We invite you to share your experiences and to post information about advocacy, research and other gifted education issues on this free public discussion forum. CLICK HERE to Log In. Click here for the Board Rules.
Steven, do you think it's fair to say that you "participate in a forum regarding NAPS" when you post on blogs elsewhere about this thread? Doesn't that make it seem like there are a lot of people, well, participating in a forum on your idea, instead of you just prolonging this thread? Doesn't it convey the impression that the Davidson site or foundation is promoting your idea?
If I were you, I would keep things a little shorter on the next initial letter to a charitable foundation, and try to come off as a little less excitable. Good luck.
Striving to increase my rate of flow, and fight forum gloopiness.
Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.) better mean "each and every child" when he writes: "The international achievement gap will also close as we employ all the tools in our toolbox to ensure that each and every child is successful."
Civil Rights are not just for poor people, or for people who are functionally illiterate or who are flunking out of school. Civil Rights are also for the most brilliant young people in America � The Top One Percent � the geniuses.
I have proposed a national public high school for the most brilliant young people in America who have career interests in mathematics and the sciences. I call my proposed school "NASA Academy of the Physical Sciences" (NAPS), and my proposal can be read at: http://nasa-academy-of-the-physical-sciences.blogspot.com/
The guiding light for NAPS should be found in a U.S. commitment to meaningful National Education Standards. In my thinking, the basic National Education Standards should be: Every Child 21st-Century-Literate at No Less Than Grade Level While Being Actively Challenged and Fully Facilitated to Achieve Personal Potentials in All Core Academics. At the top end where NAPS exists, the National Education Standards should be simply this: Students Must Be Advanced to the Academic Level at Which They Can Succeed While Being Challenged.
"A sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity, and gifted with an egotistical imagination that can at all times command an interminable and inconsistent series of arguments to malign an opponent and to glorify himself."
Andy J. Dandifer
BY Andy J. Dandifer on 11/19/2010 at 09:19
Being offended is a natural consequence of leaving the house. - Fran Lebowitz
Excerpt: FYI: The AIP Bulletin of Science Policy News
Administration�s National Security Strategy Highlights Importance of S&T and STEM Education
Richard M. Jones Number 61 - June 3, 2010
�Yet even as we have maintained our military advantage, our competitiveness has been set back in recent years. We are recovering from underinvestment in the areas that are central to America�s strength. We have not adequately advanced priorities like education, energy, science and technology, and health care � all of which are essential to U.S. competitiveness, long-term prosperity, and strength.� - National Security Strategy
Last week the Obama Administration released a document outlining a broadly encompassing strategy for rebuilding the nation�s strength and influence that looks beyond military might. In a cover letter accompanying the strategy, President Obama declares �Simply put, we must see American innovation as a foundation of American power.�
The 60-page �National Security Strategy� is divided into four sections: Overview of National Security Strategy, Strategic Approach, Advancing Our Interests, and Conclusion. The section entitled Advancing Our Interests includes a subsection �Prosperity� which states the following under the heading Strengthen Education and Human Capital:
�Invest in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Education (STEM): America�s long-term leadership depends on educating and producing future scientists and innovators. We will invest more in STEM education so students can learn to think critically in science, math, engineering, and technology; improve the quality of math and science teaching so American students are no longer outperformed by those in other nations; and expand STEM education and career opportunities for underrepresented groups, including women and girls. We will work with partners - from the private-sector and nonprofit organizations to universities - to promote education and careers in science and technology.�
* * *
If you go to the above link, you can access the entire 60-page "National Security Strategy" document.
Thursday, June 24, 2010 Raytheon CEO Swanson urges STEM education commitment By Kyle Alspach
The U.S. must act now to develop more young talent in science, technology and engineering, as a �matter of national security,� Raytheon Co. CEO Bill Swanson said during an address Tuesday morning.
Swanson spoke to several hundred at the Four Seasons Hotel in Boston as part of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce Executive Forum. The CEO of Waltham-based Raytheon since 2003, Swanson focused the address on educational issues that impact the defense industry.
The U.S., he said, has fallen behind other parts of the world in engaging and equipping young people for careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Only four percent of college students expected to graduate next year are majoring in one of those fields, with 1.6 percent in engineering, Swanson said.
�The frightening part is I can name five companies that will hire a third of all those graduates, us being one of them,� he said, later saying that Raytheon hires 4,500 engineers a year.
Raytheon is taking its own approach to the issue � putting 60 percent of its corporate giving toward educational purposes, Swanson said. The company has also developed the U.S. STEM Education Model, a system dynamics model, which predicts the impacts of educational policy decisions.
�This is not a way to implement policy, but a way to check policy decisions,� Swanson said.
Raytheon and the Business-Higher Education Forum coalition, which Raytheon has gifted the model to, are using the model to find ways to increase the number of graduates in STEM fields, he said.
Swanson called on government and education leaders to see the need for more engineers and scientists as a national security issue, and to act accordingly by making bold moves.
One thing that needs to change: teachers in STEM fields and teachers in other fields � history and literature, for example � can�t be paid the same salaries, according to Swanson. STEM teachers have to be paid more to be competitive with industry, he said.
* * *
The need for NAPS or something like it is huge. Politicians from the President on down through Congress along with the top businesspeople in American industry know this, but still nothing seems to be getting done.
I recently wrote letters introducing NAPS to President Barack Obama and to Dr. John P. Holdren, who is advisor to President Obama for Science and Technology and who is Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and is Co-Chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). Also, I recently wrote a letter introducing NAPS to Raytheon Co. CEO Bill Swanson.
There are children like the Manzar siblings in every city in America, yet most of those children do not reach their full potential because the academic opportunities and the needed parental support are not there for them. My NAPS proposal would certainly help thousands of those children reach their potential while still in high school.
There are children like the Manzar siblings in every city in America, yet most of those children do not reach their full potential because the academic opportunities and the needed parental support are not there for them. My NAPS proposal would certainly help thousands of those children reach their potential while still in high school.
Steven A. Sylwester
Obviously these children have no need of NAPS or anything similar; they are doing very well without it. And frankly, I don't think it's cool that you are using them to promote your idea.
Dr. Moira Gunn talks with Duke University professor, Henry Petroski, about his new book, The Essential Engineer: Why Science Alone Will Not Solve Our Global Problems, where he explores science and engineering and how they must work together to address our world�s most pressing issues. From climate change to cars, natural disasters to renewable energy sources, the scientist may identify problems but it falls to the engineer to solve them.
* * *
Because of its name � NASA Academy of the Physical Sciences � some might think that NAPS is only about the "physical sciences." In actuality, my proposed NAPS curriculum would provide excellent preparation for every possible career in science, engineering, technology, and/or medicine � including careers in life science.
Understanding the distinctions separating science, engineering, and technology can be difficult. Listening to the above linked interview with Henry Petroski might be helpful for those who are not sure about how scientists differ from engineers in their thinking and in their doing.
Even though the NAPS curriculum would be exactly the same at every site across the nation, I wonder whether there would be a perceptible difference in outcome between public universities that are predominantly focused on teaching Science and public universities that are predominantly focused on teaching Engineering. Regarding the eventual careers of the NAPS graduates, would the "Science" universities more tend to produce scientists while the "Engineering" universities would more tend to produce engineers? Because some industrious NAPS students would certainly find their way onto university research teams during their high school years, the Science vs Engineering bias of the host university would likely have some influence.
