend you for your vision and
efforts. At both Microsoft and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, we
are investing in innovative approaches to broaden and deepen
educational opportunities, which I will discuss more in a moment.
But in order to ensure the continued success of our young people
now and in the future, the public and private sectors must do more.
A. Secondary Education
The United States today has one of the lowest high school
graduation rates in the industrialized world. Three out of every 10
ninth-graders--and nearly half of all African American and Hispanic
ninth-graders--do not graduate on time.\1\ Of those who do graduate and
continue on to college, over a quarter must take remedial courses on
material they should have learned in high school.\2\ In all, fewer than
40 percent of our high school students graduate ready to attend
college.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ See Diplomas Count: The Graduation Project, Education Week
(2007).
\2\ See National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department
of Education, Remedial Education at Degree-Granting Post-secondary
Institutions in Fall 2000 (2003).
\3\ Greene, Jay and Forster, Greg, Public High School Graduation
and College Readiness Rates in the United States, Education Working
Paper No 3, Center for Civic Innovation, Manhattan Institute (2003).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our record on high school math and science education is
particularly troubling. International tests indicate that U.S. fourth
graders rank among the top students in the world in science and above
average in math. By eighth grade, they have moved closer to the middle
of the pack. By 12th grade, U.S. students score near the bottom of all
industrialized nations.\4\ As a result, too many U.S. students enter
college without even the basic skills needed to pursue a degree in
science and engineering.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of
Education, Highlights from TIMSS (1999). Note that eighth graders did
better in the 2003 version of TIMSS, but that version did not test high
school students.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
To better understand and address these problems, the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation has invested over $1.9 billion to help establish 1,124
new high schools and improve 761 existing high schools. All of these
schools operate under a common mission: that all students should have
the opportunity to graduate from high school ready for college, career,
and life. These schools approach this mission in different ways--some
are large, many are small, some are organized around academic themes,
others offer a standard college-preparatory curriculum--but all have
common elements:
High Expectations: They set high expectations for all
students and engage students with challenging, relevant course
work.
High Levels of Support: They provide personal
attention and support in a safe, respectful environment so that
students can achieve at the highest levels.
Through these efforts, we have learned a great deal about what
works to improve student outcomes, and what doesn't. We also have
concluded that creating a successful system requires better information
and greater clarity about the following three sets of questions:
Do we know how we are doing? Do we have transparent, common
student performance data as the foundation for measuring impact and
making decisions?
No enterprise can be effective if it does not have clear goals and
a way to measure its progress toward achieving its goals. At both
Microsoft and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, this approach is our
lifeblood; it is how we identify our weaknesses and how we improve.
Education is no different. We must strengthen our ability to measure
what students are learning, the progress they are making over time, and
their readiness for college and work. I recognize that developing
better information in these areas may be difficult, but it is central
to identifying the most effective means of improving educational
outcomes in our public schools.
In recent years, school systems have taken important first steps
toward greater transparency and accountability in how they assess
student achievement. Congress and the Administration have supported
increased funding for state data systems and the development of a new
State Education Data Center. Now we need to develop data systems that
can measure student progress over time and expand the scale of these
systems so they are truly national in scope. We also need better
student- and teacher-level data so that we can better assess which
methods--and which teachers--are most effective at improving student
learning.
Getting this right is the most critical first step to improving
U.S. high schools and K-12 education more broadly. We need to use these
data as the basis for action, adjusting practices based on what we
actually know about the performance of students--rather than on what we
may perceive or assume.
Do we know where we're going? Are we clear about our
destination--ensuring that every student graduates from high school
ready to succeed in college, career, and life?
All 50 states have now adopted standards that define what young
people should know and be able to do, and all states now measure their
students' proficiency in core subjects. It is not clear, however,
whether these standards are aligned with the demands of college and
work or whether existing assessments accurately measure student
proficiency. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has supported the
American Diploma Project Network, in which more than 30 states agreed
to align their standards to the benchmarks developed by Achieve, Inc.,
a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that helps states raise academic
standards, improve assessments, and strengthen accountability. Working
with the Education Trust, the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, and leaders
from higher education and business, Achieve and its partners developed
benchmarks to reflect what college professors and employers believe new
students and employees need to know in order to be successful.
In addition to adopting high school standards that better reflect
what is takes to be successful in college and work, we need to develop
better methods for measuring whether students are meeting these
standards; a better understanding of the systemic changes that are
required to ensure that all students gain the knowledge and skills that
are essential for success; and better methods to assess how our own
standards compare to those of educational systems elsewhere in the
world. Ultimately, we need to identify a smaller set of clear, high,
and common state standards that reflect what young people truly need to
know to be successful in the 21st century, along with a common set of
measurements to help us understand how well our schools are performing
in key areas. At the same time, we must allow for the creativity and
uniqueness that teachers and school communities bring to their work.
Do we have what we need to get there? Are we providing the
support, working conditions and incentives necessary for teachers to be
truly effective?
We all know that no one is more committed to helping our young
people succeed than our teachers. Many of us can identify a teacher who
had a profound impact on our lives. Research tells us that no other
single factor in the educational system has greater impact on student
performance. By helping teachers succeed, we can have a dramatic
positive effect on student achievement.
We need to ensure that our policies, processes, and systems will
develop enough talented, dedicated teachers to ensure that every
student has an effective teacher every year. This will be a massive
undertaking. Before we take major steps, we need to be very clear about
how these policies will affect student performance. Here is what we
know:
Some teachers consistently generate much larger gains
in student achievement than others, even when they are assigned
students with similar baseline performance levels. That fact
alone is not particularly surprising, but the magnitude of the
difference is. In elementary and middle school, for example,
being assigned a teacher in the top quartile of effectiveness
rather than a teacher in the bottom quartile will result in the
math test scores of the average student in the class moving up
6-10 percentage points in a single year compared to similar
students.\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ See Robert Gordon, Thomas Kane & Douglas Staiger, Identifying
Effective Teachers Using Performance On The Job, Brookings Institution
(2006). Similar estimates of teacher effects have been reported in
other papers. See, e.g., Eric Hanushek, Steve Rivkin & John Kain,
Teachers, Schools and Academic Achievement, 73 Econometrica 2 (2005),
at 417-458; Daniel Aaronson, Lisa Barrow & William Sander, Teachers and
Student Achievement in the Chicago Public High Schools, 24 J. Labor
Econ. 1 (2007), at 95-135.
Our most needy students are disproportionately taught
by less experienced and less effective teachers. Data from Los
Angeles suggest that, compared to students in the wealthiest
schools, students in the poorest schools were significantly
more likely to have a teacher in the bottom quartile of all
teachers as measured by teacher impact on student
performance.\6\ In addition, the highest-need students are much
more likely to be assigned a novice teacher who will gain
experience and then move on to a more affluent school. In
essence, our highest-need students too often help provide on-
the-job training for novice teachers while students with fewer
needs reap the benefits--thus exacerbating the achievement gap
between high- and low-needs students.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ See Gordon et al., supra n. 5.
We have to find better ways to reward and retain the most effective
teachers and assign more of them to classes where they are needed the
most. It should be a given that every child has an effective teacher
every year of their school career.
While governments will take the lead in reforming America's public
education system, the private sector can and must support these
efforts. At Microsoft, we have a number of education-focused
initiatives. Through our Partners in Learning program, Microsoft works
closely with governments and non-governmental organizations throughout
the world to offer a wide variety of educational resources to teachers
and schools, including teacher-training programs, software tools, and
best practices. In the United States, Partners in Learning has reached
more than 80 thousand teachers and over three million students, and
actively supports states as they strive to prepare their students for
careers in the 21st century. In Michigan, for instance, we created
Career Forward, an online course that in its first year has already
attracted over 17,000 participating students.
In 2006, Microsoft, in partnership with the Philadelphia school
district, opened a School of the Future. This neighborhood public high
school--built on a standard budget and meeting all state and district
requirements--offers a technology-based education model that can be
replicated in other communities. In my view, the School of the Future
offers an exciting example of what public-private partnerships can
achieve, even when working within existing financial and regulatory
constraints. This school has provided strategies that are being adopted
throughout the district. And in a district where approximately 20
percent of students are absent from high school every day, the School
of the Future has achieved over a 90 percent attendance rate.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation also pursues a partnership
model to advance educational reform. Let me highlight three examples in
particular:
Texas: Beginning in 2005, the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation partnered with the Communities Foundation of Texas,
the Governor of Texas, the Texas Education Agency, and the
Michael & Susan Dell Foundation to support the creation of 35
STEM schools and six regional resource centers across the
state. Already, these efforts have helped attract technology
businesses to the Austin area.
Ohio: The Ohio STEM Learning Network has launched
efforts to create a state-wide network of five STEM hubs and
schools. Designed from a systems engineering approach, this
network will scale to a state-wide system of innovative STEM
schools with a $12 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation and with support from a public-private partnership
that includes the Battelle Memorial Institute, the Ohio
Business Roundtable, the Ohio Department of Education, the Ohio
Business Alliance for Higher Education and the Economy, the
Cleveland Clinic Foundation, and many other local partners.
This project has already attracted over $210 million in public
funding and represents unprecedented multi-sector partnerships.
North Carolina: Governor Easley, the Department of
Public Instruction and the New Schools Project launched the
Learn and Earn program, designed to improve high schools,
better prepare students for college and career, create a
seamless curriculum between high school and college, and
provide work-based learning experiences for students. The
schools, located on two- and four-year college campuses, seek
to have all students graduate with two years of college credit
or an associate's degree. The goal is to have 75 of these
schools in operation statewide by 2008. Forty-two schools have
already opened and 30 are scheduled to open in the fall.
Each of these partnerships incorporates new methods to improve STEM
education in public high schools. And each is designed to be clear
about its goals, rigorous and transparent about measuring
effectiveness, and deliberate in how it develops and retains skilled
teachers. We hope that these partnerships will point the way to
policies and approaches that not only better align our public high
schools with the demands of the 21st century economy, but also provide
better opportunities for all of our children.
B. Higher Education
In contrast to our public high schools, America's colleges and
universities rank among the best in the world. Unfortunately, we are
not graduating enough students with degrees in the STEM disciplines to
meet the growing demand from U.S. companies for workers in these areas.
Without people who have the skills necessary to drive the next wave of
technology innovation, it will be impossible for the United States to
retain its global innovation leadership.
Consider these facts. The U.S. Department of Labor has projected
that by 2014, there will be more than two million job openings in the
United States in STEM fields.\7\ Yet the number of American students
graduating with degrees in these fields is actually declining. Indeed,
the number of undergraduate engineering degrees awarded in the United
States fell by about 15 percent between 1985 and 2005.\8\ This decline
is particularly alarming when we look at educational trends in other
countries, many of which award a higher percentage of college degrees
in engineering than does the United States.\9\
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\7\ National Science Foundation, National Science Board, Science &
Engineering Indicators 2008, at Apx. Table 3-7 (2008), available at
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsb0803/nsb0803.pdf. According to another
recent study, major U.S. technology companies today average more than
470 U.S.-based job openings each for skilled workers, while defense
companies have more than 1,265 job openings each for skilled workers.
See National Foundation for American Policy, Talent Search: Job
Openings and the Need for Skilled Labor in the U.S. Economy, at 1
(2008), available at http://www.nfap.net/pdf/080311talentsrc.pdf
\8\ Science and Engineering Indicators 2008, supra note 7, at 2-19
& Apx. Table 2-28.
\9\ Id. at Apx. Table 2-28.
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This is not a new problem. For years, however, the decline in the
percentage of graduate STEM degrees awarded to American students was
offset by an increase in the percentage of foreign students obtaining
these degrees from American universities.\10\ But various factors--
including our immigration policies (which I will address in a moment)--
are making it increasingly difficult for U.S. companies to hire
foreign-born graduates of our universities. Indeed, according to a 2007
study, 40 percent of all recent foreign-born doctoral degree recipients
in the United States intended to leave.\11\
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\10\ For example, one recent study concluded that, in 2005, roughly
43 percent of U.S. higher educational institutions' engineering and
computer science degree recipients were temporary residents, and that
temporary residents received 59 percent of the doctoral degrees awarded
in those fields that year. See Science and Engineering Indicators 2008,
supra note 7, at Apx. Tables 2-30 & 2-32.
\11\ See Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, The Accelerating Decline in
America's High-Skilled Workforce: Implications for Immigration Policy
(2007), at 23 (citing Aurora (2007) ).
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Tackling the shortage of U.S.-born scientists and engineers will
require determination by government and support by industry. The goal
should be to ``[d]ouble the number of science, technology, and
mathematics graduates by 2015.'' \12\
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\12\ The Business Roundtable, Tapping America's Potential: The
Education for Innovation Initiative (2005), available at http://
www.businessroundtable.org/pdf/20050727002TAPStatement.pdf
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The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, for its part, has invested
$1.7 billion in college scholarship programs--including the Gates
Millennium Scholars, The Washington State Achievers Program, and the
D.C. Achievers Program--which together will help more than 17,000 young
people attend college. Most of the scholarship recipients are from low-
income families.
One of the most important steps that Congress can take to address
this issue is to fully fund the America COMPETES Act. Among other
things, that Act authorized increases in the NSF's Graduate Fellowship
Program and the Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship
program that would provide funding for about 1,000 more STEM graduate
students than were funded in Fiscal Year 2007. With these increases,
the NSF will support more than 35,000 STEM graduate students during
Fiscal Year 2008 and approximately 41,000 during 2009.
If we want U.S. leadership in science and technology over the next
50 years to match that of the last 50 years, America's young people
must come to see that science and technology degrees open the door to a
wide range of interesting and lucrative career opportunities. If we
fail to inspire our young people in this way, we simply will be unable
to compete with technology innovators abroad.
C. Lifelong Learning
Governments at all levels are rightly focused on promoting job
growth and skills training, encouraging the development of local
industry, and enhancing their global competitiveness. But meeting these
objectives is a long-term effort that cannot be accomplished by
government alone. The private sector shares responsibility for
providing continuing education to enhance skills and improve employment
prospects for our citizens.
Information technology workers now account for a significant
percentage of the U.S. labor force. The U.S. Department of Labor
projects that, by 2014, nearly one-third of new jobs will be in the
fields of computer systems design and services, and that one-sixth will
be in the information sector.\13\ The success of many business
enterprises will depend on the degree to which the available pool of
workers possesses the right combination of science, technology, and
engineering skills.
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\13\ Daniel Hecker, Occupational Employment Projections to 2014,
Monthly Labor Review (2005), at 72, available at http://www.bls.gov/
opub/mlr/2005/11/art5full.pdf
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During the last decade, Microsoft has launched a wide range of
commercial and philanthropic programs aimed at providing IT skills
training to U.S. workers. Our commercial offerings include IT skills
training and certification in cooperation with hundreds of commercial
partners, and the Microsoft IT Academy, which provides online IT
training programs and other resources to accredited educational
institutions across the United States.
Through our flagship digital inclusion programs--Partners in
Learning and Microsoft's Unlimited Potential Community Technology
Skills Program--we provide technology access and training to all types
of learners, no matter where they happen to be on the continuum of IT
skills and knowledge. We offer skills training for school children, for
teachers who need to learn how to incorporate technology as part of
their classroom instruction, and for community learners.
In 2006, Microsoft joined with the U.S. Department of Labor to
provide $3.5 million in cash and software to 20 of the Department's
One-Stop Career Centers, which are located throughout the country. We
also donated our innovative Digital Literacy curriculum to those
Centers. We have similar partnerships with the Boys and Girls Clubs and
the National Urban League.
Although IT skills are in high demand, it can often be difficult
for qualified job seekers with limited experience to connect with
potential employers. To address this challenge, Microsoft recently
launched the Students to Business (S2B) program, which is designed to
help companies connect with and hire talented university or post-
graduate students for jobs or internships in the technology industry.
Through the S2B program, Microsoft collaborates with universities and
businesses to provide students with specialized IT training and
internship opportunities and helps match qualified job candidates with
open positions at thousands of Microsoft partner companies so that
students are able to find the right job for their IT capabilities.
Microsoft S2B also helps match students to internships. Because IT
professionals who have had one or more internships as students tend to
secure better jobs when they enter the workforce, the S2B program
provides IT students with a range of opportunities to build their
experience and strengthen their resumes.
All of these steps are important, but to achieve the kind of wide-
ranging changes that are necessary, government and business must work
together. As a nation, our goal should be to ensure that ultimately
every job seeker, every displaced worker, and every individual in the
U.S. workforce has access to the education and training they need to
succeed in the knowledge economy. This means embracing the concept of
``lifelong learning'' as part of the normal career path of American
workers, so everyone in the workforce can use new technologies and meet
new challenges.
II. Revamping Immigration Rules for Highly Skilled Workers
The second set of policies that we must consider if we are going to
address the shortage of scientists and engineers centers on our
immigration rules for highly-skilled workers. Today, knowledge and
expertise are the essential raw materials that companies and countries
need in order to be competitive. We live in an economy that depends on
the ability of innovative companies to attract and retain the very best
talent, regardless of nationality or citizenship. Unfortunately, the
U.S. immigration system makes attracting and retaining high-skilled
immigrants exceptionally challenging for U.S. firms.
Congress's failure to pass high-skilled immigration reform has
exacerbated an already grave situation. For example, the current base
cap of 65,000 H-1B visas is arbitrarily set and bears no relation to
the U.S. economy's demand for skilled professionals. For fiscal year
2007, the supply ran out more than four months before that fiscal year
even began.\14\ For fiscal year 2008, the supply of H-1B visas ran out
on April 2, 2007, the first day that petitions could be filed and six
months before the visas would even be issued.\15\ Nearly half of those
who sought a visa on that day did not receive one.\16\
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\14\ United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Press
Release, USCIS Reaches H-1B Cap (June 1, 2006) (indicating that the H-
1B cap for FY 2007 was reached on May 26, 2006), available at http://
www.uscis.gov/files/pressrelease/FY07H1Bcap- 060106PR.pdf
\15\ United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Press
Release, USCIS Reaches FY 2008 H-1B Cap (Apr. 3, 2007) (indicating that
more H-1B petitions were filed on April 2, 2007--the first day on which
petitions could be filed that year--than there were H-1B numbers
available under the cap), available at http://www.uscis.gov/files/
pressrelease/H1BFY08Cap040307.pdf
\16\ United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Press
Release, USCIS Updates Count of FY 2008 H-1B Cap Filings (Apr. 10,
2007) (stating that USCIS had received approximately 120,000 H-1B
petitions subject to the cap as soon as petitions could be filed, and
that those petitions would be subjected to a lottery to determine which
65,000 would be accepted and adjudicated), available at http://
www.uscis.gov/files/pressrelease/H1Bfy08CapUpdate041007.pdf
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This situation has caused a serious disruption in the flow of
talented STEM graduates to U.S. companies. Because an H-1B petition
generally can be filed only for a person who holds a degree, when May/
June 2007 graduates received their degrees, the visa cap for fiscal
year 2008 had already been reached. Accordingly, U.S. firms will be
unable to hire those graduates on an H-1B visa until the beginning of
fiscal year 2009, or October 2008.
As a result, many U.S. firms, including Microsoft, have been forced
to locate staff in countries that welcome skilled foreign workers to do
work that could otherwise have been done in the United States, if it
were not for our counterproductive immigration policies. Last year, for
example, Microsoft was unable to obtain H-1B visas for one-third of the
highly qualified foreign-born job candidates that we wanted to hire.
If we increase the number of H-1B visas that are available to U.S.
companies, employment of U.S. nationals would likely grow as well. For
instance, Microsoft has found that for every H-1B hire we make, we add
on average four additional employees to support them in various
capacities. Our experience is not unique. A recent study of technology
companies in the S&P 500 found that, for every H-1B visa requested,
these leading U.S. technology companies increased their overall
employment by five workers.\17\
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\17\ National Foundation for American Policy, H-1B Visas and Job
Creation (2008), available at http://www.nfap.com/pdf/080311h1b.pdf
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Moreover, the simple fact is that highly skilled foreign-born
workers make enormous contributions to our economy. A recent survey by
Duke University and the University of California-Berkeley found that
one quarter of all start-up U.S. engineering and technology firms
established between 1995 and 2005 had at least one foreign-born
founder.\18\ By 2005, these companies produced $52 billion in sales and
employed 450,000 workers.\19\
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\18\ Vivek Wadhwa et al., America's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs
(2007), available at http://memp.pratt.duke.edu/downloads/
americas- new- immigrant- entrepreneurs.pd
f
\19\ Id.
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The United States will find it far more difficult to maintain its
competitive edge over the next 50 years if it excludes those who are
able and willing to help us compete. Other nations are benefiting from
our misguided policies. They are revising their immigration policies to
attract highly talented students and professionals who would otherwise
study, live, and work in the United States for at least part of their
careers. To address this problem, I urge Congress to take the following
steps.
First, we need to encourage the best students from abroad to enroll
in our colleges and universities and, if they wish, to remain in the
United States when their studies are completed. One interim step that
could be taken would be to extend so-called Optional Practical Training
(OPT), the period of employment that foreign students are permitted in
connection with their degree program. Students are currently allowed a
maximum of 12 months in OPT before they must change their immigration
status to continue working in the United States. Extending OPT from 12
to 29 months would help to alleviate the crisis employers are facing
due to the current H-1B visa shortage. This only requires action by the
Executive Branch, and Congress and this committee should strongly urge
the Department of Homeland Security to take such action immediately.
Second, Congress should create a streamlined path to permanent
resident status for highly-skilled workers. Rather than allowing
highly-skilled, well-trained innovators to remain for only a very
limited period, we should encourage a greater number to become
permanent U.S. residents so that they can help drive innovation and
economic growth alongside America's native-born talent. While some
foreign students will undoubtedly choose to return home after
graduation, it is extremely counterproductive to prevent them from
remaining here to contribute their talents and expertise to our
economic success if that is what they would like to do.
Third, Congress should increase the cap on visas. The current cap
is so low that it virtually assures that highly skilled foreign
graduates will leave the United States and work elsewhere after
graduation. By increasing the number of visas granted each year,
Congress can help U.S. industry meet its near-term need for qualified
workers even as we build up our long-term capability to supply these
workers domestically through education reform.
Ultimately, however, if we are to align our immigration policy with
global realities and ensure our place as the world's leading innovator,
Congress must make additional changes to our employment-based
immigration system.
The current system caps employment-based visas--or ``green
cards''--at 140,000 per fiscal year. Because that number includes
spouses and children of applicants, the actual number of visas
available for workers is far fewer than 140,000. Moreover, the number
of green cards issued to nationals of any one country cannot exceed
seven percent of the total number of visas issued in a given fiscal
year. These two factors have caused multi-year backlogs for thousands
of highly skilled individuals and are having a chilling effect on
America's ability to attract and retain great talent.
I urge Congress to pass legislation that does away with per-country
limits and significantly increases the number of green cards available
in any fiscal year. Failure to do so will add to the already years-long
wait for green cards and only encourage talented foreign nationals who
are already contributing to innovation in U.S. companies to leave and
take their talents elsewhere. Innovation is the engine of job growth;
if we discourage innovation here at home, economic growth will decline,
resulting in fewer jobs for American workers.
I want to emphasize that the shortage of scientists and engineers
is so acute that we must do both: reform our education system and
reform our immigration policies. This is not an either/or proposition.
If we do not do both, U.S. companies simply will not have the talent
they need to innovate and compete.
III. Increasing Federal Funding for Basic Scientific Research
Another fundamental goal of a strategy for innovation excellence
should be to increase federal funding for basic scientific research.
Federally funded research supports the education of the next generation
of scientists and engineers, those who will largely determine whether
the United States remains innovative and globally competitive.
Federally funded research also provides the raw material that U.S.
companies transform into commercially successful products. Thanks to
the Bayh-Dole Act and related legislation, universities and other
recipients of federal research funds have strong incentives to ensure
that the results of their research do not just end up sitting on a
shelf, but instead are licensed to industry under terms that promote
the development of useful new products.
Countless products and technologies that we take for granted today
had their origins in research conducted with federal funds. Government
support was critical, for instance, to the development of public-key
encryption technology, which became the foundation for most e-mail
applications, digital certificates, and virtual private network
software, as well as non-Internet technologies such as ATMs and credit
card machines. Research initially conducted by NASA has been applied to
improve the safety and effectiveness of angioplasties and breast cancer
detection. Funding from the NSF led to the development of Magnetic
Resonance Imaging. And of course, the Internet itself has its genesis
in ARPANET, a project of the Defense Department's Advanced Research
Projects Agency. There are many other examples.
The leaders of U.S. scientific institutions recognize the
importance of federal funding for basic scientific research. As NSF
Director Arden Bement has noted, ``[m]ore than a dozen major studies
have now concluded that a substantial increase in federal funding for
basic scientific research is critical to ensure the preeminence of
America's scientific and technological enterprise.'' \20\
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\20\ National Science Foundation Press Release, National Science
Foundation Requests $6.85 Billion for Fiscal Year 2009, (Feb. 4, 2008),
available at http://www.nsf.gov/news/
news- summ.jsp?cntn- id=111084&govDel=USNSF-
51
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Unfortunately, federal research spending has been stagnant or
shrinking over the past several decades. According to the Task Force on
the Future of American Innovation, ``[a]s a share of GDP, the U.S.
federal investment in both physical sciences and engineering research
has dropped by half since 1970. In inflation-adjusted dollars, federal
funding for physical sciences research has been flat for two decades. .
..'' \21\ This stagnation in spending comes at a time when other
governments, such as in China and the EU, are increasing their public
investments in R&D.
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\21\ Task Force on the Future of American Innovation, Measuring the
Moment: Innovation, National Security, and Economic Competitiveness, at
9 (2006), available at http://futureofinnovation.org/PDF/BII-FINAL-
HighRes-11-14-06- nocover.pdf
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Passage of the America COMPETES Act potentially represents a
welcome reversal of this trend, and again I support this committee's
call to Congress to fully fund America COMPETES. Many important
programs are at risk if this Act is not fully funded. For example, the
Act extends funding for two important NIST initiatives--the
Manufacturing Extension Partnership and the Technology Innovation
Program, both of which have proven track records of producing return on
investment and creating jobs. I also urge Congress to establish a
mechanism to measure and report on the Administration's progress on
implementing the initiatives established or funded by America COMPETES.
As a nation, our goal should be to increase funding for basic
scientific research by 10 percent annually over the next seven years.
We also need to ensure that the private sector has greater visibility
into the status and progress of federally funded research projects so
that companies can collaborate more effectively with universities and
other publicly funded researchers.
IV. Providing Incentives for Private-Sector R&D
The fourth critical element of a strategy for innovation excellence
should be to strengthen incentives for private-sector R&D. Private
companies are often in the best position to engage in the kinds of
applied research and development that yield useful new products. Yet
the inevitable pressure on companies to generate profits and maximize
shareholder value may deter them from investing heavily in R&D,
particularly since these investments are often viewed as riskier than
other investments.
While understandable, the reluctance of U.S. companies to invest
more heavily in R&D is deeply troubling. If one looks at the personal
computer industry, for instance, much of the foundational work for the
industry was done in the private sector, at venerable institutions such
as Bell Labs and Xerox PARC. Companies today, however, often seem less
willing to invest heavily in R&D--or at least seem to focus most of
their spending on development and relatively little on true research.
If the United States is to remain a leading innovation economy,
U.S. industry must invest more in R&D. To spur this needed investment,
Congress should reinstitute the R&D tax credit, which expired last
year, and make that tax credit permanent. Doing so would help convince
American businesses that longer-term R&D investments--especially those
that might take years before they generate any profits--are worthwhile.
I appreciate the importance of such R&D incentives through my work
at Microsoft. Last year, Microsoft invested over $7 billion in R&D. The
R&D tax credit provides an important incentive to encourage Microsoft--
like thousands of other U.S. companies--to increase our R&D investment
in the United States. The credit is a positive stimulus to U.S.
investment, innovation, wage growth, consumption, and exports--all
contributing to a stronger economy and a higher standard of living. As
other countries recognize the long-term value of private-sector R&D and
offer permanent and generous incentives to attract R&D projects, it is
vital that the United States renews its commitment to U.S.-based R&D by
enacting a seamless, permanent R&D tax credit.
Conclusion
I believe this country stands at a crossroads. For decades,
innovation has been the engine of prosperity in this country. Now,
economic progress depends more than ever on innovation. And the
potential for technology innovation to improve lives has never been
greater. If we do not implement policies like those I have outlined
today, the center of progress will shift to other nations that are more
committed to the pursuit of technical excellence. If we make the right
choices, the United States can remain the global innovation leader that
it is today.
These four policy prescriptions--strengthening educational
opportunities, revamping immigration rules for highly skilled workers,
increasing federal funding for basic scientific research, and providing
incentives for private-sector R&D--should in my view be top priorities
as Congress and the Administration consider how to maintain the
Nation's leadership in science, technology, and innovation.
I want to conclude by again congratulating this committee on its
50th anniversary and commending the Committee for its tremendous
efforts to advance the state of science and technology innovation in
America. I am convinced that the U.S. IT industry--like many other
innovative American industries--would not be the global leader it is
today without the initiatives this committee helped design and
implement.
Thank you for the opportunity to share my perspective on these
issues with you this morning. I'd be happy to respond to any questions
you may have on these topics.
Biography of William H. Gates
William (Bill) H. Gates is Chairman of Microsoft Corporation, the
worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people
and businesses realize their full potential. Microsoft had revenues of
$51.12 billion for the fiscal year ending June 2007, and employs more
than 78,000 people in 105 countries and regions.
On June 15, 2006, Microsoft announced that effective July 2008
Gates will transition out of a day-to-day role in the company to spend
more time on his global health and education work at the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation. After July 2008, Gates will continue to serve as
Microsoft's Chairman and an advisor on key development projects. The
two-year transition process is to ensure that there is a smooth and
orderly transfer of Gates' daily responsibilities. Effective June 2006,
Ray Ozzie has assumed Gates' previous title as Chief Software Architect
and is working side by side with Gates on all technical architecture
and product oversight responsibilities at Microsoft. Craig Mundie has
assumed the new title of Chief Research and Strategy Officer at
Microsoft and is working closely with Gates to assume his
responsibility for the company's research and incubation efforts.
Born on October 28, 1955, Gates grew up in Seattle with his two
sisters. Their father, William H. Gates II, is a Seattle attorney.
Their late mother, Mary Gates, was a school teacher, University of
Washington regent, and Chairwoman of United Way International.
Gates attended public elementary school and the private Lakeside
School. There, he discovered his interest in software and began
programming computers at age 13.
In 1973, Gates entered Harvard University as a freshman, where he
lived down the hall from Steve Ballmer, now Microsoft's Chief Executive
Officer. While at Harvard, Gates developed a version of the programming
language BASIC for the first microcomputer--the MITS Altair.
In his junior year, Gates left Harvard to devote his energies to
Microsoft, a company he had begun in 1975 with his childhood friend
Paul Allen. Guided by a belief that the computer would be a valuable
tool on every office desktop and in every home, they began developing
software for personal computers. Gates' foresight and his vision for
personal computing have been central to the success of Microsoft and
the software industry.
Under Gates' leadership, Microsoft's mission has been to
continually advance and improve software technology, and to make it
easier, more cost-effective and more enjoyable for people to use
computers. The company is committed to a long-term view, reflected in
its investment of approximately $7.1 billion on research and
development in the 2007 fiscal year.
In 1999, Gates wrote Business @ the Speed of Thought, a book that
shows how computer technology can solve business problems in
fundamentally new ways. The book was published in 25 languages and is
available in more than 60 countries. Business @ the Speed of Thought
has received wide critical acclaim, and was listed on the best-seller
lists of the New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal and
Amazon.com. Gates' previous book, The Road Ahead, published in 1995,
held the No. 1 spot on the New York Times' bestseller list for seven
weeks.
Gates has donated the proceeds of both books to non-profit
organizations that support the use of technology in education and
skills development.
In addition to his love of computers and software, Gates founded
Corbis, which is developing one of the world's largest resources of
visual information--a comprehensive digital archive of art and
photography from public and private collections around the globe. He is
also a member of the board of directors of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.,
which invests in companies engaged in diverse business activities.
Philanthropy is also important to Gates. He and his wife, Melinda,
have endowed a foundation with more than $28.8 billion (as of January
2005) to support philanthropic initiatives in the areas of global
health and learning, with the hope that in the 21st century, advances
in these critical areas will be available for all people. The Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation has committed more than $3.6 billion to
organizations working in global health; more than $2 billion to improve
learning opportunities, including the Gates Library Initiative to bring
computers, Internet access and training to public libraries in low-
income communities in the United States and Canada; more than $477
million to community projects in the Pacific Northwest; and more than
$488 million to special projects and annual giving campaigns.
Gates was married on Jan. 1, 1994, to Melinda French Gates. They
have three children. Gates is an avid reader, and enjoys playing golf
and bridge.
Discussion
Chairman Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Gates, and I now yield
myself five minutes. I went the other day to a roll-out with
OECD on a report called the PISA report on education 15-year-
olds and mainly the EU countries and the United States. As
usual, we do very poorly there. And I was trying to find some
common denominators. Really, it was Finland that almost
overhauled their whole education system a few years ago which
has also overhauled their whole standard of living and improved
it on a national basis. And I was trying to get common
denominators, you know, what are the things they do; and they
really emphasized that they want to have national standards but
they want to have a contract in essence with the students, the
parents, and the student to work in whatever is the best way to
get there. So it wasn't just one common road.
Let me say to those folks, I know there were a lot of
people who couldn't get in today, and Mr. Gates shortened his
testimony, but his full testimony is going to be on our
website, www.science.house.gov, which is an award-winning
website. You can find links to a lot of other things. But I
think that it really will be beneficial if you want to read his
full scholarly work. You will learn a lot more than what was
just said here.
Now, in your statement, when you talked about secondary
education, you talked about transparency, you talked about
having student performance data as formation of measures for
impact and making decisions and also developing that national
scope. I want to see if you can help me get through this is
that our teachers now are concerned that they have these
national tests, that they are having to teach to the test and
other things are falling off the table. From what you have seen
and studied and around the world, how do we best combine those
standards so you can measure teachers, students, and their
success versus the problem of just teaching to the test?
Mr. Gates. The tests largely are about fundamental skills,
math skills and reading skills, and these are exactly the
qualifications that employers are interested in people having.
And if you look at the other nations that do well on PISA, they
are very serious about viewing tests as the metric and then
looking at individual teachers, at schools, at systems based on
how those test results are coming about.
The United States in PISA were among the best at the
fourth-grade level, and were in the middle at the eighth-grade.
It is only by senior year that we drop to the bottom of those
results. And so clearly in the high school period, there is
some level of rigor that exists in these other nations' systems
that isn't as strong in our systems, the background of the
teachers, and comparing techniques. And so we would say that
data that looks at these results and learning from that data is
of great importance. In fact, there is funding for these data
systems that are part of the America COMPETES. You know, we are
gathering more data as a country. That is a great thing. Now,
there is a tendency when that data doesn't come out well to
say, okay, whose problem is it and even a temptation to say, if
the data are so bad, let us stop testing because it is really
depressing to keep looking at these numbers. In fact, the
amount of investment required to fix those numbers is very
high, and it is a tough problem. Where do you get at the local,
State, and federal level the resources to do those things? But
you know, I don't think that reducing the availability of the
data and understanding that data really is the right way to go.
Chairman Gordon. When you mentioned depressing, I think
what is most depressing about that is our students in the
elementary level come out pretty well. Then at the middle
school, not quite as well, and then it starts to fall off the
table in high school. I think what we are talking about is not
trying to produce a lot of elite Ph.D.s but rather those folks,
whether high school graduate or junior college or college
graduate that can work at that higher technological level, and
as we looked into it, what we found was that on the middle
school level, 63 percent of the math teachers have neither a
certification to teach math or do they have a degree in it.
Ninety-three percent of the physical science teachers have
neither certification nor degree. So it is hard to be able to
teach something that you don't have that core background, as
good a teacher as you might be. And that is one of the things
we want to try to do in COMPETES. I am from Tennessee, the home
of country music, and we say that the song all starts with the
words, and I think school all starts with teachers and we are
going to try to get better educated teachers.
As I looked over your resume, I got a little bit of a head
start but we are somewhat contemporaries in terms of age, and
you think of Bill Gates as sort of a measuring stick not too
many people measure up too well. So I was trying to look at
common measures here. I noticed that you are a billionaire, and
I am not. I noticed that I am a college graduate, and you are
not. But I also noticed that we both have seven-year-old
daughters, and I suspect you are a little bit obsessed as I am
in making sure that she gets the best education so that she can
be able to compete in, as we were growing up sort of a national
world but very much an international world now. This is a
little personal question that I suspect other folks would like
to know. Outside of good schools, good parenting, in terms of
hardware and software, what are those items now that you would
recommend for us that want to help our seven-year-olds and
older children to be able to adapt to this new technology in
this new world?
Mr. Gates. In some ways, I envy kids who are growing up
today to the degree they are encouraged and get a chance to use
the new tools. The ability to pursue your curiosity is really
phenomenal today, and when I was growing up, you know, the best
you could do was read the World Book alphabetical, which was
not very enticing. Today, if you have access to the Internet
online, which either at home or through local libraries through
a program that Microsoft and my foundation was very involved
in, most kids do have some way of getting access. The breadth
of information is out there, whether it is things like
Wikipedia, Encarta, and now the greatest teachers being
videotaped, and so you can go off and watch courses. Even as an
adult now I can go up and I just watched an MIT course that was
quite phenomenal in terms of updating me on some science
advances. So my kids are out on the Internet, and my son and
daughters often ask questions that my answer is, hey, let us go
study that and learn about the stars or whatever it is they are
curious about, whereas when I grew up my parents had to say
they didn't know the answer and it wasn't easily at hand.
So there is a huge advantage in having the Internet widely
accessible that people should take advantage of.
Chairman Gordon. And I think we have to recognize if we
don't, somebody else is somewhere else.
Mr. Gates. That's right. This is a global tool. It is good
and absolute that they are able to educate people as well. We
always have to think there is, you know, improving the whole
pool of the world's knowledge and innovation and then making
sure the United States gets its share of it. But those are both
valuable things, and I would say the one that is most at risk
is our relative share.
Chairman Gordon. Which means first to market, and that is
R&D. Thank you, Mr. Gates. Mr. Hall is recognized.
Mr. Hall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Gates, you mentioned
engineers, and with China and India graduating record numbers
of engineers with skills, I guess the question I really want to
ask is what skills are going to be required by the future U.S.
science and engineering workforce in order for them to compete
with foreign scientists and engineers? And in asking that, I
have to ask you how you recommend we change our education
system, if you do so recommend, to produce graduates with the
skills necessary to fit the new competitive environment and the
evolving needs of industry. And my final question on that is
whether or not Microsoft employs scientists and engineers from
foreign universities, primarily China or India, and if so, what
is the quality of these engineers versus those graduated in the
United States. And you can take any or all of those or none of
them.
Mr. Gates. The United States' preeminence today is still
very, very strong, that is, if you in science and engineering
looked at what are the top 20 universities in the world,
anywhere from 15 to 19 of those, people would probably agree
are U.S. universities. So the quality of our top schools and
their engineering and computer science departments is very,
very high. Now, over time, other countries see that, and they
are trying to match that. You know, in China there is one
university, Ching Wa, that is nearly as good as the best U.S.
universities. But still, if you look at the raw number of
engineers being graduated, that would overstate the current
status. For the very top engineers, the U.S. universities still
have the strong position. But as I have said, the majority of
the students in the computer science department, are foreign-
born. And so we educate them. We provide the world's very best
education and the research, funding, and various things are a
major factor there; and then those are the students who are not
allowed to stay and work in the country because of the limits
we have, and that is where we create jobs around them. So the
U.S. universities are still the best, and the kind of funding
that the government has provided really is a huge part of that.
Also, the ability of the U.S. universities to work in
collaboration with business. That is a practice, whether it is
information technology or biology, the United States has been a
leader in. The Bayh-Dole Act that incentivizes universities to
get their research out into the marketplace, that has been a
fantastic thing that has given these university-business
collaborations. And so, the preference of a company like
Microsoft is very much to take these graduates of U.S.
institutions and hire them and employ them here in the United
States because all of the complementary jobs, management,
testing, the various things, we can find the best candidates
here in the country, but unfortunately, the jobs are going to
go where the engineering talent is, and the other jobs around
it will follow where that engineering talent is.
In terms of improving the high schools, both Microsoft and
my foundation have been involved in this. There are a number of
new high schools that have as a theme science and technology to
kind of have projects to get kids enthused about those topics.
Overall we see the numbers dropping and the numbers of women
and minorities are also very low in these fields, despite a lot
of good effort that is being put into that. So we think it is
at the high school level that you can develop a fascination and
understanding of these topics to make them far more engaging.
And we are seeing good results in a number of these schools
which are mostly charter schools but taking a different
approach to education. We think we can get a lot more people to
stay in science and technology.
Mr. Hall. And then in quality we are there but in quantity
we are not?
Mr. Gates. Well, if the quality is the quality of the
graduates of our top universities, we are number one by a lot
still. If you take the broader picture of the quality of all
our high school graduates, that is where this PISA study comes
in and says that broad number, the United States does not
measure up very well. But the people who get the best public
school education and some of the people who get a private
school education, those people go into these top universities,
you know, about 40 percent of the computer science departments
are U.S.-born students, and they come out and they are the
best. They are the most attractive. Those graduates are the
most attractive.
So we have a piece that absolutely is still the best.
Mr. Hall. And if we educate them, we ought to try to keep
them?
Mr. Gates. Absolutely. All of those people graduating from
these top universities are going to get job offers of high-
paying jobs in many, many different countries. So they have a
choice where they end up being employed.
Mr. Hall. Well, we have not done too well with our
immigration situation in general, so we will try to do a little
better with the quality of our education.
I yield back. Thank you.
Chairman Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Hall. Our university system
was or is the magnet for the best and brightest around the
world. They would come in and besides our home grown, we would
bring in the best for that innovation and jobs were created.
Unfortunately, we are not quite the magnet--there are
alternatives now, and hopefully we can get back to bringing the
best and brightest and keeping them and helping them to produce
jobs in this country.
Mr. Baird, the Chairman of our subcommittee that oversees
the National Science Foundation is recognized.
Mr. Baird. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Gates, thank you
for your comments. I just want to follow up on two issues. One,
thank you for your recognition of the Chairman's America
COMPETES Act. I want you to know that that will set a budget
today that allows for precisely the kind of expansion that you
have called for. The Democratic budget allows for a substantial
expansion for science and math research and education, and we
hope our friends on the appropriations side can support that
effort as well.
I also share your concern about how difficult it can be to
bring international scholars here for either work or education
purposes to the extent that our Research and Education
Subcommittee can. We have already had two hearings on this
general topic, and we will do everything we can to try to
facilitate that arrival of scholars and the retention of
scholars who have trained here.
Given your technical expertise, I would like to ask you a
broad question about a technical issue. One of the great merits
of technology is that it changes so fast that it brings us
better and better things, but it also creates a problem with
legacy information, and I am particularly interested in the
issue of Open XML and the broader question about standards and
your belief about how things like Open XML and international
standards for the Internet, the pros and cons of those, and
where you see those heading.
Mr. Gates. Well, thank you. That is an important area
because we are building up more and more records that you want
to be able to access and understand, and you want to be able to
preserve those records over a period of time. In fact, these
digital archives will cover a lot of people's activities, and
you know, parents will be able to go back and get essays from
children, or researchers will be able to go back and get the
data from different experiments; and even libraries, a lot of
their collections will be in this digital format, and you will
want to be able to access that.
Microsoft is very engaged in the standards process. There
is a new standard that we put in front of the International
Standards Organization called Open XML, and it uses XML in a
way that means that anybody using our software or other
software that meets the standard will be able to access it out
into the future. So it is very important to us that Open XML
become an ISO standard so that families and researchers and
archivists world-wide will be able to access information from
the past and use it to interact in the future. And it is by
mining data like this that I think a lot of the advances in
understanding how education is best done or understanding what
should be done in the medical field, so it is both an important
thing for innovation and an important thing for citizens to
have access to information.
Mr. Baird. I appreciate that. I actually have believe it or
not some old five and one-half-inch floppy disks in the CPM
format which if I ever achieve anything of note some poor
librarian is going to have to go and find an old CPM machine
and dig out my great works from back then, which will not be
hard because there will be very few. But I think your point is
well-taken, and I applaud Microsoft for its leadership in this
area and the whole issue of standards.
One of the issues on H-1B is I want to particularly want to
compliment your company on is I hear from constituents, hey,
wait a second, why are we doing more to let folks
internationally train, either stay or come into our country.
Shouldn't we be doing more to educate our own people? Microsoft
has really been a leader of that. Schools throughout this
country have benefited from Microsoft's leadership. One of the
thoughts that I have kicked around a little bit, is there a way
we should--I know there is a small fee for an H-1B visa, and
that goes back to the education system. But is there a way we
should actually ask companies to put maybe a little more skin
in the game if you will through internships or other things? In
other words, if you are applying for an H-1B position to come
to your company, then your company must demonstrate--not yours
per se but one's company because you have already done it, but
many companies I don't think have followed the example of
Microsoft. What are the pros and cons of that and how might we
do that?
Mr. Gates. Well, certainly the importance of being able to
retain and hire these world top engineers is super-important,
and the fact that there is this limit, you know, I can't
overstate the impact that has not only on the decision on the
people who are educated here to stay here, but also on their
decision to even come to the United States in the first place.
You know, if you want to say, ``Okay, how do we compete with
Asian countries?'' The fact that their smartest people often
want to come here has been a huge advantage to us and in a
sense, we are kind of throwing that away. You know, to be
honest, if there was a way that we could get the freedom to
hire these people that set a threshold for the companies
involved to be concretely be involved in giving back to
education, you know, I think that would be acceptable as long
as it is concrete and it really solves the problem that we are
all facing here. I think that even without that though it is a
total win-win situation for the economy and job creation to not
force these people to be employed outside the United States. We
actually, partly because of the current immigration policies,
created an office up in Vancouver, Canada, because that
government, like virtually every government other than the
United States, recognizes that competing for talent and
encouraging talent, particularly talent educated in a country,
getting them to stay, that that is very, very important. And so
just, you know, across the border you have quite a contrast in
terms of how high-skilled workers are treated.
Mr. Baird. I appreciate that. I think the hard part and we
need to impress upon this Congress and the Administration, is
the urgency of this matter for our competitiveness. Thank you.
Chairman Gordon. Thank you, Dr. Baird. Mr. Rohrabacher, I
am not picking on you, but I want to remind our Members that
Mr. Hall and I agreed that Mr. Gates can leave at 12:00. So we
are going to try to keep everybody to five minutes. Again, not
picking on you, so I recognize you----
Mr. Rohrabacher. I noticed the rule was just employed at
this moment.
Mr. Gates. I will try to be more succinct.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much, and again, thank you
for coming here to help us celebrate this 50th anniversary. I
have been on this committee 20 years and been a very proud
Member of this committee for 20 years, and this is the most
bipartisan committee that you will find in the United States
Congress, although I am not the most bipartisan guy that you
will meet in the United States Congress.
A couple things that I have learned over these last 20
years is that when the fundamentals of the economics of a
solution are wrong, sort of like programming a computer, if the
fundamental programming is wrong, in the end there is going to
be problems. You have to go to the fundamentals. And just to be
frank, I think some of the things you are suggesting are not
going to the fundamentals but instead I think they are going
way after the programming problems. For example, in education,
let me note that the hearings we had on education were very
enlightening for me, but what I learned seemed to be different
than what my other members learned and that was that math and
engineering and science teachers have no difference in pay in
our public education schools than do basket weaving and English
literature teachers. Do you believe that we need to pay our
science and mathematics teachers more money in order to attract
higher quality people to be science and mathematics teachers?
Mr. Gates. I definitely think that you want to set high
standards and those standards should be based on how well you
do for the students, which we need to come up with ways of
measuring that that people view as very, very reliable.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Because I have only got five minutes, I
may, if I can, just go directly to the issue. Should science
and math teachers be paid more than other teachers in order to
attract higher quality people in a public education to those
parts of the education system?
Mr. Gates. If you are measuring these teachers' ability to
really improve the students' capabilities and selecting for
those people who do it, you will find that there is a supply
shortage, and because of that supply shortage, you will
probably have to pay this group somewhat more. And there are
various experimental----
Mr. Rohrabacher. So you do believe that if you pay more
money, you actually will attract more people to a profession
and get more of it?
Mr. Gates. If you tie it to an ability to really look at
the improvement that they drive. The effect is----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Well, also if you improve the basket
weaver teachers, it is less important than if we improve the
science and mathematics. Now, let us relate that directly to
the other issue that you brought up today which is immigration.
Let me just note that if we bring in more people from the
outside, realizing that we are bringing the most talented
people from other countries, will it not hurt those countries
and will it also not depress the wages in our own country that
people like yourself would have to pay your employees in order
to get quality people or in order to train people within the
society of our own society?
Mr. Gates. No.
Mr. Rohrabacher. It wouldn't? Okay.
Mr. Gates. These top people are going to be hired. It is
just a question of what country they do their work in.
Mr. Rohrabacher. We are really not talking about top people
here. You know, the bottom line----
Mr. Gates. These salaries are not----
Mr. Rohrabacher.--line is there is a lot of other people in
this society rather than just the top people. It is the B and C
students that fight for our country and kept it free so that
people like yourself would have the opportunity that you have
had. Those people, whether or not they get displaced by the top
people from another country is not our goal. Our goal isn't to
replace the job of the B students with A students from India--
--
Mr. Gates. That is right.
Mr. Rohrabacher.--and the B students deserve to have good
jobs and high-paying jobs.
Mr. Gates. That is right, and what I have said here is that
when we bring in these world-class engineers, we create jobs
around them. And if we don't--the B and C students are the ones
who get those jobs around these top engineers. And if these top
engineers are forced to work, say, in India, we will hire the B
and C students from India to work around them.
Mr. Rohrabacher. But according to Business Week, we have
over 150,000 computer programmers have lost their job in this
country since the year 2000. Now, my reading of all of this is
that there are plenty of people out there to hire but people
want to have the top quality people from India and China and
elsewhere and they are willing to let these 150,000 American
computer programmers just go unemployed.
Mr. Gates. Actually, Business Week doesn't do surveys. I
think you are referring to a quote in Business Week from an
Urban Institute study----
Mr. Rohrabacher. That is what I said, according to Business
Week.
Mr. Gates. Well, they quote. It is not according to
Business Week.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay.
Mr. Gates. There was a study that a group at Urban
Institute did----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay.
Mr. Gates.--that was deeply flawed in terms of how it
defined what an engineer is. When we say that these jobs are
going begging, we are in business every day. We are not kidding
about it. These jobs are going begging, and the result is that
in a competitive economy----
Mr. Rohrabacher. You would have to raise wages.
Mr. Gates. No, no, we just----
Mr. Rohrabacher. It is like every time the jobs are going
begging, you raise wages. Now, in a----
Mr. Gates. No, we----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay.
Mr. Gates. It is not an issue of raising wages, these jobs
are very, very, very high-paying jobs.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. There are a lot of----
Mr. Gates. We are hiring as many of these people as we can.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Let me give you a one example----
Chairman Gordon. Mr. Rohrabacher, if I could.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Yes.
Chairman Gordon. If you don't mind, we will finish this on
the second round.
Mr. Rohrabacher. I am one of the guys who helped Kosovo
become independent, I am on the Foreign Relations Committee,
having their hearing there. Maybe at the reception tonight
which you are going to be at, maybe we can continue this
discussion.
Chairman Gordon. I am sure he is excited to know you will
be there. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher, and Ms. Giffords, one of
our new Members from Arizona. And I will warn you, somehow she
is going to work Arizona into her question. I don't know how it
is going to be, but that is what will happen. Ms. Giffords is
recognized.
Mr. Hall. And this witness won't forget Rohrabacher.
Ms. Giffords. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr.
Gates, for coming before our committee today.
The first question I have is one that I struggle with
serving as a new Member on the Science Committee, a new Member
coming from the great State of Arizona, about I hear my
colleagues and I had a chance to face these portraits of former
Chairmen. Several of the portraits that face me have images of
the Shuttle program or the space program. I happen to be
married to an astronaut which also makes NASA and the issue of
the space race that we had with the Russians more relevant
probably than most people. But even today's testimony when I
hear the Chairman and also Ranking Member Hall talk about what
it was like to look up into the sky and see Sputnik or to
listen to the words of Neil Armstrong walking on the Moon, it
moved people in a way that I don't think has any comparable
type of experience in today's world.
I know what we did here as Americans was something unique,
and I know that it generated a new generation of engineers and
scientists and mathematicians, kids that were so inspired. So
my question to you, Mr. Gates, is what today is comparable? I
believe it is energy, but sometimes I don't see that transition
going to kids in terms of kids being excited about solar
technology, new ways of moving vehicles around, heating and
cooling our homes; but you know, you have a chance to work with
a lot of kids, you work in a lot of different countries. What
is going to be that thing that is really going to make relevant
a lot of the STEM education focus that we are talking about?
Mr. Gates. Well, I would think that the direct use of
advanced technology and the chance to participate in making
breakthroughs in those technologies is in some ways more
evident today than ever in the past. You know, if we look at
the frontiers of science that we have today, teaching computers
to see, teaching them to hear, the kind of modeling of the
world that is very important for all the energy challenges we
face or the kind of software that we need to make in health
breakthroughs, you know, I think that it is more exciting even
now that you can say here is what you are learning that will
help you make an energy breakthrough. You know, you just look
at one group. If you take blind people--historically, you only
had access to a few books that many years after they were
available they were put into Braille. Today because of speech
synthesis and capabilities that we built into our software,
blind people can browse the Internet and have the same access
to information that you have. And to me, you know, there are
just dozens of examples like that where technologies empower
people to work in new ways, and in some ways it is less
abstract even than going to the Moon. You can go and meet those
people and talk about how their life was changed. Or you can
look at diseases that we haven't yet conquered and see what
impact that is having, and clearly by advances in biology and
information technology are absolutely the reason why we can be
optimistic that in the next generation whether it is the
diseases of the poor countries or the diseases that are
prevalent here, we are very likely to have breakthroughs for
virtually all of those things.
Now given that I think there are so many reasons that that
would draw people into science, I have to admit it is a
surprise to me how few students choose to pursue the fields.
Ms. Giffords. To follow up, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Gates, the
high-tech industry in my State of Arizona depends a lot on our
ability to recruit and train scientists and mathematicians. In
terms of exports in the high-tech field, it totaled about
almost $9 billion in 2006 which was an increase of almost $2
billion from 2005. We have a lot of high-tech clusters,
particularly in southern Arizona; and you know, I am personally
working on the H-1B visa reform because I think that is really
the key. I think the University of Arizona, Arizona State
University, Northern Arizona University, we are not producing
those students. So I ask you because you mentioned in your
earlier testimony, aggressively, what can our country do to
compete with other specific nations around the world to make
sure that we can retain these students who want to come here,
who are the best and the brightest from wherever they come
from, and have them be part of this work that we are dedicating
ourselves to?
Mr. Gates. Well, there are some things in terms of the
process that they go through and the uncertainties of the
process that are daunting to them, but at the end of the day,
by far, the key thing right now they are being told they cannot
stay and work here, that is, the backlog on green cards is
longer than ever, the H-1B visa thing was by far the worst this
year where in the first day they were all gone. So anybody who
graduated in June couldn't even be part of the process because
they didn't have their degree and you have to have your degree
to get into the pool. I will say that this is an issue that the
technology industry has a very strong consensus, very clear
message on. So if you take an employer like Intel who is very
present in Arizona, they depend at the top of their research
activity on having the very best scientists. And they are a
very good example like Microsoft where if they get those, they
create the manufacturing plants and things that reach out and
drive fairly substantial numbers that it is easier for them to
cite those activities here in the United States.
Chairman Gordon. Thank you, Ms. Giffords. And now our
resident physicist, Dr. Vern Ehlers is recognized.
Mr. Ehlers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Also I would just like
to comment. Don't feel too sorry for Arizona. Most of the
wealthy people in Michigan have moved down to Arizona, and
clearly we need more help than they do.
First of all, before I get into my questions, I want to
thank you for more or less loaning Ms. Stonesifer to the
Smithsonian Board. She has done yeoman work. You know we have
had some problems there, and she has done more than any other
person that I know of in trying to straighten out this problem.
She is a real gem. I was very sorry to hear that she is leaving
here for the Foundation. But she is just a marvelous person,
and I am sure she has served you well there, too.
I spent most of my life in education. I spent a great deal
of my life, over 40 years now, trying to improve math and
science education in this country, both before I got here and
after I got here. And I very much appreciate your comments
about scientists and engineers serving as role models. In all
my speeches to scientific and engineering groups I encourage
them to visit their nearest school, volunteer to speak to the
classes, even better, volunteer to take students on a field
trip through their own laboratories, their workplace, or if
they are civil engineers, the nearest bridge they are building,
things like that.
A hundred years ago, students learned these things on the
farm. Today they come to school without a lot of practical
experience, and your comments were right on. The more we can
get the engineering and scientific communities to interact with
the students the better. I always enjoy it when I am invited to
speak to high schools. Most of the students don't know much
about my background. When I tell them I am a nerd, there is
some disbelief there until I show them my plastic pocket
protector, but I also tell them that in high school they have a
very important choice to make and that choice will determine
whether they some day will be a nerd in the workplace or
working for a nerd. And they have to make the choice between
being one or working for one. That really just tends to wake
them up a bit to why they should study science in high school.
I totally agree with the comments you have made, and I hope
that through your foundation, and you do marvelous work in your
foundation, that through your foundation we can work together
on this problem in our elementary and secondary schools. Your
comments were right on about PISA and what happens there.
Somehow we have to get the picture changed in America. I find
it fascinating, for example, that in surveys of parents,
parents will say, ``Yes, we need better math and science in the
schools.'' When you ask them about their school that their kids
are in, they say, ``Oh, our school is fine.'' They just don't
recognize the depth of the problem. And I would appreciate any
comments you might have about how we can do a better job of
waking up America, both the parents and the school boards. The
teachers in my experience, and I have worked with a lot of
teachers, I never blame them. They have not had the proper
education in science or math and have not been taught how to
teach it properly, but they are very eager to do it and very
eager to do it well. So here I have concentrated my efforts on
professional development programs. I would be interested in
ideas you might have about other ways that either business and
government together or just government can actively get
involved with this problem and helping the teachers in
meaningful ways to help them become better math and science
teachers.
Mr. Gates. I think the most stunning data I have seen in
many years related to education are how the huge difference in
the very best teachers versus the teachers who don't do as
well, and the willingness to look at that data and say, okay,
what is it that those teachers were doing very well, you know,
what techniques are they practicing versus the other students,
and some of the assumption that, you know, about okay, it is
the ones that are certified are going to do better or the ones
that have been there a long time. Some of those, as you really
get into the data, you know, some of those assumptions don't
play out and you really look, okay, what are those differences.
So I think gathering the data and really looking at who is
doing well and seeing that students who are far behind, if they
are lucky enough to have good teachers, they can be brought all
the way up to be well-above average. The difference of having a
good teacher is very, very dramatic, and yet, in terms of
figuring out what those things are and investing in them and
using data to drive that, I would say we are way behind other
countries in being able to do that.
One other comment about Patty Stonesifer, and I appreciate
your comment, she has done a fantastic job with the Foundation.
Fortunately she will stay involved in some special initiatives,
although she will step down after 11 years of being CEO, but
we'll still have some of her efforts on that.
Mr. Ehlers. And I appreciate that, and I certainly hope
your foundation will continue its efforts in math and science
education as well because government is by its very nature
limited in what it can do. It can't coerce, it can entice.
Foundations can do a much better job of coercion.
Mr. Gates. Our biggest partnerships have been where you get
one person who is really taking responsibility for improving
the education system like the Mayor of New York said, okay, he
will base his record on that or the Mayor of Chicago where you
have a clear level of responsibility that the right tradeoffs
are being made. Those are some of the systems where the
willingness to make tough changes is taking place, and we are
seeing very, very good results in that type of structure.
Chairman Gordon. Thank you. Dr. McNerney is recognized for
five minutes.
Mr. McNerney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You will be glad to
know that your Members are getting exercise this morning
running back and forth.
Thank you, Mr. Gates, for appearing this morning. I want to
say that I appreciate your innovation, its effect on our nation
and the world and your generosity both with education and with
health. One of the things I really am concerned about how to
inspire the next generation. What do you think the feds should
do? I mean, some earlier Members talked about the Russian
satellite and Ms. Giffords asked about the next big thing. What
do you think we can do as a fed to actually inspire kids to
take advantage of what education is being offered?
Mr. Gates. I think with regard to the kids is to have
teachers who, you know, have proven that they can make the
subject engaging. You know, that is where you see the big
difference, you know, does the subject really come to life in a
very strong way. As you get up to our university systems, there
the right things are happening, that is, these universities
compete for talent vigorously with each other, they compete for
federal research funding, they compete for students; and that
is why the vibrancy of these top universities has really been
incredible and such a big asset.
You don't have--in terms of measurement and that kind of
competition, you don't have it in other levels of the system.
And you know, so one of the tools that has been used in many
states is charter type approaches where you can experiment and
give teachers some more freedom in terms of how they do things
and try out new approaches, and you know, that is really a lot
of where the innovation is coming from, is those new types of
schools. Still, I am amazed at how the numbers of science and
engineering are going down, and that is not true in Asia. The
numbers are going up in Asia, and they are going down
everywhere else. There is no rich country, assuming you take
Korea out of the picture that--Europe and the U.S. are
experiencing the same phenomena of less and less students going
into science and technology. So there is no simple government--
given the variety of policies that are used, there is no simple
policy thing that explains that decline.
Mr. McNerney. I think there has to be some sort of social
transformation in terms of the way we view engineering and
science. Anything you can do to help us inspire that generation
would be very deeply appreciated. I am especially interested in
your foundation's work to establish STEM education at the
secondary level. Could you describe the curricula at these
schools, in particular, what subjects the STEM differs from
normal schools?
Mr. Gates. Yeah, there are two things there. One is to take
curriculum in normal schools and try and make it more
approachable, and the other is then to actually have specific
schools that are designed from the beginning to have STEM
excellence. So there are a number of things. There is a program
in Ohio, a program in Texas, a lot of these charter schools in
different cities where they really thematically decide that
they are going to bring the students into science by using
projects and that the traditional boundaries of biology is
different than chemistry is different than math, that they
break across those boundaries to take some project activity to
make it clear to the student why they should learn a little bit
of math or a little bit of chemistry or biology to be able to
achieve something very interesting. And in the best of these
schools, the number of kids including women and minorities who
show an interest in math and science, is more than double what
we have in the traditional public schools. So there is some
good data that says by changing the curriculum, you can start
to take the drop-off in interest which is very pronounced at
the high-school level and stem that to some degree. Now, there
is further drop-off when you get up into the university, and
there are some universities where we are looking at how they do
the curriculum, and I would say it is the same theme. It is
more project-based and cutting across the boundaries that have
existed between the different science subject areas.
Mr. McNerney. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Gordon. Thank you, Dr. McNerney. And now we turn
to Dr. Bartlett. You are recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Bartlett. Thank you very much. In the education area,
our society faces two huge challenges which you mention. One is
the quality of education in our K through 12. As you know, our
third-graders score about even with third-graders around the
industrialized world, but the longer kids stay in our schools,
the poorer they do. And so when they graduate from high school,
they are at the bottom or near the bottom of any industrialized
nation. And the other huge challenge we face is the challenge
of getting more of our best and brightest to go into careers in
science, math, and engineering. Increasingly as I talk to
audiences and ask our kids what degrees they are going to
pursue, they are pursuing what I tell them are potentially
destructive pursuits. They are becoming lawyers and political
scientists. We have got enough of both of each of those, thank
you. I think, sir, that both of these maladies are the symptoms
of a common disease, and that is that as a society gets what it
appreciates. Our society just does not appreciate academic
achievement, and as a society, we do not appreciate scientists,
mathematicians, and engineers. I will believe that this culture
is changing, and it needs to change, sir. Despite of the best
efforts of organizations like yours, the culture really needs
to change, and I will believe it is changing when the White
House invites academic achievers and scientists,
mathematicians, and engineers and slobbers all over them the
way they do entertainers and sports figures. What can we do,
sir, to change the culture out there?
Mr. Gates. I still think there is a strong element in the
culture of this country that is very positive towards science
and innovators. You know, if you look at the interest in Steve
Jobs, the work he has done or the work that the guys creating
Google have done or the work that I and my colleagues have
done. There is a fascination with science and engineering, and
you know, certainly the opportunities are pretty vivid. You
know, even young people get a chance to play around with a
Windows PC or the different technology advances that have been
created. So I am not sure that we fail on that front. Yet
somehow along the way, particularly for women and minorities,
these science jobs just don't seem as interesting. And there is
a lot of outreach we do to bring kids in and show them, you
know, that these are very social jobs, they are very
interesting jobs that the next several decades will be the most
interesting. So there is a component of it even knowing that
the curriculum should be a lot better. There is a component of
it that is surprising to me. And we did see that during the
late '90s we had an increase of people going in what some
people call the Internet bubble, and then as that went away,
the number of applicants went down quite a bit. If we smooth it
out and ignore that bulge there, there is a decline that has
continued. But if you look at the figures going only back to
2001, you get an even worse impression because there was an
uptick right before that and then that dropped off a bit. You
know, maybe some of all the bright minds that are going into
finance will now go into science and engineering with, you
know, their bubble perhaps not being as big as it was in the
past.
There is an element of this that I do find, you know,
mysterious because I do think our culture still values
innovation. Every student understands about the potential for
breakthroughs in health and breakthroughs in energy and
breakthroughs in information technology, and so, you know, it
is surprising that these departments are not overcrowded.
Mr. Bartlett. You mentioned half or more in all of these
departments are foreign-born students.
Mr. Gates. That is right. If anything, the departments go
overboard to try and keep that number low, but as they are
bringing in the very best students, they end up with typically
about 60 percent foreign-born in the top departments.
Mr. Bartlett. During the decade that we spent putting a man
on the moon, the imagination of the American people was
captured and our young people were inspired to go into careers
in science, math, and engineering. I remember a cartoon that
showed a red-headed, freckled-faced, buck-toothed kid and he
said six months ago he couldn't even spell engineer and now I
are one. What do we need to do to capture the imagination of
our people again to inspire our young people to go into those
careers like then?
Mr. Gates. I think we need to celebrate the achievements
that we have had. I mean, we are the envy of the world in terms
of the science that has been done here. We are still far ahead.
The relative share that we have is going down, but we are in a
position of great strength. And the magic that we have had that
other countries haven't achieved is a balance between private
industry and the universities and funding basic research in the
universities and then allowing the formation of companies, lots
of which fail but some of which succeed spectacularly, to be
well-rewarded, and well-thought of in this country. That idea
of entrepreneurialism, starting new companies, having new
venture capital, we are still the envy of the world. Having
these incredible university departments that need NSF funding
and various other government science-type funding to stay
strong, you know, that is a magic formula that others are on
the way to duplicating, but it is not something that can be
done overnight.
And so if we renew our commitment to these things, whether
it is research funding or the role models, letting the smartest
people who want to come to this country continue to come here--
there is no era in science where you would say that at least a
third of what got done got done by foreign-born scientists from
the creation of medical breakthroughs or the transistor or
various things. Just think through in your mind who the great
scientists are and you will realize in many cases, over half
are foreign-born. So our willingness to let those scientists in
has been an incredible thing. So I would say that one thing
that is unique in this era is this idea that it is
controversial to let smart people come to the country and stay
and work here. That is really novel. There is no time in our
history where we have been turning those people away.
Chairman Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Gates. Dr. Bartlett, your
time has expired. Mr. Gates, for your information, this
committee agrees with you in getting the bump in math and
science in terms of minorities and women. We have passed a
number of initiatives that do that. We want to continue, and
that is the best way to grow I think new home grown. Ms.
Richardson from California is recognized for five minutes.
Ms. Richardson. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning,
Mr. Gates. I am in kind of a unique position in that I have
only been in Congress about five months, so I am what they call
a freshman, a newbie here. But I had an opportunity to work for
Xerox Corporation for about 14 years, and I attribute a lot of
the way I have been able to approach legislation to that. So I
admire all the work that you have done.
I have a couple comments and one question. One, it is noted
in our information here, your U.S. Libraries Program which I
commend you for, however, I will tell you district I represent
in California is Watts, Compton, Long Beach, some very
challenging communities, and often times we have long waits in
the library and all of that. And I would say that if we really
want to reach out to all children, would you be interested in
maybe considering expanding such a program to our parks? And
the reason why I say that is a lot of kids tend to go to the
library. They might be doing their homework or doing some
research work, but if we want to encourage children to learn
the innovative aspect side, the exciting side of science and
engineering, I think that is really a missed opportunity,
particularly in some of our under-served communities where you
have some of these facilities and there is absolutely no
resources there for children. So I wanted to get your thoughts
on that.
Mr. Gates. You are saying the parks?
Ms. Richardson. Yes, parks and recreation.
Mr. Gates. Well, I think we shouldn't miss any opportunity
to expose kids to these things. What was done in the libraries,
it is so impactful that the resources should be made available
so that kids aren't waiting in line. Access to the Internet
with a modern personal computer was added to one of the things
you could think of having at the library. When Microsoft and
the Foundation started that program, 25 percent of libraries
had computers; and by the time we were done granting over
60,000 machines to 11,000 libraries, we got it up to over 95
percent. The goal is to make it so that any kid could go into
the library and not have to wait too long. Funding for
libraries and this kind of technologies often falls off the
radar screen because libraries are locally funded, and even in
that budget process, they don't get the attention that they
deserve. That is a program that has had a huge effect.
There are things going on to expand it into other community
centers like Boys and Girls Clubs, and you know, to the degree
that you have got indoor facilities in the parks, that is
another perfectly great place that you might have some of the
equipment and the chance for people to get exposed. So I agree
with you that we should be creative about finding the places
where we can create the capacity there.
I also say, you know, Xerox traditionally did a lot of
great research that Microsoft and many other companies
benefited from that, and that is why things like R&D tax
credits and things that encourage R&D have been great. You
know, Xerox certainly did its fair share of great R&D
contribution.
Ms. Richardson. So, sir, I am just simply suggesting that
as you go into your second career here that you consider the
department of parks and recs as well.
Mr. Gates. Okay.
Ms. Richardson. My second question to you is regarding
scholarships. You know, there has been much effort of us saying
for a student, for example, who decides to go into nursing or
teaching, that we would consider having a program that would
provide a full scholarship for those students. Have you had
much thought about if we were to provide full scholarships to
students who made a commitment to work in the science and
engineering field or math, what would you think as a CEO and
joining other CEOs to make a commitment to help fund such a
program to provide full scholarships for students who would
make a two-year, four-year, five-year, whatever commitment
might be required to engage them to really take on these
positions?
Mr. Gates. The Federal Government plays a very strong role
in terms of helping students be able to afford going to
universities. The Foundation also has a very significant
program that is focused on minorities that funds both their
undergraduate education and then their graduate education if
they are in a number of these areas related to science, and
today we have 14,000 students, all minority students, receiving
those scholarships. So I do think when it comes to women and
minorities that it is pretty important to have scholarship
money available to increase the numbers and particularly if
they saw more scholarship money in these fields, it might be
the thing that would make the difference.
I would say overall that in terms of the total numbers in
the field, it is partly the attractiveness of the field, you
know, the motivation to go into the field. We also have to work
on that. So scholarships I think can be helpful, but you know,
I am not sure that alone would drive the kind of shift in
attractiveness that we need to see here. I do think it can make
a big difference in terms of the minority and women percentages
in these fields.
Chairman Gordon. Thank you, Ms. Richardson, if it is----
Ms. Richardson. If I could have a follow-up question?
Chairman Gordon. Certainly.
Ms. Richardson. Sir, though, specifically what I am saying
is it has been said that due to the visa situation, you know,
corporations, you are spending money on recruitment costs,
legal costs, administrative costs, et cetera. I would venture
to say if corporations were willing to put that money into full
scholarships to ensure that students who came out, they would
have to have a commitment. It is very similar, for example,
with the military and other positions. You know, yes,
excitement is a part of it but pay is also another excitement;
and I think if students had a guarantee that if I completed
four years, got a degree, that I would be able to guarantee
that I could get a job at X company. So I am not necessarily
referring to just your foundation alone but your thoughts as a
CEO. Do you think other innovative companies would be
interested in joining you in making a greater focus in that
area?
Mr. Gates. Yeah, okay, but I think broadly, you can't help
the number of people going into the field but anyone who
graduates from the top universities with a computer science
degree has five job offers. Now, the 60 percent that are
foreign born can't accept their U.S. job offers. But there is
just no shortage of jobs being offered to these top students in
the field of computer science. They are, you know, highly,
highly sought after. So I think in terms of aggregate numbers,
the United States, to get its relative share, the big lever is
not saying that the foreign-born students have to leave the
country. As you get to the broader things, particularly
minority and women, that is where I think some of these
scholarship things can come in.
I don't think we have an issue where people get degrees in
these fields and then they leave the field. So, you know, they
would stay in the field so it is not like asking them to work
in a rural area or you know, volunteer to be a teacher where
you may need a commitment in order to make sure you are
achieving your goal. People who are educated in these areas
then once they graduate from college from these areas, they
tend to stay in the areas. The drop-off is further down the
line. Once we get them into the workforce, then we have no
issue about them staying in the area.
Chairman Gordon. The gentlelady's time has expired. Ms.
Biggert is recognized.
Ms. Biggert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr.
Gates, for being here because I agree with you on just about
every point that you have made in your testimony, especially
with respect to making the R&D tax credit permanent,
strengthening the science, math, and technology education, and
increasing the funds for basic research. I want to turn to just
a little different issue.
Free trade agreements, such as NAFTA, have been the subject
of much public debate as of late. Some Members of Congress,
even some presidential candidates, believe that free trade
agreements threaten U.S. jobs, domestic manufacturing, and U.S.
competitiveness, and other Members believe that free trade
agreements simply open foreign markets to U.S. goods and
services by bringing down the tariff barriers on U.S. exports
which leads to job creation, encourage companies to remain in
the United States, and actually improve U.S. competitiveness.
And just yesterday in the Chicago--Magazine the CEO of
Caterpillar said curtailing U.S. free trade policies would be
cataclysmically bad for the Nation's economy and would derail
Caterpillar's ambitious sales outlook in the coming years.
So I would appreciate your opinion, how critical to job
creation in our nation's competitiveness are free trade, free
trade agreements, and the opening of foreign markets to the
U.S. goods and services?
Mr. Gates. Microsoft is a gigantic net exporter, that is,
we get the majority of our sales outside the United States, and
we do the vast majority of all of our work inside the United
States. And so the openness of markets is actually absolutely
critical to us in terms of the people we employ. And we are
expanding our employment in the United States at a very rapid
rate. The only limit on that is this supply of engineers. If
the free trade system were not to continue to expand, then that
would have a very serious effect on Microsoft and other
businesses that are engaged in international trade. So you
know, I am very concerned that people not think that free trade
agreements on balance are a bad thing for this country. In my
opinion, they are a very, very good thing for this country, and
you know, I think we need to explain that to the voters because
you know the biggest winner in the free trade system has been
the United States and the companies that have been able to lead
in having much bigger markets than ever before.
Ms. Biggert. Thank you. And then going back to the R&D tax
credit, do you have any other ideas or suggestions for the
private sector incentives to encourage research and
development?
Mr. Gates. Well, economists have always known that
companies have a hard time capturing the full benefit to
society of the research work they have done, and so that is why
some basic research needs to be funded by the government, that
is why having a clear incentive system through patents where
you are rewarded for the breakthroughs that you make, and some
tax policies that give an extra incentive for doing research
and development makes sense. And we see many countries putting
big investments in making sure that this takes place.
Some of the trends in terms of research in the United
States are a bit scary. We are still, compared to other
countries, in the lead on this, and Microsoft is spending over
$7 billion in R&D in the next year. We are one of the biggest
R&D spenders, and we speak very openly about what a great
investment that has been for us, even the risky research part
of it and the way we have formed great relationships with the
top universities so that we are helping to fund their work and
to the degree they make breakthroughs, we are simply one way
that they can make sure it gets out there.
Ms. Biggert. If I might ask then as far as you have
mentioned the laws in your testimony and providing universities
and other recipients federal funds, but I think that these laws
have been very successful, except maybe not so much in the case
of energy and energy technologies, and I wonder if you have any
suggestions for us to help to move new advanced energy
technologies out of the lab and into the market. Maybe your
foundation will take up the issue of energy.
Mr. Gates. Well, the energy is a very exciting area, and
there is starting to be a shift of a lot of bright people
working on the energy field. There are some aspects of energy
that you need that are so difficult and so long-term, you can't
expect the private sector by itself to totally solve the
problem. If you look at new approaches to nuclear, if you look
at something like geothermal, some of these areas the private
sector is not going to step in. We are in a fairly ironic
situation right now with respect to the incentives. Many of the
incentives are only short-term in nature. If you want big
breakthroughs, the last thing you want is a short-term
incentive. And so the way that some things are subsidized right
now are probably not the most efficient use of dollars to cause
these energy changes to take place, and that is a very urgent
thing. I think we can get across the various possibilities of
where a breakthrough can take place. The United States can do a
much better job spreading out the energy research dollars.
Ms. Biggert. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Gordon. The gentlelady's time has expired. Mr.
Gates, one common denominator today has been talking about
additional funding of R&D, so we are going to let you have a
chance to talk directly with one of the check writers now, Mr.
Rothman, a Member of the Appropriations Committee from New
Jersey is recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Rothman. Fortunately, it is not a personal checkbook.
Those projects wouldn't go very far. I happen to serve on the
Committee that writes the checks with the taxpayers' money.
Firstly, thank you, Mr. Gates, for being here. Secondly,
thank you for creating a great American company. And finally,
thank you for your work and your wife's work in the Foundation
and being so conscientious in your philanthropy. You are a role
model for anybody who has done reasonably well and for the rest
of us as well.
For better or worse, Mr. Gates, it appears that the H-1B
visa debate is part of the whole immigration debate in America,
and so I would be interested in your thoughts as to whether,
for example, there should be any limits on the numbers of H-1B
visas issued or permanent resident status granted, any limits
at all. And I am being a little bit facetious but I would love
to just plumb the depths of your thinking on this, do we give
them an IQ test before we cut them off and what about
immigration limits as a whole? Do you have views for example as
to whether there should be any quotas for anyone who wants to
come into the United States from any country regardless of
their IQ or educational achievement?
Mr. Gates. Well, first in terms of writing checks, you
know, I have personally written over $5 billion of tax checks
to the United States Government. So maybe that is one of the
sources of----
Mr. Rothman. I am glad you could afford to pay the tax.
Mr. Gates.--revenue but I don't begrudge it in any way. I
am glad you are all working hard to make sure it is well-spent.
In terms of the H-1B visa issue, the key focus that
Microsoft has here is on highly skilled people, and we are
talking about jobs that, you know, the starting salary is if
you include benefits over $100,000 a year. And the policy that
Canada for example has says that if a company is offering
somebody a job at that type of salary level, then they will
facilitate the person coming into the country. I would also
suggest that if somebody is educated in a U.S. university that
because of the research funding that comes out of the
government, you know, you have basically subsidized that
education. I think that there should be a direct path to
permanent residency for----
Mr. Rothman. I don't have much time.
Mr. Gates. Sorry.
Mr. Rothman. On my question though, sir, should there be
any limits on H-1B visas and should there be limits on
immigration from any country regardless of IQ or educational
achievement by the applicant?
Mr. Gates. The position Microsoft takes is really focused
on a very highly qualified set of people, but the numbers in
total wouldn't make a huge difference in terms of the overall
immigration thing. And so Microsoft doesn't take a position on
the broad issue. On the broad issue, you know, I happen to
think that immigration has been a great thing for the country
and that if you look at lots of rich countries, they are facing
overall population declines. This country is one of the few
that because of immigration, the population will grow. I don't
know what it would be like if you didn't have limits. There may
need to be limits. I am not an expert on that.
Mr. Rothman. Forgive me. I apologize. I have one more
question.
Mr. Gates. Yeah, go ahead.
Mr. Rothman. I am a father of a bunch of teenagers, and I
have to ask this question. I know that there is a different
kind of socialization that occurs now on the web and with
computers, and I understand the arguments about the value of
them and there are great advances in that regard. Are there any
cautionary tales for us from you--you are a father as well--
about how best to get the best out of the Internet yet not have
sacrificed something that is human or makes us human or
enhances the best of our humanness?
Mr. Gates. Whenever new technologies come along, parents
have a legitimate concern about how it is being used and the
Internet would be high on the list there. My oldest is 11, so
we haven't quite gotten into the toughest years in terms of
having, you know, Facebook accounts and spending massive
amounts of time instant messaging. But I am sure that is ahead.
We have tended to keep our computers at home out in the open so
that as the kids are doing things on the computer they know we
are going to be walking by at any point, and by doing it that
way we have avoided having to have much in the way of hard
limits, either in terms of time or specific things. We are just
all involved in seeing what is going on and talking about what
those things are.
There definitely are things where parents need to stay
involved in understanding how their kids are spending their
time, including their time on the Internet. There are some
amazing things out there in terms of courses and material, but
I also think that there can be misuses in terms of how
information is shared and how the kid is prioritizing their
time. That is why I am going to always have an awareness of
what my kids are doing using these tools.
Mr. Rothman. Thank you, sir.
Chairman Gordon. The gentleman's time has expired. Mr.
Gates, you are my test pilot. I hope your 11 year-old--you can
figure it out there so you can tell us what to do with our
seven-year-old when that time comes. Mr. Reichert from
Washington State is recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Reichert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One of the problems
with being one of the last Members to ask a question is that a
lot of the questions have already been asked. So I have a
couple of follow-up questions, one, a follow-up to Ms.
Biggert's question about the importance of the global economy,
and our global markets that we compete in. What impact does our
corporate tax rate have on American companies as they compete
across the world?
Mr. Gates. It is important to look at how our tax policies
are influencing corporate behavior. In the case of Microsoft,
to the degree we can hire engineers here, and we can still hire
a lot, not enough, you know, over all on balance, we prefer to
do our R&D here and that is despite the fact that there is very
attractive tax advantages that are being offered in other
places, that is, even though the taxes are higher here, they
are still within the range of what is reasonable given the
other benefits that are provided. On tax policy, R&D tax credit
would be a very top priority to make sure that other countries
aren't getting ahead of us too much in terms of the generosity
they provide in that area.
So tax policy does make a difference, but you know,
companies will--you won't immediately just go to a place that
is more advantageous. You will make a comparison. The United
States still has a lot of things that are very much in its
favor.
Mr. Reichert. Here may also be another follow-up question
that I think has been touched on lightly as I bounced in and
out of the hearing here. But you stated in your testimony the
public and private sectors are no longer investing in basic
research and development to the levels needed to drive long-
term innovation. Why is the private sector no longer investing
at the levels that it should be in your opinion?
Mr. Gates. Well, some of the investment that came out of
the private sector came out of what I call the semiprivate
sector, that is, AT&T through Bell Laboratories was a highly
regulated business; and one of the things they sort of did in
return was do a lot of research that they weren't receiving
direct economic return for but it was one of their great
contributions to the country and to the world, and as they
became a more typical private company as it was broken up into
various pieces, the liberty they had to take profits and fund
research largely went away. So the net R&D spending coming out
the antecedents of what was the Bell system, is quite a bit
less than it was in the past. There are also cases of companies
like Xerox who weren't quite as adept at taking their research
work and themselves benefiting from it by productizing it the
way that they had expected. And so that was a cautionary tale.
And in fact, when Microsoft 15 years ago started really going
into this peer research area, we wanted to make sure we were
going to not only benefit society but also be able to get those
products out. You know, I can say that that has worked
extremely well for us and we are a big advocate when talking
with private companies that there are ways of running a
research budget that means that you get very, very high returns
from that work. You know, just last week we had Tech Fest where
our researchers show their work and all our engineers go and
look at it, and that is really the most fun thing during the
entire year is to see that new research work.
So there are methods, best practices, that the private
sector needs to spread that will build the confidence that
those investments are well worth making.
Mr. Reichert. And you are one of those companies that have
succeeded at that, and you are sharing your thoughts, ideas,
and experience. Are there other companies doing the same thing,
sharing that information with others?
Mr. Gates. Yes, well, another sector that has been
incredibly R&D intensive is the drug industry, and you know,
they are of course facing some challenges in terms of the
number of breakthrough new advances they have made. So now they
are looking at the cost of R&D for their new products as being
very, very high. And so hopefully we will get into a period
that other advances and the encouragement they are giving will
get them back into increasing their R&D budget. But if you look
at the various sectors, a sector that has been huge which is
that sector, that is at risk now because of a variety of things
that don't make it look as attractive to them.
Chairman Gordon. The gentleman's time has expired. Mr.
Neugebauer is acquiescing, and I am sure Mr. Hall will agree,
what I would like to do is ask the next questioners to try to
limit themselves to one question, so take your best shot so
that everybody can be able to participate today.
Mr. Carnahan from Missouri is recognized for one question
or statement.
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you again for being here on this 50th
anniversary of the Committee. You really outlined well in your
remarks talking about the last 50 years and the revolutionary
advances that have been made and how we have built on those so
well. I would like you to look ahead at the next 50 years when
we have the 100th anniversary of this committee and our
grandkids or kids being born today are sitting on this
committee. What do you think are going to be some of the most
profound changes in the way we live and work and how technology
is going to affect that?
Mr. Gates. Well, 50 years is a long period of time in the
world of technology, particularly given that we have an
accelerating rate of innovation. So it is not just that we will
take what we have done in the last 50 years and do the same.
The world at large will do far more. And so you would find me
quite optimistic that the breakthroughs that will allow us to
have energy that is both cheaper and environmentally friendly,
that those breakthroughs will come; and in fact, there are many
approaches that already we can see there is a good chance that
the advances will be there. Information technology, the ability
to have computers that are very easy to work with and almost so
pervasive we take them for granted would be quite phenomenal.
The breakthroughs in diseases, you know, even in the next 20
years I would expect breakthroughs for the major killers around
the world.
So, you know, this is an amazing time, the kind of spirit
that got this committee started, people like Vanover Bush who
talked about the endless frontier. I wouldn't go back and
change anything that he wrote when he talked about the advances
and how government encouraging science will be at the center of
those. Fifty years from now the United States may not have the
same relative share of innovation it has today, but with the
right policies, we can have the leading share, even if you go
out into a long timeframe like that, which is pretty phenomenal
given that we have five percent of the world's population that,
you know, we have, however you measure it, over 50 percent of
the innovation that has taken place. I think if we renew our
strengths that that same time of preeminent position is not
impossible for us to maintain.
Chairman Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Carnahan. I suspect that
the new 50 years will be 10 years, and many of us on this
committee will be here and if we are going to be successful, we
need to do our part. Mr. Hall has assured us that he will be
here. Dr. Gingrey, you are recognized.
Mr. Gingrey. Mr. Gates, thank you so much for being with
us, and in the information that we receive from the Committee
basically said that you were going to be here this morning to
share your thoughts on efforts needed to further strengthen our
country's competitiveness in the global marketplace. You spent
the last hour-and-a-half I think doing a pretty good job of
that, but I have concerns, and the entire Committee does about
the lack of STEM education in our country. You see when you
read a local newspaper, as I often do, I am a former public
school board chairman in Marietta, Georgia, and every year they
have the star students of all the high schools that have the
best scores on the SAT and their respective teacher that they
give most of the credit to. But when you look at those names,
and we are talking about in maybe 30 high schools in that area,
you see a lot of Asian and Indian names. And it seems like
every year it is more and more, a greater percentage; and
obviously, youngsters that look like me are not as I did going
onto Georgia Tech and majoring in chemistry and pure science
and becoming one of our great engineers working on the space
program or whatever. So I have some real concerns about that. I
don't know what to do about it, but maybe you can share your
thoughts on that particular point.
But let me just cut right to the chase by asking this
question regarding H-1B visas because we talked about that a
lot this morning. Do you believe that an increase in the H-1B
visa program, more, a greater number of them, increase in the
volume then of foreign labor in STEM fields could have the
unintended consequence of deterring American students in those
same fields from pursuing STEM education and then ultimately
getting those highly skilled jobs because that is exactly what
the problem is as I see it. My friend from New Jersey brought
that up in a more broad way in regard to overall immigration
quotas. But we are talking now about H-1B and also the J-1 visa
program when we bring college students from Serbia to play
basketball or from Sweden to play tennis so that our college
teams can win the NCAA championships and you cut out the little
kids that look like me that have been taking tennis lessons all
those years and are just one little step below in our ability
level. So this is a real concern, if we expand this program so
much, then do our youngsters say, you know, we don't have a
grasp at the golden ring. Thank you.
Mr. Gates. Our youngsters are competing with these
students, even if we turn them away from this country, that is,
no policy related to H-1B will impact the percentage of foreign
labor that works in computer science. All it will affect is
what portion of that is done in the United States and where the
surrounding jobs are created. So if the goal is to have a
series of medals or awards that are just about the best in the
United States, yes, you know, shut down immigration. You should
have shut it down in 1900. I mean, immigrant families have been
achieving very well in this country for a long, long, long
time. That has always been a controversial thing, but computer
science is not a game played only in the United States. It is
not like a local competition. It is more like the Olympics
where at the end of the day you are going to compete with the
best in the world, and the question is, you know, is that
happening in the United States.
Chairman Gordon. Thank you. Mr. Chandler is recognized for
one question.
Mr. Chandler. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Gates, thank you
for taking these incoming missiles. Also thank you very much
for what you do and have done for our schools and what you are
doing in particular for our high schools. I am a little bit
ahead of both you and our Chairman. I have a 14-year-old
daughter who is a freshman in high school, and I can tell you
the issues are already there for me. So I will let you know.
Mr. Gates. Great.
Mr. Chandler. I have got a bill that calls for significant
federal investment in the infrastructure, first the physical
plants of our schools in this country, but also calls for
significant investment in technology infrastructure and in
training for technology. I would like to get your idea on where
we need to go in that area. Do you have a sense of how much
investment we need to make in our schools in this country in
those areas and do you believe that the government needs to
make a much more significant investment? Thank you.
Mr. Gates. Computers in schools and technology training,
that is going up at a pretty rapid rate. And there are
certainly some best practices that more funding would help
spread more rapidly, and we are involved in a so-called School
of the Future where a group in Philadelphia came to Microsoft
and asked about some ideas of how technology could be used. And
what they did was quite impressive. You know, we were just
there in terms of providing advice, but I know a number of high
schools around the country are looking at some of those same
things. When you get a chance to do new infrastructure, you can
do something quite spectacular as a result of that.
In terms of requirements in high school, you know, there is
already a lot of controversy over a push that really is one of
the foundations behind that that encourages states to move away
from simply asking for two years of math to move up to three or
four years of math. There actually has been good progress in
that regard, and that is another contrast you will see between
the United States and these countries that score well on the
PISA exam is that all the ones that do well require four years
of mathematics as part of the high school education. Some of
the States push back on that because of the shortage of
teachers and that then comes back into these issues of how do
you measure teachers and particularly for the math and science
shortage, how do you alleviate that problem that is coming
along.
So I do think funding the teachers to get trained on
technology and technology in the schools is a very important
thing. I don't think we at this point need to add specific
requirements for technology training because I think if we
train the teachers the right way, they will be bringing that in
to all the different subject matter that they teach.
Chairman Gordon. The gentleman's time has expired. One more
nervous father. Mr. McCaul is recognized for what I am sorry to
say will be our last question to meet our agreement.
Mr. McCaul. Thank you, Mr. Gates, for being here. I have
five kids, three are triplets and they are six years old. It is
great to have you here. Michael Dell is actually one of my
constituents, probably my most famous constituent. I know you
are good friends. Thank you for the work you do in education
with him in his foundation. I also represent UT. I got a tour
of the Pickle Center where the largest supercomputer was
unveiled about two weeks ago through an NSF grant. So it is
extraordinary technology.
I just wanted to focus on two areas I know we covered to
some extent, but when I see the students at the University of
Texas building the computer chips and other things, then when I
found out after we invest and train in them we lose them and
they go back to where they came from, usually China or Asia and
work for our competitor. That seems to be a failed policy in my
view, and that is one reason why I have cosponsored raising the
cap on H-1B visas. We are looking at a bill to issue green
cards to Ph.D.s, graduates with a Ph.D. Obviously, we would
like to have more home-grown talent, but we are losing that as
you have talked about. If you could, and this is a broad
question, but in terms of prioritizing federal funding, that is
what we have to do. We have limited federal dollars. Where do
we need to be really focusing that money, both from an
education standpoint and R&D standpoint?
Mr. Gates. Yeah, I appreciate your points on H-1B and your
support on those issues. I just really highlight how urgent
this issue is, whether it is short-term relief or long-term
relief. This is making a big difference in terms of where jobs
are created. And if you want to grow the pie, you know, how
many taxpayer dollars to have, these are the types of people
and jobs that really do add to that and ideally allow the
virtual cycle, the government funds the universities, the
universities train the great people that go out into companies
and get money back to you that in some form gets to those
universities. That is that magic cycle that we have had. I was
just in Austin a couple weeks ago visiting and seeing the great
work they do there, including some particularly good things to
encourage Hispanics to come into computer science where they
have done amongst the best.
Where do federal dollars have the biggest impact? I do
think the NSF budget. It is not actually a very gigantic
budget, but those dollars are very impactful and so if COMPETES
was appropriated over these next seven years, we would get as a
country a very good return on the increase that goes into that
amount of money. I often think if you said, okay, take
something like energy. So you fund you know currently using
something that is not economic and so you subsidize it versus
fund research to make it, and it won't be overnight but to make
it over time economic, the benefit is so dramatically in favor
of funding the research to make it economic versus subsidizing
the consumption of the thing that is not economic. I mean, you
could take you know, not even a huge percentage of those
dollars and get some I think impactful research funding.
So the theme that research is where it is at and that has
been successful for the United States, you looked at health and
the exploding health costs, how do you deal with that,
research. You look at energy and the challenges there, and you
come back to research. And fortunately the ability to funnel it
through the universities that spend it very well, particularly
if they have these talented people from all over the world
engaged in their activities, that is I think the clearest use
of federal dollars.
Chairman Gordon. Regretfully I have to say that the
gentleman's time has expired. Let me also apologize to those
Members that did not have a chance to directly ask a question
today, but the record will continue to be open for statements
or questions that you might like to have. I thank Mr. Gates, we
very much appreciate you being here. I think your concluding
statement is a summary for all of us, and that is, if you look
at the major issues today before us, whether it is
competitiveness, health, energy independence, we have to have a
technological bump. You know, more of the same is not enough.
Incremental change is not enough. We are going to have to
invest in R&D and get that bump.
Thank you for being here, and this hearing is closed.
Mr. Gates. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 12:05 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
Monday, June 16, 2014
Bill Gates Hearing
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