If you want your kids to have a high-paying job in Anne Arundel County, break them of their fear of math.

The thousands of jobs coming to Maryland will require a bumper crop of engineers and scientists, professions that require math skills that today's students aren't particularly keen on mastering, Anirban Basu told the Fort Meade Alliance this week.

"They are scared of math; they are mortified," he said. "They think that they are bad with math. They don't want to deal with it, they want to avoid it."

Across the nation there's a dearth of technology, computer science, engineering and biotechnology experts - experts that...