As the Reilly website outlines the proposal SMART is an initiative to raise math, science, engineering and technology education to new heights and to build the highly skilled workforce we need to keep Massachusetts competitive in a global innovation economy.
The SMART initiative offers specific, comprehensive proposals to recruit and train highly skilled math and science teachers; engage the business community; better motivate students; close “interest” gaps among women and minorities; and produce more college graduates with degrees in these fields. Tom’s goals for the SMART Initiative include:
The following was added by David:
Reilly proposed several means to achieve these goals, as follows:
Improving teacher quality and development by:
Offering scholarships to college students who major in math and science and commit to teach in our public schools for five years, with additional tuition assistance for teaching in low performing schools; Providing professional development grants to enhance math and science knowledge for elementary teachers. Engaging the business community by:
Forming regional alliances between businesses and schools to expose students and teachers to “real world” applications of math and science through company internships and externships; Offering tax incentives to the private sector to find 1,000 new volunteers with experience in this field to tutor or adjunct teach in their local schools. Better motivating students and closing the gender and minority gaps by:
Forming a statewide corps of female and minority professional math and science “role models” to mentor and encourage public school students; Creating the Governor’s Internship Program to place 50 high-achieving high school students in math and science internships in state agencies; Launching a statewide public information campaign to make science real for students and demonstrate the kinds of careers that depend on math and science. Producing more math and science graduates in our higher education system by:
Encouraging the development of more professional science masters’ programs in our colleges and universities; Offering annual prizes for public higher education students who conduct the research projects with best potential for the business world. Launching an unprecedented collaboration between the public and private sectors by:
Convening a summit, personally chaired by Governor Reilly, to launch the Math and Science Success (MASS) Compact with a goal of increasing interest and achievement in math and science; Setting tangible benchmarks and then reconvening the Compact to analyze progress and be held accountable for reaching those goals.
Getting 40% more math and science grads out of the public higher ed system is a worthy goal, and since we’re at a low number now it ought to be an achievable goal. At UMass Amherst, with our top-20 computer science program, we have the capacity to educate a lot more undergrad computer science majors if we can get the qualified applicants. Those applicants are getting scarcer, unfortunately, anecdotally because the public believes that all the CS jobs have been outsourced to India (they haven’t).
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I don’t think too much of Reilly’s two specific program proposals towards this goal, because neither of them involve spending any money that I can see. Professional master’s programs where they don’t exist are a marginal thing — the only way they will help undergrad programs is by making the schools that have them slightly more attractive to good faculty. And prizes for individual students attractive to industry are a drop in the bucket — there’s plenty of incentive to do research attractive to industry because it gets you a good job!
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What would help is better financial support for students. For example, the five best computer science associates’ graduates from STCC (Springfield Technical Community College) should get an attractive scholarship to UMass Amherst, where they can have their transition into our program carefully managed and be able to concentrate on their work free of financial pressures. We have a lot of STCC grads now, but we lose some to bad transitions and financial problems. Many of the other CC’s in the state also produce qualified associates’ graduates, and these are exactly the people you want to encourage — immigrants, working class, not the obvious winners out of the high school system.
but it’s totally bogus to promise all this stuff when you’re on record in favor of giving back hundreds of millions more in income tax cuts. It has zero credibility.
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Yes, that’s what Republicans have been doing. But maybe Dems can attract enough swing voters back by being visionary and straightforward, not by making promises that halfway intelligent folks know are B.S.
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The hardcore anti-tax vote is pretty much lost to the party of affirmative government no matter what, but the people out there who want a government that takes on tough problems instead of kicking them down the road may actually appreciate candidates who don’t pander, don’t rely on fuzzy math, and don’t offer up a version of Barbara Anderson Lite.