Dating back to the dawn of the Space Race, calls to improve young people's mastery of the academic material undergirding U.S. technological strength have been a recurrent refrain in American education. In the past few years, the leitmotif has grown louder, amplified by concerns about competition from well-educated yet lower-paid foreign workers…

Pamela Moran, superintendent of Albemarle County (Virginia) public schools, sees ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) as a once-in-a-lifetime chance. "I don't think that in the history of public schools--certainly since I entered them in the 1970s--there has been an opportunity such as this," she says. "The last time there…

The author of this article argues that, just as Americans were shocked into action, when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, by strengthening STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) in the educational curriculum, Americans must be shocked again. The nation must address the failure of its leaders to provide adequate funding…

The concept of two cultures recognized by Charles Percy Snow may have implications beyond a lack of understanding and respect between two conflicting worlds of intellectuals. This widening chasm in the United States affects the education of our public school students. Technology and economics, intelligence testing, the "No Child Left Behind…