The news cycle has moved on and few are talking about President Obama’s Nobel Prize award but the event did prompt me to wonder how the U.S. was doing overall in the prize count. We like to think of the U.S. as producing outstanding achievers in almost every area of human endeavor, but does the Nobel Prize serve as a good barometer of U.S. standing? In looking into this question I found the following report on U.S. wins in the area of science and technology:

After cleaning up in the Nobel science prizes, the United States scored another coup: the peace prize for a president less than nine months in office. At a time when some had begun to question how long America’s pre-eminence in science and diplomacy could last, nine of the 11 nominees who won or shared this year’s five prizes handed out so far are American. [...] The scientists were recognized for work that led to breakthroughs in cancer therapies and antibiotics, and brought the world digital photography and high-speed Internet. [...] However, Alan Leshner, chief executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, noted that Nobels are generally given for work that’s a decade old or more, and that the U.S. mustn’t become complacent. U.S. strength reflects federal financial support since World War II, but it has flattened out or declined while other countries are investing heavily in their own scientific research, he said. “The United States probably will not lose its eminence in science in the coming years, but its pre-eminence, its dominance is, of course, at risk as other countries make their own investments,” he said.

American Nobel victories are great news and I’m happy to congratulate the winners who are expanding the frontiers of scientific and technical knowledge, but I also want to underscore that warning about complacency by noting another recent news report that suggested to me that such success may not be sustainable. You may have heard of the recent report by U.S. Department of Education on American math scores at the 4th and 8th grade levels. The news is not good:

Arne Duncan, releasing a report on the Department of Education’s latest examination of how well American children are doing in mathematics, said no one should be satisfied with what it found. “Today’s results are evidence that we must better equip our schools to improve the knowledge and skills of America’s students in mathematics,” he said. “More must be done to narrow the troubling achievement gap that has persisted in mathematics, and to ensure that America’s students make greater gains toward becoming competitive with their peers in other countries.”

If this trend is not reversed the pipeline that produces leaders in science and technology could run dry in a generation. Education reform has been a goal of many presidential administrations, past and present, and everyone acknowledges the role of education as a foundation for economic prosperity, but we should also acknowledge the role education plays in sustaining high levels of achievement in the sciences. Education reform needs our urgent support if we are to maintain the traditional U.S. role as a top innovator in science and technology.