91视频

By Jon Marcus

The Hechinger Report

BOSTON (AP) 鈥� Like a lot of high school students, Kevin Tran loves superheroes, though perhaps for different reasons than his classmates.

鈥淭hey鈥檙e all insanely smart,鈥� said Tran, 17. 鈥淚n their regular jobs they鈥檙e engineers, they鈥檙e scientists. And you can鈥檛 do any of those things without math.鈥�

Tran also loves math. This past summer, he studied calculus five hours a day with other high schoolers in a program at Northeastern University.

But Tran and his friends are not the norm. Many Americans joke about how bad they are at math, and already abysmal scores on standardized math tests are聽.

The nation needs people who are good at math, employers say, in the same way motion picture mortals need superheroes. They say America鈥檚 poor math performance isn鈥檛 funny and that it鈥檚 a threat to national security and global economic competitiveness.

鈥淭he advances in technology that are going to drive where the world goes in the next 50 years are going to come from other countries, because they have the intellectual capital and we don鈥檛,鈥� said Jim Stigler, a psychology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who studies the process of teaching and learning subjects including math.

The Defense Department has to support education in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM. It says there are聽eight times as many college graduates聽in these disciplines in China and four times as many engineers in Russia as in the United States.

鈥淭his is not an educational question alone,鈥� said Josh Wyner, vice president of The Aspen Institute think tank. In July, the think tank warned that other nations are challenging America鈥檚 technological dominance.

鈥淲e are no longer keeping pace with other countries, particularly China,鈥� the Aspen report says, calling this a 鈥渄angerous鈥� failure and urging decision-makers to make education a national security priority.

Meanwhile, the 鈥� positions that 鈥渦se arithmetic and apply advanced techniques to make calculations, analyze data and solve problems鈥� 鈥斅爓ill increase by more than 30,000 per year聽through the end of this decade, Bureau of Labor Statistics figures show. That鈥檚 much faster than for most other kinds of occupations.

鈥淢athematics is becoming more and more a part of almost every career,鈥� said Michael Allen, who chairs the math department at Tennessee Technological University.

Tennessee Tech runs a summer camp teaching cybersecurity, which requires math, to high school students.

鈥淭hat lightbulb goes off and they say, 鈥楾hat鈥檚 why I need to know that,鈥欌�� Allen said.

Computer-related jobs 鈥� ranging from software development to semiconductor production 鈥� require math, too. Analysts say those fields have or will develop labor shortages.

But most American students aren鈥檛 prepared for those jobs. In the most recent in math, U.S. students scored聽lower than their counterparts in 36 other education systems聽worldwide. Students in China scored the highest. Only one in five college-bound American high school students is聽聽in STEM, according to the National Science and Technology Council.

One result: Students from other countries are preparing to lead these fields. Only one in five graduate students in math-intensive subjects including computer science and electrical engineering at U.S. universities are American, the National Foundation for American Policy reports. The rest come from abroad. Most will leave the U.S. when they finish their programs.

In the U.S., poor math skills could mean lower salaries for today鈥檚 kids. that if U.S. pandemic math declines are not reversed, students now in kindergarten through grade 12聽will earn from 2 percent to 9 percent less聽over their careers, depending on what state they live in, than their predecessors educated just before the start of the pandemic.

But it also means the country鈥檚 productivity and competitiveness could slide.

鈥淢ath just underpins everything,鈥� said Megan Schrauben, executive director of the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity鈥檚 MiSTEM initiative, which tries to get more students into STEM. 鈥淚t鈥檚 extremely important for the future prosperity of our students and communities, but also our entire state.鈥�

In Massachusetts, employers are anticipating a shortage over the next five years聽of 11,000 workers聽in the life sciences alone.

鈥淚t鈥檚 not a small problem,鈥� said Edward Lambert Jr., executive director of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education. 鈥淲e鈥檙e just not starting students, particularly students of color and from lower-resourced families, on career paths related to math and computer science and those things in which we need to stay competitive, or starting them early enough.鈥�

The Bridge to Calculus program at Northeastern, where Kevin Tran spent his summer, is one response to that. The 113 participating students were paid $15 an hour, most of it from Boston and its public schools, said the program鈥檚 coordinator, Bindu Veetel. The university provided the classroom space and some of the teachers.

The students鈥� days began at 7:30 a.m., when teacher Jeremy Howland had them run exercises in their heads. Students learned to apply that knowledge in coding, data analysis, robotics and elementary electrical engineering classes.

It鈥檚 not just a good deed that Northeastern is doing. Some of the graduates of Bridge to Calculus end up enrolling there and proceeding to its highly ranked computer science and engineering programs, which 鈥� like those at other U.S. universities 鈥� struggle to attract homegrown talent.

These American high school students said they understand why their classmates don鈥檛 like math.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a struggle; it鈥檚 constant thinking,鈥� said Steven Ramos, 16, who said he plans to become a computer or electrical engineer instead of following his brother and other relatives into construction work.

But with time, the answers come into focus, said Wintana Tewolde, also 16, who wants to be a doctor.

鈥淚t鈥檚 not easy to understand, but once you do, you see it,鈥� she said.

Peter St. Louis-Severe, 17, said math, to him, is fun.

鈥淚t鈥檚 the only subject I can truly understand, because most of the time it has only one answer,鈥� said St. Louis-Severe, who hopes to be a mechanical or chemical engineer.

Not everyone is convinced that a lack of math skills is holding America back.

What employers really want 鈥渋s trainability, the aptitude of people being able to learn the systems and solve problems,鈥� said Todd Thibodeaux, president and CEO of CompTIA, an information technology trade association. Other countries, he said, 鈥渁re dying for the way our kids learn creativity.鈥�