Needed: Students interested in math, science

The message at a technical symposium Thursday afternoon at Livingstone College was that this country needs to work harder to get children excited about math and science.

Participants discussed strategies to get this generation of young people into the math and science educational pipeline as early as possible so they'll be prepared to meet the nation's increasing need for math and science graduates.

Dr. Bernard Harris, a retired astronaut who was the first African-American to walk in space, participated in the panel discussion, which was moderated by John Hairston of NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio.

Harris told his predominantly African-American audience that they would be either slaves or masters in the 21st century, and that the choice was up to them.

"I want my children to be masters," he said. "Our slavery will be determined by our lack of initiative in our own communities."

The key to becoming masters, he said, is the three E's: exposure, experience and education.

"We need to change our mindset from consumer to producer, or we will be relegated to service jobs," he said.

We're falling behind in preparing our children in the STEMsubjects (science, technology, engineering and math), Harris said.

Nine out of 10 jobs will require skills in math and science Harris said. With a particular concern for the African-American male, he spoke of the need to develop local programs, supported by local funding and foundations.

"You're the one who knows what your community needs," he said. "My call is to engage you. The answer is in the leadership in this room."

Also participating in the symposium was Dr. Adena Loston, the associate administrator for education at NASA headquarters in Washington. Loston began her career with NASA in 2002 as the senior education advisor and is responsible for guiding efforts to organize and enhance NASA's education programs.

Loston spoke of growing up in Mississippi, where she watched the moonwalk on television. She laughed as she shared the memory of hearing some of her relatives say that the astronauts weren't really walking on the moon.

Her mission at NASA, she said, is "to inspire the next generation of explorers."

The country hasn't had a presidential vision for space exploration since John F. Kennedy's, she said. Today, however, under the current administration, there is a renewed commitment to the space program and a new vision for its future.

NASA's educational initiatives are committed to making a difference in the nation's communities and classrooms, she said. Livingstone College is now a part of that initiative through participation in its Science, Engineering Mathematics and Aerospace Academy (SEMAA).

Livingstone's SEMAA program, unveiled in 2002 and funded with a $450,000 congressional appropriation, is designed to increase participation and retention of K-12 youth, particularly those from populations that are underrepresented in the areas of science, technology, engineering and math.

Loston talked about some of NASA's initiatives, including the NASAScience and Technology Scholarship Program, which will be rolled out in the fall. Students awarded this scholarship will receive full tuition to public or private colleges if they agree to work for NASA for at least four years after graduation.

She also spoke of the importance of getting students into the science and technology educational pipeline and keeping them there.

Dr. James Johnson Jr., dean of the College of Engineering at Howard University, emphasized the importance of retaining students. "We begin to lose our students in the fourth to the eighth grades," he said.

He spoke of the necessity of keeping students interested and engaged, particularly in math and science. Practical applications of science and technology can help get young students excited about STEM courses and motivate them to take the classes that will give them a good foundation in math and science for college, he said.

Other speakers included W. Mamie Johnson, the project director for the Livingstone College SEMAA program; Dr. Decatur Rogers, dean of the College of Engineering at Tennessee State University; and Dr. Pangie Burns, visiting scholar at Livingstone College.

Keshia Leach, an African-American doctoral candidate in electrical engineering at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, offered students advice about how to navigate graduate school.

Participants emphasized partnerships between colleges and school systems, mentoring and community leadership efforts, all with the goal of inspiring the next generation to pursue careers in science, engineering and technology.

When you do exciting things in space, you don't have to work so hard to motivate. A return to the Moon to learn to use its resources, opens the path to true space travel and that vision ignites the imagination and the quest for education.

A cry in the black education wilderness

A golden frontier***We should return to the moon. With such a goal, we will inspire our youth with a challenging task, develop resources of enormous commercial value and be more secure with routine access to any location in Earth-moon space. A lunar return will teach us about our planetary origins and open up new and exciting scientific possibilities. A return to the moon is not a repeat of the Apollo experience. When we went to the moon 30 years ago, it was to demonstrate that we could do it. When we return there, it will be to use the valuable and unique resources of the moon to open the space frontier. ***

Teachers from Philippines arrive in Boston to teach math and science***Boston Teachers Union president Edward Doherty said he supports the city's hiring of foreign teachers if officials can't find anyone qualified locally. That's the case, Joyce said.'' We have an obligation to children to find the best math teachers we can find, wherever we can find them,'' he said.

At first it seemed as though the Philippine teachers wouldn't make it. Bureaucratic problems with obtaining visas for the teachers delayed their arrivalfor several weeks. US Representative Michael Capuano and Senator Edward M. Kennedy, both Massachusetts Democrats, worked with the Immigration and Naturalization Service to speed up the process.***

To solve students' math problems, eucators go to school - Boosting teacher skills seen as key*** The report also recommends that colleges and universities boost their math requirements for education majors. Many schools require no more than a single math course for future teachers. ``It's a vicious cycle,'' Fortmann said. ``People don't learn math very well in school, they avoid math in college, and the cycle continues. What we're hoping to do here is break the cycle.'' ***

MOVED: Veteran Edison High School teachers, from left, Ta Shina Nelloms, Rebecca Calvert, Shawn DeNight, Terry Lewis, Meghan Hauptli and Kathy Rosenthal Humphrey have been involuntarily transferred to other schools. JOSHUA PREZANT/FOR THE HERALD

3 F's, they're out: Edison sees teacher shake-up*** While the district does not have access to the standardized test scores of individual teachers' students, it can review results by subject and grade, she said. Since reading scores fell at Edison -- only 3 percent of freshmen and 4 percent of seniors were classified at least proficient in 2003 -- they decided to shake up the English department.***

Math and science yield the beauties of truth.

From Dewey on, the entire modern educational establishment has been so "practical" they've ignore the real, living springs of human motivation. 10 years olds do not plan for their future 15 years down the line, worrying over what their income will be. Nor are they trained puppies who do whatever they are told to do for a pat on the head and a cookie, or any other form of "self esteem". Will some do things just because they are challenging, or to be better at it than the kid next to them? A tiny fraction, who can sometimes try to excel at all the wrong things instead of the right ones.

If young men and women do not have an appetite for truth, none of the rest is going to matter. If the teachers and parents don't so much as believe in such a thing, let alone consider it important, or beautiful, or the root of a moral life which is itself joyous and beautiful, then only those who can discover such things all by themselves even when they are 10 years old will really learn. I said an appetite. If a kid doesn't need truth like he needs oxygen, there is something wrong with him, and probably with those around him too.

I was just talking about this today...do the teecherz of today compare to yesterday's teachers? In my recent college experience--and among some non-college friends--I know about 10 people who were education majors or who curently teach. Stack them up against Mrs. Storm (My 3rd Grade teacher at Johnson Elementary School) and they pale by comparison.

They are too young, too immature, and can't write very well. One is a bipolar floozie, one is a drug-abusing man-child affected by a messy divorce, and 2 others (football jocks) took education because it was easy. (they have the combined brainpower of one rhesus monkey) If you were to read their InstantMessages and emails, you'd think they are functionally illiterate. How are they going to teach the importance of penmanship, history, math, or science if they don't understand the subjects?

Today, school is about indoctrination, not education. Diversity and tolerance and dependency trump the "3 Rs"

Today, school is about indoctrination, not education. Diversity and tolerance and dependency trump the "3 Rs"

NEA challenged on political outlays - Teacher's union fields "army of campaign workers"

Pasadena teacher who assigned politically charged letter writing to resign*** Williams, a member of the teachers association and president of the Pasadena Educators Association, took the letters to Austin in March. Many of the students pleaded for legislators to spare field trips, textbooks and teacher salaries from the budget ax.***

Critics Call Local High School Course Un-American*** A new elective course in international affairs at Farmington Hills High School has stirred up national interest for its alleged un-American content, Local 4 reported.

The course was brought to light when cable's FOX News Channel aired a story Monday night about some local parents who were angered over the course's content.

According to the cable station's Web site, many of the class readings come from left-wing Web sites like Alternet.org, Indymedia.org, Progressive.org and War-times.org that apparently attack the administration of President George W. Bush. After FOX News aired the story, the Farmington school district began receiving nasty e-mails from outraged citizens across the country, Local 4 reported. ***

Students To Earn Community Service Hours ***Rockville, Md. (AP) - When teachers rally in Annapolis for public school funding there could also be a lot of students in the crowd. Montgomery County (website - news) Public Schools will grant students who attend two hours community service credit for being there. The county requires students to perform 60 hours of community service as a requirement for graduation.

The February 9th rally is sponsored by the Coalition for Public School Funding. Teachers, school boards and community activists are seeking full funding of the Thornton Plan. Maryland Governor Bob Erlich has cut the program to help reduce a $1 billion deficit he inherited when he took office last year. Under Thornton, the state's schools were to receive an extra $365 million in the upcoming school year.

The rally is also prompting scheduling changes in Prince Georges County. Schools there will close two hours early to give teachers time to drive to Annapolis to participate in the demonstration. ***

Parents of boy slain at school recall his awards with pride***Parents of the boy killed at Southwood Middle School remember him as a scholar, musician and doting son who dreamed of becoming a scientist.***

HONORS: Maria and Jorge Gough show off a collection of awards and trophies earned by their son Jaime, a Southwood Middle School eighth-grader who was killed Tuesday. NURI VALLBONA/HERALD STAFF

"persistently dangerous" - School-safety rankings - or just black marks?***At the heart of the discrepancy may well be a reluctance on the part of educators to report campus crime fully. A survey by the National Association of School Resource Officers found that 89 percent of school police believe crime is already underreported. "It's the scarlet letter in education today," says Mr. Trump. "Administrators have said to me privately that they would rather be academically failing than be a dangerous school." ***

A Helicopter Center of Excellence [Full Text] The Apache helicopter is the world's best attack helicopter, but it is also complex. Someone has to make sure all the different systems on the Apache work correctly and work together. "We're needing experts in a particular field of helicopters and that is systems engineering, and rotorcraft simulation," says Barry Baskett of Redstone Arsenal's Aviation and Missile Research Development Engineering Center.

Making sure those systems engineers who can make the Apache, and all the other army helicopters stay the best in the world is a job that UAH is about to take on. Under the auspices of the Army Aviation and Missile Research Development Engineering Center at Redstone Arsenal, and the Program Executive Office for Army Aviation, which also on the base, UAH is starting a new engineering program.

It's a Master's of Science in Engineering with a concentration on Rotorcraft Systems Engineering. The new concentration will make UAH one of just two centers of Rotorcraft excellence in the south. Dr. James Snider is the director of the UAH center, and he is excited. "It's a big deal, this area has become the home of army aviation. We have the Aviation Missile command, the PEO for aviation. Fort Rucker is the home of the War Fighter Center. So this is a natural for this area. Alabama is the home of army aviation, so UAH has to be the intellectual base for that home," says Dr. Snider.

The Rotorcraft Center is recruiting students for the new program, and expects to begin work in May. The students will have their graduate efforts fully funded by the army, but they'll have to pay that back. For every month a student is in the program at UAH, they owe the army three months. That will likely mean each student will be working at Redstone for three years. Of course those will be engineering jobs that pay well.

It would appear to be a win, win situation. Students get a graduate degree, and a guaranteed job. The army gets new talent in a very important field. American soldiers get the best helicopters in the world. [End]

Witty wizard of Scripps attracts the best, brightest*** FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - (KRT) - Growing up on the South Side of Chicago, the boy who would become one of the nation's most influential scientists was best known for his athletic prowess and feats of derring-do.

Sure, Richard Lerner aced chemistry. But he also was a state champion wrestler at Hirsch High School and during the summers made more than one dramatic rescue while patrolling a downtown Lake Michigan beach as a captain of the lifeguards.

He had brains, muscles and a prankster's sense of humor. He once stuffed the Thanksgiving turkey with BBs from his Daisy air rifle.

"I guess I always was a little different," said Lerner, president of The Scripps Research Institute, which plans to open a Palm Beach County, Fla., biomedical laboratory in what is the center's first expansion outside of California in its 42-year history.

Indeed, at 65, Lerner is a unique figure in American science, a prize-winning chemist with an antic wit and the business acumen of an entrepreneur.

By dint of personality and will, over the past 15 years he has turned San Diego-based Scripps into the largest private research center in the United States, assembled an illustrious faculty of more than 1,000 Ph.D. biologists and chemists, and pioneered an era of unprecedented - and often controversial - partnerships with drug companies to fuel discoveries.

"He has a remarkable talent for bringing people, ideas and concepts together to make things happen," said Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Dr. Phillip A. Sharp, awarded a 1993 Nobel Prize in medicine. "I don't know of another leader who has shown the creativity and energy Richard has."

Competitive and ambitious, Lerner also has what Sharp called "an emotional need to stand at the top. It's a hunger."

That hunger - and the lure of $569 million - brought Lerner and Scripps to South Florida. In exchange for the taxpayers' largesse, Lerner has agreed to replicate Scripps in the middle of a wetland in hopes of touching off a sprawling biotech community that could generate thousands of high-paying jobs.***

Offshore Outsourcing Trends Point to Need for U.S. to Improve Climate for High-Tech Innovation, Insourcing ***ARLINGTON, Va., Feb. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- The nation's political leaders need to address warning symptoms in the U.S. high-tech industry. The most visible of these symptoms -- offshore outsourcing of high-skilled jobs from America to other nations -- is only the tip of an iceberg signaling a much more complex challenge in the future: a potential U.S. "innovation shortage" influenced by a weak K-through-12 science-and-math education system, federal neglect for technology-oriented R&D funding, national security-driven immigration and visa policies that inhibit the U.S. from attracting and keeping talented foreign students, and an unfriendly business environment in comparison to other nations. Those were the conclusions reached by leaders of the U.S. high-tech industry who participated in a strategic 'war game' known as the "Prosperity Game(TM) on Offshore Outsourcing and Innovation" sponsored by the Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA) in West Palm Beach, Florida, last week.

"The migration of high-tech jobs, including R&D, engineering and design, to other countries has become a serious economic issue for the U.S., but an even larger one is looming," EIA President Dave McCurdy said. "The knowledge- based infrastructure needed to spur innovation in the U.S. is being sorely tested. If we do not look closely at our nation's innovation future, we may suffer in an international economy driven by technology, education, competition and market access in other countries."

…………. In the aftermath of 9/11, the U.S. is investing heavily in security and defense. Despite these legitimate concerns, "we need to realize we are no longer in an arms race," EIA 2004 Chairman and Ceridian Corporation CEO Ronald L. Turner pointed out. "We are in a 'minds race' in which the U.S. could face an innovation shortage."

"The technology industry in the U.S. is at an innovation crossroads," EIA President McCurdy added. "We can protest and launch diatribes against the present-day actions of other countries, or we can create a real national strategy and plan for the future of U.S. high-tech. The bottom line is this: if we don't determine what tomorrow will look like, others will determine it for us."***

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