Ignoring a Real Talent Pool

In 1957 the Soviet Union not only sent the first man-made satellite into orbit but also launched the United States on a vigorous program of science education. In the coming decade many of the scientists and mathematicians who were recruited in that post-Sputnik drive will be retiring, and America is not producing enough people trained to replace them in government and industry jobs. It is failing in part because it is ignoring a large pool of potential scientists and engineers: women and minorities.

Congress has set up a task force on women, minorities and the handicapped in science and technology to focus on this problem. The group--headed by Jaime Oaxaca, vice president of Northrop Corp., and W. Ann Reynolds, chancellor of the California State University system--has just issued an interim report. It recommends not only increased federal spending on science and mathematics education in heavily minority school districts and grants and loans for higher education but also far greater involvement by industry.

Since the early 1980s, the report points out, the proportion of U.S. freshmen choosing science and engineering has been dropping; the trend hasn’t been noticed because so many foreign students have enrolled in these fields at American universities. By the year 2000, 85% of the nation’s newest workers will be women and minorities. Thus “the nation can meet future potential shortfalls of scientists and engineers only by reaching out” to these underrepresented groups, the report adds.

There are many predictable suggestions in the report about ways to do that. For example, young women and minorities must be encouraged from kindergarten through high school to tackle science and math. University presidents must also insist that graduate schools on their campuses increase recruiting among women and minorities.

But one of the novel suggestions, and one that should appeal to the new Republican Administration, is that the President call an annual meeting of leading corporate officers so that they might report on their efforts to improve the nation’s scientific and technological work force. The nation’s businesses must be involved because their competitiveness in the world market is at stake, and this sounds like a good way to get started.