Students Who Belie the Norm

Not all California students are laggards when it comes to math and science. Take some students from Arcadia and Venice high schools. They beat out other teams in tough regional competitions to secure slots at the upcoming National Science Bowl competition in Washington. The teams will compete against each other and more than 40 others in May.

Going to the national competition are Franz C. Cheng, Alex Fabrikant, Alex Hong, Brian Li and Hugo Liu of the Arcadia High School team that took the top prize at Saturday’s county regional competition of the National Science Bowl. Venice High School’s team of Noah Bray-Ali, David Dickinson, Adam Ferrell, Mathew Nickens and Ryan Young won the honors a week earlier at the citywide competition made up mostly of the Los Angeles Unified School District teams. Last year, a team from Venice won both the city regional and national titles; Arcadia won the county regional title.

The math and science knowledge of these upper-level students is worthy of special note in the wake of the sad performance by California grade-schoolers in national testing, in which California fourth graders scored next to last, edging out only Mississippi.

The Department of Energy sponsors the National Science Bowl, but this and other worthy student programs are threatened by federal funding cutbacks. The money should be found, for the science competition is fun, challenging and a big step toward a better future--for California and the nation.