Obama pushes math, science education
Washington (CNN) -- A conversation last week with South Korea's president apparently showed President Obama the stark difference between how Asian nations and the United States value education.
Obama said Monday that the U.S. needs to restore the nation's leadership in educating children in math and science to meet future challenges, and he announced a new Educate to Innovate Campaign.
He told how President Lee Myung-bak explained that demanding parents are South Korea's biggest education problem.
"Even if somebody is dirt poor, they are insisting that their kids are getting the best education," Obama recalled the conversation, sounding almost whimsical in describing Lee's biggest education problem as parents wanting excellent schools for their children.
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The goal, Obama said, is "expanding opportunity for all Americans in a world where education is the key to success."
Referring to his conversation with Lee, Obama noted the "hunger for knowledge, an insistence on excellence, a reverence for science and math and technology and learning" in Asia.
"That used to be what we were about," he said. "That's what we're going to be about again."
Source
In 1957 Sputnik went up and thousands of American kids wanted to become rocket scientists to beat the Russians. This was the coolest thing a kid could do. It was sexy to be a future scientist. Sigh.
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