LANSING – Legislation to create a STEM endorsed Michigan high school diploma will help encourage students to show greater interest in technical education and help produce more technically trained students to go into jobs the state has openings for, members of the Senate Education Committee were told Tuesday.
The panel heard testimony of SB 169 and SB 170 . It did not act on the two bills at Tuesday’s meeting.
The legislation would allow for students to get a STEM diploma endorsement if they meet certain endorsement criteria. The Department of Education would have to provide the endorsement once a school district determined a student met the criteria.
Sen. John Proos (R-St. Joseph) said the measures do not compel school districts to offer the endorsement.
Sen. Phil Pavlov (R-St. Clair), the committee chair, said the legislation falls in line with the committee’s main goal. “This committee is really focused on jobs,” he said.
Among those testifying, Kalamazoo Public Schools science teacher Greg Straks said providing a STEM-based diploma – focusing on science, technology, engineering and mathematics – would help attract students to those courses, especially girls and minorities who are underrepresented in those fields now.
STEM-based classes are different from traditional science education, because it allows the students to work with materials and build, which attracts and excites their interest, he said.
Nationwide, there are projections that as many as 1.9 million technical jobs will go unfilled by 2019, Straks said.
And living and working close to the Indiana state line, Straks said he worried if the state cannot fulfill the number of workers needed for jobs now open in the state, then companies might leave and go to Indiana or other states to find those workers.
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