U.S. on Top

• Make robust, highly targeted federal investments in science, engineering, and mathematics education. The Education Department’s Race to the Top program, for example, is offering $4.35 billion in competitive grants to states with smart plans to improve teaching and learning, with science, math, and engineering education — including investments in teachers and school leaders — highlighted as major criteria in the awards process. 

• Tap the diversity of America to bring new approaches to discovery, design, and innovation. Women and girls, students of color, and individuals with disabilities often face barriers that discourage participation in science and engineering. By engaging their diversity of experiences and approaches, we can accelerate discovery and the development of new technologies and jobs.

• Get the private sector involved. Through the administration’s Educate to Innovate initiative, corporations, philanthropies, science and engineering societies, and non-profits have responded to the president’s call for partnership, donating more than $500 million in funds and in-kind services to improve science, engineering, and mathematics education.

• Make science and engineering a hands-on subject again. Programs such as National Lab Day are linking the expertise and enthusiasm of the nation’s talented scientists, engineers and community volunteers with students and teachers to bring more real-world-relevant, hands-on activities into the classroom.

• Raise the public profile of science, engineering, and mathematics. The president has been doing his part, hosting Astronomy Night on the White House Lawn, for example, which got 150 middle school students looking through telescopes with the first family; honoring science and mathematics teachers and mentors at the White House earlier this month; and just last week visiting Loraine County, Ohio’s “Fab Lab,” a community college-based facility where students operate high-tech fabrication tools. It’s also why he committed to join both of us in a campaign to recruit the next generation of teachers — especially in subjects suffering from shortages, such as science and math.

What do you think? Are Duncan's and Holden's recommendations sound?