"That public education is in a state of crisis today is well known. There is less agreement on the cause and on the cure. I can only hope that those who recognize the urgent need of improving public education in this country will not exhaust their efforts in looking for a scapegoat, but will join in attacking the problem at its very roots."
Science and math education sucks :
"The teaching of the physical sciences and mathematics in our secondary schools has declined; about half of those with talents in these fields who graduate from high school are either unable or uninterested in going to college; and of the half who enter college, scarcely 40 percent graduate. The task of reversing these disturbing trends is in large measure up to our public schools and their teachers. It is up to our teachers' colleges and their graduates."
and, the Soviet Union will bury "us" (substitute China and India, as Thomas Friedman would):
"The Soviet Union already has available for this work more engineers and scientists than we presently have in any capacity in this country, and very nearly as many as this country and Western Europe combined. In recent years, the output of new engineers and scientists in the U.S.S.R. has surpassed that of the total United States and Western Europe graduating classes in these fields - their current enrollment of such students in institutions of higher education exceeds our own - and we are already falling short of even our current needs. Their lead may become even more serious, and in the most critical areas of technical knowledge within the next decade, according to Allen Dulles of the CIA, "unless we quickly take new measures to increase our facilities for scientific education."
From: 1960.
No comments:
Post a Comment