Math and Science Reform

Politicians, academics, and business and community members all seem to be raising concerns that America is not as globally competitive as it once was. This is due, in part, to the fact that public schools in America are not producing high school graduates with the math, science, and technical skills to succeed in higher education or be employed in a knowledge-based, global marketplace. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, jobs requiring science, engineering or technical training will increase 24 percent between 2004 and 2014 to 6.3 million.However, less than half of high school graduates in the United States are academically prepared for college-level math and science. Between 1970 and 2010, America's proportion of science and engineering doctorates will fall from 50 percent to 15 percent. Additionally. the U.S. ranked 27 out of 39 countries in the 2003 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), which measures 15-year-olds' ability to solve real-life math problems.What can be done in math and science reform by local education funds (LEFs)