National Academies on U.S. Science

theodp writes to tell us that the National Academies, the nation's 'leading science advisory group', is warning of the continued loss of America's competitive edge with regards to science in the global community. In a press release they call for the immediate increase of teachers and advanced research and development, citing that 'in 2001 U.S. industry spent more on tort litigation than on research and development.' The Committee includes, among others, Intel's Craig 'Don't Call Us Benedict Arnold CEOs' Barrett.

Comments

Choosing between religion fanaticism and science.

[CyricZ]

It's time for the US to choose between a reliance on religious fanaticism or science. If the focus remains on religious fanaticism, then the education of the nation's youth will suffer far more than it already had. But thankfully it's not too late to switch gears, and again put a focus on science and math (even if it means some contradiction with popular religious beliefs).

Having recently travelled to several US states, I don't think that enough of the population would be willing to make such a necessary change. While there are many very intelligent and very astute Americans, they are unfortunately in the minority. The majority seem to be Bible-toting, science-hating individuals.

Perhaps the best thing to do would be for America's scientific elite to leave America to those who are either religious fanatics or have a strong dislike for academia. There are always Western nations like England, Canada, Ireland, France, Germany, Belgium, Australia and many others who would gladly accept such talent. The scientists will be better off, and eventually those who rejected higher education will fall into economic obscurity.

More investiments are always welcome

[gustgr]

Last time I looked the US was the 1st on the list of scientific papers published by countries with more than 60% of the papers. The second position (United Kingdom IIRC) was really far from US in number of papers. It would be nice if not just one big expoend had the control of most scientific efforts, but many nations sharing this "privileged position".

I indeed believe US industry should invest more in research (as all other nations should do, always, no matter what). But it's worthy noting that other nations are growing and maturing too, US can't avoid that. Besides that, this is not a fight. The benefits achieved from researches aims all humanity (at least it should be that way), so it isn't important who is at the top of the list, but it is important to support studies and researches, both in academia and in industry.

Better teachers desperately needed

[Raul654]

(Preface - I'm doing a PhD in computer engineering. Both my parents are teachers [high school - one teaches languge, the other biology], and it looks like I'll be teaching an undergraduate computer-engineering course within the next year).

The BIG problem is that the quality of math and science teaching has gone to hell in a hand-basket. I've taken dozens and dozens of science, engineering, and math courses, and *maybe* 8-10 of them had good teachers (only two of them below the university level). The teachers are failing to adaquentely instruct the students.
 
Over the last 3-4 years my entire department has seen a rather dramatic drop in the competency of the students at the higher levels. The students aren't getting dumber, they are just less capable - they don't the material as well as they should, and you can't teach them everything in a 15 week course. I put almost all of the blame on the teachers they had as freshmen and in high school (and before that, even - I remember seeing in a National Science Teacher Assocation flyer that most studies show the big "black hole" in science education occurs around the 5th-8th grade)

Re:Better teachers desperately needed

[digitalhermit]

I tutored math (calc, algebra, stats) up until about five years ago. It was worse than when I tutored in college some ten years ago. One of the sadder stories was trying to show an 'A' student how to do arithmetic. He got out of high school with a good GPA but couldn't multiply decimals.

The problem goes a lot further than bad teachers, of which there are many. All the politicians do their yearly vote-grubbing by promising to improve education. In Florida, the current governor got elected with lots of education promises but now is saying that class size doesn't matter and small class sizes are not needed. We had the Lottery put in with assurances that dollars from the Lottery wouldn't replace other funds. Guess what? A few years later, lots of money was *stolen* from education to fund other pork barrel projects. We spend hundreds of millions building stadiums but scoff at putting more money into the school system. Developers are allowed to build million dollar (the Florida real estate market is booming) housing projects with government tax concessions yet are not forced to fund schools in the new developments?

Why? I think a big reason is that kids can't vote. Plus it probably makes it easier to keep the established government in power if the people can't do math and see through the bullshit.

Politicians suck. All politicians. Both parties.

Re:The more things change...

[Anonymous Coward]

Our advantage never came from having the brightest of populations, it came from having an economic and legal system that placed few barriers in the paths of the talented, which also made this country an attractive place for talented foreigners to migrate to as well (think Andy Grove, Albert Einstein or Andrew Carnegie).

This was the case until not long ago. In fact until recently I would have loved to continue my scientific career in the US, just as many other talented people did in the past. But now that I hear the magnitude and depth of the NSF budget cuts I rather stay where I am, and try to make a go at it here. I know I'm not alone in thinking like this. In fact several US based scientists have recently come this way, something that in the past rarely happened.

Re:Culture is the issue

[ilyaaohell]

The whole point is that people who are nerdy are usually shy and socially inept. The "popular" kids are always very social and extroverted. Most people earning the big bucks in this world, aside from the lonely scientist in his lab, are all extremely extroverted. All people in positions of authority are very extroverted and social.

Extroverted geniuses have a free ticket to wealth and a good social/family life. Everyone else has to work a bit at it, but generally the more social you are, the better your chances.

I would narrow this down

[Julian Morrison]

It's not even your general culture. It's your public education system, which sucks every imaginable mode of ass. It is a union-captured mediocrity-ruled Prussian-designed system absolutely intended to hammer the individual flat to the collective.

If you have a child in the USA, home-school them. Go hungry, rather than send them to government school.

if America suddenly started

[alizard]

producing more people with degrees in science and technology, just who in the USA will be hiring them? And for science careers, just what are they going to get paid? Rates of pay are good pointers towards what a society really values, and it's clear that science and technology aren't valued. The "anti-geek" attitudes in high school are more likely to be effect, not cause.

The average person who doesn't have a serious interest in a subject looks for a degree in something that will get him a career. So... we graduate lots of MBAs and lawyers.

People who are truly interested in science and technology will find a way to get educated in it, and the ones with a sense of self-preservation will be learning Chinese, Indian, and EU languages.

Make the jobs available and the expanding demand for the appropriate classes will cause more faculty to be hired... problem solved.

But I don't really consider this a problem, since the people who are in a position to DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS aren't interested in putting their own bucks on the table. Just ours.

Here's a quick and dirty idea to improve

[multiplexo]

the American educational system. Require that all teachers, all professors at public Universities, all elected officials and all appointed judicial offcicials send their kids to public schools for K-12 education. No more Bill Clinton and Al Gore going to Washington D.C and sending their kids off to private schools (Sidwell Friends, St. Albans) that are whiter than the Klan rallies that Al's daddy used to attend. No more Democratic politicians taking fuckloads of money from the teachers unions and then showing what they really think by sending their little darlings off to private schools, and if you're a public school teacher then you shouldn't have any right to your job if you're sending your kid to a private school, by doing so you're admitting that you're doing a shitty job. Quick, dirty and easy to implement. I'm not saying that this would fix all of the problems with our educational system, but I see no reason why our public servants should have the option of opting out of the public education system that we pay for. Let them start eating their own dog food as well as forcing it on the rest of us.

Re:Here's a quick and dirty idea to improve

[linguae]

Or, why don't we get rid of the dogfood in the first place? Imagine if all K-12 schools were private, and the government completely paid for the education for the poor and gave middle-class students vouchers that paid for it partially. This will finally give all parents access to "free-market education," where they get to choose the schools that best meet their child's needs, rather than be forced to go to a certin public school because it is in your neighborhood (which hinders poor children a lot, because the schools in their neighborhoods are generally pretty poor in quality). The parents would also be "stockholders" of their child(ren)'s school. There will be much less federal and state government bureaucracy, and the parents would have a greater say about what is happening with the school, since the parents vote with their dollars. Schools will also benefit a bit, becuase they can fine-tune their curricula to match their school's purpose. They don't have to deal with state- and federal-mandated standardized tests (which makes the schools more focused on having their students pass tests rather than learning the material, which means two different things). Finally, the salaries of teachers will be much more competitive, since the schools now have to compete for students and excellent teachers. Good schools and good teachers will be rewarded in the marketplace, and bad schools and bad teachers will not.

The liberals and socialists reading this are probably just shaking their heads right now, but I have a feeling that this idea is what this country (the United States) needs to improve its education system. The state and federal governments have done a horrible job with educating its children, especially those of poor and disadvantaged backgrounds. I believe that the free market and vouchers for those who need help paying for it can work much better than any government department could.

Re:Study hard, master your profession, get shit

[Courageous]

There are good groups and there are bad groups. good managers and very bad managers.

People who don't know big companies, don't realize that the truly large ones are more like many companies under one name. I work in one of America's top 10 defense companies; when the market changes around a bit, we actually shop for job (resume passing, interviews, and all) INSIDE the company. The differences in groups and even cultures is quite large.

C//

Re:Wrong. It is $$$

[Courageous]

As I have posted here numerous times, a smart person can make a lot more money in law, business, or medicine, all without having to stay in school until one is 30 (or older, depending on the number of post-docs you have to grind through).

Err. Well, I'm in this troubled spot: agreeing with you, but needing to quibble over some details. Perhaps you aren't including CS in science (old quip, "anything calling itself a science isn't"). Be that as it may:

My wife is physician. I know ALOT of physicians. Methinks you're underestimating the time commitment involved in getting started in Medicine. Other thing: it's not unusual for a physician to end residency with well over $100K in medical school debt.

I'm a software "engineer". My wife and I are the same age. If you subtract her debt service from her income, I outearn her, and that's before you add the rolling residual income from previous investments into that formula.

C//

Confessions of an Engineering Washout

[rm3friskerFTN]

A commentary over at Tech Central Station resonated with my own peculiar science & technology resume.

"Confessions of an Engineering Washout" by Douglas Kern

I am an engineering washout. I left a chemical engineering major in shame and disgust to pursue the softer pleasures of a liberal arts education. No, do not pity me, gentle reader; do not assuage your horror and dismay at my degradation by flinging a filthy quarter into my shiny tin cup. Instead, hear my story, and learn why the United States lacks engineers ....[continued]

My generalization is that most Professors/Instructors/TAs neither want to teach nor want to learn how to teach even though their primary occupation is teaching. Consequently the USA will continue to have issues churning out science & engineering graduates.

Recommendations based on memories twenty-years ago:

+ Professors/Instructors/TAs should watch a video tapes of themselves giving lectures or providing assistance during office hours

+ Professors/Instructors/TAs office-hours should occur at reasonable science & engineering times (e.g. immediately after class & late in the evening)

+ Professors/Instructors/TAs should verify that the curriculum at 'SmartyPantsU' is self-consistent. For example, does 2nd year calc really assist with 3rd year electro-dynamics and why the one year gap between learning the subject matter (vector calc) and applying the subject matter (E&M vector calc)?

+ Professors/Instructors/TAs should be engaged in small-lab research that can actively utilize the services of undergrads

+ Continued employment of Professors/Instructors/TAs to include metrics (1) post graduation surveys of alumni at one-year, five-year, ten-year points (2) subject matter GRE scores of graduates (3) end-of-course critiques (4) ???

+ Eliminate Tenure???

Re:Confessions of an Engineering Washout

[gekhond]

Perfessers this, perfessers that, come on... Do you have any idea of how tough that job is? (Hint: it's not primarily about the teaching. You can only believe that because you think a universitiy is or should be some kind of vocational school)

Your suggestions are indicative of a prevalent tendency among students to blame everyone for their failures but themselves. And why shouldn't they? Those lazy professors are easy scapegoats in a society which despises its intellectuals. Ever considered that professors and instructors (all highly educated and skilled individuals) may not want to teach precisely because of having to deal with BS like this?

I propose to have failing students watch videotapes of themselves in class. Perhaps they'll find us an answer to the question of where our best people are and why they are not training the next generation of scientists and engineers.