According to the OC register 11/11/12
"We have a systematic problem in producing students who want to pursue STEM careers. We are losing a whole generation while other countries pass us by," said Santa Ana High physics teacher Gary Reynolds, a former environmental researcher.
"Furthering STEM education is one of the most important priorities we should have as a nation."
High tech companies like Irvine-based Broadcom, the nation's largest producer of chips for wireless communications, now hire a significant number of engineers from outside the U.S. because they can't find enough qualified candidates at home.
America is also competing with India and China in the assessments, and both of those countries produce more STEM-ready college graduates than the U.S., according to national and international surveys.
Testing the world
PISA: Program for International Student Assessment is an international study launched in 2000 by the France-based Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. It aims to evaluate education systems worldwide every three years by assessing 15-year-olds' competencies in reading, mathematics and science. The data is used to assess the impact of educational quality on incomes and growth and to understand what causes differences in achievement across nations. More than 470,000 15-year-old students representing 65 nations and territories participated in 2009.
TIMSS: The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study is an international assessment developed by Netherlands-based International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement of the mathematics and science of fourth-graders and eighth-graders worldwide. More than 425,000 students from 35 countries participated in 2007. 2011 results are due out in December.
Both PISA and TIMSS assessments show the value U.S. students place on science and math lags compared with other countries. When asked in the TIMSS exam whether they agree math or science "is boring," or if they "would like to take more" math or science, American students ranked between 15th and 22nd, far behind most Asian powers.
TIMSS concluded that students in other countries see school as more central to their lives.
MIRED IN MEDIOCRITY
The United States muddles in the middle in a series of international comparisons in science and math. America's students ranked 23rd in science and 31st in math in the latest ranking of 65 nations from the Program for International Student Assessment, which measures literacy in math, science and reading among 15-year-olds.
Another assessment,
Trends in International Math and Science Study, ranks U.S. students between 11th and 17th in fourth- and eighth-grade science and math among the top 35 industrialized nations.