Michael S. Teitelbaum, author of a new book called “Falling Behind? Boom, Bust, and the Global Race for Scientific Talent,” writes in the Los Angeles Times that claims of a shortage of scientists and engineers are exaggerated.
He reminds us that there have been at least five cycles of hand-wringing since the end of World War II about our alleged technological decline. The reality, he argues, is that the STEM fields are not suffering shortages:
“Nearly all of the independent scholars and analysts who have examined the claims of widespread shortages have found little or no evidence to support them. Salaries in these occupations are generally flat, and unemployment rates are about the same or higher than in others requiring advanced education.
“Science and engineering occupations are indeed crucial to modern economies, but they account for only a small part — about 5% — of the workforce. There is some evidence of too few professionals in certain fields that currently are hot, such as social media and petroleum engineering, or in localized hot spots such as Silicon Valley.
“But in a wide range of other science and engineering fields, and in most parts of the country, the supply appears ample and sometimes excessive. In the large field of biomedical research, for example, talented young PhDs are facing daunting career challenges, with only about 1 in 5 likely to find the tenure-track academic posts to which most of them aspire.”
He urges that we continue to strengthen math and science education in K-12, because educated citizens should have an understanding and knowledge of math and science, not because there will be lucrative careers awaiting them. There will be for some, but not for all or even most.
He writes:
“U.S. schools currently produce large numbers of high-performing science and math students (about one-third of the world’s total in science) but also very large numbers of students with low test scores that partly explain the less-than-stellar U.S. rankings in international comparisons. This is a reflection of educational and economic inequalities that need to be addressed energetically, but it is not a reason to urge every American student to pursue a STEM degree.
“Students with talent and enthusiasm for science and engineering should be strongly encouraged to pursue their interest in such careers, and informed that most do offer higher earnings than in many humanities and arts fields. Yet they also need to know about large differences in career prospects among science and engineering specialties, and to understand that conditions can and do change dramatically over time, sometimes even during the period it takes to pursue a degree.
“Given such uncertainties, students who major in science and engineering must recognize that employers value not only strong specialized skills but also broader knowledge and capabilities. They want employees who can communicate clearly with non-specialists, work effectively in multi-specialty teams and understand the basics of business and management.
Radical changes in K-12 education cannot be justified on the basis of pervasive but largely unfounded claims of widespread shortages of scientists and engineers.”
The lesson: We should increase our efforts to educate the lowest-performing students in STEM subjects in K-12, those in the bottom 25%, because these subjects are valuable for success in almost every kind of career and for informed citizenship, not because of false alarms by politicians.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
In the immortal words of Ronald Reagan, “Facts are stupid things,” so why should the so-called reformers let some pesky facts get in the way of a good propaganda tale?
As a STEM teacher I agree. STEM fields are in demand, but there are not millions of jobs sitting empty. Traditionally many US students veer away from math, science and engineering because they perceive it to be too difficult. This makes STEM field opportunities better than other fields, but hardly demands that we abandon the arts for a STEM centric curriculum. Other countries have better results at getting students involved in these lucrative fields, but I think the difference is cultural rather than the fault of the US education system. One of the “save the middle class” misdirections legislators purport, while they secretly gut the middle class of jobs by destroying unions and preventing changes to the minimum wage, is that we just need to send more people to college for STEM and everyone will be prosperous. We have more people graduating from college than ever before in America and it’s not helping. This is another way of creating a false solution to the crumbling of the American economy in order to draw people’s attention away from the economic disparities that are developing as opportunities dry up in our post industrial oligarchy.
But a lot of the additional college graduates are getting degrees in fields for which salaries are a lot lower than in engineering. I don’t think that its any longer just a matter of having a college degree. The kind of degree is now very important.
Obviously if everybody in the US gets a degree in petroleum engineering, salaries in that field will presumably collapse. But it looks as if we could use more engineering degree garaduates but probably less rather than more fine arts graduates.
In addition to educating the lowest performing students in STEM fields, I would suggest increasing access to advanced classes for high performing students. Strong STEM students are more constrained by the K-12 curriculum then strong students in ELA.
Yes! I am very concerned about the standardization of our schools. The curriculum is narrowing and being squeezed little by little. We are not getting to the root of the problems in education, we are creating more! Is this deliberate? I hope not. I want to see prescriptive practice in all schools. I want to see the word “turnaround” buried along with rigor, grit, and so many other disgusting reformy words. I want to swoop in and help schools, teachers, and children be successful.
Anne,
“I want to see prescriptive practice in all schools.”
Please define what “prescriptive practice” means.
Thanks!
It’s pretty simple. You find out what is wrong and you fix it. Maybe it is an environmental issue like no air conditioning. Does that impede learning? Absolutely. Maybe your students need more health and counseling services. Maybe some of your students need support with homework or some targeted interventions. I could go on and on. I’m just very tired of reading about punitive measures. They help nobody and destroy communities. I think we have to step away from a one size fits all way of funding schools too. I think schools and communities with concentrations of high poverty should have higher per pupil spending, smaller class sizes, and a well-rounded curriculum. I know the cost would be high, but what an investment we would be making! I know when I taught at an at-risk pre-k program in the public schools, we had many parents come in and volunteer. They learned about child development, positive interactions with children, and they started to have good experiences with school since many didn’t have positive memories. We helped parents go back to school or gain skills to help them become more marketable. We helped them not be afraid of working together with teachers. And we learned that they loved their children regardless of their socioeconomic status. Unfortunately, funding eroded and now I’m not seeing as many programs like this one. I’d better get to work!
This article needs to be required reading: http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-is-a-myth
Simple thought experiment: if we had a STEM graduate crisis then STEM field wages would be soaring. They aren’t.
Our STEM crisis is the general STEM illiteracy of our population…and our politicians. But industry has such a supply of qualified STEM grads that they can pay them peanuts.
If your interested in earnings by college major, this might be a useful site: http://cew.georgetown.edu/whatsitworth
Here are the top ten undergraduate majors by median earnings:
Petroleum Engineer ($120,000);
Pharmacy/pharmaceutical Sciences and Administration ($105,000); Mathematics and Computer Sciences ($98,000);
Aerospace Engineering ($87,000);
Chemical Engineering ($86,000);
Electrical Engineering ($85,000);
Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering ($82,000);
Mechanical Engineering,
Metallurgical Engineering and Mining and Mineral Engineering (each with an media earnings of $80,000).
And the bottom ten undergraduate majors by median earnings:
Counseling/Psychology ($29,000);
Early Childhood Education ($36,000);
Theology and Religious Vocations ($38,000);
Human Services and Community Organizations ($38,000);
Social Work ($39,000);
Drama and Theater Arts, Studio Arts, Communication Disorders Sciences and Services, Visual and Performing Arts, and Health and Medical Preparatory Programs (each at $40,000).
Thanks for the info. No one is saying that these are not great paying jobs that are in demand, just that there are not millions of unfilled jobs in these fields waiting for graduates to fill them. The top earning jobs with a 4 year degree are engineering related, but they are not a panacean solution to the economic and educational woes in our country. STEM skills are definitely in demand, but there is not a dearth of graduates so great as to demand a national education policy change. More STEM is great, but it won’t revolutionize our economy.
STEM grads can make more money than in humanities, but that isn’t the point. If there was an actual crisis of STEM grads, those wages would be rising, but they aren’t. They are remaining flat and median wage is not as instructive as entry level. If firms could not find qualified grads, they’d have to sweeten the pot considerably to attract them. That isn’t happening either. So either we have plenty of STEM grads or STEM employers don’t understand labor economics.
Here is some information on entry level earnings from payscale.
http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report-2014/majors-that-pay-you-back
That doesn’t talk about GROWTH in entry level wages, however. There is no economic evidence of a shortage of entry level STEM workers because there is no evidence that firms are fiercely competing for the allegedly small pool of qualified graduates. The numbers you are citing do not amount to evidence of a crisis of STEM grads and the article I linked too specifically notes how hard it is to justify an alleged crisis from the numbers.
These are the best numbers I could find. Perhaps you might provide some figures about compensation growth? (Total compensation is a better measure than wages as an increasing share of employee compensation is made up of benefits, especially health care benefits).
From the article I posted up top (drawn from a study of STEM compensation):
That report argued that the best indicator of a shortfall would be a widespread rise in salaries throughout the STEM community. But the price of labor has not risen, as you would expect it to do if STEM workers were scarce. In computing and IT, wages have generally been stagnant for the past decade, according to the EPI and other analyses. And over the past 30 years, according to the Georgetown report, engineers’ and engineering technicians’ wages have grown the least of all STEM wages and also more slowly than those in non-STEM fields; while STEM workers as a group have seen wages rise 33 percent and non-STEM workers’ wages rose by 23 percent, engineering salaries grew by just 18 percent. The situation is even more grim for those who get a Ph.D. in science, math, or engineering. The Georgetown study states it succinctly: “At the highest levels of educational attainment, STEM wages are not competitive.”
I think that you would find Ph.D. degrees associated with lower levels of compensation across most fields.
Regarding Petroleum Engineers:
“In the wake of a one-year jump of 55% in the number of U.S. petroleum engineering freshman students, it was reported that Texas A&M sent a letter to incoming students advising them to be realistic about future job growth.”
Those are not earnings by major, those are earning by profession. Its a common confusion to think that an engineering degree makes one an engineer or a math degree makes one a mathematician. it does not.
There’s a whole other side to this “skills shortage” or “skills gap” theme that is never presented by political leaders, which I’m sure many of you know, but it is odd how it’s just ignored in speeches, etc.:
“Despite the clear consensus among researchers that the unambiguous problem is a shortfall of aggregate demand, there is a strong public narrative that today’s jobs recovery is weak because workers don’t have the right skills. Why? One reason may be psychological – it’s easier to blame workers for lack of skills rather than face the fact that millions cannot find work no matter what they do because the jobs simply are not there. That in turn makes it easy for stories and anecdotes about employers who cannot find workers with the skills they need to circulate unscrutinized.
Another reason is political, since the cause of high unemployment is vitally important for policy. If high unemployment is due to workers not having the right skills, then the correct policy prescription is to focus on education and training”
I’m not even asking that they present both sides. I’m just asking that they stop presenting one side as fact.
Reciting conclusory statements is not a “debate” yet I hear this “skills gap” repeated as fact constantly from both Republicans and the Obama Administration.
I don’t have any problem with training or education, but it seems to me very convenient for politicians and business leaders to put this whole thing on working people and their alleged lack of skills. Repeating anecdotes about welders in Wisconsin is a political tactic, and that’s all it is. Just so we’re clear on what’s what.
http://www.epi.org/publication/shortage-skilled-workers/
That is very interesting, Chiara. I am quite skeptical of the “shortage” for other reasons. Our local university attracts lots of foreign students, many of whom have well-educated spouses they bring with them. I have heard many stories from these students about their spouses behind hired and their employer sponsoring them for a visa because they “couldn’t find any citizens with skills.” They pay these folks less than the going rate, and when the workers ask for time off for a vacation or to spend a few days with their new baby, they are denied and threatened with revocation of their work visas. Of course, very few complain because they have few rights as non-citizens. These stories have opened my eyes to the fact that exploitation of foreign workers happens even in white collar and professional jobs where the workers are working here legally. Not to mention the fact that it depresses the wages for American citizens as well.
It is certainly true that the biggest threat to high wages in a job is that someone else might be willing and able to do the job for lower wages.
The “shortage” is of STEM workers who are willing to work for pennies on the dollar.
Bingo. Fortunately, there’s always the H1-b visa….
Im not sure that is the case. I have a couple STEM degrees and after a year of not getting any callbacks I started putting salary expectations of $10 – $15/hr. Still no call backs. Granted, I dont have a PhD but I did graduate with honors and did what I thought was industry applicable research.
I believe the “shortage” is of STEM workers who need no on the job training at all and can hit the ground running. Since there is a surplus of graduates companies can be very picky and demand you have the narrow skill set they need from day one.
More on this, and there is plenty more:
“Corporate executives have valuable perspectives on the economy, but they also have an interest in promoting the notion of a skills gap. They want schools and, by extension, the government to take on more of the costs of training workers that used to be covered by companies as part of on-the-job employee development. ”
If we’re having a debate, let’s debate that. Is there any self-interest here, on the part of the business community? How do they benefit when the public picks up the entire cost and risk of training employees in specific skills for a specific job? It’s not an accusation of bad faith. It’s obvious how they benefit, so let’s debate that honestly. Should they cover any of the risk of training and investing in new employees where that employee may or may not produce enough to cover the cost of training, or should the public pick up the risk for them? Hiring and training people involves risk. It’s an investment. Sometimes you train and it doesn’t work out for you, as the employer. Should the public take the possible downside of that risk, or should employers?
The concern is that employers who spend a lot investing in new employees run the risk of seeing all that spending walk out the door to a competing firm as soon as that employee leaves the firm. This will lead firms to underinvest in their employees. As a society we all gain from higher productivity independent of where a person works, so it makes sense that the society is more willing to invest in a worker than and individual firm.
That’s an argument. It’s a good one. I think the employer should take more of the risk, but at least you’re not presenting this as a done deal.
What isn’t an argument is presenting what is a DECISION on public policy as “the education system doesn’t train workers sufficiently” and putting the entire onus on public schools.
Just as you can not really legislate how much time a teacher spends on “test prep”, you can not really legislate how much training a company will provide its employees. High quality training will be provided if the company thinks it is required (your example with Honda), but any training that the company feels would be wasted because it is not relevant or will walk out the door to another competitor will be low quality in order to minimize the expense.
I think the concern about inadequate K-12 education is a misunderstanding about the meaning of a high school degree. Employers believe that it represents a higher level of academic skills than is actually the case.
I think it’s become so skewed pro-employer needs that the public interest isn’t even debated. Should we pick up half the cost of training GE workers? I don’t know; maybe, maybe not.
There’s another interest that is rarely mentioned, and that’s the employee. Employees take on risk, too. They invest time and energy in the job, and if there’s skills training they invest time and energy there.
My 20 year old received training at the Honda supplier where works. He IS taking that training to another company (if they hire him) but the Honda supplier could avoid that result by raising his wage.
That’s how it’s supposed to work. The Honda supplier is making a conscious decision to risk losing trained employees because the upside of lower wages is higher than the downside of maybe not getting a huge return on their training investment. That has nothing to do with a “skills gap”. In fact, it goes the other way, toward a surplus of entry-level ready workers. They must be fairly confident there are enough people to pass their entry level math test and replace him, or they’d compete to keep him.
“The concern is that employers who spend a lot investing in new employees run the risk of seeing all that spending walk out the door to a competing firm as soon as that employee leaves the firm.”
My wife heard this story from a training expert at a conference. This expert was called in to a company to train their employees. The CEO expressed a concern to the expert that, what if you train my employees and then they leave? The expert’s answer was, what if I don’t train them, and they stay?
The issue is generally not that employees get no training, but how much training. A firm certainly wants to train employees up to a point, but society would prefer that an individual get more training as the returns to society are higher than the returns to the company for training an employee.
Teachingeconomist,
“We all gain from higher productivity”, is the biggest myth of all.
The ratio of benefit, from GDP growth, shows the rewards went primarily to suppliers of capital, not labor.
Engineers are labor.
The lack of significant jobs in engineering is a function of the change in the U.S. economy, from goods production to services.
In the past two decades, seasoned engineers, looking for advancement, were forced to leave the field, in favor of the service fields of marketing or finance.
Every economist, purporting to be interested in U.S. growth should be laser-focused on the the abysmal productivity performance of the financial sector, in which the hedge fund owners squander their talents, assuming they have any.
You might think about the changes in your life over the last twenty years.
When you speak of capital, are you talking about the public employee pension funds?
Flipping real estate and “extorting rent from the very poor” was Clippers’ owner, Sterling’s, source of income, according to “The Nation”. The NBA Commissioner said Sterling has acknowledged saying about the team members (labor), “I gave Black people cars, housing, and put food on their tables.” Sterling provides a compelling example of the attitudes of and rewards for those who provide capital.
The average public pension is about $20,000 per year, until a person reaches the average age of death in the U.S., about 79. The employee likely worked 30+ years, in a 40+ hour work week, contributing weekly to his retirement, with the expectation of a secure monthly check (often in lieu of Social Security).
teachingeconomist,
As you requested, I have reflected and the comparison I identify is that Casino owners, Enron executives, real estate speculators and convicted insider trading millionaires, etc. can influence national policy with their millions of dollars. Plumbers, teachers, hospital workers, etc. can try to influence politicians with $20 donations.
A more reasonable comparison would be to think about what a median income household might have consumed thirty years ago compared to a median income household today.
teachingeconomist,
The relevant comparison is to the wealth accumulation of a family in the top 1% or, the top one-tenth of the 1%. (Piketty’s book)
They can buy more politicians, economists, journalists and judges.
I don’t think that is relevant for discussion the importance of productivity growth for our collective wellbeing.
The acronym STEM has progeny.
STEAM adds the arts, an echo of the post Sputnik effort to position the arts as the only form of inquiry supporting creativity of the kind our nation needed. Back then the arts were going to produce the creative scientists needed to beat the Russians in the space race.
Then there is SEA, science, economics, and the arts, said to be the secret sauce for study and accomplishments during the Renaissance in Europe. That simplistiic understanding of education in that era is as problematic as the drumbeat for STEM.
Then there is the institutional structure created mid-century last announcing a national interest in nurturing study and accomplishments in the arts, sciences, and humanities. Unfortunatly, the National Science Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, and National Endowment for the Arts have become competitors for support and have failed to muster national conversations about one or several conceptions of preschool, elementary and secondary education worthy of emulation and more sensible than the CCSS–or as I like to think of it, the 3R’s on steroids.
And don’t forget the so -called 21st century skills from the lobbyist and PR expert Ken Kay, who tried unsuccessfully (twice) to get congress to make this meme have the status it needed in order to advance the his basic cause –getting more of his clients in technology some federal funds.
You can find out more about the STEAM and SEA ideas by using those key words. Same for Ken Kay who has reinvented himself.
Corporations want workers from other countries to come and work here for lower wages. I heard a recent engineering graduate from Wisconsin call in to a radio show about his experiences interviewing for jobs. Companies were wanting him to work for low wages and no benefits.
This whole thing is corporate driven in order to drive down wages of US workers. Is it any wonder the Administration is going along with it?
This story has been hiding in plain sight for years. I wrote about it three years ago for NYC Educator: nyceducator.com/2011/01/false-premises-false-promises-corporate.html
Most of the engineering fields seem to have pretty high salaries based on what I’ve read on the internet which suggests a pretty tight labor market for most engineering fields. In the Houston area where I live beginning petroleum engineers with no experience are getting starting salaries of $80,000, great benefits and no heavy lifting.(But you do have to be willing to make occaisional trips to the north of Norway.)
Some years ago when I was driving around Fort Bend County I remarked that all the big mansions aroound probably belonged to doctors and lawyers. On no, I was told, they belong to engineers in the oil business.
Teachingeconomist has a link to a site showing $103,000 starting salary for petroleum engineers and the figure I remember from a whlie ago was $80,000. So maybe salaries are going up. This is the starting salary. After a few years at most a petroleum engineer should be at six figures.
True – to get really high salaries they probably have to eventually make a transition from technical work to more managerial roles requiring a broader spectrum of skills. But if they just stay in the technical area although their salary growth may slow down they won’t have much problem putting food on the table.
You know, it’s right in front of you what the motive is of this fake crisis, and that’s to con our elected officials into letting in more low-paid foreigners to take American jobs.
Bill Gates has been an H1B fan from way back.
The idea that jobs belong to one group or another is interesting. Should New Yorkers be upset if South Carolinians take “New York” jobs?
It seems to me that this idea requires a view of privilege that should make folks uncomfortable. Substitute a gender label, race label, religious label in for American and see how it sounds.
TE, I think the preferred model is to substitute “German” and then note that this is how the Nazis got started.
The key point, Jim is that we don’t need a million petroleum engineers. When you talk about any field, you have to ask how many graduates they hire each year.
From: Stephen Krashen…and I totally AGREE. THERE is NO STEM CRISIS. http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2013/04/more-evidence-corroborating-professor.html
My husband is a STEM person. THERE IS NO STEM CRISIS. There is an inside story to this manufactured STEM crisis.
More evidence corroborating Professor Krashen and exposing the contrived skills and STEM crises
“…the impending shortage of scientists and engineers is one of the longest running hoaxes in the country” — Gerald W. Bracey
And never forget the GREAT work of the fabulous GERALD W. BRACEY.
Yvonne Siu-Runyan: what you said!
😃
And I heartily recommend Gerald Bracey, READING EDUCATION RESEARCH: HOW TO AVOID GETTING STATISTICALLY SNOOKERED (2006).
😎
“And never forget the GREAT work of the fabulous GERALD W. BRACEY.
YES!
He blew open many of the myths and hoaxes years ago. And yet somehow, they persist?
You know the old school failure tropes…
We are losing some international competition!
We do not have enough science workers!
The economy depends on the test scores of children!
And on and on.
It takes a lot of double speak, dissembling and obfuscation, but there are those who continue to push the myths.
Wonder why?
Not to quibble, but that piece you link to is by me in support of Krashen’s work on this topic.
The STEM nonsense is all about getting more of those all-important H1Bs to further lower the salaries of American professionals.
The Center for Media and Democracy describes the latest edition of “Rich States, Poor States” (lead author, Arthur Laffer) as a, “lobby scorecard ranking states on the adoption of extreme ALEC policies that have little or nothing to do with economic outcomes….Leaked documents reveal the report is funded by the Kochs.”
That would be Laffer, of the discredited Laffer Curve.
Aren’t there VAM’s for these people?
We could check the 250 colleges that take Koch funding for economics courses, professors, etc. to see how many are still teaching the Laffer Curve (developed on a cocktail napkin).
I make a plea that we all internet search, “Koch colleges”. If our alma maters are listed, e-mail the economics departments and ask if
the Koch funding permits instruction from Piketty’s book.
As always thanks to Diane for this forum and the posters of comments, who recognize the threat to democracy and work to stop it..
Linda
I am not sure why you focus on the Laffer curve. It is trivially correct, and it is equally obvious that tax revenue declines at much higher tax rates than exist in the US.
If you want to search for it being taught, look for classes called “public finance”.
We should improve STEM education particularly in k-12, not to produce more scientists and which WE DO NOT NEED, but rather, and much more importantly, because: science and math are beautiful and provide deep insights in to the structure of the universe, because they they empower humans to understand the real world around them, as a counterweight against superstition and irrational thinking that plagues our society, and as the most powerful approach to gaining control, finding meaning and purpose in one’s life. Lets stop trivializing – the greatest products of the human brain: rational thinking and scientific knowledge as merely a vocational skill. If no jobs whatsoever depended on science (or art) education, the pursuit of beauty and understanding as seen through both ART AND SCIENCE ARE valuable in and of themselves and should be more than sufficient justification.
Fresh out of school, my employers willingly reimbursed nearly any advanced degree. As companies increasingly focused on the short term, those benefits faded. Sure, there was risk an employee may leave. But companies were willing to ensure loyalty by offering bonuses and promotions. We lost some graduates, but most of us saw opportunities with the new degree and stayed. Collectively, we built a team and helped achieve some measure of success.
The STEM shortage is a myth intended to raise the H1b limits. H1bs work for lower wages than Americans plus are indentured. STEM workers over 40 find age discrimination rather than jobs. Plus the “shortage” is exaggerated by employers who advertise the jobs but do not intend to hire in the near future. Or they establish unrealistic qualifications few can meet or pass through the automated screening software.
Economic Policy Institute will have a discussion of his book at 10:00 today (Thursday)
This is a very important analysis of how the Gulen Movement has been able to take advantage of the STEM hysteria to advance the expansion of its charter schools.
http://gulencharterschools.weebly.com/the-stem-sell-problem.html
“The STEM Sell Problem: Our nation is overly gullible to the marketing of STEM education – and Gulenists know it”