The
For
decades the
For
example, here are a few worrisome indicators: The National Center for Education
Statistics reports that less than one out of three 4th and 8th
graders in the US tested at the proficient level in mathematics, and about 1/3
weren’t even able to perfect basic mathematical computations (www.nces.ed.gov/timss). Furthermore, in 2004, the National Science
Board (in Science and Engineering Indicators 2004) reported that US 12th
graders performed lower than the international average in general knowledge of math
and science. More and more engineers and
scientists are being based overseas, growing especially in India, China, and
the rest of Asia, and this trend will accelerate next year, when the Large
Hadron Collider comes online at CERN- which will be the largest particle
accelerator and attract physicists from the all over the world to it. As for here in the US, we are planning on
shutting down our largest particle accelerator, at Fermilab, in a few years-
encouraging all of our particle physicists to go work overseas.
I
obviously find this problematic, since I plan to be a physicist and would like
to remain in the United States. Granted,
if I am a theorist, I do not have to follow the experimentalists, who must go
to where the experiments are, but physicists tend to conglomerate. Even for theorists this is true, because
intensive theoretical work is difficult to do alone today, because of the
immense mathematical specialization that is necessary to understand the
theory. However, that is why I am
concerned about physicists, mathematicians, and engineers leaving the United
States- why should you care? Because
technology is an immense economic force- it can provide thousands of jobs to
reenergize our economy, and it produces products that make our lives
easier. Granted, we will still get the
products if they are designed and made overseas, but we won’t have the benefit
of employing Americans to strengthen our weak economy. Additionally, engineering is useful to the
military- it would be much better if we had Americans on the cutting edge of
technology that could help our soldiers, as opposed to Chinese creating all the
new inventions, for example. And as for
the theorists- well, we can never tell just when a theory might be useful for
something- I’m sure Maxwell did not have computers in mind when he formulated
his laws of electromagnetism.
Furthermore, good theorists tend to attract good experimentalists- who
are in turn good at coming up with new, useful inventions as they tinker in
their labs (or run across problems they need to solve). Theorists and experimentalists go together-
you cannot be strong in just the experimentalist side, or just the engineering
side, without also being strong in theory.
Finally, an important additional benefit would be if we focused on
technologies that are more energy efficient and/or provide new sources of
energy. By now, everyone knows of the
problems with our current energy state, at the very least the fact that it
comes from nations that support terrorism.
Even if you aren’t the environmentalist I am, you must concede that by
becoming a world leader in technology, we likely will find an energy solution
that will at least stop supporting terrorists.
It would be an even greater added bonus if we found solutions that are
ecologically friendly, so that we will stop destroying the planet we all depend
on.
So
if you accept that it would be beneficial to the United States to recover its
status as a leader in engineering and the sciences, one must question how to go
about it. One particular reason this is
useful is because of the effect this has on the economy, with additional
payoffs later through the technologies developed, but initially through
employing people. Thus, we would ideally
want to invest in technology somewhere where there are a large number of
unemployed engineers and scientists- but there is not anywhere like that
because they have already gone abroad.
However, there are economically depressed regions of the country, like
former steel mill towns in the northeast, where a substantial part of the
population is unemployed. If some sort
of training was offered, it is likely that people in these areas would seize on
that training, assuming they could afford it and were reasonably assured of
getting a job if they passed. However,
this training might take a long time and be expensive. To the first critique, we need to begin by
focusing on technologies that create a lot of jobs for workers with little
skills, bringing in engineers from the cities or elsewhere to do the other
jobs. Then, as our general workforce
becomes more educated, we can branch out into more advanced technologies. The second critique is more difficult to deal
with. In general the government meddling
in economy is a bad idea- many people would say that it might be better to wait
until the US realized its dire need for science and businesses on their own
grew up. We need to avoid the government
meddling too much in the economy while still managing to encourage generalized
growth in science and technology. The
government is already spending too much money, so we cannot propose government
handouts- however, I suggest that the government should lower taxes on technology-focused
companies so that they will be better able to compete. It should not raise tariffs on foreign goods,
since then the US ones will be of lower quality, but they should allow the
companies to use their income to invest in these economic sectors and to
educate their workforce instead of to support the government’s already bloated
budget. Thus, the companies should at
least initially receive a tax break in proportion to the amount of money that
they spend on science and engineering education- which helps to educate the
American public in general, something we have seen needs to be done anyway.
Secondly,
though, we need to fix our educational system.
We need to emphasize science and math once again- in today’s
individualized and relativistic climate, the absolute right and wrong of
science and math just seem out of touch, but that is a problem to be dealt with
later. The government needs to take
science and mathematics education seriously, and require stringent standards
for those teachers. It is unacceptable
that while 71% of international students in eighth grade are taught by a math
teacher who specializes in math, only 41% of American ones are. (National Science Board again). This is 8th grade- not elementary
school!!! How did this situation
happen? How could we not care that much
about math?!! No wonder our federal
government can’t balance the budget, when our children are being taught algebra
by someone who doesn’t specialize in math.
I came from a poor rural school, graduated out of a class of 54, and our
8th grade math teacher specialized in math. It is completely unacceptable that fewer than
half of our students have the same. As
citizens- and especially parents- we need to demand a better quality of
education in these fields for our children.
Additionally, we also need to encourage professionals to go into
teaching, perhaps by lowering the taxes again for teachers and making the legal
hoops they need to jump through less daunting.
Schools, or businesses that need employees with a strong knowledge of
science/engineering, could offer college scholarships for students who agree to
teach after school, and I also think it would be beneficial to make it easier
for people to teach part time while still retaining a part time position in the
workforce.
Regardless,
we need to do something to maintain America’s status in the scientific and
engineering fields, or pay the price of losing our technological superiority,
in our economy and perhaps militarily.
For those who are interested, I recommend reading Rising Above the
Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a brighter Economic
Future, by the National Academy of Science, the National Academy of
Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine, which also advocates some of the
above suggestions.