Business Week Investor Education, Business Week Article On The Rise Of Math

Q: I have high standards. My students appreciate that. In case you haven't noticed, this is a tough business to keep your job in. If all you can do is put numbers in formulas, you aren't going to be high on the list of personel to retain when it's time for layoffs.

A:That's exactly the point. That "secure place in the middle" is gone! Where are the role models (in the present please!) that can convince the kids they ought to study the hard subjects like science and math? Forget my query about top earners. Where are the dads, uncles, cousins, whoever, who can show that graduating from math, chemistry, physics, biology at whatever level you please results in gainful, long term, employment. I'm sorry, but that uncle who graduted chemistry but earns his living in construction has the whole family telling the kids to stay away from science. The only

point I'm trying to make is that a society that fails to reward a math/science education has no business scratching it's collective moronic head over the inevitable vanishing pool of science talent. talent does matter -and it is present/naturally occuring both in 3rd world countries and 1st world countries to the same extent. Given that it is present everywhere -the folks who get hired to do pioneering work are inevitably the ones who reside in a country with a good investment climate. If it was assumed that some other country offered the same investment climate and the US didn't -there is a good chance that people there would have come up with equally good ideas.