Proven strategies for reforming STEM education in America’s schools, colleges, and universities.
One study after another shows American students ranking behind their international counterparts in the STEM fields—science, technology, engineering, and math. Businesspeople and cultural critics such as Bill Gates warn that this alarming situation puts the United States at a serious disadvantage in the high-tech global marketplace of the twenty-first century, and President Obama places improvement in these areas at the center of his educational reform. What can be done to reverse this poor performance and to unleash America’s wasted talent?
David E. Drew has good news—and the tools America needs to keep competitive. Drawing on both academic literature and his own rich experience, Drew identifies proven strategies for reforming America’s schools, colleges, and universities, and his comprehensive review of STEM education in the United States offers a positive blueprint for the future. These research-based strategies include creative and successful methods for building strong programs in science and mathematics education and show how the achievement gap between majority and minority students can be closed. A crucial measure, he argues, is recruiting, educating, supporting, and respecting America’s teachers.
Accessible, engaging, and hard hitting, STEM the Tide is a clarion call to policymakers, administrators, educators, and everyone else concerned about students’ participation in the STEM fields and America’s competitive global position.
Table of Contents:
Foreword, by Alexander W. Astin
Preface
Introduction
1. America's Place in the World
2. The Achievement Gap
3. Effective Leadership, Careful Evaluation
4. Top-Notch Teachers
5. Mentors and High Expectations
6. Closing the Achievement Gap
7. College Access and the STEM Pipeline
8. The Value of a College Education in the Global Economy
9. Supporting University Research
Conclusion
Appendix
Notes
Index
About the Author :
David E. Drew is the Platt Professor of Education at Claremont Graduate University and the author of Aptitude Revisited: Rethinking Math and Science Education for America's Next Century.
Review :
The well-researched arguments are enthusiastically presented, and the book heralds another call for the renovation and enhancement of a vital part of the curriculum. Highly recommended.
—Choice
STEM the Tide provides a valuable analysis of current science and math education policy issues and provides useful solutions to implement reform in these areas.
—Education Review
Drew provides a package that cogently and convincingly provides cause for concern about America’s current status with regard to STEM education. . . . Drew’s book is required reading for scholars of STEM achievement at any level.
—Frances K. Stage and Phyllis H. Schulz, Journal of Higher Education
