Tapping America's Potential

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Editorial and Op-ed Support July 2008

July 23, 2008 — Arizona Daily Star (Opinion) — “STEM program should boost state innovation”
On the same day Napolitano announced the STEM center, a group called Tapping America's Potential issued a report saying that the United States is falling behind in efforts to create more college graduates in the STEM fields. Tapping America's Potential, a coalition of 16 of the nation's leading business organizations, launched a project in 2005 to double the number of students attaining bachelor's degrees in STEM subject areas from 200,000 to 400,000 by 2015. That effort, however, is proving difficult. After three years, the number of STEM degrees awarded to undergraduates has only increased by 24,000, to 225,000. At that rate of growth, the 2015 goal of 400,000 seems unattainable.

July 20, 2008 — The Oklahoman (Editorial) — “Failing grade: U.S. losing its science edge”
A few years ago, Intel Corp. chief Craig Barrett began speaking with clear urgency about how the United States needs to do a much better job of preparing students for careers in math and science. Barrett said his company would do just fine if it never hired another American because the talent pool elsewhere in the world was plentiful. Turns out, that's even more true today. n 2005, a group of more than a dozen well-heeled business groups warned that the country needed more teachers and degreed workers in science, technology, math and engineering fields. A report out last week from Tapping America's Potential found that degrees in those areas increased earlier this decade. But since then, the number has failed to grow as needed. In 2015, the group hopes to have 400,000 new college graduates in the so-called STEM fields — double the number that graduated in 2005. The coalition estimates the figure at about 225,000 graduates a year.

July 14, 2008 – The Ripon Forum – “The unheeded threat”
Newt Gingrich, former House speaker, authored an article in the Ripon Forum on the critical importance of advancing STEM in the U.S. He writes, “Little focus has been paid to just how dangerous it is to allow other countries, especially non-democracies, to become the high-tech centers of the world. "A Nation at Risk" released in 1983 said, "If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves." Little more than marginal change has been enacted since these reports were issued, and it is unlikely there will ever be a September 11th type of wake-up-call in the realm of math and science education that will motivate us towards dramatic action.”

July 9, 2008 – Roll Call – “Leaders Ignore Science Shortfalls to the Peril of America’s Future”
Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and contributing writer to Roll Call, wrote an op-ed on America’s failure to invest adequately in basic research in science and science education.

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