“This country is in the midst of a STEM and data literacy crisis,” opined Elena Gerstmann and Laura Albert in a recent piece for The Hill. Their sentiment represents a widely held concern that America’s global leadership in scientific and technological innovation, anchored in educational excellence, is being relinquished, thereby jeopardizing our economy and national security. Their message recycles a 65-year-old warning to U.S. policy makers, educators, and employers when the USSR seemingly eclipsed our innovation pace with the launch of Sputnik.
