As I mentioned in earlier posts, I’ve been researching workforce issues facing the engineering community, and focusing particularly on recruiting and retention of women and minorities to the field. 

I attended a meeting April 29 – it was called a convocation – led by the National Academies. The gathering was a follow-up to the release of a report two years ago called “Rising Above the Gathering Storm.” The morning sessions featured an impressive roster of speakers – from astronaut Sally Ride to Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. Everyone, it seems, has something to say about math and science education in America. And most of it isn’t very positive. 

For the first time in a long time, the U.S. is lagging. Our universities are still the best in the world, but the students studying there aren’t necessarily homegrown – and when our foreign guests complete their educations, they’re taking their skills home with them. The original report identified two key challenges: creating high-quality jobs for Americans and responding to the nation’s need for clean, affordable and reliable energy. It also recommended four actions and steps for implementation: 

1. Increase America’s talent pool by vastly improving K-12 science and mathematics education.
2. Sustain and strengthen the nation’s traditional commitment to long-term basic research that has the potential to be transformational to maintain the flow of new ideas that fuel the economy, provide security and enhance the quality of life.
3. Make the U.S. the most attractive setting in which to study and perform research so that we can develop, recruit and retain the best and brightest students, scientists and engineers from within the U.S. and throughout the world.
4. Ensure the U.S. is the premier place in the world to innovate; invest in downstream activities such as manufacturing and marketing; and create high-paying jobs based on innovation by such actions as modernizing the patent system, realigning tax policies to encourage innovation, and ensuring affordable broadband access.

Federal legislation, together with studies conducted by the Council on Competitiveness and the Presidential Advisory on Science and Technology, among other initiatives, have “helped maintain the public focus on the importance of education and research,” said Charles Vest, National Academy of Engineering President. But progress needs to accelerate. “It’s time for action. The enemy I fear most is complacency. We’re about to be hit by the full force of global competition.” 

The key to global competition is innovation, Norm Augustine said. Augustine is the CEO Emeritus of Lockheed Martin and the convocation chairman. He chaired the Gathering Storm report, and has been paying close attention to global trends in math and science. In his presentation, Augustine ran down a list of accomplishments in math and science education, and then noted the achievements all belonged to countries other than the U.S. “It would be a cruel outcome if the Gathering Storm report motivated others to become more competitive while we did little,” he said. 

Wayne Clough, president of the Georgia Institute of Technology, weighed in: “It’s a little bit of a misnomer to say nothing has happened [since the report was issued]. It’s more accurate to say not much has happened in this country, but a lot has happened everywhere else.” When the report was posted online, 300,000 downloads were recorded – from countries outside the U.S. 

“We fund the industries of the 19^th century and refuse to fund basic research and development, education and industries fot he 21^st century,” Craig Barrett, Intel chairman said. “The [rest of the world] realizes the future is the power of your workforce…the future of ideas.” 

Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said the time has come for a “new Manhattan Project.”  In 1942, he said, the world feared the country to develop the first atomic bomb could blackmail everyone else. “Today, countries that supply oil and natural gas can blackmail the rest of the world,” he said. “We need to guarantee victory over that kind of extortion. Concentrating brainpower to that kind of idea isn’t new.” But that brainpower can only come if it’s fostered and encouraged from an early age. 

Secretary of Energy Sam Bodman encouraged Congress to fully fund the science request in the fiscal 2009 budget to “get us back on track…If we are to confront [the energy] challenge now, we in government must continue to attract top talent into our ranks.” 

What will the incoming Administration do to help tackle these issues? Intel’s chairman pointed out that not one candidate has mentioned the issue of math and science education yet. “It seems to me this is the Sputnik of the 21^st century,” he said. “Why neither party has picked up on the use of energy to get young people interested, to fund more math, science and engineering… There is this softball teed up for someone to hit and no one even has a bat in their hands.”