In many cases in the developing world, red tape and lack of funding ensure that the best projects go to men. The administrators are not willing to take a risk on a woman, it would seem. Problems get compounded for a woman who already has a family. It would appear almost as if having a…
In his most recent column in The New York Times, David Brooks laments the results of a study led by Robert Putnam, a Harvard political scientist, which demonstrate an “inequality of opportunity” between rich and poor children in America. The children of the rich and poor, we’re told, are raised “in starkly different ways and…
A 2011 report about STEM workforce needs from the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University indicates that by 2018, 92% of STEM workers will need post-secondary education. Of that total, around 65% will need a Bachelor’s degree or higher, while 35% will be comprised of those with sub-baccalaureate training. The breakdown in…
Inequality is growing in the United States, and social mobility is slowing. A study by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that 62 percent of Americans raised in the top one-fifth of the income scale stay in the top two-fifths; 65 percent born in the bottom fifth stay in the bottom two-fifths. Education, long praised as…
It’s not just artistic types that find math a turn-off and try to avoid having to deal with it – scientists do the same. A new study by University of Bristol biologists shows that if a piece of research is packed full of mathematical equations, other scientists tend to ignore it. Scientific articles laden with…
Andrew Revkin reflects on the end of the “Rio+20” United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in his Dot Earth blog from the New York Times. Ilan Safit, a colleague of mine at Pace University who teaches philosophy and religious studies with a focus on the environment, sees the focus of Rio and related discussions as…
The problems engineers face are increasing in complexity at an exponential pace, and as one plenary speaker at the recent ASEE conference put it, it’s essential to be able to add continuously to your skill set in order to be a practicing engineer. All the good grades in the world won’t matter if you cannot…
In his Brainstorm blog, Michael Ruse weighs in on the firestorm Robert Wright set off in his recent piece for The Atlantic: Robert Wright, the well-known journalist and author, has just suggested that the so-called New Atheists – people like Richard Dawkins who sneer and laugh at religion, thinking it a great evil and that science,…
Current efforts to improve STEM education are limited by schools’ ability to retain good teachers.
One of the most often-cited reasons for the STEM achievement gap is a lack of skilled and trained STEM teachers. The greatest percentage of under-qualified teachers at the K-12 level is found in STEM disciplines – 40 percent of high school math teachers and 20 percent of science teachers in high needs areas lack a…