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We've done it before. The Manhattan Project, the technology surge that followed Sputnik: We've demonstrated that we can commit ourselves to daunting goals and achieve them. But we can't minimize the challenges we're facing.We need out-of-the-box thinking, of the sort suggested by experts in a report released in October called "Rising Above the Gathering Storm." A study group within the National Academy of Sciences, which included the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine, came up with innovative proposals. Among them are:
- Four-year scholarships for 25,000 undergraduate students who commit to degrees in math, science or engineering, and who qualify based on a competitive national exam;
- Four-year scholarships for 10,000 college students who commit to being math or science teachers, and who agree to teach in a public school for five years after graduation;
- Extended visas for foreign students who earn a math or science PhD in the United States, giving them a year after graduation to look for employment here. If they find jobs, work permits and permanent residency status would be expedited.
In just five years, 750 kids have enrolled, three classes have graduated and the vast majority of students have gone on to college. One of the success stories is Jeff Jensen, class of 2005, who was a decidedly apathetic student before High Tech High. He is now a freshman at Stanford University on a partial scholarship, planning to study chemistry or medicine.
IBM is one of the companies encouraging its workers to teach. This past September, IBM announced a tuition- assistance plan, pledging to pay for teacher certification as well as a leave of absence for employees who wish to teach in public schools.
The philanthropic arms of corporations are also getting involved. The Siemens Foundation sponsors a yearly math, science and technology competition, considered the Nobel Prize for high school research and a great distiller of American talent. Honeywell spends $2 million each year on science programs geared to middle school students, including a hip-hop touring group that teaches physical science, and a robotics lab program that teaches kids how to design, build and program their own robot. "We've found that if we don't get kids excited about science by middle school, it's too late," says Michael Holland, a spokesperson for Honeywell.
State governments have shown that they, too, can take bold steps, as several have done in creating public high school academies that focus on the hard sciences. Among the first of these was the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (NCSSM), opened in 1980, and its track record explains why these academies have taken off elsewhere. NCSSM boasts the highest SAT scores of any public school in the state. The vast majority of its graduates have gone on to college, and a number of them have started their own tech companies.
As important as all these initiatives are, they barely begin to take us where we need to go. Our shortcomings are vast, and time, unfortunately, is working against us.
"The whole world is running a race," says Intel's Howard High, "only we don't know it." No one knows whether or when the United States will relinquish its lead in that race. Or how far back in the pack we could ultimately fall. But the first order of business is to recognize what's at stake -- and get in the game.
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