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| This painting from a Washington D.C. tapas restaurant is not social network analysis, but social network analysis can help us unwind some mysteries about how the world is arranged. |
Much has been made about the fact that America is coming up short when teaching children core concepts in STEM, or Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.
How does America perform, exactly? In 2009, the country's students came in 23rd place in science the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). That's below Belgium and Hungary. The top three performers, from first to third, were China, Finland and Hong Kong (tested separately than the rest of China).
When the results came out, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan called it "an absolute wake-up call for America." The only country to land people on the moon was now in the middle of the pack for teaching children about science.
It made the news. Town hall meetings sprung up. Companies like Exxon Mobil developed marketing and outreach campaigns. And so the public became aware of the STEM crisis.
There's another crisis schools are faced with, and it's much less publicized: the turnover crisis. To some degree, these two problems are related.
