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TwitThisThe Crisis We Created
In January 2001, the Hart-Rudman Commission, tasked with finding solutions to our major national security threats, concluded that the failures of our math and science education and our system of research "pose a greater threat ... than any potential conventional war."The roots of this failure lie in primary and secondary education. The nation that produced most of the great technological advances of the last century now scores poorly in international science testing. A 2003 survey of math and science literacy ranked American 15-year-olds against kids from other industrialized nations. In math, our students came in 24th out of 28 countries; in science, we were 24th out of 40 countries, tied with Latvia. This test, in conjunction with others, indicates we start out with sufficient smarts -- our fourth-graders score well -- but we begin to slide by eighth grade, and sink almost to the bottom by high school.
Don't blame school budgets. We shell out more than $440 billion each year on public education, and spend more per capita than any nation save Switzerland. The problem is that too many of our high school science and math teachers just aren't qualified. A survey in 2000 revealed that 38% of math teachers and 28% of science teachers in grades 7-12 lacked a college major or minor in their subject area. In schools with high poverty rates, the figures jumped to 52% of math teachers and 32% of science teachers. "The highest predictor of student performance boils down to teacher knowledge," says Gerald Wheeler, executive director of the National Science Teachers Association. To California Congressman Buck McKeon, a member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, it comes down to this: "How can you pass on a passion to your students if you don't know the subject?"
Perhaps it's no surprise that, according to a 2004 Indiana University survey, 18% of college prep kids weren't taking math their senior year of high school. "When I compare our high schools to what I see when I'm traveling abroad, I'm terrified for our workforce of tomorrow," Microsoft chairman Bill Gates told a summit of state governors earlier this year. "Our high schools, even when they're working exactly as designed, cannot teach our kids what they need to know today."
Government has been culpable also by shortchanging research in the hard sciences. "Basic research is the fundamental underlying driver of our high-tech economy," Jackson of RPI says. In the wake of 9/11, Congress pledged to double the budget of the National Science Foundation (NSF) over five years; that now looks like a pipe dream, especially since Congress actually cut the NSF budget by $105 million in 2005. That takes money from an agency whose extensive funding has helped develop technologies in areas that are essential to our competitiveness, from the Internet to nanotechnology.
The Bush Administration has also proposed cutting the fiscal 2006 budget for research and development in such key federal agencies as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the latter of which acts as a liaison with industry and researchers to apply new technology.
"Funding cuts are job cuts," says Rep. Vernon J. Ehlers, Republican of Michigan and a member of the Science Committee in the House. Reduced funding has put the squeeze on research positions, further smothering incentives for students to go into hard science.
A weaker pipe-line is especially alarming because the science and engineering workforce is graying. For instance, the National Nuclear Security Administration, an agency that responds to nuclear and radiological emergencies here and abroad, will soon experience a retirement crisis, according to the GAO. NASA, too, has an aging staff: In just a few years, a quarter of its workforce will be eligible to retire.
"We will see in our lifetime the foolishness of our budget choices today," says New York Congressman Sherwood Boehlert, who is chairman of the House Science Committee. "I see America falling to the middle of the pack if we don't make serious changes now."
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