Science funding dips in U.S., soars in China — More bad news dept.
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that China is graduating four times as many engineers as the United States. (Japan, with less than half our population, graduates twice as many.) Yes, China has a far larger population, but the U.S. supposedly has a far superior educational system.
Perhaps we did once, but we’re busy destroying it now. Indeed, the extremist edge of America’s religious right has instituted a war on science. The teaching of evolution, which most scientists accept as the foundation of modern biology, is under assault in classrooms from Kansas to Georgia to Pennsylvania.
The Bush administration routinely intimidates or silences its own scientists if their findings contradict administration policy or would anger Christian conservatives. A Web page of the National Cancer Institute used to state, correctly, that the best research shows “no association between abortion and breast cancer.” Now, the Web site says the research is inconclusive. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been similarly hampered in efforts to disseminate factual information about condom use.
“As a percentage of GDP, federal investment in physical science research is half of what it was in 1970. (By contrast), in China, R&D expenditures rose 350 percent between 1991 and 2001, and the number of science and engineering Ph.D.s soared 535 percent.”
In finding fault with the right’s assault on science, don’t forget to find fault in the left’s assault on quality.
The problem is more than the lack of funding. The simple fact is that many American children simply aren’t interested in the sciences. The popular media image of scientists as geeks doesn’t help. Go look at the science classes at any university. The classrooms are filled with foreign students. The American kids are in the business and liberal arts classes. The task of obtaining an advanced degree in the sciences is daunting and most American students simply don’t want to do it.
The bigger problem with this story is that it is obvious that Cynthia Tucker has a political ax to grind. She hates Bush and the “religious right”, and her political viewpoint has tainted her objectivity. I thought Bush’s No Child Left Behind act was an “investment” in education. He has spent more money and resources on education than most presidents, much to the chagrin of many conservatives. Still the liberal left is not happy. In addition, her accusations that the religious right is undermining education are simply ludicrous.
It’s easy to spout off opinions. Let’s see some facts to back them up. I’d like to see her prove that the Bush administration intimidated the CDC or the National Cancer Institute. If they have hampered the dissemination of information so effectively, how does she know about it? It always makes me laugh when some nutty liberal spouts off about some cover-up by the republicans. Yeah, they did such a great job suppressing the information that you are spouting off about it in the national media.
Cynthia Tucker needs to wake up and take a whiff of reality. What should scare the crap out of everyone is that someone as obviously incompetent as her is an editor at one of the country’s largest newspapers. It’s no wonder that fiascoes like the latest Newsweek debacle are happening more frequently at all of the major media outlets.
Anonymous
I do not see the correlation. The Left has no pretense on assuming that it and it alone has jurisdiction over anything, including Quality.
Quality is often used synonymously with luxury or goodness.
Quality can also mean built to extremely exacting standards.
Quality, in my profession, means “fitness for use” or “will do the job it was intended to do”.
Quality can also mean a specific characteristic.
I am totally unaware of any assault on any of these definitions by the “Left”.
As was recently seen in Kansas, the religious Right made a mockery of Science in the interest of advancing their own agenda. With well-known and preconceived conclusions, the Kansas Education Board held a sham of a hearing into science and especially evolution.
The National Science Council is a shell of its former self due to resignations over Bush policy and appointment of unqualified and agenda based members.
The list goes on and on. But please, Anonymous explain about this assault on Quality.
What does research money spent hav e to do with undergrads choosing a major?
(Although I did drop Physics as a major because Congress killed the Superconducting Super Collider in 1993. Or maybe it’s cuz physics was too much like hard work.)
Perhaps we could keep the Death Tax, and provide a checkbox on the estate tax filing form to donate one’s taxes to the NSF or NIH for basic research.
Our basic research funding is dropping or not keeping pace, which is disturbing. Another aspect of our economy “hollowing out.” But maybe that’s better than chasing research fads like Nanotechnology.
The private sector provides a lot more science funding in the US than in other countries.
Also keep in mind, our funding numbers started from a much higher base (right after we went to the moon.) And as other countries grow richer, they will spend more money on R&D, so China’s increased spending is to be expected.
In finding fault with the right’s assault on science, don’t forget to find fault in the left’s assault on quality.
Gotta have the “fair and balanced” view point !
Man, I am sick of this rubbish – sometimes there isn’t a balance, sometimes one side is just f**ked up.
Let’s see…our educational system encourages kids to be “introduced” to geometry, word problems, and fractions by third grade. Why is this? It’s.before most kids have even mastered addition/subtraction and multiplication/division. The mandated tests are all anyone “works to learn”. Mastery of the basics is largely ignored.
It seems the “American Way” is to introduce too much, too fast, and then move on. Sesame Street pacing. At best, kids gleen a cursory knowledge of the subject. Most kids, by fourth of fifth grade, confess to not “get” math, finding it confusing and uninteresting. And, many, many junior high and high school students still have not memorized the multiplication table or “get” long division!
I’m not surprised science isn’t a choice. I’m not surprised engineering isn’t a choice.
But look at the sorry state of our “education”, which we like to claim is the “best on Earth”. Classroom size is between 25 and 33 students (in the lower grades) in many schools (the Feds don’t actually KEEP records of the class size per state, for unknown reasons). Some high school classes can be 60 or more. Schools are moving towards larger and larger “warehouse” facilities (which look like minimum security prisons) with more admistrators, more arbitrary rules, and whatever is “cost effective” from a beancounters perspective.
Math, and everything else, is taught by AGE/GRADE not aptitude or skill (so the ones who “get it” are bored to tears, while the ones who do not, are pushed on without any extra help or a lower pace). Although the government mandates help for kids with disabilities, the common theme is for a school “expert” to downplay the problem, avoid testing, and keep the kid mainstreamed — and teach to the slowest student, not the brighest. Really bright kids are dumbed down. There’s no reason to excell…you have thirteen years (k-12) to endure…and skipping ahead is now frowned upon as bad for socialization skills.
Our education system is in a shambles…..and all Bush’s push for “no child left behind” has only made it worse, although it was heading in that direction, anyway. It should be a shared blame — left and right.
It’s become all about test scores…no learning. It’s about tenured teachers, and policies.It’s about “a childs self esteem”. It’s about textbooks that don’t offend anyone (with the requisite one asian, one black, one disabled, hispanic, one white child in a “balance” in photos and illustrations in the books). Our textbooks are about political correctness and phrases that do not offend anyone, ever. (Many school districts even have abandoned reading the “Little House” series because they depict women in only traditional roles. History textbooks in California must have representation by figures of history “other than white males” in equal numbers. Doesn’t matter what the real history is, put some other people in the text, and minimize the white males.)
As for “self esteem”. It’s nice to have warm fuzzy feelings, and sure, in theory, alll learning should be fun…but is it really possible? Can any learning happen without the rote memorization, and the boring parts of it, the unrelenting pressure to master and subject, and the frustrations in the pursuit? Kids, like water, will seek the lowest ground. It’s human nature to take the easiest path. Doesn’t mean it’s okay.
Our educational system is graduating functional illiterates. Jay Leno makes fun of this on a regular basis. People don’t know Idaho from Ohio, muchless the state capitals of either. Our schools have four times as many “administrative personnel” now than in the 70’s, and less money than ever before. And, the whole focus is to try and please everyone — all the time — to meet every parent’s demands. No evolution. No hard science. No rote memorization. Only a balanced history.
Lets face it, our kids are being groomed to work at Walmart, Burger King, and Target….. our country is doomed.
Pat, I’m talking about teacher’s unions. In Ohio here, the public school systems in the large cities are hopelessly inefficient and exist to serve the hierarchy and not concerned with results or outcome.
I’m not here to talk politics, I think this problem has pre-dated the Bush administration and the recent anti-evolution trend.
Left, right … I don’t care. Just fix it.
Yes Lindsay, it is all Bush’s fault. This problem has been going on for the better part of 20 years. Blaming Reagan would be more creative, at least one could argue that position without being laughed at.
And — let me make this clear — those anti-evolution morons, as retrograde as they are, have nothing to do with the number of engineering graduates. Apples and oranges.
Fixing the system involves a hard look at the real issues and dynamics of a problem, not some politicos scapegoating whoever it is they would like have be at fault.
Do not mistake wishes for truth.
[Bush will be out of office in 3 years and our schools will still suck.]
The third paragraph carries the absolute assumption that quality of education is based solely on how much money the government spends on it. Actually, I think, our strength is that colleges and universities are primarily private institutions, not owned or operated by the government, or subject to the latest whims of political fashion. See Nobel-prize winning Richard Feynman’s notes on the subject.
One primary reason for this shift to business and liberal arts classes is that students know that getting an advanced degree in science is no longer a sure ticket to financial stability. Look at the aerospace industry collapse in the early 90’s. Look at the shipping of software development overseas now. Being smart in a tech field no longer pays. When that changes, you’ll see more Americans in science classes. It’s too bad we cannot convince students that having a technical background *and* understanding business is the road to success.
Pat, here’s one example of Anonymous’ quality argument. Right now there is a push by Democrats in the Senate to have government global warming research not be subject to the federal Data Quality Act. In other words, the reports issued by the government need not be considered for their scientific correctness.
This comes up with a comment I was going to make on a previous post, the math major as dog walker. What’s the point of more science graduates if there are no jobs for them? Perhaps the problem is that there are too many of these graduates because so much of college is paid for by someone else.
I agree that the dot-com collapse and the increasing practice of off-shoring has many students wary of a career in the high tech industry. There have also been massive cuts to FAFSA in the past couple of years, which discourages students from pursuing higher education. Then again, perhaps higher education is caught in the midst of some kind of Randall Collins crisis that needs to be resolved before our rate of graduates increases.
As for grade school, in his current budget Bush left NCLB under funded by $12 billion he previously promised. The goal of equal standards is good, but the implementation is bad. As Earl Hadley put it:
“But highlighting schools that need assistance—without providing them with the resources needed to improve—is setting up a game that schools can’t win. […] Withholding the funding to help struggling students, while threatening teachers and administrators with being fired, leads to a focus on testing—not learning. In a best-case scenario, this means a shrinking of the curriculum toward tested subjects. At their worst, these pressures can lead to teachers cheating to improve test scores—as seen in Texas, the birthplace of NCLB.”
colleges and universities are primarily private institutions, not owned or operated by the government, or subject to the latest whims of political fashion.
Heh. I don’t think the former implies the later. Just look at the sorry state of our graduate Schools of Education, from which all the educational fads flow. Like Whole Language learning (over phonics) and emphasizing form over educational results.
My roommate getting her graduate degree in Education from Berkeley said that their papers were graded thus: 1/3 on the proper use of the latest politically correct terms, 1/3 on the form and structure, 1/3 on actual content. The current trend (as of 2002) in political correctness was to use terms with indirect prepositional phrases, like “person with physical challenges”, instead of “physically challenged person”. Usage of these terms was enforced religiously.
This is a venue where ivory tower political correctness actually has a direct, detrimental effect on our society: the incompetent education of our children.
So, we have a journalist graduate complaining that we are not graduating enough engineers. Then she shows her own stupidity by blaming it on “the extremist edge of America’s religious right”.
Hmm, could the lack of engineering graduates in this country have anything to do with the lack of engineering jobs? Is Boeing hiring? Is NASA? How’s the energy business? Are we building any new nuclear power plants or refineries? What’s the domestic outlook for automotive engineers?
Granted, my memory ain’t what it use to be, but I don’t think it was the “extremist edge of America’s religious right” that cut NASA funding for space exploration during the 70’s. People like Ms. Tucker were responsible for killing the dreams of potential future engineers and scientists.
T.C., thanks for making my point. “Phonics” is not the province of privately run colleges or universities– your complaint is about government-run lower-level schools. Education is far too important to be left to the politicians.
Hanlin,
My complaint was not about lower level schools, it was about the political correctness that pervades all our universities, public or private. Political Fashion rages throughout our entire university education system, exactly the opposite of what you said.
(I do agree with your first sentence, though. About quality of education not necessarily following from money spent.)
This political correctness directly affects what gets taught in humanities classes. Basically, that white people and America are evil and have been since the dawn of time. I experienced this for myself at Berkeley. (Whose public nature has nothing to do with it, btw; witness the furor of Lawrence Summers at Harvard.)
If some students leave these universities brainwashed by the left, and the rest despair at having had a more balanced and engaging education, then not much harm is done. Mostly it just influences politics inside universities themselves. But I was trying to bring up an area where this political correctness has had a detrimental effect outside the ivory tower, and the teaching techniques and attitudes promulgated by our Schools of Education is the most damaging example of all,IMHO.
Thankfully, it rarely touches Science and Engineering departments,
which are top notch in our universities. Even science education cirriculums for lower grades are mostly unaffected. It’s mostly local school boards and parents (and some state Depts of Education) that water down science education.
I think the reasons we don’t graduate more Engineers are cultural, as others have alluded to. We need another Sputnick or race to the moon, before Geek will be considered cool again.
All the jobs are in nursing now to take care of the old people and bill medicare the big bucks. Nursing is a quick way to a big paycheck.
Btw Nice post Smith.