"Bringing well-qualified math, science, and critical foreign language professionals into our nation's secondary schools as adjunct teachers will help prepare students for life in the 21st century, not only by helping fill teacher shortages in high need subjects, but also by helping kids learn more about some real-world applications from those with first hand experience."
— U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings

Increased global competition makes it crucial that our children receive a solid foundation in math and science as well as critical foreign languages.

• To compete in the global economy of the 21st century, today's high school graduates all need to have solid math and science skills– whether they are proceeding directly to college, or going straight into the workforce. And mastery of critical foreign languages is needed both for success in the global economy and to ensure our national security.
• U.S. Students are currently performing below their international peers on math and science assessments: Only 7% of 4th and 8th graders achieved an advanced level on the 2003 Trends in International Math and Science Study (TIMSS) test, compared to 38% of Singaporean 4th graders and 44% of Singaporean 8th graders. And on the most recent Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), American 15-year-olds performed below the international average in mathematics literacy and problem solving.
• Almost half of American 17-year-olds do not have the basic understanding of math needed to qualify for a production associate's job at a modern auto plant.
• Less than 1 percent of American high school students study the critical foreign languages of Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, Japanese, Korean, Russian, or Urdu—combined.

The Adjunct Teacher Corps initiative would help meet this need by providing $25 million in FY2007 to encourage well-qualified math, science, and critical language professionals to become adjunct secondary school teachers.

• Research shows that teacher subject-matter knowledge is greatly associated with student learning. A recent report found that 36 percent of 7-12th grade public school math teachers and 27 percent of science teachers did not have a major or minor in their subject area or related discipline. Specifically in the physical sciences, 59 percent of teachers did not have a major or minor in any of the physical sciences.
• In high poverty schools, the report showed that 51 percent of 7-12th grade math teachers and 32 percent of science teachers did not have a major or minor in their subject area.
• The Adjunct Teacher Corps will draw on the skills of well-qualified individuals with subject-matter expertise who are outside of the public education system to meet specialized teaching needs in our nation's secondary schools with the goal of having 30,000 adjunct teachers serving in our nation's secondary schools by 2015.
• The initiative would concentrate on helping schools find experienced professionals who, for example, would be able to provide students with real-world applications for some of the abstract math and science concepts being taught in the classroom, or who would be able to teach a critical foreign language such as Chinese or Arabic.
• Funds would be used to make competitive grants to partnerships of school districts and States (or of school districts and appropriate public or private institutions) to create opportunities for professionals with subject-matter expertise to teach secondary school courses in math, science, or critical foreign languages.
• Adjunct teachers might teach one or more courses on the school site on a part-time basis, teach full-time in secondary schools while on leave from their jobs, or teach courses that would be available online or through other distance learning arrangements.

The Adjunct Teacher Corps is part of President Bush's $5.9 billion American Competitiveness Initiative, which includes $380 million in FY2007 U.S. Department of Education funds to strengthen K-12 math and science instruction, including:

• $260 million for Math Now programs in elementary and middle school and a National Math Panel to help ensure every child can take and pass Algebra;
• $90 million increase for expanded Advanced Placement programs in math, science, and critical foreign languages, in which grantees would match funds two-to-one;
• $5 million to evaluate Federal Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) programs; and
• Science assessments added to NCLB accountability.