America;s poor maths skills raise alarms over global ECONOMIC COMPETITIVENESS

 

America;s poor maths skills raise alarms over global ECONOMIC COMPETITIVENESS

Acoording to the Media Sources

Like a lof of high school students,Kevin Tran loves superheroes,though perhaps for different reasons than his classmates.:They are all insanely smart.In their regular jobs they are engineers they are scientists.” Said Tran 17: and you can’t do any of those without maths.Tran also loves maths.But tran is not the norm.Many Americans joke about how bad they are at maths, and already abysmal scores on standardized maths tests are falling ever further.

The nation needs people who are good at maths,employers say,in the same way motion pictures mortals need superheroes.They say Amercia’s poor maths performance isn’t funny.Its a threat to the nation’s global economic competitiveness.

The advances in technology that are going to drive where the world goes in the next 50 years are going to come from other countries,because they have the intellectual capital and we don’t as said by Jim Stigler a psychology professor who studies the process of teaching and learning subjects including maths.

The defence department has also called for a major initiative to support education in science,technology,education and maths known as STEM. It says there are eight times as many college graduates in these disciplines in China and four times as many engineers in Russia as in the US.

This is not an educational question alone as said by Josh Wyner of Aspen Institute thinktank.In July,the thinktank warned that other nations,particularly China,are challenging America’s technological dominance.

Meanwhile the number of jobs in maths,occupations will increase by over 30000 per year through the end of this decade,bureau of labour statistics figures show,That’s much faster than most other kinds of jobs.But most Americans students are not prepared for those jobs.In the most recent programme for International Student Assessment test in MAths,or PISA, US students scored lower than their counterparts in 36 other education system worldwide.Students in China scored the highest.Only one in five college bound American high school students is prepared for college level courses in STEM,according to the National Science and Technology Council.

In the US,poor maths skills could lower salaries for todays kids.A Standfor economist has estimated that if US pandemic maths declines not reversed, students now in kindergarten through grade 12 will earn from 2% to 9% less over their careers, depending on what state they live in,than their predecessors educated just before the start of the pandemic.But it also means the country’s productivity and competitiveness could slide. “Maths just underpins everything” said by Megan Schrauben,executive director of the Michigan’s MISTEM initiative ,which tries to get more students into STEM..”Its extremely important for the future prosperity of our students and communities.”