American science education is in miserable shape. So miserable, in fact, that its failings threaten to undermine both domestic employment and the nation's economic standing in the world. A steady supply of engineers and scientists is critical if high technology is to play a larger role in the U. S. industrial base. Americans will also need an unprecedented understanding of science if they are to live, work, and vote in a world that is increasingly dependent on science.

The quality of scientific and technical education in the U. S. has been slipping since the brief surge of attention in the decade that followed the 1957 launch of Sputnik. During the politically volatile boom years of the late 1960s, schools shifted their focus from achievement to social relevance, and federal funding for science education waned. The public programs of the 1970s drained school coffers further, while property-tax revolts in many states whittled their traditional financial base to almost nothing. "Our mistake was in thinking it was all over athe day we got to the moon," says F. James Rutherford, chief education officer at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Today, only 6% of U. S. college stu dents are enrolled in engineering pro

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grams, compared with 21% in Japan. And for every hour that an American child spends in school, a Soviet or Japanese child spends two and one-third hours. Warns Education Secretary Terrel H. Bell: "If we don't do more to strengthen our education program and have a more rigorous and demanding curriculum, we're going to start losing out to competitors abroad who are making that commitment."

Years of indifference

Not only will high school graduating classes drop to half their present size by 1990, but also far fewer of the graduates will have taken science courses. Less than one-third of U. S. high schools now require enough math and science courses to qualify their students for entry into an engineering college. And scores on college entrance exams in math and science have declined steadily for 20 years. "The projections are awful; I'm scared to death about the [small] number of technical people that are going to be available," says Thomas A. Vanderslice, president of GTE Corp.

Leaders throughout industry, educa tion, and government fear the U. S. will continue to feel the punishing effects of

years of indifference if sweeping changes are not made in the education system. Their concern is prompting a reexamination of that system, from the elementary schools to the universities.

Everyone is looking for curriculums that teach students not only the computational skills of science and math but also the reasoning skills on which they are based. Few students now receive such schooling. As a result, "the Ameri can general public is technologically illit erate," says Michael I. Yarymovych, Rockwell International Corp.'s vice-presi dent for advanced systems development.

To combat that dangerous technological illiteracy, educators are stressing the need for all students to be given a general knowledge of science. "We need to provide nonscientific, nontechnical people with some understanding of science and technology," says David S. Saxon, president of the University of California. "Science is really a part of the liberal arts, and we ought to be educating peo ple more broadly in this context."

Technological illiteracy and profes sional shortages have their roots in the earliest school grades. "Some 20 or 30 years ago there was a great glamour attached to going into the sciences feeling that you worn working for a

greater cause, the national good," says John K. Hulm, director of research and development planning at Westinghouse Electric Corp. Now that attitude has fad ed, and "children in public school systems are not taking math and science classes," says Bernard H. List, vice-president for training and education at Texas Instruments Inc.

A critical shortage of qualified instructors is not helping either. Fully 50% of the teachers hired in 1981 to teach science and math were uncertified in these subjects. In the past decade alone, the number of math teachers in public schools dropped 77%, and the number of science teachers fell 65%. In addition, 25% of the teachers still in the classroom say they plan to leave.

Money, lack of prestige, and difficult working conditions are largely responsi ble for the teacher shortage. The aver age salary for a beginning high school science teacher is $12,000, which pales beside the $20,000 starting salary that a science or math graduate can earn in industry. "It's tough," says Sandra Feldman, vice-president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). "There are a lot of people who would otherwise be interested in teaching who feel, 'Why should I go into something where I'm never going to get rich and where I'm also going to be looked down upon?" "

But upgrading salaries and increasing the number of teachers will not happen without a struggle. Proposals to allow scientists without teaching credentials to teach full-time in secondary schools are already under fire, as are plans to give math and science teachers salary bonuses. "We don't think you should pay a differential just because this is a shortage area," says the AFT'S Feldman.

digging into its pockets to come up with financial aid and help for local school districts in modernizing their science offerings. In North Carolina, grants and gifts from private corporations are supporting the North Carolina School for Science & Mathematics, a residential high school for gifted students throughout the state. And Standard Oil Co. of Ohio recently gave $1.67 million for a national junior high school science education project, to be directed by the AAAS. "To turn the situation around, we must invest in the science and mathe matics education of our young people," says Alton W. Whitehouse Jr., chief executive officer of Sohio.

At the elementary school level, a number of companies are developing programs patterned after a successful model developed in Houston. Such companies as Bechtel, Shell Oil, and IBM have each "adopted" a local school and sent their technical staff to work with students.

tion's schools. Even such highly regard. ed schools as Manhattan's Stuyvesant High School have had to make do with antiquated equipment. Growing num bers of companies are donating comput ers and technical equipment to schools that otherwise could not afford them. "Operating something, interacting with something, is essential to technological literacy," comments Edward E. David Jr., president of Exxon Research & Engineering Co. "We have got to develop skills for involvement, not just skills for employment."

While these corporate programs provide direct teaching assistance and badly needed modern equipment, many partici pating companies feel their main contribution is simply to expose young people to science in action. Scientific-Atlanta Inc., a Georgia satellite-communications equipment maker, brings students from an Atlanta engineering high school to its labs to observe work in progress. "We

Federal programs are needed to stem the exodus of teachers from the classroom and to fund retraining of those who stay, most observers feel. But they worry that the amount of money proposed is little more than first aid. "The investment has got to be of an order that is appropriate to the mass of the problem," says the AAAS's Rutherford.

The furthest-reaching changes must be accomplished at the grass-roots level. One task that many people feel is most appropriately handled by the state and local school boards is updating science and math curriculums, which rarely include the study of modern technology in their course offerings. Other jobs for local groups include the upgrading of teacher qualifications, hiring practices, and graduation standards.

Several innovative grass-roots efforts are already under way. And industry is

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Engineers from M. W. Kellogg Co. are teaching students how mathematical the ories apply to practical problems in engineering. And in Dallas, Texas Instruments is working with the Dallas Independent School District to organize a program that has technical staff from the company teaching math to fourthand fifth-graders.

Science in action

Industry is helping to promote computer literacy as well. T has lent Houston schools 24 interactive computers that low-income parents may borrow to use with their children at home. "If we don't do something about computer literacy, we will have another kind of haves and have-nots in our society that will be much worse than the black-white division," warns TI's List.

A lack of up-to-date equipment is also hampering science teaching in the na

try to give them some sense of the type of training a person needs to become an engineer." says Jesus Leon, program coordinator. "By providing role models, we can make it easier for them to decide to become engineers."

Despite the increasing pace of such efforts, most observers feel it will take at least a decade be fore American education catches up with the rest of the technologi cal world. "Education is like a su pertanker. It takes a long time to stop and turn around," says James O. Roberson, who heads the Maryland Economic & Community De velopment Dept.

Emphasizing science at the expense of the nonscientific disciplines is wrongheaded, warn many

educators. "High technology is going to require all kinds of people, . ot just people who know math and science," says Feldman of the AFT. "People are going to need a good solid basic education, which means English and the ability to think critically."

These educators worry, too, that Congress will be lured into taking a "quick fix" approach like that of the Sputnik era. "Sputnik backfired," says Frank Press, president of the National Acade my of Sciences. "We weren't consistent. funding wasn't stable, and we lost a lot [of momentum]."

Now, however, everyone agrees that a sustained approach is needed to rejuve nate education and establish a long-term base of literacy. Many see the current flood of attention as a sign of hope. "A great deal more is needed," says Exxon's David. "But the most encouraging sign I see is that people have begun to relate the kind of education we have to the economic health of this country."

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