NACME: Growing ‘Opportunity Gap’ Exists in the Number of Minority Students Pursuing STEM Degrees
Interest among American students of all races and ethnicities in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) has dissipated over the last several years.
May 6th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
You can’t force kids to like certain subjects. Rev. Jeremah Wright, Jr. said in his recent address to the NAACP that Africans have different brains than Europeans, has anyone taken this into account when studying STEM program particpation?
May 19th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
I am not in the least trying to diminish the gravity of the situation. But as someone else pointed out, fewer and fewer of ALL of our high school graduates (and one-third don’t graduate at all!) are “engineering eligible”. The majority do not have the math and science backgrounds necessary to go into higher education in those areas. What percentage of the white students are “engineering eligible” for college and beyond? I would be surprised to find out it did not FAR outweigh the percentages of minority students who were, but I would not be surprised to learn that it is also under 10%. As for American Indian representation among STEM fields? That is ludicrously low as well. But what percentage of AI students graduate, and what percentage of all high-school students are officially American Indian? Of those, what percentage come from backgrounds that recognize tribal backgrounds and traditions in daily life, or in other words, are raised and function any differently because they are American Indian, rather than if they were “just white”?
IN general, math and science (especially sciences and their interconnections with all other areas of study and technology) are far under-emphasized in elementary and middle schools in our state right now. Most schools in our experience emphasize basic literacy skils (and reading even at or near grade level) and simple numeracy over science and complex mathematics. You cannot suddenly “grow” engineering types out of a vaccuum in high school and college.