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The Great U.S. Tech Education Debate

Sunday, March 21st, 2010

On March 15, TechCrunch produced a very informative debate between Craig Barrett, former CEO of Intel and huge proponent of technology education, and Vivek Wadhwa, a Duke/UC-Berkeley professor who writes extensively on innovation, entrepreneurship and cross-border movement of technology talent. 

The debate was spawned by a Wadhwa comments in a Scientific American article that claimed there is no shortage of tech talent in the U.S. To summarize a debate, which must be read in its entirety to be fully understood, Wadhwa claims there is plenty of talent in the form of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) talent in this country. The problem is that much of this talent is in the form of postdocs (post-doctoral fellows) that are bottled up in a broken university technology education system, and in foreign-born PhDs who, once they receive degrees from U.S. universities, find it increasingly difficult or unattractive to remain in the U.S. If the artificial economic and political restraints were removed, and STEM PhDs were actually paid what they were worth, this talent would be unleashed and produce the type of innovation and jobs that the U.S. so desperately needs.

Barrett views things differently. Although he acknowledges that some postdoc PhD’s do not achieve their commercial market potential, he claims that this is due to their decisions to dedicate their efforts to the long, uncertain process of becoming tenured professors at research universities, rather than working at corporations. In his view, the real problem lies in our K-12 education system, which, due largely to the lack of qualified science and mathematics teachers, fails to ignite children’s’ imaginations around the opportunities in these disciplines and fails to provide a foundational knowledge for university study.

Wadhwa certainly acknowledges the limitations in the U.S. K-12 education system and the need to create “excitement about science and engineering at the national level and motivate our best and brightest to become engineers and scientists.” He, however, clams that the biggest problem is pay. The scientific community in general and the educational system in particular, simply do not pay enough to retain the best talent. These people are lured by the huge the huge rewards promised by the financial industry (such as becoming venture capitalists or investment bank “quants “), rather than become research scientists who drive U.S. innovation.

My Interpretation

While the debate is fascinating, it appears to me that Wadhwa over-generalizes the admittedly disturbing dilemma of postdocs. Just because some STEM PhDs remain in poorly paid fellowships (with hopes of earning valued professorships) rather than going to industry, it does not necessarily mean either that:

  • There are not enough jobs for STEM graduates; or that
  • STEM professions do not pay competitively.

True, not all STEM PhDs can become professors at prestigious research universities. On other hand, not all law school graduates can win U.S. Supreme Court clerkships or highly paid posts at premier white shoe law firms. That, however, does not stop students from overwhelming law school admissions offices. Nor do the short odds of becoming professional athletes, actors or musicians prevent millions of young adults from aspiring to these careers.

Even if there are not enough tenured professorships, PhDs who do need jobs can always “stoop” to work in the private sector. Nor should we confine the analysis of STEM jobs to PhDs. There are, after all, far more Bachelor and Master-level STEM graduates than there are PhDs. Most statistics show that newly minted STEM graduates have higher employment rates than other job categories (even during the recession) and that by far, the largest percentage of unfilled jobs utilize STEM-related skills. Moreover, starting salaries for these graduates remain among the highest of those for all degrees. As shown in a March 2010 Association of Colleges and Employers study, for example, engineering and IT jobs account for all ten of the top ten earning degrees. 

Although some segments of the financial services industry certainly pay more for a handful of the best graduates from the best schools, this cannot be viewed as the standard for all STEM jobs—just as Wall Street law firm salaries cannot be viewed as the standards for all JDs from all law schools. These numbers are too small, and their selection criteria too limited to apply to all graduates.

In sum, I generally agree with Craig Barrett that most people—especially young people—are driven as much by their passions as by the immediate opportunities for monetary rewards. There are, however, limits to this idealism. Pay must yield reasonably comfortable lifestyles and must at least be in the same ballpark as reasonably competitive fields. Although most STEM careers probably meet these criteria (except when compared with financial services, professional sports or entertainment), the big exception is in K-12 STEM education.

Unfortunately, it will take much more than competitive salaries to fix this country’s K-12 education system. Its problems are far too complex and ingrained to be solved by the education community alone. As I have discussed in many of my articles, solving these problems will require a huge amount of assistance from the private sector.

A number of private sector companies—especially IT companies, like Intel, Microsoft and IBM—are already doing great work in helping to improve education at all levels, from K through graduate schools. They are giving schools some of the tools and the training required to improve teaching and learning and helping them improve STEM curricula.

Some are even attempting to address the intense social and peer pressures against becoming “geeks” and “nerds” by demonstrating that STEM skills can be instrumental in achieving the goals of many young adults—to make a real difference in the world. As discussed in my report on IBM’s Academic Initiative, IBM is doing particularly interesting work in engaging student’s desire to make a difference in the world by showing how STEM skills are so critical to addressing some of society’s most pressing problems, as around smarter healthcare, energy and food supplies.

With all due respect to Intel’s wonderful commercials, it may be too much to hope to persuade kids to view scientists, engineers and mathematicians with the same admiration and awe as rock stars or professional athletes. It may, however, be possible to engage at least some part of their minds, psyches and self esteem around the idea of helping the world solve real problems. Perhaps someday, children focused on such missions may even earn the respect, if not necessarily the admiration, of their peers.

Posted in 21st Century Careers, Business Trends, Creating the 21st Century Workforce, Economic and Political Forces, Education System and Institutions, Global Forces-General, Globalization, Immigration and Offshoring, IT Industry Role in Education, IT Industry Trends, IT Industry's Role, Job and Career Opportunities, K-12, Political Forces, Skills Requirements, Societal Forces, STEM Careers, Technology's Impact on Job Skills, Universities and Grad Schools, Workforce Trends | No Responses »
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The Government’s Efforts to Bridge Schools’ STEM Gap

Sunday, February 7th, 2010

I have written extensively about the U.S.’s urgent need to retool its workforce to compete in the Global Knowledge Economy of the 21st century, and of the particularly critical need for a whole new level of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) literacy. Although this need must be addressed at all education levels, from primary school through universities and continually through one’s career, the biggest and most pressing gap lies in the formative years, from elementary school through high school.

Just how big is this gap? U.S. 15-year olds now rank a dismal 21st in the world in science and 25th in math. It is similarly drawing up the bottom in high school completion, where the 2006 PISA study ranks it 21st out of 27 OECD countries. Meanwhile, at a time when virtually every knowledge-based career requires strong IT skills, most U.S. middle and high school computer classes focus on teaching rudimentary Windows, word processing and spreadsheet usage, rather than the value of IT in all disciplines and occupations. But our educational prowess relative to OECD countries is one thing. We are now even getting our STEM educational clocks cleaned by China, where:

  • Math, science (not to speak of foreign language) skills are the primary focus of the educational system, from elementary school, all the way through universities;
  • IT is integrated into math and other high school curricula, rather than taught as a standalone set of skills;
  • College STEM graduation rates far exceed those in the U.S.; and even where
  • Adult literacy rates (over 90%) are higher than in the U.S. (86%).

In reality, how could we hope for much more when most teachers graduate in the bottom quartile of their college classes, only 39% of 8th grade math teachers and 7% of science teachers even majored in the subjects they are teaching and children devote so little time to homework. Compare this again with China, where, all math and science teachers must have degrees in these subjects, school years are longer and students devote twice as many hours to homework as their U.S. counterparts.

Government Progress

Although this is all pretty grim, we are seeing progress. And it is coming from the most unlikely of places—the U.S. government. While every U.S. president since Dwight Eisenhower has tried to create a national education program, virtually every effort has failed in Congress. Sure, George W. Bush managed to get No Child Left Behind through Congress, the law allows every state to set their own standards. And, 15 states that fell short of the law’s performance requirements found a creative way of staying in compliance—they simply lowered the scores required to demonstrate proficiency.

Although a couple of multistate organizations, the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officials, are making some progress in creating a voluntary set of common standards for Math and English education, Barack Obama shares his predecessor’s view of the need for national action. However, he understands (all too well) the perils of relying on Congress. He, therefore, gave Arne Duncan, his Education Secretary, unprecedented power and an unprecedented pool of money ($4.35 billion) to incent states to pursue innovative strategies for recruiting, credentialing, rewarding, and retaining teachers. Although this Race to the Top initiative will cover all subjects, it is particularly skewed to STEM education.

Obama would like to do much more to address many of the fundamental deficiencies of the current educational system. Yet he recognizes the formidable political, fiscal and practical constraints to enacting true educational reform. Therefore, he is attempting to enlist the private sector to fund and drive additional programs.

Enlisting Private Sector Help

In November, OBama announced a new campaign to encourage businesses and not-for-profit organizations to help enhance science, technology, engineering and math education in middle and high schools. This Educate to Innovate program is focused on encouraging companies and non-profits to contribute $250 million worth of time, money and volunteers to create extracurricular education programs to expand children’s interest in and knowledge of STEM. As reported in the New York Times, some of the first of what are expected to grow into a larger number of commitments include:

  • Discovery Communications is sponsoring two hours of commercial-free, after-school Science Channel programming to be targeted at middle school students;
  • Science and engineering societies’ commitments to provide volunteers to work with children;
  • PBS will incorporate a science focus into two years of Sesame Street programming;
  • Time Warner Cable, which has committed to devoting 80% of all its philanthropic efforts to science and math education, will also create and promote a web site that will provide a searchable directory of local science activities;
  • Sony will donate 1,000 PlayStation 3 game consoles and LittleBigPlanet educational games to libraries and community organizations and fund a $300,000 contest to incent game designers to develop science- and math-based games that Sony will distribute free; and
  • The Jack D. Hidary and MacArthur Foundations are working with the National Science Teachers Association and American Chemical Society to launch a website (http://www.nationallabday.org/) to create a Web site that will match volunteer scientists with teachers looking for assistance in teaching specific areas.

Intel, which already has one of the largest and most active STEM education initiatives in the world (which I’ll discuss in some future blogs), is playing a particularly central role in this imitative. It is launching a ten-year, $200 million cash and in-kind campaign to help train more than 100,000 U.S. math and science teachers and is committing its own employees to volunteer 100,000 hours to improving STEM education. Its former chairman, Craig Barrett, will also work with prominent technology CEOs and former astronaut Sally Ride, to encourage other corporations and foundations to fund and participate in efforts to improve STEM education.

Promising First Steps

The bad news is that U.S. educational system (especially elementary, middle and high school) has dug itself into a huge hole. It is not vaguely prepared to teach the types of skills that tomorrow’s workers will need to compete in an increasingly global economy that is being redefined by information and communications technology.

The good news is that virtually everybody—private sector and public sector and Democrat and Republican—recognizes these deficiencies and the urgency of addressing them. George W. Bush—with solid bipartisan support—took an important first step (No Child Left Behind) in addressing these needs. Barack Obama, without waiting for Congress, has taken two more. Race to the Top provides schools with compelling incentives to reinvent policies and processes. Educate to Innovate enlists the private sector to help identify, enable and fund some of these changes. Both focus on those areas that are in greatest need of change—how middle and high school students are exposed to and taught math and science.

Ideally, politicians of both parties will again come together to acknowledge this critical need and address it in a comprehensive and enlightened manner. But even if not, Educate to Innovate, in particular, sets an important precedent as:

  • An effort to encourage and focus the efforts of the private sector (especially information companies and foundations) around a common goal.

This will hopefully be the first of many initiatives in which government attempts to mobilize the private sector to address critical societal issues.

Posted in 21st Century Careers, Business Trends, Corporate Social Responsibility, Creating the 21st Century Workforce, Economic and Political Forces, Education System and Institutions, Job and Career Opportunities, K-12, Political Forces, Skills Requirements, Societal Forces, STEM Careers, Technology's Impact on Job Skills, Workforce Trends | No Responses »
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