Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
News
Gates to Congress: Improve Math, Science Education
3/13/2008
In testimony before the Committee on Science and Technology at the United States House of Representatives Wednesday morning, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates implored Congress and the President to "act decisively" to ensure that the country maintain its global leadership position in technology innovation. Gates's testimony focused on three key themes: education, research, and immigration.
Fueling K-12 and Post-Secondary Education
Gates said the United States faces a crippling shortfall in scientists and engineers and that the private sector alone can't solve the problem. He said the legislature must follow through on the America COMPETES Act of 2007 ("America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science") to fund the educational initiatives of the law because only the government has the resources needed "to effect change on a broad scale," according to a statement released by Microsoft. He added, "If we don't reverse these trends, our competitive advantage will continue to erode. Our ability to create new high-paying jobs will suffer."
The America COMPETES Act contains provisions for training new teachers in STEM subjects and to provide additional resources to science, technology, engineering, and teachers through the National Science Foundation.
"Like many others, I have deep misgivings about the state of education in the United States," Gates told Congress. "Too many of our students fail to graduate from high school with the basic skills they will need to succeed in the 21st Century economy, much less prepared for the rigors of college and career. Although our top universities continue to rank among the best in the world, too few American students are pursuing degrees in science and technology. Compounding this problem is our failure to provide sufficient training for those already in the workforce."
He cited low graduation rates--particularly among underrepresented groups--along with a low level of college preparedness as two troubling factors in education impacting students. He said that fewer than 40 percent of graduating high school students are prepared to enter college without taking remedial courses in material "they should have learned in high school."
He added: "Our record on high school math and science education is particularly troubling. International tests indicate that U.S. fourth graders rank among the top students in the world in science and above average in math. By eighth grade, they have moved closer to the middle of the pack. By 12th grade, U.S. students score near the bottom of all industrialized nations.1 As a result, too many U.S. students enter college without even the basic skills needed to pursue a degree in science and engineering."
He stressed three factors in improving the quality of education in secondary schools:
Recommended Reading
- Zoho Launches Online Document Management Tool
Online collaborative technology developer Zoho has launched its new Zoho Docs, a Web-based document management tool that's designed to integrate with Zoho's online spreadsheet, presentation, and document creation software.
- Red Hat Makes Strategic Virtualization Buy
Open source server distributor Red Hat Inc., which is carving out a virtualization path unique in the industry, added another arrow to its quiver Thursday with the acquisition of Qumranet Inc.
- Security Exploits to Google Chrome Browser Emerge
Google's Chrome Web browser--complete with quirky marketing comic book--made a splash when announced Tuesday, but what a difference a day makes. On Wednesday, proof-of-concept bugs affecting the Internet app were disclosed. Chrome is still early in its first public beta.
- Sun xVM VirtualBox 2.0 Hypervisor Adds 64-bit Support, Bolsters Performance
Sun Microsystems this week rolled out version 2.0 of its xVM VirtualBox. The product is a cross-platform, open source hypervisor that supports hosts ranging from Mac OS X and Windows to Solaris and 18 varieties of Linux.
- Rarity for China Schools: Nanjing University Deploys Campus-wide Wireless LAN
Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications in China has deployed a campus-wide wireless LAN (WLAN) from Motorola. The WLAN will enable multimedia Internet-based teaching, automatic academic office management, Internet access, long-distance teaching, and other services. Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications is one of the few universities in China to provide complete wireless LAN coverage to every building in addition to the campus' outdoor spaces.
- Pac-10 Teams Score Competitive Insight with BlueArc Storage
The Pacific-10 Conference (Pac-10), a group of sports teams from 10 colleges and universities, has expanded the use of its BlueArc Titan storage solution housed at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to store dozens of terabytes of game footage. In the 2008-2009 season, all of the Pac-10 football, women's volleyball, and men's and women's basketball teams will access opponents' video for competitive analysis from Titan storage.
