Romney, Science, Math, the Latino Community and Cold Truths

Phil Mickelson is a class act on and off the golf course.  He is a great golfer, makes a tidy income, and has chosen to use his reputation and money to do good.  You can’t help but like someone like that.  I have been fascinated with the success and the outreach of his Exxon Mobile Teachers Academy.  Anyone who has watched a golf tournament this season has also seen the promotional ads for its National Math and Science Initiative. 

            This program (NMSI) is designed to train teachers to better serve their students in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.  This is an absolute necessity to save this country from going the way of ancient Greece, Rome, and the Victorian British Empire.  We are in danger of losing our edge because we are no longer a hungry, growing nation.  The proof lies in the fact that in international tests of science the United States ends in 17^th place.  In math we are an equally miserable 25^th.  All of those numbers are even worse if we are talking about Hispanic students. 

            The very students who are least represented in the fields of math, science and technology, the very students who would gain the most from jobs in the hard sciences, the very students whose parents still see education as the way up and out, are most likely to go to schools with substandard math and science programs.  Here are the cold truths of education in America. 

When your child enters 8^th grade, he or she has less than a 50/50 chance of getting a mathematics teacher whom actually holds a degree in Math!  You can’t teach what you don’t know!  

The story in science is even worse.  By 8^th grade, your child has only 1 chance in 4 of getting a science teacher who has a degree in science.  Frequently those degrees will only be in general science or the biological sciences.  Virtually none of the teachers will have degrees in physics.  Again, you can not teach what you do not know. 

These schools may tell you that the teachers are, “certified,” but that refers to a legal, not academic requirement.  Teachers can be certified to teach a subject with as little as one, “general science” or, “introduction to math” class on their transcript.  School boards are aided in this charade by state boards of education which lower the standards for certification just as easily as the schools lower the standards for graduation, or a teacher lowers the standards for an “A.”

            The Exxon Mobile Initiative as well as the work of the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and the National Council for the Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) brings sensible approaches, first rate thinking and dedicated educational expertise to solving the problem of math and science literacy.  The work of these professional organizations is based on teachers who already have shown they know how to get the job done.  They aren’t union touts or politicians trying in indenture a voting bloc to them.  NSTA, NCTM and the NMSI are, in fact, the last bastion of sanity in the crazy world of professional education. 

            When Mitt Romney calls education the, “civil rights issue of this era…” he is spot on.  Because Romney wants the nation’s children to be educated, competitive and productive he has a passion for quality schooling.  I hope that the Republican Party finds a way to carry this urgent message to the Latino community.  It is their students who will proportionally gain the most from science and math and the necessary preparation for the occupations of the 21^st century.

            Advance math and science and keep the faith.