Journal ArticleDOI
The National Defense Education Act, Current STEM Initiative, and the Gifted
TLDR
Friedman et al. as mentioned in this paper examined the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) and present-day STEM initiatives in relation to gifted education and found that America has had a long-standing involvement with STEM issues that dates back to the establishment of West Point.Abstract:
Oh little Sputnik, flying highWith made-in-Moscow beep, You tell the world it’s a Commie skyAnd Uncle Sam’s asleep.You say on fairway and on roughThe Kremlin knows it allWe hope our golfer knows enoughTo get us on the ball.—Gov. G. Mennen Williams (Michigan)During the past several years, much discus-sion has focused on developing America’s future scientists, technologists, engineers, and math-ematicians (STEM) in order to remain viable and competitive in a growing global economy (Friedman, 2005). In retrospect, America has had a long-standing involvement with STEM issues that dates back to the establishment of West Point in 1802. West Point graduates designed many of the railroads, bridges, and roads so important to this country’s early expansion. The Morrill Act of 1862, originally intended to estab-lish colleges and universities to study agricul-ture and mechanical arts, also supported science and engineering programs. This indirectly led to the establishment of the university research system (Butz et al., 2004). In more recent history, parallels can be drawn between STEM initia-tives involving the launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik in 1957, its legislative history, and the current “quiet crisis” over America’s ability to compete globally (Friedman, 2005). This article examines the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) and present-day STEM initiatives in relation to gifted education. More than 50 years ago, on October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union propelled Sputnik, a 185-pound sphere of aluminum, into space; it orbited the Earth for a brief 98 minutes. “As a technical achievement, Sputnik caught the world’s atten-tion and the American public off-guard,” and also garnered swift action from the U.S. federal government (National Aeronautics and Space Administration [NASA], 2008, para. 4). The United States’ reaction to the launch of Sputnik, coupled with an already ongoing criticism of the American educational system, set the stage for an unprecedented infusion of funding from the federal government to reform public education at all levels. In 1958, the U.S. Congress passed the National Defense Education Act (P.L. 85–864) in order to counteract the seemingly superior Soviet school system that focused on training young scientists and creating an “elite genera-tion” of our own pipeline of STEM workers (Passow, 1957).read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
The idea of academia and the real world and its ironic role in the discourse on Work-integrated Learning
TL;DR: Work-integrated learning (WIL) seeks to bridge the gap between "scholastic" training and work as discussed by the authors, but the WIL discourse remains formed by the idea of academia and work.
Dissertation
A New Era of Educational Assessment: the Use of Stratified Random Sampling in High Stakes Testing
TL;DR: The results indicated that a 20% sampling rate would closely approximate the parameter values regarding the mean TAKS reading and mathematics scale scores and the percentage of students passing these assessments, however, as population size decreases, sampling rate may have to be increased.
Dissertation
The logic of consensus on the foundations of science education in Canada: a Delphi study
Book
Educational Foundations: Philosophical and Historical Perspectives
TL;DR: The educational foundations book as mentioned in this paper provides a comprehensive overview of American education history and a variety of classical, Enlightenment, and contemporary educational philosophers, as well as policies, constitutional law cases, events, and political, religious, and social conflicts for students to consider.
Journal ArticleDOI
Where Are All the Talented Girls? How Can We Help Them Achieve in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics?
TL;DR: For example, this article found that women's participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics courses and careers lags behind that of men in many science and engineering fields and that women remain a distinct minority in many fields.
References
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Book
The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
TL;DR: Friedman and Friedman went to the same high school and used the Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention as inspiration for his column "The GoldenArches theory of conflict prevention" as discussed by the authors.