Economist Bill Goffe (2010) recently alerted PhysLrnR's to Janet Raloff's (2010) "Science News" report "Science Literacy: U.S. College Courses Really Count" at <http://tinyurl.com/ydayp9z>. Raloff wrote [bracketed by lines "RRRRRR. . . . "]: RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR Jon Miller <http://dsme.msu.edu/people/jomiller.htm> of Michigan State University reported the numbers at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting <http://www.aaas.org/>, this afternoon, during a session on civic science literacy assessments around the world. The new U.S. rate, based on questionnaires administered in 2008, is seven percentage points behind Sweden, the only European nation to exceed the Americans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . America's improving science and tech literacy does not appear to reflect better K-12 science education, Miller says, since scores on tests assessing kids' science literacy has remained fairly stable - and not that high. Indeed, he notes, U.S. high school students "are below average and below most European countries" on virtually every international achievement test administered throughout the past 30 years. . . . . . . . . one is tempted to ask how science literacy among U.S. adults could have risen to become second only to the Swedes'. The likely answer, [Miller] contends, traces to the U.S. undergraduate curriculum. "The United States is the only country in the world, right now, that requires all of its university students take a year of general education," Miller says. "Which means they all have a year of science, a year of social science, and a year of humanities." It's something he contends European and other nations would do well to match. RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University 24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367 Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands. <[log in to unmask]> <http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/> <http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi/> <http://HakesEdStuff.blogspot.com/> <http://iub.academia.edu/RichardHake> REFERENCES [Tiny URL's courtesy <http://tinyurl.com/create.php>.] Goffe, B. 2010."Science literacy: U.S. college courses really count," PhysLrnR post of 28 Feb 2010 16:02:44-0500 online at <http://tinyurl.com/ydayp9z>. To access the archives of PhysLnR one needs to subscribe, but that takes only a few minutes by clicking on <http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/physlrnr.html> and then clicking on "Join or leave the list (or change settings)." If you're busy, then subscribe using the "NOMAIL" option under "Miscellaneous." Then, as a subscriber, you may access the archives and/or post messages at any time, while receiving NO MAIL from the list! Raloff, J. 2010. "Science Literacy: U.S. College Courses Really Count," Science News 177(6): 13; online at <http://tinyurl.com/y8mkvcf>.