No. of Recommendations: 0
I don't disagree that we need more science and math literacy.
The problem is that for most terrestrial problems relativity and quantum mechanics don't add to accuracy and make solutions much more difficult. I did some basic checks and I think time dilation at highway speeds is on the order of a ten billionth of a percent. Similar is true for quantum effects at with any scale we can see with our eyes at and at temperatures/energies naturally found on Earth.
To actually learn these subjects, the math tools build upon each other and take time. It would be difficult to get kids to the required competency in linear algebra, real and complex analysis, probability theory, and differential equations before undergraduate. Special relativity and very basic QM are the only things advanced high school students could work with in a meaningful way. And at that point, it is hard to justify we are teaching what we know now given QED, QCD, MHD, and so on.
The article seems to talk about exposing kids to pop science rather than teaching them the real thing - which seems like a great idea to me. But learning general relativity isn't learning about general relativity.
While solving this part of the STEM issue, someone should tackle the adjunct faculty pay crisis, so there are qualified experts available to teach these subjects earning more than $15/hr!
