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."

Comments

Re:And In Unrelated News...

[tjstork]

Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!

And yet you want a national take over of all the public schools?

Let the local boards do what they will. It's those people's communities, not yours.

Re:And In Unrelated News...

[artson]

"Math; central valley vs new england state. In a NE state, english is the dominent language and parents have a higher concern for education than the first generation illegals who use school as day care. Where algebra may be appropriate at 4th grade in a NE state, we're still working on personal hygiene for many students in the 6th grade out here."

Lou, Lou Dobbs, izzat chew?
Note that it's English with a capital E and dominant takes an 'a' not an 'e'. Careless mistakes, but when you are writing about education, correct spelling will lend credibility to your remarks.
I wouldn't normally bother about slashdot spelling, but this is a discussion about excellence in education.

Re:Distortion turned up to eleven!

[gsgriffin]

Here some things to surprise you. I lived in Worcester, South Africa from April of 2007 until July of 2008 and helped hundreds of people in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique and Madagascar. I've also devoted the last year of my life working for non-profit in development of a program that is seeking to provide help to people around the world by engaging people online. Won't go into details, you wouldn't believe it anyway.

Go get out sites like HopeVault.org and see their wealth ranking system. You can find the statistical model in lots of sites and a formula developed years ago for wealth distribution. Go to the UN, UNICEF or Worldbank for details on the poverty statistic, since you weren't aware of that either.

The conclusion drawn are obviously not in agreement with yours, and that is fine. I've seen a lot of the world that you obviously haven't. I'm sure you dedicated several years to help less fortunate people just like I have. My approach is not to give everything to them, but provide them the opportunity to help themselves. Ask anyone who has worked in Africa. That is what the people of that continent really want.

In America, we have more than enough opportunity already. Our schools are free (or very close to it). My friends in South Africa have to pay for their public school. In madagascar, you don't get to go to college and seek a degree in what you want. You submit your top choices and they tell you what is available and what you'll be allowed to study.

What does this have to do with it all. Simple. We already have enough and spend enough on schools. We can't just buy nice shiny Macs for every classroom and think kids will just jump on the science bandwagon. Provide an excellent school with more things and you'll still have kids that simply don't care and don't try because their parents don't care and don't push. That is where I started and where I'll finish.