Chris Roe: Good morning everybody, my name is Chris Roe and Im the CEO of the California STEM Learning Network. Its so amazing to have a standing room only crowd here in San Diego this morning. Its quite an honor to be here with so many friends, so many familiar faces and so many new faces. So were going to have a great program over the next 2 days. Im going to tell you a little bit about it. First, I would like to extend a special welcome to our guests who are watching this on Fora.tv, were glad youre going to join us for the next day and a half. As I mentioned, we have a great program planned for you. I wanted to just start by sharing a little bit. Weve got a speaker today with us. Shes going to talk more about this, from NASA, but I thought it was a really amazing opportunity to see yesterday as we were preparing for this meeting, the confluence of STEM events that took place. We had the endeavor inching its way ever so slowly towards its final resting place, just crawling along. But to see thousands and thousands of people lining the streets to watch that historic event and at the same time, we had a man hovering at 40 miles above the earth in a small capsule with a team helping him make a historic journey breaking the speed of sound as he descended to the earth. Those two events going on simultaneously really for me brought home the purpose of why were here today to really talk about STEM. Either of those two events could not have happen without STEM, without science, technology, engineering and math. So I thought that was just reallya really interesting and exciting way to launch our event. So Im going to tell you a little bit about our program today. We have quite an amazing agenda planned for you. This is the third annual summit for our group, but I wanted to first welcomeactually to thank our host committee, the San Diego Science Alliance, and if theyre in the room, if they could stand up, Id like to give them a hand for hosting us. Theyve done an amazing job. Thank you. And I also wanted to thank our sponsors. Were really pleased for the second year in a row. Chevron is our presenting sponsor. Theyre an amazing partner and we really thank them for their generous sponsorship. We also have sponsors from JP Morgan Chase, Intel, Raytheon, and the Bechtel Corporation. So we thank them for their support as well. [Applause] Chris Roe: So over the next day and a half, were going to hear from and engage with cutting edge researchers, leading public officials and organizations, passionate students and leading women that had helped to transform STEM teaching and learning in our State. Two of those legends who have personally inspired me and countless millions are Dr. Sugata Mitra, whos going to be our keynote speaker this morning and youre going to be amazed by what hes going to talk about. Hes really one of the world leaders in transforming how we think about both formal and informal education, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who is going to be with us this afternoon. As you probably know, Kareem is the NBAs all-time leading scorer and has founded the Skyhook Foundation, which is doing some amazing things with children. His new book is called, What colors my world? and in that book, he talks about it taking a bucket brigade to really create an invention and its really the last person in that line who benefits the most from that group of people who have been filling those buckets passing them forward. And I take that analogy to this room here today. Each of you are members of that bucket brigade who have been advancing STEM education. We want to thank in particular our teachers and school leaders who have really been carrying heavy loads particularly during this past year and were so pleased that many of them are here today. Could we have our school leaders and teachers stand up and be acknowledged? [Applause] Chris Roe: Great. For those of you that are new to STEM education and I know there are a lot of new faces here in this room. We welcome you with open arms. Youre going to learn a lot over the next few days. Youre going to meet lots of new friends and were here to help you, and please reach out if you see new faces, say welcome, introduce yourselves. A number of you were with us two and a half years ago in our inaugural summit and we consider you to be pioneers in this statewide movement. If we could go to the next slide, at that inaugural summit, CSLNet was born. Next slide please. Around a vision that all students in our State would have the knowledge and skills necessary for success not only in education, but also in their careers and their daily lives. So thats an important thing to remember as we spend the next day and a half together, that that is a vision that this group collectively established two and a half years ago. The mission of our organization simply is to help California prepare the nations most capable graduates. Thats a very lofty goal. As you know here in California, we have some great examples, some wonderful things that are happening. But we also have long ways to go if were going to fulfill that mission. So weve got a lot of work to do. But were here, were excited and were engaged to get at it. So many of you were also here with us a year ago when we met at UC Davis and Chancellor Linda Katehi hosted us for a great conference. We had about 200 people who were at that conference. Together we generated over 300 ideas for sparking innovation STEM. We had an amazing group. A lot of those ideas have actually been put into action over the past year, so were really excited about that. We also know that since that time we met a year ago in Davis, theres been a lot thats happened here in the State both positively and a lot of challenges that weve faced. Our schools in colleges continue to face massive budget cuts. Im looking at some of the faces around the room, I know that theyve been working extremely hard under extreme conditions and we continue to face the threats of even more budget cuts over the next year. CSLNet and the people in this room, our network has responded to cuts, proposed cuts in the area of Science funding. We raise awareness about the need to preserve that funding and rallied support and with the leadership of folks like assemblywoman, Susan Bonilla whos with us this morning and the leadership of our State Superintendent, Tom Torlakson, were able to actually preserve funding for that second year of high school Science. If that had been lost, I see somebodysyou can go ahead and applaud if you want to for that [Applause] Chris Roe: --I think that was really an important moment. We were getting calls from all around the country of folks that were concerned, that California would have been potentially the only State in the nation the required effectively 1 year of high school Science to graduate, and we could not allow that to happen as a State. So thank you for your help and support as we did that together as a network. Today were going to talk about some really exciting things that have been happening. Theres been significant progress in advancing the implementation of the Common Core State Standards and the adoption and development of Next Generation Science Standards. When we think about these together, we think about these as the framework for the Next Generation of Standards for STEM. Its really exciting because by doing this, its really caused us to hit the reset button and really examine some sacrosanct policies, ranging from the area of standards to assessments to curriculum and delivery systems, to teacher training and professional development, to career technical education and even accountability systems. So we have a lot of work to do and were going to have some exciting panels that are going to talk about this. Actually weve got a great panel shaping up this afternoon. Its going to really dig in to what this means to gather when we look at Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards and talk about it from the perspective of K-12, higher education and business and industry, which is going to be really exciting. Im pleased to report that after these game changing standards have come in to fuller view that theres been a number of new pieces of legislation that have passed and I think Tom and Susan will both probably talk about that in their comments this morning. But were already beginning to see progress and were seeing some exciting new things that are happening coming out of Sacramento that will have the ability to really change our education system here in our State. Were going to talk a little bit about the focus on jobs as well. I dont know if those of you who had been watching but there was some recent day that it came out from the group change equation in Washington DC. Even though we have 11%...almost 11% unemployment here in the State of California. There are 1.4 open jobs in STEM fields for every job seeker. So thats amazing when you think about that. Overall there are 5 people chasing every open job in our State, but in the STEM field specifically, there are 1.4 open jobs for every job seeker. So we really need to dig in to why do we have that mismatch and what can we do differently. And were going to have a panel on Tuesday thats led by Jamai Blivin from Innovate+Educate, thats really going to dig in to that issue more as well. So there are a number of bright spots however on the horizon, one of the things that our group has done over the last year is work with regional partners around the State. Last year we had, I believe 5 regional networks that were working with and this year were up to 8 and ready to announce our 9. So I would like our regional partners if they could, who are here in this room. Theyve all brought teams to this meeting. If they could all stand up and be recognize because we could not do this without you. So please stand up. [Applause] Chris Roe: There are other bright spots as well and Im sure Tom will talk about this but student test scores are up. We continue to make incremental progress despite these massive budget cuts and all the challenges that are facing our teachers and school leaders. As an organization, were pleased to announce two new efforts today as well that we believe will set the course back on some State leadership. One is called the Power of Discovery, STEM squared, and this is focused on providing high quality STEM programming to students during after school. So youre going to hear more about that this afternoon, but were really excited about this effort, and again this is in partnership with a number of different groups across the State, the notion of collective social impact at work. The second is focused on transforming STEM teaching and learning through technology in partnership with Google and the Cal State University System and funded by the 100K intent campaign. With all three organization being member of the presidents 100K intent campaign which is designed to recruit a hundred thousand new STEM teachers across the United States. So were really excited about that new partnership as well. Youll hear a lot more about these during workshops and weve got an amazing program schedule with lots and lots of workshop. So look through your agenda, pick out the ones that you really want to go and attend because I think were going to have a great time. If we could go to the next slide, I want togo back to the last slideI want to talk a little bit about our beliefs and why were here today. The first of those really involves equity. We believe very strongly and when this organization was founded, that STEM education is really for every student in our State. Its not something thats reserved for a few students or done only at a few selected schools and we are excited when there are STEM schools and we have some great ones here in the State, but we really do believe that every student should have the opportunity to have a high quality STEM education. We also believe in the notion of impact that this is not going to happen by one group alone. Im just curious in the room; weve introduced the K-12 groups. How many people do we have here from our education? If you could just raise your hands. Wow, weve got a lot of people here from our education. Thank you so much for being here. [Applause] Chris Roe: And how many representatives do we have from Business and Industry in the room? [Applause] Chris Roe: Good. Thank you. And what about STEM rich institutions like museums, after school programs? Awesome, thank you. [Applause] Chris Roe: And what about non-profit who are working in the space? [Applause] Chris Roe: Wow. So this in that quick review, you can see that theres almost equal balance between every one of those groups, which I think is really exciting. It makes the work fun, and enjoyable. But I will challenge you if came with a group to reach out to somebody else from a different stakeholder group, a different perspective than you to really share what youre doing and to get some new ideas. We also believe in bold problem solving. We have some massive changes in front of us and youre going to hear this from the speakers that weve lined up today. We cannot afford to just take small incremental steps. We really need to change what were doing in significant ways. In terms of success, we believe that STEM is really a key to lifelong learning. We know that students are being born today will likely live to see the year 2100. You can think about in our own lives the amount of progress and change that weve seen since I started when I had a typewriter in my high school and what children today are being born with and picking up iPhones and knowing how to swipe and not knowing anything else but how to swipe their iPhone. Thinking about those students in the year 2100, this is a massive change, and again this is why we believe that STEM education is for every single student. And then finally we believe that STEM is an engine for lifelong learning that students have these basic skills whether or not theyre going to be a Rocket Scientist or an Engineer, it really is the engine for continuous lifelong learning. If we could go to the next slide please? Were going to talk a little bit about how we organize our work. CSLNet has really 3 overarching strategies. We believe that its really important to build public understanding and support of STEM education. We could see by these events where we had to close registration early because we had so much interest and excitement. There is a lot of excitement around STEM education in this State, but we still need to help people understand what it is, why is it important, and what were doing to try to make this better. And were doing that by building the field and thats why all of you are here today to help us build capacity in your local regions, in your local schools, and your local districts, and well talk a little bit more about that as well. And then finally, strengthening capacity for leadership. We have some amazing leaders in this State but unless we work together on this commonly, were not going to achieve the results that we want to. If we could go to the next slide please? In terms of building public understanding and support for STEM, its really important that folks understand what STEM is and as a group, we have talked about this a lot. The STEM task force that Tom and Susan have been co-convening has talked about this quite a bit. But what do we mean when somebody says, Oh youre doing STEM education. What does that actually mean? We like to think about this really in 3 parts. One is really around the practices and skills that go with Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, and with the Common Core and the Next Generation Science Standards, for those of you that are familiar with that, youll understand this is a huge shift in really focusing on these practices around critical thinking, problem solving and even creativity that associated with the interdisciplinary skills that go with Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. So those are the base skills, the base concepts, but they need to be applied if were going to connect with students in real world contexts. It cant be formulas that are just dry, why are you doing this, were just memorizing them for the sake of memorizing. Students really need to engage with real world whether thats a career opportunity, understanding how this is going to be used in their future career, in their community or global issues. Students are very different than we were as kids. When we were 12, you just memorize its formula and thats all you needed to know. So when you take the 3 of those together, and if you could advance the slide to that, you can see an advance again and then one more time, thats what we have as a STEM cable when visual. A student whos really ready to go out and be a contributing member of society and be a productive member of our workforce. So if we could go to the next slide please? We know that were only going to do this if we build public support around a certain number of policy priorities as an organization, weve picked 5 key areas that we really believe are central if were going to make the kind of bold, systemic change that we need to make in this State and youll hear a lot of about these over the next couple of days. First and foremost, weve talked about it already and youll hear tons more, we need to continue implementing the Common Core States Standards and make sure that we actually adopt and implement the Next Generation Science Standards. A lot of people are working really, really hard to make sure that these standards are the best that they can possibly be, but that together they will provide a great platform and a great service to our students and teachers. Along with that, huge implications for teacher preparation, teacher professional development, and we really need to reform the way that we prepare in particular STEM teachers for the future. Accountability systems have been a limiting factor in our State and nationally for STEM education. The extreme focus on Math and English language arts has been somewhat of a determent to STEM education because its so narrowly defined. I think Tom may talk about some new legislation that just passed very exciting that will really help open that up and provide more opportunities and support STEM education. And then weve talked a little bit about strengthening public, private partnerships. We need to enable those to grow and flourish and be stronger than ever before. And then finally, to the point of our new initiative, we really need to ensure that all students have access to high quality STEM programming during after school time. Its an amazing opportunity to work with students to do that. So with that, if you could advance to the next slide, Im going to introduce my Chief Education Officer, Marcella Klein Williams, whos going to talk a little bit more about our theory of change and get the program going. Marcella Marcella Klein Williams: Thank you. [Applause] Marcella Klein Williams: Thank you so much. I was thinking last night as were preparing for this is, in this room altogether, we have the deep thinkers and the committed individuals from throughout the State of California that are aiming to transform education to focus on STEM education to prepare our children for a future that we dont know what it will be like. So when we look at our theory of change, the most important thing that were doing is were engaging and motivating, thats what children but thats certainly with adults. And when I think about who are the educators, who are the people who are responsible for educating our children from the time that theyre babies and they first come on to the scene in preschool, all the way through matriculation. Its certainly not just the ones like me who hold credentials. Its educators who are at large. Its the educators who are from higher education. Its our educators from Business and Industry that can share not only their wealth with us but also their wit, their wisdom and their time. And its all of the folks that youre representing here in the room, and each of us comes with our own good ideas. But what I know about good ideas is they get better when they meet another good idea and youre able to rub those ideas together. So I hope that you spent some time listening to the wonderful people who are up here on stage, but more importantly than that, I hope that you talked to the people who are at your table and you get to know them as well because although we want the next two days here in San Diego to be wonderful, engaging, and inspiring. These two days dont matter. What really matters is what happens after you leave and after you go home, and are you going to connect up with the people that youve met today to really start building that system that our children deserve because here in California it can be argued that we have one of the strongest STEM economies of the world and we need to have a matching STEM Education System to go along with it. And moving to disseminate and equip is as we come together and we have those good ideas. When we disseminate and equip what were saying is we give it a try. We try to bat for the fences. We see if itll actually work. And in giving it a try, that assumes something. It assumes that we have a stomach for failure as well because its going to take courage and its going to take innovation. And thats why when I look around the room, I see not only smart people, but people who have the stomach for it to give it a try and to try those things that were not sure if theyre going to work because the definition of a breakthrough idea, is just basically a crazy idea that actually works. So when we look at what happened in August and thoseDavid Seidel will talk about those 7 minutes of terror, we need to have some minutes of terror here. Is it going to work? And the swing and swing like we mean it, and the last thing that were going to be doing in moving this forward is teaching and learning. In teaching and learning is coming clean, being able to tell each other, Will this work? And this, dont ever do that again, I already tried it. And its being able to take a bright spot thats in one corner of the State of California and not rest and not sleep until it spreads throughout the State of California. So its a caring concern for your own and for the children that you touched, but its a caring concern for those children who you will impact and you will never have the honor of knowing their name or meeting them, and thats who youre changing today. All of usbut all of us more importantly, all of us together. So what were going to be creating are STEM-capable students. But you know whats even more important? Is were creating meaning in our life that were going to be creating a legacy that we can be proud of, our own children can be proud of us, and the children of California that will lead us into the future. Theyll never know our names, but we were a part of that bucket brigade that lead them to where they get to stand in to their future. Thank you. [Applause] Chris Roe: Thank you Marcella. Well were in for a real treat. What I would call a personal friend, a friend to CSLNet and a friend to every person who cares about STEM education is our next speaker. Hes the elected Chief of Schools for all of California and in that role, Tom Torlakson oversees the education of 6.3 million children attending 10,000 schools in 1,100 districts across the State. I think thats about 1 in 8 students in the United States if I remembered correctly. Every day, Tom applies his experiences as a Science teacher, a high school coach and State Law Maker to fighting for students and improving our States public education system. Nearly 40 years ago, he began his career as a classroom teacher, choosing to teach on eligible schools. He went on to teach track and field, coaching with young people and winning a dozen championships throughout the years. So he knows how to get results which is really cool. Spurred by the desire to increase the opportunities for kids to learn and thrive. He went on to politics, rising from the Antioch City Council to the Contra Costa Academy Board of Supervisors to the California Legislature now to statewide office. During his time in the legislature, Tom worked to protect and increase education funding, improve student health, ensure school safety, cut the dropout rate, and develop the largest system of after school programs in the nation, which is pretty impressive and we owe him a huge debt of gratitude for that. He also authored the Quality Education Improvement Act, or the QEIA, which dedicates millions to our lowest performing schools, and played a key role in 1998 proposition 1A, a major source of funding for building and improving our school. So its my pleasure to welcome State Superintendent Tom Torlakson to the summit. [Applause] Tom Torlakson: Thank you Chris for that kind introduction and good morning. Audience: Good morning. Tom Torlakson: STEM learning network. The team. So pleased to be here and thank you for your leadership Chris, Marcella and all the learning network team. So I just commend these efforts. I was told you would have high energy, positive energy, kinetic energy, not just sitting there potential. Were going to actualize, right? Were going to move it. So it is to keep up with that, you know, Chris advised that I go for a run, so I did a little biochemistry, get kicked in the endorphins and then had a couple of cups of coffee, which is another form of chemistry, but Im revved up, are you revved up? Audience: Yes. Tom Torlakson: Youre going to have a great couple of days here. I know this. And so the work youre doing and the STEM Learning Network is fantastic, cutting edge, and where we need to go, and you just saw an outline so well, but a lot of work ahead to be done and thats why we pull together, team efforts like this. So your work, by the way and implementing the Common Core is fantastic and helping in the Science New National Standards, helping with that. Theres a number of you in this room about 80 altogether convened and Phil LaFontaine from my staff in CDE and his team helped staff that effort. How many of you are part of that? Stand up if youre part of the 80 that are working on the National Science Standards. I know Chris, youve been part of that effort. Just say thank you to this group. Thank you. [Applause] Tom Torlakson: And what youre doing to connect the classroom Science, the day Science to opportunities after school is fabulous and tied in to what our great museums and Exploratoriums have out there for us, it is also fantastic. I call it TEAM. You mentioned my coaching track running days. I call it T-E-A-M, you know what that stands for? T-E-A-M, teamTogether Everyone Accomplishes More. So are you the TEAM to implement a new renaissance in Science education in California? The 21st century model, not the old style but the new style, alright, alright. So looking at this group and knowing who some of you are and havent had the pleasure working with you. I thought I start off since youre Science, Engineering, Math with some numbers, 7 million, 45, 2 dozen, 123 million, 4700 and Ill turn this into what I think was about 40 to 50,000 smiles. How many of you saw the Endeavor flyover? How many? Was that a thrilling moment? And so the numbers there, they say that over this weekend as the Endeavor went to the California Science Center from LA that about to 40-50 thousand line the streets cheering, snapping photos, relishing a moment a history that reminds us when we are united and pride and purpose, we can hit the mighty goals and when we really put our minds to something, we can accomplish the kind of greatness that was represented by the Space Program and the Endeavor. So that was a number of ten to thousands of people dazzled by that final journey and by the way some foundations are helping and we thank all the foundations who help all the time in these arenas to develop a rich curriculum. So its not just going to sit there, the Endeavor not just going to sit in the museum. People look at her, climb around on her, its going to have a curriculum before the students come and its going to have a curriculum to just talk about all the interconnections of Physics and Astronomy and Geology and everything that you could think of that would tie into this. This is part of American greatness and the numbers are 2 dozen the 2 dozen is atmosphere escape and reentries, 47 hundred orbits and 123 million miles of travel before its final resting place, and did you know the important role California played? The Endeavor has big roots right here in California, in our innovative state. The main engines were fabricated in the San Fernando Valley. The heat tiles were invented in Silicon Valley. The fly by wire technology was invented in Downey, and the Endeavor rolled off the assembly line in the Mojave Desert ready to fly into history in 1991. So why bring up these numbers? Again, because I think the Endeavor story remind us of the heights we can go when Americans put their minds to this mighty kind of goal and because it reveals a kind of unity again of pride and purpose and when you combine determination and earnest endeavor with scientific innovation, it reveals some of our common fascination with exploration discovery reaching together for the next great breakthroughs in Space Science, in Bioscience, in Medicine, in Computer Science, in Green Energy and Pollution Control and Clean Up and by the way a lot of our young people, those 6.3 million students are in school and the additional students that are in our universities, they have an altruism and idealism that this taps in to, to look at ways that they can help solve some of the problems facing our planet. And so I also had a number 2 and 2 relates to my grandson and so Im a granddad now, Papa T. I havent been call grandpa yet but Papa T will work right? So, you know, I say this because when I see constant movement, I see constant curiosity, endless inquisitiveness, exploring the word, this little mind and ball of energy just keep going and going and going youre in for learning and isnt this what we want keep alive in all our students, this natural innate curiosity and wish to discover and explore the world and then I look at the students coming back. Seven million student came backdid the lights just go up? Energy, positive energy, you see, look at this, you guys, let there be light and theres a lot of light when about 6.3 million students came back to our K-12 schools in the last few weeks and our university students about almost 3 million in California came back and focusing as it came back with their own aspirations, their families and teachers bringing together high hopes and high expectations and believing in the California dream, which is I think what were standing here for and working towards that dream of a better life, believing that we can have a better life and greater opportunity through what? STEM education, through education and we know thats the doorway to brighter futures. Chris asked me to share just a little bit about my connection, you know, teaching science, you know, getting back to school are brought back memorize to me of those first couple of days of school, getting know the students in my Biology classes. So the general sophomore Biology classes and I had advance classes in Marine Biology and I was privileged to see this curiosity unleashed in fun ways and so you get the [inaudible] water you get some mud from the delta of a pond and you check it out and give the students microscopes and have them look and see whats down there and whats moving and whats not moving and how it fits in with, you know, life the phytoplankton, the zooplankton, and the paramecium, and the amoebas and what is life. This whole issue of asking questions and being inquisitive and writing it down. I even got the skeletons out of the closet. What I did is I had the microscopes and pond water out there and then I got the skeletons out of the closet literally. We had a human skeleton, we had the snake skeleton, and the rat skeleton and you know, on and skulls from a number of different creatures and the students got to handle and look and see what was going on and we had dude, do you remember dude? The rubber man with all the organs you could take a part. So, you know, I had the students going around and you know, handle the organ and look at the, you know, whats the liver do and you know, why is shaped the way it is and you know, whats its function. So that was part of getting the kids warmed up and I ask them to observe, write down, draw, share with your teammates what they see and what they think about whats going on and what questions do they have. So this was fun of course there are no bad questions, all question are good so we encourage that and thats what you encourage. And of course we had the school garden where we went from the seed were everything starts. DNA and hybrids, new ways to make corn and say more productive, getting to learn about photosynthesis, oxygen and carbon cycles energy and water cycles and discussion leading to droughts and world hunger and then there were field trips, and by the way, thanks for the foundation to help provide access to the museums and the field trips. Some of you remember the days when we had a lot of field trips, right? So I was lucky to teach in a title 1 community but just for an example, the campfire discussions, being some of the best after climbing half dome or shooting white water rapids in the South Fork or the American. We look at these kinds of questions around the campfire. Why are the rapids faster in some areas than others? How long did it take the river to cut the canyon? Where did the gold come from that the rapid revealed during centuries of erosion? How did the ongoing slow collisions of the earths crust form our mountain ranges? How long did it take the mountains to rise up and create the tilting slopes and the snow packs that were so full of potential energy that would be converted to kinetic energy, hydroelectric power or drinking water and the environment for the bass and salmon fisheries? So I had this first hand connection with our STEM learning opportunities and I wanted to say thanks again to those who have helped in our action plan. So sort of transitioning from some of the stories, which I could tell for hours, adventures with the young people, museum trips, and delta research vessel, type of the trips. I wanted to focus on the areas where we are working in concert with the goals of this STEM Learning Network we also know that we have an imperative to deal with the need in the economy, which Chris mentioned, and Marcella mentioned. We look at the number of bachelors degrees in science and engineering as a proportion of our workforce, they fall in to 45th in the nation. California faces a shortage of 1 million collective graduates, college graduates by the year of 2025, and we know that 75% of the fastest growing jobs in the new economy, and economy of now and economy in the future are in the STEM fields. So we want to see and were committed in the Department Education a study growth of college graduates in the STEM fields and we want more Scientists and Engineers coming from both our high schools and our universities. We have partnership academies that are working really well about 503 of them over half of them are STEM related students who would otherwise will dropout, get involved, excited about their learning. They see the purpose, so those are the part our action plan to keep those going. We want to thank Senator Steinberg for his leadership in getting [inaudible] which renewed a number of those partnerships and provided additional funding and also for his legislation, it says lets look beyond the mass scores and English language Art scores and look at a broader target of what we define as success what we define as a right preparation for students for career, for citizenship, smart citizenship and smart voting and for being a smart consumer. How do we make sure that this happens? And my department will be involved, Ill be tasked through this legislation for defining a new target and I think that we should look at the STEM, what is the school doing in the STEM area before we round out the API and just based it on what we have in a past in a sort of narrow range. Were also relooking at distinguish school award program and also including STEM in that. Its something we want to honor and reward schools with recognition as distinguish schools, if they have strong STEM component a couple other things that weve done, in the department created STEM action team to coordinate STEM activities throughout the department and I want my team to stand up Lupita Alcala is here, Phil LaFontaine, the restStacy, Heather, please be recognized. We also have a book, by the which, Ill just refer you to, a booklet, we just report it out, Greatness by Design, which talks about opportunity to train teachers in STEM and so were needing a hundred thousand new teachers in the next 10 years and we have an opportunity to reorient teaching not only the 21st century approach to learning in general, but also specifically the values of STEM education. We have a blueprint for environmental literacy thats just taking off. Were going to be appointing groups to that and helping us move that forward. Well be announcing the coachers in 2-3 weeks. Im going to talk about the STEM taskforce in just a second. We have the education technology taskforce. How many of you have been involved in that? There are a number of you here. Were aiming to get the one to one computing capacity. Were looking at the magical ways that the computer programs can help our students learn, differentiate learning, get them right to the area and its not just the old multiple choice test, its more cognitive thinking, critical thinking, problem solving, all the things that Chris outlined for us. Were calling that Initiative, no child left offline okay. I do want to thank Susan Bonilla, wheres Susan? Our great legislative leader, there she is right back there thank you Susan for your leadership. [Applause] Tom Torlakson: Susan is a co-convener with me of the STEM taskforce where the police where the work in progress is being made. I want to thank Susan Hackwood for her cheering and Dr. Broadhurst for his co-chairing that effort. Theyre doing marvelous work and anybody else is on that STEM taskforce, could you just stand up and be recognized. I want to thank you for your leadership in that effort. [Applause] Tom Torlakson: So valiant works going on, we have a number of other components to our initiative to bring about a renaissance of STEM education in California. I do have to mention a final set of numbers, 30, 38, 39, 20 and 25. Im going to be just straight up, we need money to do this too. Its great to have these great plans. Its great to have these great corporate and foundation partners but we as California need to commit ourselves to invest in education, reinvesting. So I am in favor both 30 and 38. Ill just put that right out there. The margin of Californias ready to vote taxes to help education is rather thin. So Im against splitting the yes vote. Im just saying vote for both and you dont get tax-wise if they both passed but you do get the opportunity to make sure that one of them gets across the finish line. 39 is also a good proposition. Whats the 20 billion, the number 20, thats the amount of money the schools have lost in the last 5 years. 25% of their funding has disappeared, K-12 and higher education. So were facing other 10% cuts, another 5 and a half billion if we cant pass these measures in the next few weeks. What does that mean? It means a lot more crowded classrooms, 4 weeks off the school year and many, many districts throughout California, 4 weeks will be knocked off our school year. So were competing in this global economy. We want to be STEM ready, have career ready, students graduating, but we need to vote and go yes, yes. Heres a late-breaking piece of news, we are going to work in collaboration with this group, another number, its going to be 2013, November 18 and 19, to work with the STEM Learning Network and co-convening a major STEM symposium. Were hoping at the 2000 range of participation. Now Ill wrap up with the Solar Suitcase Story. Any of you heard of the Solar Suitcase Story? Okay. Laguna Creek High School, Elk Grove District, hard-shell suitcases about this wide depth and its a green partnership academy. One of the ones that Darrell Steinberg helped to get funded through legislation, and you come in and you point to the roof, they students installed some of the solar that powers their classroom, and then this young lady who was taking me on the tour said, I love this. Its hands on, you know, Im learning in teams, Im doing hands on. And she pointed to a drill press and a saw and she said, Its so fun, I get to work in this class on cool things and global warming and understanding energy cycles and you know, sustainable energy, and I also get to save lives with the Solar Suitcase. So how do you that? Well they put a battery in, they saw plastic sheets to sort of create a framework so it doesnt rattle around and bang around and then they put a cord and a light, and then they ship this with two solar panels to places in the world where theres no electricity. So in the middle of the night, if youre giving birth, your mortality rate is really high, the infant mortality rate is very high. And so in Liberia, in Nigeria, India, places in Haiti, these Solar Suitcases go and theyre connected. The sun powers the battery. The battery is there when theres a need at night. So these students are learning geography. Theyre writing grants. Theyre learning how to communicate with other students around the world, and isnt that cool? So theres an example. Lets be the team that creates a renaissance for STEM education. Help the dreams of our students come true. Thank you very much. [Applause] Chris Roe: Well thank you Tom and you can see why hes such an inspirational leader for our State. I also wanted to again, you mentioned your team but I want to give them a special call out. They are a great team. They are extremely hardworking and its fun to work with them. So were really looking forward to partnering with you next year to make this event even much, much, much bigger. Its going to be a great opportunity. So thank you for your partnership. We really appreciate working with you. Next, I would like to introduce one of our board members. I and the organization are extremely blessed, weve got an amazing board, our directors, and we have actually last night, we convened for the first time our STEM advisory council, which is a group of experts around the State that are going to advise us on key issues. I would like for all of our board members and our entire advisory council that are here, if you could all stand and be recognized [Applause] Chris Roe: --thank you so much. I would like to invite one of board members, Mo Qayoumi. Dr. Qayoumi is the 28th president and professor of electrical engineering at San Jose State University. He holds a bachelors degree in electrical engineering from Beirut UniversityAmerican University in Beirut; excuse me, and four degrees from the University of Cincinnati, including his doctorate in Electrical Engineering. So hes a true STEM person. Hes a prolific author, licensed professional engineer and a certified management accountant. So hes a man of many talents, so many skills. Dr. Qayoumi previously served as the president of CSU East Bay Campus where he was an amazing leader and actually helped found one of our regional partners, the CSU East Bay cradles to career network. So were really pleased to have him here to make some brief comments on behalf of our board. [Applause] Dr. Qayoumi: Thank you Chris and good morning everyone. First, on behalf of CSLNet board of directors, I like to welcome each and every one of you to this wonderful conference and to talk a little bit about, briefly about the importance of STEM and the role that it plays in our economy and the vitality of our State. Then when you talk about the whole concept of STEM, this is not something new. If you look at and go back to the 17th century in Capellas work on the role of liberal education. We go back to trivium and quadrivium, thats where we really see the root of STEM education. And also if you look at modern times, one of the studies that we all look at is pieces of studies that have looked at the educational achievements of countries for the last 50 years. And the World Bank have always looked at them the number of years of schooling and countries and correlated that into the economic vitality of those countries. A few years ago, one of the professors at Hoover Institute in Stanford looked at those studies and tried to put some quality elements, and what he realized is that when he was looking at the quality element of those studies, if there was no quality and consideration, there was no correlation between the number of years of schooling in those countries and economic vibrancy, but when he used the quality factor that was already the key element and I had the chance to talk to them and I said, what did you use as a element of quality, and he said, basically it was STEM competency. So STEM competency is really what really moves every society and what has really been the foundation of moving our economies. I think in the US, if you look at the last 50 years that has really been the key that has really moved our economy especially for our great state that has really been the key. And also if you look at for the next 10 years, 5 out of 8 key jobs and our growing jobs will be in the STEM related field and 8 out of them, 10 highest paying jobs will be in the STEM related field. This is even more important for the State of California because despite the fact that we have 11% of the workforce for the nation, we have somewhere between 15-18% of the STEM related jobs nationally, so its even more important for us as a State. But when you look at college graduates, only 16% of our college graduates are in the STEM related field. And especially when you compare to that to many other countries such as for instance in Korea that will be 38%, France 47%, China 50%, and Singapore 67%, that really shows what kind of major task we all have in front of us. But even that 15-16% camouflages the full story because when you look at the STEM achievement of women, when you look at the STEM achievement of many of our underserved communities, that data really is very concerning and depressing for each and every one of us. So thats something that we really have to look at. So because for many aspects, when you look at STEM education, I think theres a big quote from Carnegie Foundation, which states, Math and Science are essential components of a liberal education, the backbone of a larger [inaudible] thinking from earlier childhood through the most advance level of learning across academic disciplines. Science, Technology, Engineering and Math enables us to understand the national world to understand for the betterment of the environment and the society and interactions among all that will determine the future of our planet. So you can see the role of the STEM education is quite critical. I think as Chris mentioned that its not only the when you talk about STEM is not Science, Technology, Engineering and Math as separate of silos. Its basically the interaction of all of these, but its not the interaction of all of these aspect but added skills such as imaginative problem solving, social dexterity, working out and being able to deal with ambiguity and a sport of that, the whole aspect of innovation of entrepreneurship really becomes a critical element of STEM, and all of us when we look at the magic of Silicon Valley. The magic of Silicon Valley is that fusion of STEM competency with innovation entrepreneurship and thats what has really been the secret of Silicon Valley. And I think as we look at in the future what we really need to just do is to see how we could really build this pipeline for all of this for the future and I think the approach that [inaudible] has started with this regional groups is really the best approach because through these regional groups which really embodies our regional stewardship in 3 key areas, how we can build a workforce of our regions, how we can enhance the economic vibrancy of our regions, and third, how we can build healthy and thriving communities. And I think through that kind of environment, we can really build not only create through careers because our current college graduates, by the time theyre 41, theyll be going through 10 job changes. So it has to be not only two but through all their career overall. So as part of that one the work for college for universities is very much set and there is a big challenge and first of all, not only how weve to buildand graduate the next generation of high school STEM teachers but also look at STEM education as part of an open ecosystem so we can really look and design our whole curriculum very differently than what we have done. Really get out of this lecture mode that is so antiquated and nobody learns from and we really do a good job of boring students, so if we can get out of that, I think that would really help us tremendously and really look at intersegment collaboration basically from the K-12, the community colleges, universities and industry are working together. I think through that kind of way, we can really build the workforce of the future for ourselves whether that is in high tech, biotech, clean energy, aerospace, genomics, proteomics, agriculture, personalized medicine, cyber security, big beta and analytics because these are the key areas that our State needs as we look towards the future. I think having this gathering is really very important and [inaudible] and some of us when we feel while given all of the challenges of the State can we all make a difference and heres a quote from [inaudible] who said, Never underestimate the power of a small group of people because the only way the chain has actually happened historically has been but a small group of people. So I think all of us collectively are in that kind of a power. And lastly, I think as we look to the next two days of this conference, Ill just give you one problem and look at them for in this conference. Imagine, if one of our public officials in Sacramento and Washington DC who are STEM savvy, what kind of a State and what kind of a nation well have? Thank you. [Applause]
