Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Leave it to Texas' highest-profile science and math academics to come up with the most logical answer to two tough challenges facing our country.

Problem 1: Americans are losing jobs in droves. Young Americans, including those with college degrees, are having trouble finding jobs because their fields of study don't meet the needs of companies that are still hiring.

Problem 2: American companies have to recruit heavily from overseas to fill job positions here in highly technical fields such as medical science and computer engineering. Some companies worry about losing market position to foreign competitors unless Congress relaxes visa rules to allow skilled foreigners to work here. Meanwhile, other countries are opening their doors to lure skilled workers away.

The mismatch here is obvious. The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas last week launched a campaign to energize policymakers into realigning educational priorities and finding creative ways to attract students into scientific and technological disciplines.

The idea is to inspire teachers and students while making these fields interesting and engaging. A Raytheon survey in 2005 found that 84 percent of U.S. middle school students would rather clean their rooms, eat their vegetables, take out the garbage and go to the dentist than do their math homework.

The Texas academy, which was co-founded by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison includes Nobel laureates and globally recognized scholars, says this state has a particular need for an extreme educational makeover. Consider, for example, that Texas' overall graduation rate is among the lowest in the country. In 2007, 4,000 Texas math and science teachers quit, costing the state $27 million to replace them.

Texas teens have a very low passing rate for science and math, and the state must spend $300 million a year in remedial education at the college level. This is costing us money and jobs. If Texas could reduce dropout rates, it would gain almost $2 trillion in economic output and create 1 million new jobs over the next 20 years, the academy says.

In China, 42 percent of college undergraduates earn science or engineering degrees, but in the United States, only 5 percent do. China and India supply 31 percent of global research and development staff. And according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. science and engineering employment will increase 70 percent faster than the rate for all occupations.

If Americans can't supply the skilled labor these employers need, it's clear that China and India stand ready to fill the gap.

What we're hearing from this latest group of experts is really no different from what we've heard from Compete America, the Business Roundtable and scores of other academic and business groups. The United States is falling way behind in the technical fields where the country's growth markets are brightest.

Our ignorance might seem blissful today, but nobody will be laughing when more and more of our graduates can't find jobs while America's competitive edge in the sciences steadily drifts overseas.