Excellent article that lists the reasons for lack of technology adoption in schools but provides not scalable solutions. Technology is moving ever more rapidly now and will continue to accelerate. Corporations force their employees to learn new technology and won't hire those who aren't fluent. Educational institutions aren't willing to take this step and often cannot due to tenure considerations.

How do we get there from here?

Interesting observations. Game elements will creep into serious educational software. It's inevitable because some students seem always to require some sort of carrot/stick aspect. For most, however, the key is engagement. Especially in K-12 learning, there's too much learning for learning's sake and memorization.

I do not agree that playing is more fun than working. Much play can be dull and repetitive. The right work can be exhilarating. Succeeding at a game may provide some feel-good feedback for a while, but success in the real world brings better and longer-lasting good feelings. Playing games is usually easier, requiring less effort, while even the most wonderful work takes real effort. Too much gaming encourages laziness despite the idea that it may take hundreds of hours to reach some goal in a game. Those hours are just entertainment hours whose primary value is relaxation.

Having reviewed a number of educational games, I find that they tend to take too long for the amount of learning taking place. The "game overhead" is just too great.

I have to admit that I'm thinking about grades 6-14 when I write about this. I cannot speak learnedly to grades K-5, and I suspect that you're quite right about games and younger children. It seems right to me, anyway.

By the time we're talking about 11th grade, the landscape is different, IMO. Let's also not forget that having a series of incredible free museums in your backyard is unusual.

Plate tectonics is one of the more difficult science concepts to have a lab in. However, it's not necessary to have labs in every topic. Labs, beyond elementary school, are really for understanding the nature of science and the like rather than getting concepts.

Over thirty years of investment in improving science education, and this is where we are. If you do the same thing over and over, why do you expect a different result? It's time for real change.

These are serious numbers. The computer science number is especially shocking. What recommendations does anyone suggest to turn these numbers around?

Here are recommendations from the report.

1. Increase training and professional development opportunities for teachers within science and mathematics from pre-service to career, to ensure that teachers are prepared with both content knowledge and pedagogical skills to deliver effective instruction to all students.

2. Expand programs that develop early interest and counteract psychological barriers to STEM among underrepresented groups, especially through the promotion of hands-on instruction in the early grades, extracurricular activities in middle and high school, and mentorship programs.

3. Increase access to rigorous and Advanced Placement courses in mathematics and science to ensure underrepresented students of color enroll in larger numbers in the courses necessary to prepare for college- level work.

4. Expand STEM acceleration and pre-college bridge programs to ensure students who have demonstrated interests in STEM fields complete high school with the skills needed to persist and graduate with degrees in STEM.

5. Expand higher education programs that recruit and retain scholars of color in STEM fields and ensure their completion of STEM degrees (through mentorship, financial assistance, peer and faculty networks).

Here are my remarks on the recommendations.

1. Definitely improve training and support for science and math teachers. Change the way education colleges prepare these people.

2. Definitely expand those programs and implement them where they don't exist. However, we have to do more than just early-grade hands-on programs. We must have good role models in STEM careers to counter others that have less chance of being successful careers. It's more likely to win a Nobel prize in science or medicine than to reach the Baseball Hall of Fame, for one example. This topic demands much more space that I can use here.

3. Advanced Placement is not a panacea but may help. For us to put unprepared students into these courses, we must have really good teachers. It can be done but not simply by administrative fiat.

4 & 5. Good ideas but not game-changers. We must do more.

It's not enough by itself. Teaching science has other problems related to cost and teacher training/support.

This is truly an excellent piece. I have a few minor quibbles with of the statements, but overall it really hits the mark.

We can lower that cost per trained science teacher as well as retrain existing teachers using new technology.

Apple is picking low-hanging fruit, as usual, and making a nice profit at the same time. Will they remain an isolated provider of online texts for iPads at high prices, or will they move to expand by creating inexpensive tablets?

I see this development as good and bad. Firstly, what will CS replace in current curricula? You cannot add something without giving up something else.

That said, CS has the benefit of teaching engineering discipline in a very safe and relatively inexpensive way. (CS is NOT science but software engineering.) OTOH, too many CS classes ignore the discipline and so lose much of that benefit.

I completely disagree with the statement, "To be well-educated citizens in a computing-intensive world and to be prepared for careers in the 21st century, our students must have a clear understanding of the principles and practices of computer science." We don't all have to be software engineers. Really! However, we all should have a good grounding in the three "hard" thinking disciplines: math, science, and engineering.