VOA慢速英语2011--Can America Win the Education Race?

This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

这里是美国之音慢速英语教育报道。

President Obama talked a lot about education in his State of the Union speech last week.

奥巴马总统在上周的国情咨文一再谈及教育。

BARACK OBAMA: "We need to out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the rest of the world. [Applause]"

奥巴马：“我们需要在创新、教育和建设方面超越世界其它地方。[掌声]”

"This is our generation's Sputnik moment," he said.

“这是我们这一代的‘伴侣号’时刻。”奥巴马表示。

Sputnik:苏联发射的人类第一颗人造卫星"伴侣号".这颗卫星于1957年10月4日,由苏联的R7火箭在拜科努尔航天基地发射升空.

BARACK OBAMA: "Half a century ago, when the Soviets 1 beat us into space with the launch of a satellite called Sputnik, we had no idea how we would beat them to the moon. The science wasn't even there yet. NASA didn't exist. But after investing in better research and education, we didn't just surpass the Soviets; we unleashed 2 a wave of innovation that created new industries and millions of new jobs."

奥巴马：“半个世纪前，当苏联发射‘伴侣号’人造卫星在太空领域击败我们时，我们尚不知道如何在登月方面击败他们。相关的科学尚不存在，美国宇航局甚至尚未组建。但在投资改善研究和教育以后，我们不仅仅超越了苏联，我们还推动了一波创新浪潮，创造了新的产业和数百万就业机会。

If Americans want to "win the future," he said, then they also have to win the race to educate their children.

他说，如果美国人想“赢得未来”，那么就必须在子女教育的这场竞赛中获胜。

BARACK OBAMA: "Over the next ten years, nearly half of all new jobs will require education that goes beyond a high school education. And yet as many as a quarter of our students aren't even finishing high school. The quality of our math and science education lags behind many other nations. America has fallen to ninth in the proportion of young people with a college degree."

奥巴马：“在未来十年里，近一半新的工作岗位需要高中以上学历。然而我们甚至多大1／4的学生未能完成高中学业。我们在数学和科学教育质量方面已经落后于许多其它国家。美国青少年拥有大学学位的比例已降至全球第9位。”

Two years ago, Mr. Obama set a goal to regain 3 the world's highest rate of college graduates by twenty-twenty. He says the responsibility to give every child a chance to succeed begins not in classrooms, but in homes and communities.

奥巴马两年前定下目标，2020年本科生毕业率重夺全球第一。给予每个孩子成功机会的责任不仅仅是在教室里，还包括在家庭和社会。

BARACK OBAMA: "Only parents can make sure the TV is turned off and homework gets done. We need to teach our kids that it's not just the winner of the Super Bowl who deserves to be celebrated 4, but the winner of the science fair. [Applause]"

奥巴马：“只有父母可以确保电视已经关闭，孩子功课已经做完。我们需要教育我们的孩子，不仅是超级杯的赢家值得庆贺，科学大赛的赢家也值得庆贺。[掌声]”

President Obama talked about his Race to the Top competition. It offered states money to develop plans to improve teacher quality and student performance. He urged Congress to follow this idea for the next version of the main federal law on elementary and secondary education.

奥巴马谈到了他的“冲顶赛跑”竞赛。该竞赛为国家提供资金发展提高教师质量和学生成绩的项目。他督促国会遵循这个下一代中小学联邦主要法律的原则。

Also, he called for preparing one hundred thousand new teachers in science, technology, engineering and math over the next ten years. He noted 5 that many teachers now are old enough to retire.

此外，他呼吁未来十年里在科学、技术、工程和数学领域的准备10万名新教师。他指出，许多教师目前已到退休年龄。

In his message, Mr. Obama offered to begin debate with Congress on immigration reform, and he linked that issue to education.

在这次国情咨文中，奥巴马就移民改革与国会展开辩论，并将起其与教育联系起来。

BARACK OBAMA: "Today, there are hundreds of thousands of students excelling in our schools who are not American citizens. Some are the children of undocumented workers, who had nothing to do with the actions of their parents. They grew up as Americans and pledge allegiance to our flag, and yet they live every day with the threat of deportation 6. Others come here from abroad to study in our colleges and universities. But as soon as they obtain advanced degrees, we send them back home to compete against us."

奥巴马：“如今，我们的学校有数百万非美国公民的优秀学生。其中一些人是非法工人的孩子，他们与其父母行为完全无关。他们以美国人的身份长大，宣誓效忠美国，却每天生活在被驱逐出境的威胁中。其它一些人来自海外，在我们的大学院校学习，但一旦他们获得学位，我们就将其送回他们的国家，与我们竞争。”

The speech came the same day the Education Department released the latest results on student progress in science.

奥巴马发表讲话的同一天，美国教育部发布了学生在科学领域的最新进展结果。

The goal is for all students to perform at the proficient 7 or advanced level. But only about one-third of students in grades four and eight and one-fifth of twelfth-graders did that in two thousand nine. Just one to two percent of students performed at the advanced level.

我们的目标是使所有学生达到良好或优异水平。但2009年，只有大约1／3的四年纪和八年级学生，以及1／5的十二年级学生达到了这个目标，其中只有1％－2％的学生达到优异水平。

And that's the VOA Special English Education Report. I'm Steve Ember.