I was reading The World is Flat today I took interest in a particular passage. According to Friedman, fewer and fewer Americans are entering the scientific workforce.

Dirty little secret number one is that the generation of scientists and engineers who were motivated to go into science by the threat of Sputnik in 1957 and the inspiration of JFK are reaching their retirement years and are not being replaced in the numbers that they must be if an advanced economy like that of the United States is to remain at the head of the pack.

I thought, perhaps it is not that America's production of communist fearing scientists is slowing, but that the global interests in science have changed and the American education system is lagging behind. ₁

The Space Race and the First Cold War were immediate incentives to steer young students toward the sciences. This generation of young scientists interested in space technology and nuclear physics had profound effects on the United States and its workforce. As Friedman points out, however, something has changed over the years. Let's first compare what students are being taught and why.

To start, we take a look at what public schools are required to teach by the federal government. Wait a minute. . . there aren't any national requirements. It turns out that the curricula of the US education system is largely determined by school boards in each state and district, so instead of looking at the curriculum of each district, let's think about what schools across the nation are preparing students for. I would think that the majority of public schools are trying to prepare students to continue education at a college or university, and most public colleges and universities require some kind of standardized test score to be considered. It follows that schools must prepare students for these standardized tests that are required if students are to continue their educations. Two widely used standardized exams are the SAT and ACT. The SAT assesses reading and mathematics, as well as the recent addition of writing². The ACT assesses English, Math, Reading, and Science (in order of the number of questions on the exam), as well as an optional section in writing³.

At this time, I would like to point out that having gone to a public school in a wealthy neighborhood, I am have a bias about the kinds of things taught in public schools across the nation. Without the will to research this aspect of education in our country, I merely point out the fact that I am covering issues in the US educational system that I have experienced and heard about at length.

About 50 years ago, the US education system was transformed by the 1958 National Defense Education Act. At east, that was the plan. The act "provided support" for the development of foreign language, mathematics, and science programs in primary and secondary education⁴. Presently, the necessity of a degree from a higher education institution encourages primary and secondary schools to teach certain information, mainly reading, math, science, and writing. Evidently, it is not the subject matter being taught in schools that has changed since the 1950s.

What has changed is the reason these subjects are being taught, and I think it is about time for another change.

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1.Friedman, T. L. (2007). The World is Flat (3rd ed., p. 343). New York: Picador.
2.http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/sat/about/SATI.html
3.http://www.act.org/news/aapfacts.html
4.http://www.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/role.html