Posted on 12/05/2005 7:01:55 PM PST by voletti
Intel Chairman Craig Barrett urges businesses to get involved in American education -- for their own sakes as well as the nation's. One of the highlights of my year each spring is getting to meet the 40 finalists in the Intel Science Talent Search (Intel STS) competition. Spending time with these high school seniors, I can't help but feel optimistic about the future of American ingenuity. Some of them may win Nobel prizes, Fields Medals, National Medals of Science, and MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grants." They may be teenagers, but the brilliance of their work makes my own PhD dissertation look dim in comparison. But their achievements do not tell the whole story about the American education system. The Intel STS finalists are the exception, not the rule. In fact, American K-12 students are consistently outperformed by their foreign counterparts on international math and science assessments.
ERODING RESOURCE. We also have a graduation gap: While the number of jobs requiring technical skills is increasing, fewer American students are entering -- and graduating from -- degree programs in science, math, and engineering.
Why does this matter? Science and technology are the engines of economic growth and national security in the U.S., and we are no longer producing enough qualified graduates to keep up with the demand. These graduates -- like the Intel STS students -- represent a resource vital to American competitiveness that is eroding at home while being produced more rapidly and efficiently abroad.
For the past three decades, about one-third of U.S. bachelor's degrees have been granted in science and engineering. Asian nations far outstrip that figure, with China at 59% in 2001, South Korea at 46% in 2000, and Japan at 66% in 2001.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessweek.com ...
Stop subsidizing law schools and start subsidizing the sciences.
They don't call them "hard" sciences for nothing.
Out of the other side of his mouth Mr. Barrett is urging Congress to expand the H1B program...and not so his firm can hire the rare PhD-level computer scientists from India he claims to want, but so his firm and others can hire network administrators and IT staff at half price.
Young people hear that message, Mr. Barrett, and are planning their careers accordingly.
Go back to teaching the basics, instill a little discipline, bring back competition and tests instead of this touchy-feely-we-can't-hurt-your-feelings-by-saying-you-failed crap.
The problem is insoluble at the university level. Until K-12 education is fixed so that we stop giving a monopoly to 'ed majors' (who are generally math-phobic intellectual sluggards who picked the easiest major at their college or university) we have to waste too much time remediating the failures of the elementary and secondary schools to be able to turn out enough good college grads in technical fields.
Abolish the monopoly granted to colleges of education to prepare teachers, break the NEA, and, then (and only then) significantly raise teacher salaries, and we at the university level will be able to turn out plenty of scientists, engineers and mathematicians--we do a great job with the raw material the K-12 (or equivalent) systems abroad give us.
My sis-in-law's husband could not get a job at a picture frame making store because he can't add/subtact simple fractions.
My 17 year old niece can't tell time with an analog clock. Someone I was talking to recently told me they had supervision of a group of teenagers for some reason and discovered that about 50% must have a digital clock in order to determine the time.
These people are going to support us in our retirement??
Need need to study how to make war on teachers' unions, somehow.
Amen to what you said.
The answer is SAXON math
Foreigners come here, get paid by US companies to create all kinds of weapons wizardry, which they gladly do.
Then they also sell it to their home countries, and third-party nations, too.
Start teaching hex in 1st grade.
Thats because our schools would rather fund things like ultra fancy dorms, gender studies classes, and GSA organizations than real academic programs.
Actually I think this occasional pissing and moaning Intel, and MS do is just show..
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