Writhing over the 'rithmatic.

• Position: Triangle - Interview

Larry Sumney says math education in the U.S. is "a disaster," and that has had dire consequences for the economy and his sector in particular. He has been CEO of Semiconductor Research Corp., an industry consortium based in Durham, since it was created in 1982. SRC's network includes 250 universities and about 20 companies, including Intel Corp. and IBM Corp. Its Education Alliance foundation tries to improve science, technology, engineering and mathematics--STEM--education in the U.S. and is funding scholarships for 230 undergraduates in STEM majors this year at 14 universities.

How does STEM education in the U.S. rate?

The World Economic Forum ranks the U.S. 48th in the quality of math and science education. Sixty-nine percent of the U.S. public school students in fifth through eighth grade learn mathematics from teachers without a degree or a certificate in mathematics; 93% are taught physical sciences by a teacher without a degree in physical sciences. The U.S. ranks 27th among developed nations in the proportion of college students receiving undergraduate degrees in science or engineering.

Which countries are the leaders?

All the Asian countries--certainly, China, Japan, Taiwan. There are even countries in Africa that are doing better than we are. The parents see the importance of it, even though they don't understand it. The teachers are better trained. We have to get away from saying our public schools don't have enough money. It's not the money. The problem is the teachers don't have the capabilities in the areas that are important and the parents don't understand it. We're in the second or third generation, where the parents never learned anything about math, and so their kids didn't.

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What have the effects been?

By the early '90s, graduate students were increasingly non-U.S. We realized that many of the foreign graduate students were capable, so we hired them. But now that's been taken away. These people don't graduate...