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How about this for an incentive to hit the math books?
Major in one of the STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering or mathematics) and receive a full college scholarship. This is one of the provisions proposed by Senator Max Baucus of Montana as part of the Education Competiveness Act. This scholarship would apply to ANY university and Senator Baucus even proposes to cover tuition and other expenses like books, student fees and school supplies too.
Sounds like a sweet deal. So, what's the catch? Upon completion of a STEM degree, graduates must "work or teach" for four years in a related field. Small price to pay for a full ride, don't you think?
Parents do all kinds of crazy things to prepare their children for athletic scholarships. Maybe this will create the incentive to do a better job of preparing our children for careers in the STEM disciplines. In fact, being a math nerd just might become as cool as being a jock.
Cross posted here.
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15 comments:
Aww, no linguistics.
isabel of god plays dice
has some remarks on this here.
VME
Isabel raises very good points.
I guess I like the "counter" anti-intellectual aspect of the Baucus proposal. Looking at it through the lense of what our culture tends to value most (when athletic scholarships and the "draft" hold so much value and professional salaries are ridiculously out of line with other professions) it's refreshing to imagine a world in which excelling in math and science holds a greater value simply for it's intellectual contribution to society. I think that might be a nice change of pace.
"Parents do all kinds of crazy things to prepare their children for athletic scholarships."
Having gone through years of bringing my son to all sorts of sports practices and games, I see an interesting trend. When it comes to sports, parents and coaches know exactly what they want: hard work and practice. Mastery.
But these same parents get all weird in their thinking when it comes to education. It's all about some sort of magical critical thinking or understanding. They don't want to push. Somehow, education is quite different than something like sports or even playing a musical instrument. No pushing allowed or the kids will really get screwed up. Kids have to develop at their own rate, whatever that means.
A big article in the editorial section of our state's newspaper pushed the following book. (You can get free advertising in the editorial section!)
"Einstein Never Used Flash Cards: How Our Children Really Learn-- And Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less"
Expectations come down to judgment, but many things are commonly expected, like mastery of the times table in third grade. Play all you want, but you have to make sure that skills are mastered by specific grades. However, the book is not about mastering content and skills. It'a about how they are not that important. Education without mastery. Education without hard work. Play education.
Parents who buy into this philosophy will have a rude awakening when their kids get their SAT results. The book doesn't push a different approach to the same expectations, they push different, and lower, expectations.
With the cost of college education, a STEM incentive might force some changes, but I see lots of loopholes. I would like to see it based on SAT scores, not just weather the student could get into any sort of STEM-like degree program, like math education.
Oh, math education... I hadn't even considered that loophole. Yikes!
As usual Steve, you are so on the money. Why is is that when it comes to academics, "hard work", "practice" and "mastery" are dirty words? Judging by some of the trends I see in education, such an approach borders on abusive. It seems the rules change when it comes to athletic or musical training, however. Go figure.
Oh, also, I'm not big on the teaching requirement. If this is so important, then they should give out merit scholarships (no strings attached) based on SAT scores. We talked about merit scholarships on another thread, but the details were vague. Apparently, colleges don't have any hard and fast rules about this sort of thing. It's nothing that a parent and student can plan on, except for the general idea that if you do well in math, you might (!) get a discount on your education. I talked with a parent yesterday and she said that her son got a college scholarship award of $10,000 per year in his acceptance letter. They had no clue this was coming.
What you want is a clearly-defined incentive (preferably with no strings attached) that parents and kids can work towards from the lowest grades. If it's based on SAT scores, then those expectations (hopefully) will filter down into the lower grades. If parents can see the tangible goal, they will make sure teaching changes will be made. I won't hold my breath.
If parents can see the tangible goal, they will make sure teaching changes will be made.
“Ahà esta el detalle.” (Cantinflas, 1940)
Translation: There's the rub.
"So, what's the catch? Upon completion of a STEM degree, graduates must teach for four years in a related field."
Um ... no, they don't have to do this.
From the article:
"The scholarship would apply to any university, but students must work or teach in a related field for at least four years after graduation to qualify..."
Note the "work or teach". My guess is that the idea here is to prevent a bunch of students from getting a free ride to a math/science degree and then going off to law school.
Of course, the program also seems to preclude going off to grad school in your STEM degree.
-Mark Roulo
"work or teach"... that does change things, doesn't it?
It actually could make the program more appealing to a wider audience. I will certainly adjust my wording accordingly. Thanks for pointing that out.
You could go to grad school in your STEM degree while you work as a teacher for four years. Might take a little longer but sure beats dragging around student loans.
This could be interesting.
Note the "work or teach". My guess is that the idea here is to prevent a bunch of students from getting a free ride to a math/science degree and then going off to law school.
It's also only fair to imagine all the abuses that this type of full scholarship could inspire and build restrictions and rules into the program to attempt to prevent them. It's only fair to protect the types of graduates this program has the intentions of bringing out into the economy. This represents major money when you're talking a four year scholarship at ANY university (supplies, books, etc. included). People will resort to some crazy schemes for much less.
Still, it sounds too good to be true. You know what they say about that, it probably is.
What happens to the poor unfortunate who enrolls in an expensive college on one of these scholarships and discovers in his first semester that he can't do the work in STEM courses?
That would be quite unfortunate.
"What happens to the poor unfortunate who enrolls in an expensive college on one of these scholarships and discovers in his first semester that he can't do the work in STEM courses?"
I presume that the scholarship doesn't require lower acceptance standards. Flunking is a separate issue from where the money is coming from. Also, I don't think that many colleges are in the business of accepting students who have a high probability of flunking out. In any case, it's actually worse for those who flunk and still have to pay off loans.
I think a bigger problem is that it won't fix the problem. it won't raise math SAT scores for the kids they probably want to help. Working harder at fuzzy math won't get more kids into the AP calculus track in high school. The "free ride" approach assumes that the only major issue is student desire. We know differently.
The other issue is that you really don't need calculus in high school. You just need a proper (rigorous) math curriculum all the way through school. However, most high schools have two paths; the one that leads to AP calculus, and the one that leads nowhere. Many students are already on the nowhere track by the time they get to high school. Right when the STEM incentive message could be helpful, it's too late.
"The other issue is that you really don't need calculus in high school. You just need a proper (rigorous) math curriculum all the way through school."
Well, Singapore does teach differentiation/integration by ages 15-16, but keeps it at a fundamental level (and practices it!) in the additional mathematics course.
The main issue is making sure that you're not wasting time by structuring the syllabus such that it's easy to forget what you've learnt. (The mile wide, inch deep problem.)
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