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> "The nation, it says, must sustain excellence in basic research; foster a scientific workforce more diverse in race, gender, and geography; and support high-q

> "The nation, it says, must sustain excellence in basic research; foster a scientific workforce more diverse in race, gender, and geography; and support high-quality precollege science and math education. The board also calls for forging closer ties between academia and industry, keeping borders open to promote international partnerships, and promoting ethical research practices." The reality they don't want to address is the corporatization of many fields of academic science (entire chemistry departments at many schools are now little more than R&D divisions for the major pharmaceutical corporations, for example). This clearly impacts the goal of "excellence in basic research" as that requires social academic norms like the open sharing of research tools and data. Basic research tends not to generate patents until years later, so it becomes a non-priority for the 'academic-industrial partnership' crowd (i.e. the startup types) - and yet the report supports 'forging closer ties between academia and industry'! Industry has plenty of cash, they can set up privately financed Bell Labs 2.0 and reap all the patents without relying on federal agency money, which should go to basic research. The issue of atrocious public education through high school in the USA, such that often students have to spend one or two years in college on remedial work developing acceptable math and writing skills, can only be addressed by spending more money on education: getting better teachers by increasing salaries, and reducing class sizes by explanding schools, particularly in low-income areas. As far as related diversity issues, note there's been great progress in that area, for example CalTech didn't even accept female students in the 1960s, and today the student population is roughly equivalent gender-wise.

gumby 5y ago
> The issue of atrocious public education through high school in the USA, such that often students have to spend one or two years in college on remedial work developing acceptable math and writing skills... I want to call this out specifically: it's a real and widespread phenomenon. You can expect any given student to be strong in some areas and less so in others, so it's perfectly reasonable for the first year, or semester, to have a significant component of "leveling up". However an increasing number of students need this kind of leveling up across the board. I only have direct exposure to this phenomenon in two cases; one is a "top 5" ranked university, the other is a large "top 25" school. The students appear to emerge just fine, so this implies the admissions department is selecting the right students despite these issues, but at a cost that for many amounts to missing out on a year's worth of university class education because they need remediation in what should have been taught in high school.
mym1990 5y ago
Spending more money is certainly not the only way to help the situation. The US already spends a large amount of money per student for elementary and secondary education, and even more in post-secondary education...yet we are going nowhere. I would argue that spending the money that we currently have more efficiently is a better proposition, but government programs are going to be hard pressed to do something in an efficient manner.

gumby 5y ago

> The issue of atrocious public education through high school in the USA, such that often students have to spend one or two years in college on remedial work developing acceptable math and writing skills... I want to call this out specifically: it's a real and widespread phenomenon. You can expect any given student to be strong in some areas and less so in others, so it's perfectly reasonable for the first year, or semester, to have a significant component of "leveling up". However an increasing number of students need this kind of leveling up across the board. I only have direct exposure to this phenomenon in two cases; one is a "top 5" ranked university, the other is a large "top 25" school. The students appear to emerge just fine, so this implies the admissions department is selecting the right students despite these issues, but at a cost that for many amounts to missing out on a year's worth of university class education because they need remediation in what should have been taught in high school.

mym1990 5y ago

Spending more money is certainly not the only way to help the situation. The US already spends a large amount of money per student for elementary and secondary education, and even more in post-secondary education...yet we are going nowhere. I would argue that spending the money that we currently have more efficiently is a better proposition, but government programs are going to be hard pressed to do something in an efficient manner.