In 2013, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (or NAEP, known as “The Nation’s Report Card”) revealed that only twenty-six percent of our nation’s twelfth graders were scoring at or above proficient in math while thirty-five percent were failing.1 To put it another way, almost forty percent of Americans about to enter the workforce, military, college, and achieving voting age do so unable to perform basic mathematics. That is, they cannot, among other things, “compute, approximate, and estimate with real numbers” or “order and compare real numbers and perform routine arithmetic calculations with and without a scientific calculator or spreadsheet.”2
Here, astoundingly to me, is a sample question from a recent NAEP math test for high school seniors, a sample question nearly forty percent of our nation’s seniors got wrong:
360 x .03=
a) 10.8
b) 108
c) 120
d) 980
e) 1,0803
Almost fifteen percent of the respondents selected answer “d” or “e,” which is to say almost fifteen percent of our nation’s high school students thought three percent of 360 was a number greater than 360.
The larger point here is that the state of American STEM education is not good. Indeed, it is terrible. As a result, we are depriving millions of children the opportunity for productive and great careers, and depriving our country the workforce and brain-power we need. We are in crisis—a crisis that it is imperiling our future economy and position in the world.
This is not to say that good STEM teachers, students, or programs do not exist. They do. What I am saying is that, as a general matter, our country is failing our students and itself. Consider a few more statistics.
In measuring our fifteen-year-olds against their peers in other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries in the field of science in 2012, our students came in twenty-first, below such countries as Estonia, Poland, and Ireland.4 In measuring our fifteen-year-olds against peers in other OECD countries in the field of math, our students came in twenty-sixth, below such countries as Liechtenstein, Iceland, and the Czech Republic.5 Over and over again, the places that come in at the top? Shanghai, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan. Upon the release of these rankings and scores, the Wall Street Journal editorialized: “Perhaps most depressingly, the data show no statistically significant U.S. achievement improvement over time. None. In an era when it pays to be thankful for small mercies, at least we’re not getting worse, but America’s relative standing is falling as other countries improve.”6
While every test has its critics, the OECD test, known as the “Program for International Student Assessment” (or PISA), is highly respected. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said of the results from the 2009 test, which showed results similar to those of the 2012 test, “We can quibble, or we can face the brutal truth that we’re being out-educated.”7 Secretary Duncan is right, but he could go further. We are being out-educated because we are simply not realizing our potential. We are a nation under-taught and under-educated. The fault is ours.
When it comes to our own scores at home, the news looks even worse. NAEP, as mentioned above, measures our students in a variety of subjects at different grade levels; it is administered to hundreds of thousands of students in America and is known as “the gold standard” of testing. Almost all education experts hold it in high regard.8 In the most recent assessment of fourth and eighth graders, released in 2013, we found that only thirty-four percent of our nation’s fourth graders were “proficient” at math—that is, they were at an achievement level one would think of as “competent” or higher—and seventeen percent were “below basic” in their mathematics abilities. In other words, almost one out of five fourth graders were failing math.9 By eighth grade, the numbers were even worse: twenty-seven percent of our nation’s eighth graders were performing at the proficient level while a full twenty-six percent were scoring below basic, or failing.10 By high school, as we saw above, the numbers were worse yet.11
Given all the resources we have at our disposal today, given all the money we pour into school systems (over $600 billon a year in America in elementary and secondary education funding alone) and into studies on how to educate, it is nothing short of tragic that a majority of our nation’s students score below a standard of competence, or proficient. Looking at the trend where fourth graders score better than eighth graders, who score better than twelfth graders, former U.S. Secretary of Education and Project Lead The Way (PLTW) Senior Advisor William J. Bennett observes: “The longer one stays in school in America, the worse one does.”12
When it comes to science education, we do dismally as well. In fourth grade, the latest NAEP scores (from 2009) show a thirty-four percent proficiency rate and a twenty-eight percent failure rate.13 In eighth grade, the most recent NAEP (from 2011) reveals thirty-two percent of our students scoring proficiently and thirty-five percent failing.14 And our twelfth graders? The most recent assessment for them (2009) shows a twenty-one percent proficiency rate and a full forty percent failure rate15—worse than they do in math and, still, an upside-down trajectory where the longer students stay in school, the worse they perform.
The state of our STEM education does not have to be this way, but more importantly, it cannot stay this way. The good news is, while there is rampant failure and mediocrity throughout our nation’s education system, there are great examples where this is simply not happening, where success is the norm. However, if America is going to remain the—or just a—leading nation, we must ignite a fierce urgency throughout our nation’s education system. We must move from pockets of excellence to a system of excellence.
To highlight the need for this fierce urgency, we only need go to the most recent White House report from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (or PCAST). The President’s Council opened its February 2012 report stating, “Economic projections point to a need for approximately one million more STEM professionals than the U.S. will produce at the current rate over the next decade if the country is to retain its historical preeminence in science and technology. To meet this goal, the United States will need to increase the number of students who receive undergraduate STEM degrees by about thirty-four percent annually over current rates.”16 We are not on course to do this - not at the elementary, secondary, or post-secondary levels of education.
This is a challenging proposition given our students’ lack of interest and poor performance in science and math. A recent report suggested that about twenty-eight percent of high school freshmen (one million high school students) declare an interest in STEM-related fields each year, but some fifty-seven percent of them will lose interest over the course of their high school careers.17 We lose about 570,000 STEM-eager high school students each year by their senior year in high school. We are turning off over half a million brains to the fields of math and science in high school alone…every year!
And, nowhere near a majority of high school students are even competent in subjects like math and science, never mind advanced. Only three percent of our nation’s high school seniors score at an “advanced” level in math on the NAEP test,18 while only one percent of our nation’s high school seniors score at an “advanced” level in science.19 A portion of these are the students who most likely will go on to attain graduate degrees in those fields, attend the best colleges and universities in those fields, and ultimately go on to become leaders in their fields in academics, medicine, research, or industry. One recent report puts that portion at about seventeen percent!20
So, by the time we have high school seniors competent in science and math, and still interested in STEM fields and careers, we have a woefully inadequate pool or pipeline. Then they get to college. And there, less than forty percent of college students who enter college intent on a degree in the STEM fields stay on course and graduate with that STEM degree.21 We lose students’ interest in high school if we were fortunate enough to have encouraged those students in elementary and middle school in the first place; and then of those who stay interested, we lose a majority of them in college.
We simply cannot go on this way, not if the serious reports on the future needs of this country are to be taken seriously, and they should be. The current STEM workforce is about 7.4 million employees with an estimated 8.6 million employees needed by 2018.22 And that is just a minimum projection. America cannot win by simply maintaining the number of students who pursue STEM-related degrees; we need to inspire over one million more, and that is just to stay the course with the current economy. But, we are not on that trajectory. We are nowhere near it.