Reform // Current

White House Pushes Science and Math Education

To improve science and mathematics education for American children, the White House is recruiting Elmo and Big Bird, video game programmers and thousands of scientists.

President Obama will announce a campaign Monday to enlist companies and nonprofit groups to spend money, time and volunteer effort to encourage students, especially in middle and high school, to pursue science, technology, engineering and math, officials say.

The campaign, called Educate to Innovate, will focus mainly on activities outside the classroom. For example, Discovery Communications has promised to use two hours of the afternoon schedule on its Science Channel cable network for commercial-free programming geared toward middle school students.

Science and engineering societies are promising to provide volunteers to work with students in the classroom, culminating in a National Lab Day in May.

The MacArthur Foundation and technology industry organizations are giving out prizes in a contest to develop video games that teach science and math.

“The different sectors are responding to the president’s call for all hands on deck,” John P. Holdren, the White House science adviser, said in an interview.

The other parts of the campaign include a two-year focus on science on “Sesame Street,” the venerable public television children’s show, and a Web site, connectamillionminds.com, set up by Time Warner Cable, that provides a searchable directory of local science activities. The cable system will contribute television time and advertising to promote the site.

The White House has also recruited Sally K. Ride, the first American woman in space, and corporate executives like Craig R. Barrett, a former chairman of Intel, and Ursula M. Burns, chief executive of Xerox, to champion the cause of science and math education to corporations and philanthropists.

Administration officials say that the breadth of participation in Educate to Innovate is wider than in previous efforts, which have failed to produce a perceptible rise in test scores or in most students’ perceptions of math and science. In international comparison exams, American students have long lagged behind those in much of Asia and Europe.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/23/education/23educ.html?hpTo improve science and mathematics education for American children, the White House is... more

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Geithner Prods Congress on Financial Reform

WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner is pushing Congress to move quickly in overhauling the nation’s badly flawed financial rules, which he says is essential for the health of the economy.

Both the House and Senate are making progress toward revamping the current regulations, but Mr. Geithner said a rapid conclusion is needed to keep the economic recovery on track.

“To ensure the vitality, the strength and the stability of our economy going forward, we must bring our system of financial regulation into the 21st century,” Mr. Geithner said in remarks prepared for an appearance Thursday before the Joint Economic Committee.

Both the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking Committee are working on their own versions of sweeping overhaul plans. But the two panels are taking sharply divergent approaches in some areas.

Both proposals also face sharp opposition from major sectors in the financial industry, casting doubt on how quickly Congress will be able to reach agreement and send a finished bill to the White House.

Mr. Geithner said a crucial principle the administration wants to see adopted is ensuring that firms not be able to escape or avoid oversight by shopping for the most lenient regulator, a situation critics say contributed to the worst financial market crisis in seven decades.

“The fact that investment banks like Bear Stearns or Lehman Brothers or other large firms like A.I.G. could escape meaningful consolidated federal supervision simply by virtue of their legal form should be considered unthinkable from now on,” Mr. Geithner said.

Another crucial principle the administration wants to see approved by Congress is to make sure the financial system as a whole is more capable of absorbing shocks and coping with failures. Mr. Geithner said this will require putting a greater focus on the quality of capital that firms are allowed to hold.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/business/economy/20treasury.html?hpwWASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner is pushing Congress to move... more