Closing the Advantage Gap in STEM

Hansub Kim

North Hollywood High School

12th Grade

As the current of scientific progress sweeps through society, one thing remains abundantly clear - the growing disparity between the disadvantaged and the opulent within the context of scientific opportunity. This can be attributed to a number of different factors, the most salient being lack of school or district support for STEM outreach or enrichment programs, or curricular education in general. During the 2016-2017 LAUSD fiscal year, $850,327 was allocated for the advancement of science institutions and science education out of a total base initiative budget of $4.1 billion - a mere 0.0002%, and an especially meager investment compared to the roughly $4 million allocated to the arts and $2 million allocated to athletics. Perhaps the clearest glaring flaw in the endorsement of science to youth is that selection for opportunities in STEM fields - science fairs, summer programs, and laboratory research - is much less dependent on potential, intellect, and motivation than mentorship, financial support, and strategy from experience. Many students who succeed in science fairs and symposia (Regeneron STS, Intel ISEF) do so because of the support they receive from professionals.

Foundational exposure to science and stimulating the potential of the underserved should be a priority over the selection of overachieving students at the strategic ladder of competition. Furthermore, academic records, grades, and factors not so much indicative of potential and passion as the hallmark of a typical, high-achieving student should only be marginally influential in determining admission to various opportunities in science, or STEM in general. Not all schools have the same standard of education; a better method of selection must be devised to distinguish potential, as well as a better grasp of population.

The philosopher Thomas Kuhn necessitated the idea of a paradigm, and its scientific shift within society. What the world needs now is a societal paradigm shift within science. Society should act on the spread of science education in the new generation of students as a collective duty. Rather than funding hefty programs that attract the academic elites more out of prestige than pure intellectual vitality, and advocating the advancement of the goody-two-shoe bourgeois, it is instead much more critical that the platform for educational equality is leveled - that every student in the US, regardless of socioeconomic status, can get access to the same resources and develop their intellect on equal footing. Only then can a truly meritocratic system be established.

<Hansub Kim, North Hollywood HS, 12th Grade>