[Source: Sarah Reynolds, Yuma Sun] — Employers and educators say high school students, locally and nationally, will need to do more to prepare themselves with the math and science skills they’ll need to compete in the global economy. “The general gist is the fact that America has been a superpower for a number of decades in terms of technology and innovation,” said Chris Camacho, president and chief executive officer of Greater Yuma Economic Development Corp. “And now China and India and the developing nations are becoming very strong competitors … These folks are producing many more scientists and the high-level technical folks than the U.S. is producing today.”
This national struggle is reflected locally in a need for more home-grown engineers, medical professionals and scientists. Training those professionals begins in local K-12 and college classes. “I think nationwide we really are in a crisis when it comes to math and science,” said Cynthia Broughton, division chair of science, mathematics and agricultural science at Arizona Western College. “It doesn’t mean we don’t have the ability or the intelligence. We’ve got a lot of it. We’ve got bright kids.” [To read the full article, click here.]