Math + science = innovation, but US lags in the equation
Captains of commerce have groused in recent years about everything from estate taxes to the expensing of stock options. But the issue that has risen to the top of the corporate complaint agenda this fall is the wilting of American education in math and science.
The problem was spelled out last month in a National Academy of Sciences study that reported, among other things, that 12th-graders in the United States performed below the international average for 21 countries on a general test of science and mathematics knowledge.
Even before the academy shined a spotlight on the issue, business leaders had fretted about the erosion of the American lead in research and innovation. Now, no longer content to leave education to the educators, some have begun to take matters into their own hands.
Area technology executives last week unveiled plans for a regional robotics competition for high school and middle school students March 23-25 at Boston University's Agganis Arena. The event will be part of FIRST -- ''For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology" -- a national program launched in the early 1990s by Dean Kamen, the New Hampshire inventor of the Segway scooter, among other high-tech devices.
Raytheon Co. of Waltham introduced a national program called MathMovesU on Nov. 10 in a bid to fuel enthusiasm for math in middle schools. Under the program, students with ideas on making math more fun can enter a contest at www.mathmovesu.com. Soccer star Mia Hamm, BMX biker Dave Mirra, and other celebrities will visit the winners' schools as substitute teachers. The program also will award $1 million in grants and scholarships to schools, teachers, and students.
The Business Roundtable's education task force, led by Joseph M. Tucci, president and chief executive of Hopkinton's EMC Corp., released a statement in August calling on the national business community to speak with one voice on the need to improve US competitiveness in science, technology, engineering, and math education. The business group's proposals have been sent to US governors, members of Congress, and Bush administration officials.
Behind these moves lurks the fear that many young Americans are abandoning math and science at a time when students in emerging countries like China and India are mastering the subjects. China graduated 500,000 engineers last year, and India 200,000, compared with 70,000 in the United States, according to the National Academy of Sciences study.
''Our kids are the first generation of Americans that are growing up less technologically proficient than their parents," Kamen warned. ''It's the wrong time for America to be taking its eye off the ball. This is the first generation that will compete in a global economy."
But a Raytheon-commissioned survey found the majority of US middle schoolers would prefer to clean their rooms, eat their vegetables, and take out the garbage than do their math homework. ''They really don't see the linkage yet between math and what it can do for your career," said William H. Swanson, Raytheon's chairman and chief executive. ''The term engineer has more of a positive connotation in Asia and Europe than it does in the United States."
Swanson, an engineer who worked his way up the ranks, acknowledged that the MathMovesU program ''is really Raytheon getting outside its normal swim lanes." But he said the company is motivated by its need to assure it will be able to hire top-flight American engineers in the future. With the Pentagon requiring that employees working on many of its defense programs have security clearances, Raytheon can't take the path of commercial companies that farm out engineering work abroad.
EMC, which has opened research and development centers in India and Belgium over the past decade, continues to maintain research operations in Massachusetts, Silicon Valley in California, and in North Carolina's Research Triangle. But with the government restricting the number of foreign engineers that can enter the United States on work visas since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, EMC has plenty of technical jobs it can't fill domestically, said Michael C. Ruettgers, the company's chairman. ''As we look ahead, if we don't get more graduates in these skilled areas, the US will start to lose ground," he said.
Ruettgers, a member of the Massachusetts Business Roundtable, said business groups are pressing to improve the skills of math and science teachers, give them higher ''differential pay" than other teachers, and, somehow, make math and science cool.
''It's about changing the culture," said technology entrepreneur Marc A. Hodosh, chairman of the Boston FIRST event. ''How can we generate a new set of heroes that kids can look up to as opposed to entertainers or athletes? These are people who are solving problems and addressing medical issues and helping to save lives."
Robert Weisman can be reached at weisman@globe.com. 
