Op-Ed in the Dallas Business Journal by NMSI's CEO, Tom Luce.

Friday, June 19, 2009
Education with a stronger focus on math and science can combat future job losses to overseas rival

Even though employers cut jobs at a slower rate than expected in May, U.S. Labor Department figures released recently showed the unemployment rate soared to 9.4%, its highest in 25 years. With more than 5 million unemployed since the recession began - where will new jobs come from?
Some jobs will be restored as the economy picks up and employers rehire. But many more may be lost to aggressive competitors overseas unless we make creating a more educated "brainforce" a national mission.
As President Obama has pointed out, the jobs of tomorrow will come from innovations like solar cells as cheap as paint, green buildings that produce all the energy they consume, learning software that is as effective as a personal tutor and prosthetics so advanced an amputee could play the piano. He zeroed in on the crux of the matter this spring in his speech to the National Academies when he warned, "The nation that out-educates us today - will outcompete us tomorrow."
Evidence has been growing that the United States has been losing its edge in education, which in the past sparked American innovation. U.S. students recently finished well below average in international rankings by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development: 15th in reading, 19th in math and 14th in science. U.S. students ranked behind Canada, Japan and Western Europe in math and science - behind emerging European countries such as Slovenia, Estonia and even tiny Liechtenstein.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress figures released this spring showed our nation's younger students are starting to do better in math and reading, but our high school students have not made improvement since the 1970s, which means they still trail their counterparts overseas.
That's because the U.S. has been in a holding pattern while free enterprise has been energetically embraced by a new wave of countries that are vying to beat us at our own economic game. And they are beginning to do so, thanks to their stronger emphasis on math and science education.
The figures tell the story:

• Six Years ago, the nation's high-technology balance of trade went negative and has not come back. By last year, the annual gap between our high-tech exports and imports had grown to an estimated $61 billion, with the United States importing more than it exports. That gap has been shrinking so far this year, as has the total trade deficit in 2009, because we are not buying as much stuff during a recession. It's not that our country is really exporting more per se.
• Professional jobs that used to be held by Americans, not just call center jobs, are now being filled by workers overseas. Eight engineers can be hired in India for the cost of one in the United States. Five chemists can be employed in China for the cost of one in the United States. It has been estimated that one-third of current U.S. jobs are at risk of being exported in the near future.
• There are simply fewer Americans qualified for leading-edge jobs. The Department of Education estimates that 60% of the jobs opening in the 21st century will require skills that only 20% of the American work force now possess. The number of American engineers and physical scientists graduating has declined by 20% in recent years. Meanwhile, two-thirds of the students receiving doctorates in engineering in U.S. universities are not U.S. citizens.

When you do the math, the solution is clear: The United States needs to educate a work force that is more science-and math-literate. American demand for scientists and engineers is expected to grow four times faster than all other professions in the next decade, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Yet how many U.S. college students are graduating from college in the fields of math and science? Just 5%. In China, 42% do.
One of the surest ways to rev up America's faltering economy is to invest in the students who will become tomorrow's innovators. The National Math and Science Initiative is working to do that, by expanding the number of students in advanced classes and by training a new generation of math and science teachers. NMSI is an independent nonprofit founded in 2007 in response to the National Academies' 2005 report, "Rising Above the Gathering Storm," which warned that U.S. competitiveness would erode without vast improvements to math and science education. It is currently funding two programs: the Advanced Placement Training and Incentive Program, which is preparing high school students in six states to do college-level work in advanced placement classes, and the UTeach program, which is training math and science teachers at 13 universities across the country. In Texas, the University of North Texas, University of Texas at Dallas and the University of Houston all actively participate in the UTeach program.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is moving full speed as well, supporting more resources for math and science education and teacher training. But this urgent mission will take more efforts, not just from the federal government, but America's corporations and foundations, our schools and our universities.
More than the economy is at stake - we need a science-literate work force to address threats such as the swine flu outbreak, to create the clean energy that will power us forward and to protect against security threats. All of those concerns are related to the increasingly urgent need to create an American work force that is better prepared for what tomorrow may bring. We can do this and we must get to work.