preparing tomorrow's leaders ... today

June 1, 2007

How prepared is the U.S. to prosper and compete in the 21st century? Two years ago, the National Academies convened a committee of 20 industrial and academic leaders to find out. They discovered that Americans are losing ground in the global competition to educate students in math and science. Indeed, excellence in math and science education in the U.S. has a direct correlation to the country's ability to compete, prosper and be secure in the global community of the future.

The National Academies painted a striking picture in their 2005 blue-ribbon report, Rising Above The Gathering Storm. In recent decades, new technologies and emerging economies have quickly caused the marketplace for goods, services and human resources to go global. Yet the nation that first put voices through a wire, people on the moon and computers on desks will soon fall behind other countries' abilities to innovate, unless there is a major correction in course.

In short, the competitive position of the U.S. work force has slumped, and behind that slump is a weak report card for the nation's schools, especially in the disciplines of mathematics and science. For instance, according to the report, "Only 29 percent of fourth-grade students, 32 percent of eighth-grade students and 18 percent of 12th-grade students performed at or above the proficient level" in science.

But the report did more than just cite problems; it offered recommendations for improvement. Produce more qualified math and science educators. Enlarge the pipeline of students who are motivated and prepared to pursue careers in science and technology.

The findings inspired ExxonMobil to take an unprecedented step. On March 9, the company announced its support as a founding sponsor of the National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI), a nonprofit entity overseen by a board of prominent business leaders, educators and scientists. Backed by a company commitment of $125 million, NMSI benefits from the largest corporate gift ever earmarked for math and science education. 

For ExxonMobil, promoting education is hardly new. It's a legacy that was spurred more than a century ago by company founder

John D. Rockefeller. "We've especially supported initiatives in the 'STEM' disciplines — science, technology, engineering and math," says Ken Cohen, ExxonMobil vice president of Public Affairs. "Yet what we've noticed in the recent past — not just us, but all highly technical companies — is that the U.S. is slipping in the number of students pursuing education in those fields." 

"There has been a lot of talk about these issues for several years," says Dr. Charles Vest, NMSI board member and president emeritus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "NMSI is an organization that is actually going to do something about it."

"Whatever issues you're interested in — poverty, global competitiveness, national security, the environment — there's an 'intersect' between the health of those issues and the quality of the public school system," says Tom Luce, a former assistant U.S. secretary of education, who now chairs the NMSI board. 

What sets NMSI apart from ExxonMobil's other education initiatives, past and present, is the nationwide sweep of its mission. NMSI is initially expanding upon two existing programs with proven track records on a smaller scale: UTeach, now operating at the University of Texas at Austin, and a public school initiative known as Training and Incentive Programs for Advanced Placement and Pre-Advanced Placement Courses.

Since 1997, UTeach has offered UT Austin students majoring in math, science and computer science an additional opportunity to be trained and certified in secondary education — all within the usual four-year undergraduate time frame. NMSI's rationale for rolling out UTeach nationally is clear. According to the National Academies' report, "About 30 percent of high school mathematics students and 60 percent of those enrolled in physical science have teachers who either did not major in the subject in college or are not certified to teach it." For low-income students, the statistics are even worse.

UTeach has certified more than 70 students annually to be math, science or computer science teachers, more than double the number certified prior to the program's launch a decade ago. Moreover, 92 percent of UTeach students begin teaching right after graduation, and 82 percent still teach four years later, compared with a 60 percent retention rate nationwide.

To replicate this success, NMSI expects to award grants of up to $2.4 million to as many as 20 colleges and universities across the country over the next five years. By 2020, NMSI hopes to spread the UTeach concept to more than 50 campuses, yielding 10,000 math and science teachers who will potentially educate and inspire as many as 3 million high school students.

Training and Incentive Programs for Advanced Placement and Pre-Advanced Placement will give hundreds of thousands of high school seniors a head start on earning college credits by improving their performance on the College Board's Advanced Placement exams in math, science and English. Training, coaching and financial incentives will be provided to AP teachers, as well as to "pre-AP" teachers on the high school and junior high levels who groom students for AP enrollment. Students will receive tutoring and preparatory work.

When the first AP incentive program began in 10 Dallas schools in 1996, the percentage of students who scored passing grades (three or more points on a scale of one-to-five) on AP math, science and English exams was just two-thirds the national average. At the same schools 10 years later, the percentage of AP test takers scoring three or more points had jumped to two-thirds above the national average.

Today, AP and pre-AP incentive programs operate in 80 Texas school districts. Within the next five years, NMSI intends to expand the program concept to 150 school districts in 20 states, with the goal of boosting the numbers of passing AP test takers by 50,000 students.

Within two months after NMSI's launch, the AP and pre-AP programs attracted proposals from 28 states, and 52 colleges and universities submitted UTeach applications. NMSI will announce this year's grant recipients in August, and implementation of the new projects will begin in the fall. In the meantime, Luce's team is traveling around the country to interview applicants and their state governors as well. 

"We want to look them in the eyes to see if they have the dedication to sustain these programs," Luce says. For the AP incentive programs in particular, NMSI expects applicants to show a clear intent to be inclusive of under-represented populations. "We can't improve on this country's needs without improving opportunities for women, Hispanics and African-Americans."