America’s Brain Drain Crisis Losing the Global Edge
William Kurtz is a self-described computer geek. A more apt description
might be computer genius. When he was just 11, Kunz started writing software
programs, and by 14 he had created his own video game. As a high school
sophomore in Houston, Texas, he won first prize in a local science fair for a
data encryption(编密码) program he wrote. In his senior year, he took top prize in
an international science and engineering fair for designing a program to analyze
and sort DNA patterns. Kunz went on to attend Carnegie Mellon,
among the nation’s highest-ranked universities in computer science. After
college he landed a job with Oracle in Silicon Valley, writing software used by
companies around the world. Kunz looked set to become a star in
his field. Then he gave it all up. Today, three years later,
Kurtz is in his first year at Harvard Business School. He left software
engineering partly because his earning potential paled next to friends who were
going into law or business. He also worried about job security; especially as
more companies move their programming overseas to lower costs. "Every time
you’re asked to train someone in India, you think, ’Am I training my
replacement’" Kunz says. Things are turning out very
differently for another standout in engineering, Qing-Shan Jia. A student at
Tsinghua University in Beijing, Jia shines even among his gifted cohorts(一群人) at
a school sometimes called "the MIT of China". He considered applying to Harvard
for his PhD, but decided it wasn’t worth it. His university is
investing heavily in cutting-edge research facilities, end attracts an
impressive roster of international professors. "I can get a world-class
education here end study with world-class scholars," Jia says,
These two snapshots(快照) illustrate part of a deeply disturbing picture. In
the disciplines underpinning the high-tech economy-math, science and
engineering---America is steadily losing its global edge. The depth and breadth
of the problem is clear: · Several of America’s key
agencies for scientific research and development will face a retirement crisis
within the next ten years. · Less than 6% of America’s
high school seniors plan to pursue engineering degrees, down 36% from a decade
ago. · In 2000, 56% of China’s undergraduate degrees were
in the hard sciences; in the United States, the figure was 17%.
· China will likely produce six times the number of engineers next year
than America will graduate, according to Mike Gibbons of the American Society
for Engineering Education. Japan, with half America’s population, has minted
(铸造) twice as many in recent years. "Most Americans are’ unaware
of how much science does for this country end what we stand to lose if we can’t
keep up," says Shirley Ann Jackson, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute and chair of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
David Baltimore, president of the California Institute of Technology and a Nobel
laureate, puts it bluntly: "We can’t hope to keep intact our standard of living,
our national security, our way of life, if Americans aren’t competitive in
science." The Crisis Americans Created In January
2001, the Hart-Rudman Commission, tasked with finding solutions to America’s
major national security threats, concluded that the failures of America’s math
and science education and America’s system of research "pose a greater
threat...than any potential conventional war." The roots of this
failure lie in primary and secondary education. The nation that produced most of
the great technological advances of the last century now scores poorly in
international science testing. A 2003 survey of math and science literacy ranked
American 15-year-olds against kids from other industrialized nations. In math,
American students came in 24th out of 28 countries; in science, Americans were
24th out of 40 countries, tied with Latvia. This test, in conjunction with
others, indicates Americans start out with sufficient smarts--their
fourth-graders score well--but they begin to slide by eighth grade, and sink
almost to the bottom by high school. Don’t blame school budgets.
Americans shell out more than $440 billion each year on public education, and
spend mom per capita than any nation save Switzerland. The problem is that too
many of their high school science and math teachers just aren’t qualified. A
survey in 2000 revealed that 38% of math teachers and 28% of science teachers in
grades 7-12 lacked a college major or minor in their subject area. In schools
with high poverty rates, the figures jumped to 52% of math teachers and 32% of
science teachers. "The highest predictor of student performance boils down to
teacher knowledge," says Gerald Wheeler, executive director of the National
Science Teachers Association. To California Congressman Buck McKeon, a member of
the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, it comes down to this:
"How can you pass on a passion to your students if you don’t know the
subject" Perhaps it’s no surprise that, according to a 2004
Indiana University survey, 18% of college prep kids weren’t taking math their
senior year of high school. "When I compare our high schools to what I see when
I’m traveling abroad, I’m terrified for our workforce of tomorrow," Microsoft
chairman Bill Gates told a summit of state governors earlier this year. "Our
high schools, even when they’re working exactly as designed, cannot teach our
kids what they need to know today." The Bush Administration has
also proposed cutting the fiscal 2006 budget for research and development in
such key federal agencies as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the latter of which acts
as a liaison(联络) with industry and researchers to apply new
technology. "Funding cuts are job cuts," says Rep. Vernon J.
Ehlers, Republican of Michigan and a member of the Science Committee in the
House. Reduced funding has put the squeeze on research positions, further
smothering incentives(动机) for students to go into hard science. What
Americans Must Do Americans have done it before: the
Manhattan Project, the technology surge that followed Sputnik. They’ve
demonstrated that they can commit themselves to daunting goals and achieve them.
But they can’t minimize the challenges they’re facing. Americans
need out-of-the-box thinking, of the sort suggested by experts in a report
released in October called "Rising above the Gathering Storm", a study group
within the National Academy of Sciences, which included the National Academy of
Engineering and the Institute of Medicine, came up with innovative proposals.
Among them are: · Four-year scholarships for 25,000
undergraduate students who commit to degrees in math, science or engineering,
and who qualify based on a competitive national exam; ·
Four-year scholarships for 10,000 college students who commit to being math or
science teachers, and who agree to teach in a public school for five years after
graduation; · Extended visas for foreign students who
earn a math or science PhD in the United States, giving them a year alter
graduation to look for employment here. If they find jobs, work permits and
permanent residency status would be expedited. Many experts are
also urging that non-credentialed but knowledgeable people with industry
experience be allowed to teach. That experiment is already underway at High Tech
High in San Diego. Conceived by Gary Jacobs, whose father founded Qualcomm, this
charter school stresses a cutting-edge curriculum, whether the classes are on
biotechnology or web design. To teach these courses, the school hires industry
professionals. High Tech High also arranges internships at robotics labs,
Internet start-ups and university research centers. In just five
years, 750 kids have enrolled, three classes have graduated and the vast
majority of students have gone on to college. One of the success stories is Jeff
Jensen, class of 2005, who was a decidedly apathetic (缺乏兴趣的) student before High
Tech High. He is now a freshman at Stanford University on a partial scholarship,
planning to study chemistry or medicine. IBM is one of the
companies encouraging its workers to teach. This past September, IBM announced a
tuition-assistance plan, pledging to pay for teacher certification as well as a
leave of absence for employees who wish t6 teach in public schools.
The philanthropic(博爱的) arms of corporations are also getting involved. The
Siemens Foundation sponsors a yearly math, science and technology competition,
considered the Nobel Prize for high school research and a great distiller of
American talent. Honeywell spends $2 million each year on science programs
geared to middle school students, including a hip-hop touring group that teaches
physical science, and a robotics lab program that teaches kids how to design,
build and program their own robot. "We’ve found that if we don’t get kids
excited about science by middle school, it’s too late," says Michael Holland, a
spokesperson for Honeywell. As important as ail these
initiatives are, they barely begin to take Americans where they need to go.
Americans’ shortcomings are vast, and time, unfortunately, is working against
them. "The whole world is running a race," says Intel’s Howard
High, "only we don’t know it." No one knows whether or when the United States
will relinquish(放弃) its lead in that race. Or how far hack in the pack they
could ultimately fall. But the first order of business is to recognize what’s at
stake and get in the game. Americans’ shortcomings in science are vast, and unfortunately ______ is making efforts to defeat them.