Always good to hear from you, but especially on this topic. Thanks for such a thoughtful and extensive comment. i hope it prompts others to respond.

Maybe it’s because since I found your blog, Bill, I’ve been waiting for you to make a comment on what has happened to the social fabric in this country. To me and likely to others, it is not something that has just happened, but has been developing slowly in this country over at least the past 25 years, most blatantly exemplified in the “me” decade of the 1990s, amplified by public and social media, and until recently largely ignored by the intelligentsia which has often insulated itself in its academic and government institutions. 9/11 didn’t help either, as it engendered a sense that we aren’t safe and have to protect ourselves, not only as a nation but in terms of our individual communities and households. That sense further heightened the “me first” mentality that has translated into “don’t spend my money on someone or something else” and has given rise to the Tea Party.

We now have an entire generation emerging on the world stage who had their formative years during the “me” decade and I can’t think that the social fabric problem will get a lot worse before it gets better, based upon what I’ve observed in college students during the last 5-10 years, even at the doctoral level. Discussions with colleagues at various institutions confirms this is not an isolated trend. Although there are always welcome exceptions (and I most enjoy working with those students) the up-and-coming leaders of this country often bear the marks of the “me decade”, summarily generalized as “what’s in it for me?”

Is there hope? Of course, but it falls to those of us who see the problem to lead by example. I’ve found that trying to talk about values with students, for example, often has little more than superficial impact, and I admit I have not always done the best job of leading by example. But I think it behooves all of us who see the problem, no matter what our walk of life, to do more to lead by example. Those of us in academia and public policy have a special responsibility to do so given the numbers of future leaders we may encounter on an annual basis. We will not have the luxury forever of sitting on the sidelines and commenting without engaging. If we do nothing, the country will fall apart either by civil war or a fundamental collapse in government, for which public confidence in has been steady slipping for most of the past decade.

Your readers might be interested in a posting I read yesterday at
http://firechief.com/command/resilience-time-stupid. Some ideas about what you can do to adapt to sequesters and other strictures “In the Time of Stupid.” I wish I’d thought of that phrase.

Two important points…one you brought up and one you didn’t.

Integration vs diversity. We have plenty of diversity and no integration. The programs are stovepiped across too many agencies (and, of course, this applies to a LOT more than just education) and, because of the lack of integration, no one (esp. Congress) can say which if any of the programs are actually working. More importantly, no one can say “Cut this, prune that, change the direction of the other.” In short, while I agree with your principle, I also believe that Senator Dirksen’s famous dictum is even more more important in this context: “Sometimes you have to rise above principle to do the right thing.”

In my opinion, none of the programs are addressing the more important problem: only about 30-40% of our kids are doing well educationally. If they were the only students in our country, we’d probably rank in at least the top 10 internationally in math and science. But we’ve got that other 60-70% (note: Charles Murray probably was the first to call attention to this widening divide in “Coming Apart,” but now the idea has been pretty much mainstreamed, e.g., by the Brookings Institution.). It is inconceivable that we can have a significant impact on STEM training without addressing the larger issues facing those 60-70% of our youth. The narrowing career paths for those without a high school education; the alarming rise in teen births in some parts of the country; the growing physical separation between the educated and the uneducated which means that the educated (who have the means) no longer see the problems of the uneducated.

In the words of an old song I’ve always liked, the Occupy X Movements “got the right string, baby, but the wrong yo-yo.” It’s not the separation between the 1% and everybody else – there’s really not that much separation among the top 30+%; it’s this gaping gulf between the upper 30+% and everybody else that we’ve got to fix.

In other words, these proposed changes in STEM education seem like more political rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, and I’m afraid are unlikely to have any meaningful impact.

The author’s thesis/warning is that the expansion of drone fleets might make it easier for Navy commanders to “pull the trigger.”

As we have noted, drone technology has plenty of applications in scientific and atmospheric research. These are clearly offset by the growing use of war drones.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/13/opinion/drones-and-the-rivalry-between-the-us-and-china.html