PCAST Delivers its Report to US President Obama, Engage to Excel. (February 9, 2012)

The US President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) yesterday released the final version of: Engager to Excel: Producing One Million Additional College Graduates With Degrees in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

In the report's covering letter the PCAST Co-Chairs, John Holdren and Eric Lander write:

PCAST found that economic forecasts point to a need for producing, over the next decade, approximately 1 million more college graduates in STEM fields than expected under current assumptions. Fewer than 40% of students who enter college intending to major in a STEM field complete a STEM degree. Merely increasing the retention of STEM majors from 40% to 50% would generate three-quarters of the targeted 1 million additional STEM degrees over the next decade.

They then list five "overarching recommendations" which they contend can achieve that goal:

The report's introduction concludes: The themes guiding this report have broad application to leaders, faculty, and students in academia, industry, and government. The title of this report, “Engage to Excel,” applies to individuals across these groups. Students must be engaged to excel in STEM fields. To excel as teachers, faculty must engage in methods of teaching grounded in research about why students excel and persist in college. Moreover, success depends on the engagement by great leadership. Leaders, including the President of the United States, college, university and business leadership, and others, must encourage and support the creation of well-aligned incentives for transforming and sustaining STEM learning. They also must encourage and support the establishment of broad-based reliable metrics to measure outcomes in an ongoing cycle of improvement.

ScienceInsider's Jeffrey Mervis in seeking opinions garnered these responses:

Hunter Rawlings, former president of Cornell University and now head of the Association of American Universities: "Changing the academic culture is hard, and I'm not going to pretend that we're assured of success. We're not."

Jo Handelsman, a Yale University biologist and co-chair of the PCAST working group that produced the report says it calls for "a national experiment" on the best way to eliminate remedial math courses and bring more students up to college standards because "we don't know what will make a difference."

Mary Ann Rankin, founder of a science teacher training program at the University of Texas and now head of the National Math and Science Initiative: "It's not clear why you need math in freshman biology, but it's true. The data show that if you're not ready to take calculus, you never seem to catch up. The correlation is there, but we don't understand why." Nevertheless she notes: "Most faculty members aren't taught how to teach. Nor are they taught how students learn. As a result, they are very uncomfortable using an inquiry approach, in which they are a guide for students who take responsibility for their own learning."

The report estimates that implementations of its recommendations would cost about US$75 million over five years with the federal government defraying a part of the cost.

A science education. President Obama hears from student science fair winners at a White House event.

Credit: White House Photo by Pete Souza

Finally, Mr Mervis reports: "Yesterday, as part of a science fair he hosted at the White House, President Barack Obama announced that the private sector has committed another $22 million to the administration's campaign, called Educate to Innovate, to improve STEM teaching.