Arthur Eisenkraft
University of Massachusetts, Boston
2012 June 11
In your editorial in Science 1 June 2012 you note that the US "cannot
fill 600,000 jobs that require analytical and technical skills."
How much of this is because we teach and use two sets of measuring
units, inch-pound and metric? Please help all of us by telling us if
the following is true:
"K-12 students know that two sets of units is nonsense.
Accordingly they stay away from STEM and go to humanities."
In K-12 we teach metric but it is said that because metric is not used
outside of school, students do not have a feel for metric numbers.
What can we do about this? Your editorial focuses on industry. But
beyond industry can we get K-12 to stop teaching inch-pound units?
No more inch-pound in K-4. Put inch-pound in history class after
K-4. Do we need to teach conversion at all?
Can we get Congress to restart the change to metric use? What is
your view of what to do?
Sincerely,
Robert H. Bushnell
[email protected]
