The Liberty Science Center’s WLC Luncheon on Dec. 9th focused on the importance of involving girls in the love of science and math and encouraging and supporting them in taking STEM courses. This is not just a nice to do but a real need to do according to Tom Friedman’s recent op ed on PISA.
Op-Ed in the NYTimes Sunday Review
December 7, 2013
By Thomas L. Friedman
The latest results in the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, which compare how well 15-year-olds in 65 cities and countries can apply math, science and reading skills to solve real-world problems were released last week, and it wasn’t pretty for the home team. Andreas Schleicher, who manages PISA, told the Department of Education: “Three years ago, I came here with a special report benchmarking the U.S. against some of the best performing and rapidly improving education systems. Most of them have pulled further ahead, whether it is Brazil that advanced from the bottom, Germany and Poland that moved from adequate to good, or Shanghai and Singapore that moved from good to great. The math results of top-performer Shanghai are now two-and-a-half school years ahead even of those in Massachusetts – itself a leader within the U.S.”