NPR – Eric Westervelt
“Leaders in business, education and politics love to talk up how important Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education is for America’s future. Innovations! Jobs! Progress! are all at stake, they often argue. Just last week, President Obama hosted scores of mostly young people for an evening of stargazing and fun space talk at the second-ever White House Astronomy Night. “Some of you might be on your way to Mars,” the president told the crowd of future astronauts and scientists. “America can do anything! We just gotta keep on encouraging every new generation to explore and invent and create and discover. We got to keep encouraging some young kid in Brooklyn or a budding rocket scientist in Alabama or that young girl who’s dreaming to become an astronaut.” Yet some in Congress either aren’t hearing that message or disagree. Exhibit A: the giant, federal education law, No Child Left Behind, that Congress is currently struggling to update. The rewrite that the U.S. House recently passed eliminates the largest source of federal science education funding.”(more)