America's Obsession With STEM Education Is Dangerous Summary

In Fareed Zakaria’s article,“Why America’s Obsession with STEM Education is Dangerous”, he states that Americans find that education needs to lean more toward teaching individual skills, however, colleges, foundations, and companies want to expand their studies in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).

In a study done during the Nineteenth Century, the United States was proved to have a wide range of general education. According to Zakaria’s findings, the United States has never done all that well on international tests. However, over the last fifty years, America’s scores have soared in science, technology, research and innovation. According to Zakaria, people still need to know how to learn, think, and write, regardless of how

On the last international test that the United States was involved in, the country ranked twenty-seven out of thirty-four when all subjects are averaged. Of the three subjects (math, science, and reading) the United States’ rankings were twenty seventh, twentieth, and seventeenth. Oddly enough, the best scores that the United States had were in reading, which is part of a liberal arts education. Zakaria says, “Since 1964, when the first such exam was administered to thirteen-year-olds in twelve countries, America has lagged behind its peers, rarely rising above the middle of the pack and doing particularly poorly in science and math.” The country’s scores have never been very high in math and science, even though these two subjects are crucial to technology and engineering. This contradicts the idea that STEM based learning is the most effective education. Zakaria states, “...the United States has never done well on international tests, and they are not good predictors of our national success.” He wants readers to understand that even though the country’s test scores may not be the best internationally, it should not reflect the country as a