STEM Support Doesn’t Compute

Accuracy in Academia ^ | August 19, 2010 | Malcolm A. Kline

[AccuracyAcademia]

Those who most loudly proclaim the need for qualified math and science teachers are literally being challenged on how much they value science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. “Despite the fact that Washington’s Legislature and Governor last session passed a law (House Bill 2621) intending to accelerate the teaching and learning of math and science, the system is hardwired to do the opposite,” the Center for Reinventing Public Education found. “In a new analysis from the University of Washington’s Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE), researchers demonstrate that the average pay for math and science teachers in Washington state lags behind other teachers.”

“In the two subject areas the state seeks to prioritize, nineteen of the thirty largest districts in the state spend less per math or science teacher than for teachers in other subjects.

“Washington state—home to Boeing, Microsoft, an internationally renowned medical and bio-tech community, and other businesses that require a workforce proficient in math and science—is falling far behind in these critically important subjects. In 2009, only 45 percent of Washington’s high school students passed the tenth grade math skills exam and 39 percent passed the tenth grade science skills exam.

[The_Reader_David]

I’m grimly amused by how much huffing and puffing goes on about the “need” to get more students to go into “STEM”.

It’s particularly silly from the point of view of mathematics: there aren’t enough jobs for the mathematicians we now have. The same is true for most of the hard sciences. Technology and Engineering? Until the economic downturn there were enough jobs for new graduates in those areas, now?

Of course, if one really wants more scientists, technologists (whatever that is), engineers and mathematicians, the thing that needs to be done is to take science and mathematics education in the K-12 schools away from ed majors and give it to people who actually majored in the real subject (thereby creating a need for the extra “STEM” students the government seems to think we already need).

As it is, most students come to university so hopeless broken in terms of their mathematical education that we can’t really fix them, much less turn them into mathematicians or scientists in any area that really relies on mathematics.

[Robert357]

Thank you, I read the summary story in the Seattle times today and wondered about the “rest of the story.”

Is it any wonder that in Washington State we import huge numbers of recently graduated engineers from other parts of the country? Is it any wonder that the “pipeline” of grade school, middle & high school students who know enough math, chemistry and physics is so limiting as to what can be taught in college?

Putting aside engineering degrees in college for a moment, nursing is a good example of the critical shortage so entry college students with skills in STEM.

Thanks again for posting this.

[sportutegrl]

I live in Washington and I would love to be a science/math teacher. I have a BSEE, but apparently, am not qualified unless i take a lot of education classes.

[SuziQ]

If the professional educators would stop monkeying around with the basic math curricula in schools, the kids might actually LEARN something! The absolute BEST way for little kids in grades K-4 to learn is by ROTE. That means learning to add, subtract, multiply and divide so that they don’t even have to THINK about the answer, it just comes to them! I remember learning my times tables in the 3rd grade, and I don’t remember it being particularly onerous. Maybe it isn’t exciting, and it certainly won’t require tinkering with something new, just to be able to say they have the ‘latest’ thing. But the “New Math” hasn’t served anyone very well, as far as I can tell.

[SuziQ]

I live in Washington and I would love to be a science/math teacher. I have a BSEE, but apparently, am not qualified unless i take a lot of education classes.

When we were living in NJ, I looked into the idea of getting a teaching certificate. I had a BA in Latin American Studies and minors in Spanish and Business. My major was an integrated studies program that included History, Geography, and Political Science.

When I looked into a certificate, they told me that because I didn't have the right number of hours in any particular major, I couldn't teach in any of those subjects. What was interesting was that I talked to my neighbor, who was a Social Studies teacher, she said there were no jobs for teachers of JUST History, Geography, and Political Science, in the schools. But no matter, in order to get the certificate, I would have had to, in effect, repeat my last two years of college, in order to get the education courses, which seemed to be nothing but 'student management' courses, and I didn't want to bother.