U.S. Department of Energy

Office of Science

For more information on the Office of Science visit our website:

www.science.doe.gov

Building a 21st Century Workforce

Summary

If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational 

performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we 

have allowed this to happen to ourselves. We have even squandered the gains in student achievement made in the wake of the Sputnik challenge. Moreover, we have dismantled essential support 

systems that helped make those gains possible. We have, in effect, been committing an act of 

unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament.

3⁄4 A Nation at Risk, 1983

It is more than unfortunate that these alarming 

words of 20 years ago still hold true. Our Nation 

is failing to produce both a scientifically literate 

citizenry and the kind of workforce we will need 

in the 21st Century. Consider the following: Test 

scores from the Third International Mathematics 

and Science Study (TIMSS) placed the U.S. participants near the bottom of the 16 countries that 

administered the physics and advanced mathematics tests; engineering majors in the U.S. 

declined by 35% between 1975 and 1998; and in 

1999, while U.S. colleges granted over 125,000 

social science undergraduate degrees, it granted 

a mere 19,000 in the physical sciences. Echoing

“A Nation at Risk,” the U.S. Commission on 

National Security in the 21st Century reported, 

“inadequacies of our systems of research and 

education pose a greater threat to U.S. national 

security over the next quarter century than any 

potential conventional war that we might 

imagine.”

The standard of living we enjoy and the security 

of our Nation rests in no small degree on the 

quality of science and technology education we 

provide our Nation's students from elementary 

through graduate school. Everyone is aware that 

student performance on achievement tests is 

very troubling. What’s more, both the TIMSS 

and the National Assessment of Educational 

Progress indicate that as our students move from 

primary through secondary schools, their 

academic performance steadily declines in 

comparison to most developed nations. 

There are many reasons for America’s failure in 

science education, but as the National Commission on Science and Mathematics teaching 

pointed out, teacher preparation stands out as 

both a major contributing factor and something 

for which all scientific institutions can play a 

role in solving. Teachers who have strong content knowledge and experience in teaching 

science and math produce students who perform 

better on standardized tests and take more 

science and math courses. Their students are 

also more excited about science and technology 

in general. Consequently, most efforts to improve science, math, and technology education 

place the teacher as the central factor in the 

formula for a solution.

The view of higher post-secondary education 

presents a different but no less challenging 

landscape. Over the last 20 years, there has been 

a sharp decline in U.S. students choosing majors 

in engineering and physical sciences. While our 

students are showing less inclination toward 

these careers, other nations' students are taking 

increasing advantage of our country's premier 

educational and training institutions. From 1986-

1999, 120,000 foreign students made up about 

45% of the U.S. doctoral degree recipients in 

science and engineering with China the leading 
U.S. Department of Energy

Office of Science

For more information on the Office of Science visit our website:

www.science.doe.gov

country at 24,000 recipients. The prospects of 

this trend on the playing field of global competition are not encouraging. 

The National Laboratories: A Resource for 

Mentoring Teachers and Students

Our country has thrived because of the diversity 

in its people, and the presence of foreign 

students should not be seen as a threat but a 

message. The message is not found in the 

presence of foreign students but the absence of 

Americans. We are failing to attract our own 

homegrown talent into science and engineering 

careers. In response, colleges and universities 

have begun to revitalize science, engineering, 

and teacher undergraduate education through 

comprehensive, interdisciplinary approaches. 

These efforts increasingly include research or 

internship experiences. 

The U.S. has a history of successfully marshalling its powerful resources to solve our most 

challenging problems. The scientists and 

engineers at our national laboratories represent 

just such a unique resource and operate on the 

principal that complex problems are best solved 

by the power of many minds working as one. 

These highly trained scientists and engineers 

learned their craft under the closely mentored 

supervision of the teams of scientists that came 

before them. This mentor-intensive approach is 

one of the most distinguishing characteristics of 

advanced science education at a national 

laboratory. To fail to use this enormous national 

asset in scientific and technical talent as mentors 

for our teachers would be to neglect an 

extraordinarily promising path to boosting 

teacher classroom performance. 

Our national labs have, for many years, accepted 

K-12 school teachers and college students in 

fellowship and internship research positions. 

They have welcomed these participants into a 

scientifically and technically advanced 

environment, where multidisciplinary teams are 

the rule and where many of the world's best 

minds work cooperatively. Our scientists 

sincerely feel that the presence of teachers and 

college students has been professionally and personally rewarding, has contributed positively to 

their research, and has enriched the scientific 

culture at the laboratories.

 

A common lament of science teachers is that 

professional development programs seldom had 

any lasting impact since they did not establish 

long-term interactions between scientists or their 

institutions and the teachers they served. Our 

goal is to direct the well-developed mentoring 

capacity of our national labs at establishing a 

lasting collaborative relationship with the 

Nation’s teachers to increase their scientific 

skills, technical awareness, and content knowledge. When this approach was used in the early 

1990’s, our national labs created a cadre of some 

of the Nation’s most outstanding teachers. 

The multidisciplinary, team-centered, scientific 

culture of the national laboratories is an ideal 

setting for teachers to make the connections 

between the science and technology principles 

they are asked to teach. More importantly, the 

extensive mentoring power of our laboratory 

scientists is an excellent vehicle to establish 

lasting relationships that would allow teachers to 

remain connected to the scientific community 

once they return to the classroom. Armed with 

this knowledge and experience, each teacher 

could enter the classroom as an effective 

representative of the exciting world of science 

and technology. 

For further information on this subject contact:

Dr. Peter Faletra 

Office of the Director 

Office of Science 

202-586-6549

peter.faletra@science.doe.gov