Closing The Math And Science Gap In Education

There was some positive news this week on the math-and-science education front: the New York Times reported on two studies that show progress for women. One report, from the National Research Council, shows progress for women in university science faculties, while a second from the University of Wisconsin says the math achievement gap between boys and girls has all but closed.

In Public Agenda's research and engagement work on math and science education, we've been intrigued by how little we've seen of a gender gap in attitudes about this. In our Reality Check surveys of high school students, we found no evidence that girls were less interested in math and science than boys, or less confident in their skills. Two-thirds of both boys and girls said they've "learned a lot" in math class, and similar numbers of boys (55 percent) and girls (58 percent) say increasing the number and quality of math and science courses would improve education.

So much for the good news. The bad news is that many students -- girls and boys alike – aren't are all that enthusiastic about careers in math and science. In our survey, we found just half of students felt strong math, science and technology skills are "absolutely essential" to their future. Nearly one in four had a reaction that can be roughly translated as "Yuck!" -- saying they'd be "really unhappy if I ended up in a job or career that required doing a lot of math and science."

American students may not be getting much of a push from their parents on this, either. Educators, policymakers and business leaders have been deeply concerned about the U.S. falling behind on science and technology, but the parents we surveyed seemed pretty complacent about what their children were getting.

Most parents (62 percent) do say students need advanced math like algebra and calculus to succeed in life. But majorities also say that "things are fine as they are" when it comes to the amount of math their child gets in school (57 percent). Seventy percent of high school parents say their child's school is teaching the right amount of math and science.

In fact, fewer parents worry about math and science education than in the 1990s. When Public Agenda surveyed parents in 1994, 52 percent said not enough math and science was a "serious problem" in their child's school. By 2006, that had fallen to 32 percent.

Public Agenda isn't just researching this problem – we're working to engage people in solving it as well. If you live in the Kansas City area and are concerned about these problems, you can take part in a Community Conversation planned on June 12. That's part of a three-year initiative led by Public Agenda with the Regional METS Leadership Coalition and One KC Voice, with funding from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.