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Obama Kicks Off Massive Science Education Effort
In a speech at the White House today, President Obama launched a new campaign, "Educate to Innovate," designed to get American students fired up about science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). The full text of the speech is also available on whitehouse.gov. "The new campaign builds on the President's Inaugural Address, which included a vow to put science 'in its rightful place.' One of those rightful places, of course, is the classroom. Yet too often our schools lack support for teachers or the other resources needed to convey the practical utility and remarkable beauty of science and engineering. As a result, students become overwhelmed in their classes and ultimately disengaged. They lose, and our nation loses too. The partnerships launched today aim to change that. They respond to a challenge made by the President in April, when he spoke at the annual meeting of the National Academy of Sciences and asked the nation's philanthropists, professional and educational societies, corporations, and individuals to collaborate and innovate with the goal of reinvigorating America's STEM educational enterprise. The partnerships announced today — dramatic commitments in the hundreds of millions of dollars, generated through novel collaborations and creative outreach activities — are just the first wave of commitments anticipated in response to his call."
I don't know what it stands for now but in a few years it'll be referred to as:
STupid Education Mandates
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
still can't compete with PS, Xbox, Wii, DS, etc.
If it were easier for hobbyists to run homemade code on the aforementioned platforms, there might be incentive to teach STEM through gaming. XNA is a start for college, but that still leaves high school because XNA Creators Club members must be 18+.
>>>poor schooling in the fields of Language Arts, Drama/Theatre, and Humanitarian studies.
I see the value of Language Arts (so we can communicate) and History (so we don't repeat the same mistakes), but not the rest of it. Why do I need to take a theater class? If I wanted to act, then I'd act. Or better yet, just watch other people act. I don't feel like wasting time on stuff I don't want to do, or need for my job.
Same goes for Gym/Sports. At my last reunion I saw several of my school's former football players and other athletes. They are all fat and out-of-shape. That was several million dollars that could have been spent on real courses. The athletes could have learned something useful, like reading.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
With all due respect "return the control of education to local school boards" will do nothing more than bring full-blown mental retardation back to the forefront of societal problems.
Especially in the deep South and other areas infested with crap-assed-christanity.
We NEED to have some standards. Maybe they can be hands-off like a standardized NATIONAL test that a student must pass to graduate, and everything before is up to the boards.
But school boards are the first inroad to all sorts of whack jobs that should not have any control over the future of our nation. Unless the rest of us can start air-dropping the human failures into war zones with instructions to come back with left hands of the enemy, creating your own little fiefdom of retardation in your local area inflicts massive pain and problems on the rest of us that actually give a shit about educating children.
So. Umn, no, that's a stupid idea.
The world already has more Art and Theater and Football graduates than it needs. Why expand the pool?
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Additionally, there may or may not be a relatively high percentage of home-schooled spelling bee contestants - but - for every home-schooled genius there will be 5 home-schooled idiots whose zealot parents took 'em out of school because public schools don't teach bible study 3 hours a day. Many of those don't end up at Harvard or Julliard.
Just sayin'.
You say that as a bad thing, but then ignore that children are being taught Evolution against the wishes of the parents, and in violation of their religious beliefs. It seems to me that ANY kind of indoctrination is wrong.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Who is going to develop drugs once there is no longer any money in it? At present, the United States represents more than 82% of the global spending on biomedical research and development. Other countries should either pay their fair share, or go without our drugs.
And before you start spouting off with bullshit statistics regarding infant mortality, know that the only valid comparison is patient outcomes for identical issues. Other countries like to grossly under report things like infant mortality by discounting children that died within 24 hours of birth, and those born prematurely. The United States leads in both patient outcomes, and in medical innovation.
You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. - Winston Churchill
That's only because your country doesn't adequately contribute to biomedical research and development. The US pays for 82% of global biomedical R&D.
You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. - Winston Churchill
But would you have a problem with the two ideologies being taught side-by-side? As a creationist, I was taught both ideologies, and made my choice as to what I believe. I'm not in favor of pushing evolution out of the classroom, but I do think it's wrong to push creationism out just because the vast majority of slashdotters don't believe it.
i know, i know...it's flamebait...
If Kansas wants to teach creationism, let them. If you don't want your child to learn creationism, don't live there.
This is the stupidest post I've seen on a long time. How old are you? Are you still in a college dorm? There are people who can't afford to move out of Kansas and who would like their children to enjoy their constitutional right for an education that will make them competitive. What would you suggest to them?
Originally, that was the whole point of having states. Different states could execute policies differently and individuals would chose where to live based on how those policies met their needs.
Uh, how nice that you forget to mention the whole point of the federal government and its power to dictate policy to the states on different legal subjects (interstate commerce, national defense, currency, etc.)
Kinda like a free market, but with government.
Except that free market and government are not comparable. That statement right there is an indictment to your education.
Part of the whole idea of "freedom" is letting people make the "wrong" choice.
And here is where you show your ignorance on governance and the meaning of freedom. You might have a point if every single person in Kansas wanted this kind of shit, and if the long term consequences of their economy and national unity HAD NO CONSEQUENCE WHATSOEVER to the other states and peoples of the union. If we were to take this "freedom means being able to make the wrong choice" to its logical conclusion, we could argue that committing a crime (a wrong choice) is also part of freedom. It isn't. Freedom is not some absolute thing that exists outside some form of regulation. Not even in the most "primitive"/egalitarian societies of today do you see such a crazy notion.
Your right to make the wrong choice ends where it has probable cause to negatively affect someone else. The idea of a board of education is to improve the education of the masses, to make them more competitive.
When that fails, when a significant sector of the population chooses to go backwards, causing the whole nation to become less competitive, that's where their right to go wrong ends. That's the price of being members of the union.
That's a fucking odd thing to say from a guy who has a wife that looks like a prison camp guard!
Hint: you're responding to my sig, and you don't seem to know the context.
Ah, who am I kidding. You don't have a cunt's worth of brain cells in your head. I can't expect you to understand a simple English sentence.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!