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Cal Poly President Pushes for More Math and Science Teachers

Posted on: Wednesday, 15 February 2006, 09:00 CST

By Sally Connell, The Tribune, San Luis Obispo, Calif.

Feb. 15--Cal Poly President Warren Baker is pushing a statewide effort to persuade the governor to place a higher emphasis on educating teachers in the fields of science and mathematics.

The effort is a direct result of a national study indicating that California ranks near the bottom among states in preparing university graduates to compete in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Without the push to educate more teachers, Baker cites a national study that salaries in America will drop as soon as 2015.

It is an issue that was recently addressed by President Bush, when he promoted in his State of the Union speech his initiative pushing for 70,000 new science and math teachers for the nation's high schools. Baker said the need is even greater.

"Per year, 70,000 would be good," Baker said. "But we need 290,000 science and math teachers at this time."

As it stands, Baker stressed, there are not anywhere near that many potential teachers in the higher education pipeline. Even at Cal Poly, he said, very few students go into single-subject high school teaching of science and mathematics.

Baker's staff is working with other higher education leaders in the state to make more of a commitment to producing these teachers. Meeting with the governor's office will be part of that process, he said, as they try to discern what room there is in the state budget for addressing what will be a national crisis in education.

Baker said the reasons people opt not to go into teaching are somewhat universal.

"We hear all the reasons: ‘The pay is too low,' ‘After three or four years, I won't be at the top of my game anymore,' " he said.

But the key to staying competitive on the world stage, Baker and others argue, as countries such as China and Ireland crank out high-quality engineers and mathematicians, is teachers who inspire children in math and science. Those inspired students go on to fill universities and graduate on to higher paying jobs, with hopes that the trend toward outsourcing science and technology jobs to other nations slows.

That's why Baker supports growing corporate efforts to try to employ teachers in high tech and other fields over the summer months, supplementing their teaching salaries.

The report that Baker repeatedly referred to in a meeting with reporters Tuesday is called "Rising Above the Gathering Storm" and was published by the National Academies Committee on Science, Engineering and Public Policy.

Among the report's suggestions are recruiting 10,000 students nationwide to the math and science teaching profession annually; strengthening the skills of 250,000 teachers through training and education at summer institutes; and offering advanced classes at the high-school level to better prepare students for college science, engineering and math programs.

The report also supports even more innovative moves such as increasing the federal investment in research by 10 percent each year for the next seven years and rewarding young researchers with "early career" grants.

Cal Poly's new Center for Science and Math Education last summer held its first educational session for math and science teachers in what is planned to be an ongoing program.

Go to sanluisobispo.com to read a free copy of National Academy of Sciences book on the nation's economic future http://fermat.nap.edu/catalog/11463.html

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Tribune, San Luis Obispo, Calif.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Tribune (San Luis Obispo, Calif.)

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