Posted on 12/22/2014 8:25:08 AM PST by Academiadotorg
As we have reported, contrary to current wisdom, studies consistently show that there are more science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) majors than there are STEM jobs. Nevertheless, those with a vested interest in perpetuating the legend not only still claim that there is a STEM major shortage but declare that women are uniquely qualified to fill it.
Recently, here in Washington, D.C., at George Washington University, Linda Rosen, CEO of Change the Equation (an organization geared toward more STEM education at the pre-K12 level and above), said, “Employers…are having difficulty finding the STEM talent they need.” For example, she noted, “Four in ten applicants lack basic STEM literacy…and 40% lack STEM literacy (or post-secondary) education.”
“I completely missed all the messages that women aren’t good at math…I missed all those messages because I loved it.” Rosen said, “I was too energized but what I think of is the beauty of mathematics.”
Rosen said, “We can’t fill our workforce with white males” because they are a “diminishing population.” Instead, today’s working world “requires a very diverse group of people thinking about it and working on it,” which includes “female voices and also students of color.”
According to her, “the tech companies are being very courageous and are starting to release their data, but they have been showing…30% some up to 40% females.” However, she said these figures show that they are “not all in management level jobs.”
At the same event at which Rosen spoke, Russell Shirling, the Department of Education’s STEM Initiatives Executive Director, said, “We actually set up a STEM office for the first time in six months” and now the government has “over 60 programs where STEM is a primary or secondary goal [to] bring more minorities and women to STEM.” Their goal is to fix the issue of “lack of access to chemistry and physics” by “getting the quality STEM teachers out to the students.” Other aspects of his work include creating “more opportunities for STEM teachers to come into the workforce” and “teacher quality partnership level” coordination.
He said he hoped this would address the problem caused when only “50% [of children] have access to a calculus course…63% to physics.” Shilling said the lack of access to these courses leads to the “struggles that students have when they get to college.” It is not limited to the Department of Education, but goes “across the board” to agencies such as NASA, Homeland Security and Energy. In his words, this is the “part of the strategy we have is to coordinate across the agencies to get the most bang for our buck.”
He praised the value of video games in STEM learning, but admitted, “Games are not a panacea” and “really, it’s somewhere in between, potentially good tools if we design them correctly.” Shilling added, “I don’t think we design games very well right now” because they do not tell “stories and a narrative.” One of his emphases was to get “STEM electronic media out to the classroom” and to send “positive messages” to “really increase the engagement” at the student level. Shilling praised recent LEGO robot competitions, which he said was “one way to leverage games to get to some of the underserved areas of the country as well.”
Gary May, the Dean of College Engineering at Georgia Tech, was also at the event and suggested forming a “cluster of minority students in classes together” and study groups, as well as peer mentoring and “peer bridge programs.”
Kids who can’t read can’t learn to code.
Failing to teach basic math and science hurts everyone who receives such a lacking education, even the 80% that don’t go into STEM.
This reads like a H1-B/CofC/offshoring hit-piece, along with a sprinkling of the useless “humanities/gender studies/underwater basketweaving” college loan racket thrown in for good measure.
The rumor is true
stemtosteam.org
1. 58% of biology majors are female.
2. 49% of chemistry majors are female.
3. 47% of med school applicants are female.
The percentage of females in vet medicine and pharmacy are much higher.
We have been asking this question for over a decade, and so far only one applicant of hundreds has ever produced the correct algorithm.
Conclusion: either nobody reads Knuth in the CmpSci/CmpEng courses anymore, nobody teaches it, programmers have awful memories, or most coders are not very good.
The high school in which I teach has received tens of thousands of tax payer dollars for our STEM program. Want to know what it is? Students take classes online. They may or may not get credit for them. It has quickly turned into a remedial program. I had two students sick of me “disrespectin’” them because I told them they couldn’t sleep in my class. They complained to guidance and were taken out of my class and put in the computer lab.
The Arabs did not invent zero; they only invented the name we use [sifir, zephyr: nothing, wind.] The concept was discovered by the Hindus, and like most of the "achievements" attributed to Mohammedanism, was simply stolen.
Respectfully disagree, since there's only a reluctance to hire US citizens. No problem seems to exist with guest workers, which have lower levels of competence and still manage to get work.
The subject was domestic graduates filling domestic jobs.
“They’re making the flawed assumption that any graduate with the requisite degree is capable of doing the work.”
They’re also making the flawed assumption that any graduate with the requisite degree is _willing_ to do the work.
Too many think showing up is enough.
Too many think 9-5 is enough.
And too many think it’s a teacher-student relationship, instead of we’re-all-in-this-together.
As long as the smartest people can make more money by majoring in marketing, business, and finance (while also partying during the nights and weekends the STEM majors need to study - less strenuous) there will be a shortage of qualified STEM grads.
Also, too many have seen their parents and others in the STEM fields careers be suddenly changed by mass layoffs.
The answer is the same, shortages raise the cost (Salary) and security to increase the supply.
Good point. But the west learned about it from the Arabs.
I think that belief in God was a factor contributing to Western development. That the universe is orderly is an element of science; lawfulness if you please.
“today’s working world “requires a very diverse group of people thinking about it and working on it,” which includes “female voices and also students of color.””
Oh, where to start.
If females and students of color can actually handle the rigorous math and science courses, they will do well. If not, then they cannot meaningfully contribute to complex, technically demanding work and projects as is implied in this article.
Science and Engineering, when done right, tends to not care who is solving the problem. You can’t fake, or wish (or “affirmatively act”) proficiency in math, especially advanced mathematics.
With STEM proficiency, one can have a chance at being well compensated for it. It’s not guaranteed, of course. But without STEM proficiency, you are in a larger pool of folks who are competing for opportunity that does not require STEM proficiency. It’s not impossible to succeed, but it takes time, sustained effort, hard work, focus (even after failure).
Not so coincidentally, these are the very qualities that are critical in helping one succeed in STEM courses.
I stand by my word, since it applies as much to them as it does to everyone else.
Starting in the early 1960's, the educationists have tried to push one bizarre methodology after another. Each time they've had to abandon the program in favor of [older] methods they don't like using: practice and exercises before conceptualization.
Trying to teach students how to do proofs before they've mastered basic operations is like trying to teach people how to use computers was in the old days. Everything was keyboard based, and most of your students were not typists. They spent so long trying to find the right keys to punch, that they forgot what tasks they'd set out to accomplish to begin with.
The educationists come up with these schemes for the same reason that Dr. Oz and other quacks are constantly touting Acai Berries, Neanderthal Diets and other gimmicks instead of smaller portions, less snacking, and regular exercise: they themselves are lazy, don't understand the fundamentals, and believe they can get people on board with magic cures.
This is made worse by the fact that most elementary education teachers are about one lesson ahead of their classes. This is true even in the third grade. If they didn't have a teachers' text or an answer key they wouldn't be able to come to the correct resolution of the problem themselves. I had several teachers, as late as fifth grade who posed questions that amounted to zero-divide. When I, as a third or fourth grader tried to explain to them that this was meaningless, they simply denied it was true. When I showed my fifth grade teacher that 6 / 0 was not zero by handing him an algebra book, his answer was, "Well, that's algebra. But this is just a division problem. The rules of algebra are completely different."
Elementary school teachers have the lowest scores on SAT, and their math scores are absolutely abysmal. They should be reexamined on a routine basis and banned from teaching the subject if they can't meet basic standards of competency. Wherever this is tried, they cheat, force the tests to be rescinded, or are protected by their unions from dismissal, sometimes for years as they continue to pollute the minds of their pupils.
In order to train a dog you must know more than a dog.
Finally, it's aggravated by a societal attitude that doing mathematics [or even basic arithmetic] is not hip. Gangstas are cool; mathematicians/scientists/engineers are nerds and retards. And it's not just with kids. How many times have you overheard a conversation like this on a bus, a restaurant, or an elevator, as someone looks over somebody else's shoulder: "Oh percentages (or fractions, or long division). Gawd those are hard. I never figured out how to do those." These are skills taught in third or fourth grade. This is a level of innumeracy equivalent to saying: "I gave up reading at Dick and Jane." No person would ever brag about that level illiteracy, but it's considered perfectly acceptable when it comes to math.
You want to change this, you need to change the culture. You want STEM graduates? Get rid of inferior teachers, stop telling kids that vulgarity and ignorance is better than respect and education, and stop paying lawyers an order of magnitude more money than scientists, programmers and engineers.
You can’t do that by importing hundreds of thousands of equally unskilled workers who’re willing to be cubicle slaves for a pittance.
Here are some examples when I nearly lost it: one was when I asked some 8th grade students (the math team) to find the ratio of 2/3 to 4/5. The teacher (the math team coach) intervened and said it's impossible. Another time I was in an Algebra 2 class where solving quadratic equations was a group exercise!
Even in the environment I was in, there were teachers who wanted to bring it back. The impossibility is that there are negative cultural assumptions built into the school environment that make it hard to present a vigorous curriculum. That's one reason I ended my career with a few years of substituting. The environment was such that anyone in there for the long haul got sucked into the current trends. I stopped completely (this is my second year of total retirement) because the issues that are now tearing cities apart were making it less safe.
Thank you for your thoughtful response to my question.
You just had to mention that. Now, it's back to mental therapy once a week.
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