On February 17, 2009, President Barack Obama
signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act of 2009—the $787 billion legislative package
hailed as an “economic stimulus.” The legislation
includes $2.5 billion in additional federal funding for
the National Science Foundation, including new
funding for science, technology, engineering, and
math (STEM) education programs.1 This legislation
continues recent federal efforts, including the America
COMPETES Act of 2007, to increase federal support
for STEM education initiatives.
Unfortunately, experience of the past 50 years suggests
that such federal initiatives are unlikely to solve
the fundamental problem of American underperformance
in STEM education—the limited number of
students who complete elementary and secondary
school with the skills and knowledge to pursue STEM
coursework in higher education and succeed in many
parts of the workforce. The American education system
is supposed to be a pipeline that prepares children
in elementary and secondary school to pursue
opportunities in post-secondary education and in
the workforce. It is well known that this pipeline is
leaky—that millions of children pass through their
K–12 years without receiving a quality education. Too
many students drop out and, all too often, those who
do earn a high school degree lack the academic qualifications
to succeed in STEM fields in college or in
the workforce.