John Winn — NMSI Chief Program Officer

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman put one of America’s greatest challenges in perspective in his Sunday column. He described the current state of global competition in math, science, technology and innovation in terms that we can all understand.

These key paragraphs really captured the difference between the slow response in the U.S. and how our competitors are rising to the challenge:

“A few weeks ago, my wife and I flew from New York’s Kennedy Airport to Singapore. In J.F.K.’s waiting lounge we could barely find a place to sit. Eighteen hours later, we landed at Singapore’s ultramodern airport, with free Internet portals and children’s play zones throughout. We felt, as we have before, like we had just flown from the Flintstones to the Jetsons. If all Americans could compare Berlin’s luxurious central train station today with the grimy, decrepit Penn Station in New York City, they would swear we were the ones who lost World War II.

“How could this be? We are a great power. How could we be borrowing money from Singapore? Maybe it’s because Singapore is investing billions of dollars, from its own savings, into infrastructure and scientific research to attract the world’s best talent — including Americans.

“And us? Harvard’s president, Drew Faust, just told a Senate hearing that cutbacks in government research funds were resulting in ‘downsized labs, layoffs of post docs, slipping morale and more conservative science that shies away from the big research questions.’ Today, she added, ‘China, India, Singapore ... have adopted biomedical research and the building of biotechnology clusters as national goals. Suddenly, those who train in America have significant options elsewhere.’

“Who will tell the people? We are not who we think we are. We are living on borrowed time and borrowed dimes. We still have all the potential for greatness, but only if we get back to work on our country.” (“Who Will Tell The People?” by Thomas Friedman, Sunday Opinion, New York Times, May 4, 2008)

That’s an effective description of the problem – now the word needs to go out to the American people that we have answers at NMSI that work. The AP Training and Incentives and UTeach programs have 10 years of data showing that they make a positive difference. That’s why the convocation in Washington was so important and why we need more political leaders to add their voices and their votes to funding for math and science programs.

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