According to several recent studies, the United States significantly lags behind other countries when it comes to science and math education. Why is this and what can be done to improve performance? To address those exact questions, the Wall Street Journal launched the WSJ Education Challenge, sponsored by Intel, to raise awareness about what needs to be done to improve American students’ performance in math and science.

The Challenge, announced on October 26, asked the public to submit entries on what they believe to be the single biggest reason for the U.S.’s poor performance in math and science education and what can be done to improve it. Now, 5 finalists have been selected, and it is up to the public to vote on which finalist they agree with most. The winner will be announced on November 19 at 4 p.m. EST and awarded $5,000. Here’s a quick overview of the 5 finalists’ views:

• Gary N. Fife – The amount of time American children attend school annually is less than any other advanced nation. We must put in the time to improve educational performance.

• Anna C. Madison – Math and science teachers in the U.S. don’t have strong backgrounds in these disciplines. We need to increase incentives for people to elect to teach these subjects and then ensure they’re adequately trained.

• David H. Annandale – The U.S. education system doesn’t challenge high-potential students early or hard enough, as it caters to the lowest performing students. We need to give teachers the resources they need to cater to the abilities of their students.

• Ruth S. Washington – Our cultural values do not support high performance in science and math. Among other things, well-trained teachers are inadequately paid, society doesn’t understand what scientists and mathematicians do and young people aren’t encouraged to pursue these fields.

• Lynne H. Annandale – There is little or no incentive for students to perform better in math and science as news media do not cover academic achievement the way they cover athletic success. Publicizing academic events, such as MATHCOUNTS and publishing “All-Star” academic students lists as they do for athletes may encourage better performance.

Cast your vote now and let your voice be heard in the debate on how best to improve U.S. education. Do you have other thoughts on why U.S. math and science education is lagging and what we should do to improve it? Tell us on the Speak Up page.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 1:09 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.