Senator Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh (R-Yucaipa) has announced that Senate Bill 1411, also known as the Instructional Quality Commission bill, has been vetoed by the Governor. This pivotal legislation was designed to strengthen the alignment between K-12 and college STEM education by facilitating the participation of subject matter experts from colleges and universities in mathematics and science K-12 curriculum development discussions.
"SB 1411 was a crucial step towards creating a cohesive and comprehensive STEM education that adequately prepares our students for the challenges of higher education and the workforce," said Senator Ochoa Bogh. "By bringing together K-12 educators and higher education experts from the fields of mathematics and science, I wanted to ensure that students received an education that is relevant to today’s STEM workforce, prepared them to compete globally and ensured that California has the workforce it desperately needs. While I am disappointed in the Governor’s decision, I am not discouraged."
SB 1411 would have addressed the critical need for K-12 science and mathematics education to meet the immediate needs of students and to ensure that their educational journey is seamlessly aligned with the expectations and requirements of public colleges and universities. By involving higher education experts in the mathematics and science curriculum development process, the bill aimed to provide students with a clear and direct pathway to success in college and beyond.
A New York Post article highlights the importance for more Americans to be competent in math skills stating, “The nation needs people who are good at math…They say America’s poor math performance isn’t funny. It’s a threat to the nation’s global economic competitiveness and national security.”
The article goes on to say, “The advances in technology that are going to drive where the world goes in the next 50 years are going to come from other countries, because they have the intellectual capital and we don’t,” said Jim Stigler, a psychology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who studies the process of teaching and learning subjects including math.
“The Defense Department has called for a major initiative to support education in science, technology, education and math, or STEM. It says there are eight times as many college graduates in these disciplines in China and four times as many engineers in Russia as in the United States.”
Brian Conrad, Professor of Mathematics at Stanford University, said, “The decision to veto Senate Bill 1411 is unfortunate. The bill would have strengthened the alignment of math and science curricular frameworks with the skills needed for the future workforce, and the additional representation it promotes from content experts in public higher education would have provided important perspectives for ensuring college preparedness.”
“Almost 3 years ago, I co-authored an open letter calling for more involvement from higher education in the development of curricular frameworks in mathematics, together with the K-12 community,” said Professor Jelani Nelson, Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley. “The letter was signed by over 1,000 domain experts, including several Nobel Prize, Turing Award, and Fields Medal winners, and leaders from industry, and echoes similar calls for K-12 and higher education collaboration made by both PACE and a former President of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Despite this, the governor has inexplicably and tragically decided to not support such collaboration, a loss for California's students.”
Senate Bill 1411 formed a key part of Senator Ochoa Bogh’s ongoing efforts to enhance the quality of education in California. With a focus on creating educational pathways that are clear, accessible and aligned with the demands of higher education, passage of this legislation would have represented a significant advancement in the state's commitment to student success.