The hue and cry about a shortage of qualified workers in science, engineering, and technology has been repeated endlessly by business leaders, politicians, and the media. Even Betsy DeVos, who believes that the Bible is the latest and best source on science, has decried the lack of qualified STEM workers.
But this is a myth perpetrated by corporations that want to import cheap guest workers or outsource jobs to low-wage countries.
To learn more about this myth, read Hal Salzman of Rutgers, a labor economist.
“Rutgers Today: Is there a shortage of STEM workers in the U.S. economy?
“Hal Salzman: We can find no evidence of any shortages in most STEM fields. Typically when employers have a hard time finding workers, they increase wages. In the one area where there truly were not enough graduates to meet hiring demands, in petroleum engineering, wages have risen dramatically and the number of graduates more than doubled in just a few years. In other areas, such as IT, average wage levels today are the same as they were when Bill Clinton was president. If employers truly need more workers in these fields, we find it puzzling that they don’t use the market and raise wages; all available evidence suggests that students do respond to market signals. It may be that it is more an issue of cost rather than supply, and Congress has been providing a lower-cost pool of tech guest workers; it is understandable that expanding the pool of lower-cost guest workers would be preferable to paying more for workers already in the U.S., if given the option.
“Rutgers Today: Is the U.S. education system producing an adequate supply of STEM graduates with the requisite STEM education?
“Hal Salzman: When we consider the supply for the science and engineering workforce, which is about 5 to 8 percent of the overall workforce, we find that the colleges graduate about twice the number of science and engineering students each year as hired into those job. Even in fields such as engineering and computer science, the number of graduates is 50 percent greater than the number hired. At the secondary school level, there are certainly significant educational problems for certain areas and students, but overall, U.S. students are completing more math and science than ever before – over the past 20 years, about 50 percent more complete subjects such as chemistry, algebra II/trigonometry, biology and physics – and test score performance shows steady increases for all students. In terms of actual supply of high performing students in science and math, the U.S. produces the lion’s share of these students in the world.
“Rutgers Today: How does high-skill immigration affect the STEM labor market and the domestic supply of STEM talent?
“Hal Salzman: Unfortunately the issue of immigration has been confused with guest worker programs. While a broad immigration policy is at the heart of this nation’s success – socially, economically – it is quite different from the current guest worker programs that bring in young workers targeted to a few industries, mostly IT, on a temporary basis and at lower wages. Naturally, employers tend to prefer the lower cost option for many of the more routine work positions, and even some of the more specialized areas. Our estimate is that currently guest workers are hired for about two-thirds of all entry-level positions in IT. Although a balanced immigration policy can strengthen the nation, a targeted guest worker program can undermine the STEM workforce by making it harder for graduates of U.S. colleges (both native and immigrant) to find jobs at good wages and to have stable careers.
“Rutgers Today: How can the U.S. compete globally, when other nations are rapidly improving their STEM industries?
“Hal Salzman: There is an unfortunate premise in science and technology policy that the world is zero-sum – that China or India’s achievements in these areas are a threat to the U.S. Moreover, it’s a case of generals fighting the last war – and the cold war in particular when we thought that the Soviet Union’s scientific advancement would imperil the security of the U.S. Well, the Soviet Union, and later the Japanese, did produce large numbers of engineers and scientists but we know that did little to help their long-term economic performance. The supply of scientists and engineers does not assure high economic performance, nor does another nation’s improvements threaten the U.S. China, for example, is graduating many more engineers because they need them to build roads, buildings, and infrastructure. The U.S. does not have nearly the scale of building that requires large numbers of engineers. In addition, science is increasingly global and having a greater pool of scientists around the world can only help everyone. Although it would be great to have U.S. scientists be the ones to discover the cure for cancer, this country, and the world, will benefit much more if, by having more scientists in China or India, the discovery is made sooner rather than later.”
The Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor statistics claims that there is both a surplus of STEM workers, and a shortage of STEM workers, simultaneously.
(I am a telecommunications engineer). The fact is, that there are shortages in SOME fields, and a surplus is SOME fields.
I read this report, and I tend to agree with most of their conclusions.
see
https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2015/article/stem-crisis-or-stem-surplus-yes-and-yes.htm
And the report is most certainly true . I read it .
However here is what the report misses .
It is the responsibility of employers to train their workforce . Or it was at one time . A petro chemical engineer may not easily fit in as a Communications engineer however if the demand was there and the job could not be filled they would . Because he would certainly have the capacity to learn quickly on the Job.
Most of the same firms screaming for H1Bs have had major layoffs of STEM people . IT in particular . When their is shortage you do not lay off you retrain.
We haven’t even touched the vast majority of Jobs that require a minimal of STEM background . Like our supposed shortage of skilled manufacturing workers and Construction tradesman .
when there
Here’s the crux of this particular literature review:
“The upshot is that there may not be a STEM ‘crisis’ in all job categories, but instead just in select ones at certain degree levels and in certain locations…, software developers, petroleum engineers, data scientists, and those in skilled trades are in high demand; there is an abundant supply of biomedical, chemistry, and physics Ph.D.’s; and transient shortages and surpluses of electrical engineers occur from time to time…The geographic location of the position affects hiring ease or difficulty.”
This has been the case for years, but the “lies” (aka propaganda, false news, etc.) keep coming. This “STEM job applicant shortage” never existed. What did exist was the shortage of STEM workers willing to work for substandard wages. They went off and worked on Wall Street or other places that paid better. What is missing from the responses to those questions is the source of the “misunderstanding” … ahem, the lies being told. One does not need to use the word “lie” which presumes knowledge of the liars mental state, but there are all kinds of genteel words to be used. “Myth” is too gentle, it implies a story told in ancient days that is no longer true. I suggest false narrative or false story, or one might use misleading claim. One can also ask the question: “If there are 50% more graduates in STEM fields than get hired, then where did the idea there was a STEM shortage come from?” Then one could speculate that “What did exist was the shortage of STEM workers willing to work for substandard wages.” which can be shown to be true with little effort. Then one could ask, what would motivate the lie?” which the gentleman did indeed address but obliquely. “It is understandable that expanding the pool of lower-cost guest workers would be preferable to paying more for workers already in the U.S., if given the option” Really? That is pretty tepid tea to counter big lies. told frequently.
On Mon, Sep 4, 2017 at 8:01 AM, Diane Ravitch’s blog wrote:
> dianeravitch posted: “The hue and cry about a shortage of qualified > workers in science, engineering, and technology has been repeated endlessly > by business leaders, politicians, and the media. Even Betsy DeVos, who > believes that the Bible is the latest and best source on scien” >
It’s lies, plain and simple! Ignorantly repeating lies is still lying.
Oh, but it’s a useful scam. When politicians want to blame working people for stagnant wages and income inequality they haul it out to deflect attention from the fact that they have no ideas and no solutions.
They don’t want to fix this. They want to blame the US workforce. Those scolding lectures they deliver about how “mediocre” we are? That’s to cover their asses.
Ivanka Trump and Betsy DeVos held some ridiculous photo op on “stem careers”- neither one of them has ever held a job they weren’t given by their families, let alone a job in “STEM”.
This is what passes for “leadership” at the highest levels. People who don’t know what they’re talking about lecturing working people. It’s like some crazy ruling class.
I listened to the White House initiative on skilled trades. NOT ONE person who has ever 1. taken an apprenticeship, or, 2. worked for an hourly wage. They invited a reality tv show star. They really can’t find a single electrician or plumber or machinist in all of DC? DeVos probably has one working in one of her mansions.
They’re going to lecture my 14 year old on “skills”. I don’t think so. They’re not credible. I have him talk to people who know something about..something.
I find it hard to believe this opinion piece simply because its on Diane’s page. No data or research is offered to support these beliefs. So given this is still a free country, I’ll consider this merely one man’s opinion.
Bob,
Google Hal Salzman at Rutgers. He is a labor economist. He is offereing his finding based on research and evidence, not his opinion.
Bob,
Here is another article by Hal Salzman.
http://issues.org/29-4/what-shortages-the-real-evidence-about-the-stem-workforce/
Oops! Bob
Wow! Welcome, troll of the week!
Here is a piece on the subject that I posted last night . Peter Cappelli Professor of Management at The Wharton School and Director of Wharton’s Center for Human Resources.gives quite a few references.
Rutgers is a fine School but ” Wharton is the best ” (the orange haired monster effect)
Click to access 16-27-MR65.pdf
But this is one of my favorite lines
“Deloitte, the consultants, claimed in 2011 (on behalf of the National Association of Manufacturers) that 600,000 good jobs in U.S. manufacturing couldn’t be filled for lack of qualified applicants – an astonishing figure given that the Bureau of Labor Statistics found only 220,000 total vacancies in manufacturing during the
year Deloitte made the estimate.”
Anything called “the Milken Institute” gives me chills.
The master Fraudster trying to buy respectability.
dianeravitch
The article may have been re posted there , but Cappelli probably did not write it for them . Are you telling me I have to find the original post . Its too nice a day on long Island . I have to get away from the key board
But is this a better source
And Yes the name did sound familiar, ringing a warning bell. The same bell as Pope’s institute , rings bells when they also posts articles on how the skills myth has a negative feed back loop on STEM education.
Let us also admit that not everything that the right wing jumps on is completely with out merit. What makes their appeal to working class voters work is that there is much truth to what they say . Even though they may be the cause of the problem and their solutions are devastating .
I came across this piece a couple of days ago while looking to see if Cappelli had written anything more recent . In my running debate with a member of my Resist Trump Tuesday (indivisible group ).
I find it absolutely amazing that people who would object strenuously had Ronald Reagan or either Bush made these assertions , are willing to buy into memes from
Neo Liberal (Right Wing ) Democrats like Obama/ Clinton
“No trade did not destroy those Jobs in the mid west “it was the robots” and if “you idiots would just get the STEM training you need there are millions of Jobs just waiting for you in Manufacturing and IT ”
This morning I woke to an Email link to Samuelson in the WA Post . From my fellow Resistor .
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-quiet-comeback-of-the-middle-class/2017/09/03/02075778-8f36-11e7-91d5-ab4e4bb76a3a_story.html?utm_term=.e7ee6fc076dd
Here is the Baker Response to the Story
http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/playing-with-numbers-to-make-wage-growth-look-better
The assault is deafening . Because the money is behind those that push the interests of the 0.1% . Trump pointing out that the Washington post is owned by Bezos is correct . Of course his followers seldom read more than Info Wars , the National Enquirer or Breitbart
Joel,
Did you see this?
Trump administration is taking away workers’ rights:
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/09/03/business/economy/trump-labor-policy.html
How many working people believed his lies?
Re: Milken Institute: Amen on that. The modern version of selling of indulgences.
dianeravitch
Everyday I wake up puking about Trump and the effect he is going to have on working people and Unions in particular. If you think Lloyd or Ellen can be a little salty at times you would not want to see my posts on Union Facebook pages. Although wanting to be able to fly unlike Lloyd I always qualify my remarks with, after an Impeachment and a trail . I would probably add half the Republican party to the list of those that should be imprisoned.
That said:
There were two HUUUGE !!!!!! opportunities to reverse the decline of organized labor. One in 78 when a bill to revise Taft Hartley passed the House and failed to reach cloture in the Senate by 2 votes .It had gotten zero help from Carter and was the first major victory for the business RoundTable. It was the reason labor went with Kennedy in 80. The other when Capitalism as we know it had effectively come to an end . The 08 financial crisis with out the government intervention would have rivaled the Great depression on Wall Street . Not main st as we already knew how to” drop money from helicopters ” . But in 2009 when the first real opportunity since 78 came along the bill, EFCA an even milder version of the 78 bill, never even made it out of committee. Never made it out at a time when Democrats held the Senate with a super majority. None other than Dianne Feinstein killed the bill.
That is no secret to any in the leadership of organized labor, which I am not .(I just have known several very well.) . Yet it is something they nor I dare post on those Facebook pages or anywhere else. For the alternative is far worse. How do you convince workers that Republicans are the enemy when they see that Democrats have not been their friends . Like many of the teachers on your blog they get it. It is a full time job getting them to not slit their own throats
Who, me??? Salty????
Bob: I find it hard to believe your opinion comment simply because it’s from a known troll, you. No data or research is offered to support your beliefs. So given this is still a free country, I’ll consider this merely one man’s opinion.
TAGO!!!
When there’s a shortage of workers wages rise. Can Arne Duncan explain how this massive shortage is occurring with no increase in wages?
The Toledo Blade says today they “can’t find” skilled trades for construction. My middle son is an electrician. If they are so desperate for workers shouldn’t the hourly wage be going up?
The truth is they “can’t find” workers at the price they’re willing to pay. They “can’t find” any workers because they aren’t willing to invest in training them. They want the public to pick up the cost of their employee training.
You are so correct. At the same time public schools were gutting their industrial arts courses, companies stopped training their workers – pushing it off on the public schools.
Public schools are not training academies for companies, they have a far greater and important role in educating people to take their place as fully functioning and capable citizens.
As companies pushed their training off on the public dime it became one more way to maximize profits and decrease expenses.
This was to pump up the price one would have to pay to attend a “trade school”. I am amazed at the cost to attend cosmetology school! When the cost of trade school costs more than the salary one could make over the course of a few years, there is a problem. Vocational High Schools were pumping out electricians, LPN’s, plumbers etc at a decent rate and then someone wanted to get greedy and make money off the system. No one NEEDS to have post secondary education in order to perform these well paying and much needed jobs. There is a whole testing industry out there attached to these for-profit trade schools and they are making money hand over fist. Imagine the poor kid who is an impeccable carpenter, but unable to get a license, because he doesn’t read well enough or do math well enough to pass the standardized test attached to the licensure? It’s a sin!
It is time for me to post my response to Bethree 5 that I did not post last night. It will be easy I saved it to a note . Slightly edited to respond to you .
bethree5
There is no shortage of construction workers in the NYC market . All of the skilled trades run registered apprenticeship programs . Some as long as six years in conjunction with an associates degree .All paid for in working agreements with employers . . According to an EPI study . 61.8 % of these apprenticeships now go to minorities. Quite an accomplishment for an industry that was once father and son , almost totally segregated 50 years ago. . One of the previous complaints about the trades is that they did not reflect the diversity of the city. That has not been the case for decades.
http://www.epi.org/blog/the-increased-diversity-of-new-york-city-union-construction-employment/
The only thing limiting the size of these programs is projected work opportunity and market share of that projected work . Every time these programs have openings they are met with thousands of applicants for hundreds of openings.
Yet at a time when the City is experiencing a high rise Residential building boom there is extensive unemployment in some of the trades.
Quite a different story from the skills shortages we hear about . A note, we are not talking about the small contractor who changes a toilet or outlet in your home or puts on a dormer. Nobody body expects a homeowner to pay over a 100 dollars an hour in Labor cost even here in NY . Yet they do and I assure you it is not going to the worker.
There is a shortage of labor in that High rise residential sector where the wage is one fifth the union wage .Yes one fifth the total package . Part of that package includes the cost of running Apprenticeship and continuing skills and saftey training. This is a sector that till 15 years ago was exclusively union. Till 5 years ago Manhattan below 96th st. was almost exclusively union . Today it is predominantly non union. As those non union employers fight a Citi council bill that would require apprentice training.In response to over 30 deaths attributed to these employers.
While those same employers bemoan a shortage of skilled labor. Their model of construction is to take all of the less skilled segments of any trade on any Job and source them to unskilled low paid labor. The Union trades model is that one day you could be in a ditch running pipe while the next you could trouble shooting a subway signal system to put it in operation . Or be hooking up the control panel at a Nuclear plant . It is understood that the nature of construction is both seasonal and dependent on booms and busts . The word Journeyman itself is derived right out of the medieval guilds where skilled labor would migrate to follow the work opportunity. Temporary shortages always filled by those journeying for employment. Without as broad a definition of the work opportunity in a trade . Where is that Journeyman to go when he finishes that highly technical or skilled work . Be it a carpenter or an electrician. Union construction has gone from 87% market share nationwide to 13% .
. Weschester Co NY the unemployment time, on the bench for a union Electrician 99 weeks . But who was behind this assault . Well none other than those good people who care about American students at the Business RoundTable , the most powerful business lobby in the country consisting of a CEOs only club of 3-400 of Americas largest companies . ALECs big daddy. An organization whose original name was the “The Construction Users RoundTable To Control Construction Spending.”
It is nice that HS provides some vocational training it is not the same as Apprentice training .Apprentice training is extensive on the Job training, in addition to classroom training and that is how skills training should be conducted . It is broad based to provide a basic skills set in an industry that can also be varied. That training does not end when the Apprentice becomes a Journeyman . As an Electrical Foreman on major subway construction in NYC for over 30 years . Seldom did I expect that a new hire come as a pre packaged unit. The basic understanding was expected to be there , while willingness to learn new skills was the most important component of success .
Why are American employers asking Government to do what employers and industries have traditionally done , invest in their own employees .
And again Peter Cappelli
Click to access 16-27-MR65.pdf
Drumpf followed the direction of his Mafia pals and hired Polish illegal immigrants to build his casinos, according to posts online. Then he refused to pay them the agree wages, and they had no recourse.
Salty????
Skilled trades are some of the only jobs left that can not be outsourced.
Of course, Congress can allocate H1b visas for electricians and plumbers, but high tech companies will fight that tooth and nail and will win most of the visas because Google, Facebook, Microslop and others have the money to bribe the Congress critters.
There’s a huge national organization that conducts training in skilled trades. It’s a joint venture between government,, contractors and labor unions.
It is the largest program for skilled trades in the country. They train 42,000 people a year.
Why do you never hear about it from Arne Duncan and Betsy DeVos?
Because it’s allied with labor unions.
If it were a college it would be huge, but it’s invisible, because Our Leaders aren’t fans of labor unions. They don’t know people who belong to labor unions, they don’t live in their neighborhoods or attend their schools, so this huge national training program that has been operating for 45 years is invisible.
I should read all comments before i post .
The shortage of STEM workers is a convenient manufactured misrepresentation being used to attack public education. It is a red herring designed to deflect attention from the various privatization of education schemes. Considering the number of IT graduates, there are few companies hiring as they prefer to fill most positions with H1-B visas. Some STEM jobs with projected growth are in solar, wind and other renewable forms of energy.
Agree, retired teacher! This is another fake mantra…just like the one about public schools. It’s about $$$$$ and profits by a fake cry.
Glad to see this. I am SO tired of “STEM.” It gives “leaders” the excuse to continually cut non-STEM areas, like social studies. Teaching students to be informed voters, citizens, and consumers isn’t “important” anymore. Elementary schools no longer teacher history and geography, and people would be horrified at the things my middle school students believe. They no longer have a foundation from an early age, and it’s really hard to get them to change their erroneous beliefs by the time they’re 13 or 14. It can be done, and I’m doing it every day, but it means that I can’t go deeper into history because we’re doing the basic stuff that kids used to know from elementary schools.
TOW,
We have more than sufficient evidence of the results of the lack of rigorous Social Studies instruction. Every year, I would attempt to instill the following information in the minds of my young students;
Newark
Essex County
New Jersey
United States of America.
I admit to being an abysmal failure. Every time I would ask, “Where do you live?” a brave soul would raise his hand and say, “New York.”
Boy, I am SO glad it isn’t just me! A few years ago, while discussing differences between the U.S. and Canada, a student asked me, ‘What is U.S.?” After answering that question, the student then asked, “So, what is America, then?”
If you travel to Canada, South America or Mexico and say you are “American”, the people smile and say “so are we”.😁
We “Americans” have such a self centered — and clueless — view.
Some more quotes supporting this same premise of STEM fraud.
Here is a quote from a 2013 article in the Columbia Journalism Review and this is not an outlier:
“Figures from the National Institutes of Health, the National Academies, the National Science Foundation, and other sources indicate that hundreds of thousands of STEM workers in the US are unemployed or underemployed. But they are not organized, and their story is being largely ignored in the debate over immigration reform.”
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers magazine, Spectrum proclaimed “The STEM Crisis Is a Myth.” They counselled “Forget the dire predictions of a looming shortfall of scientists, technologists, engineers, and mathematicians.”
Writing for the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, Jay Schalin observed,
“Everybody knows that the best way to get ahead today is to get a college degree. Even better is to major in one of the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) subjects, where the bulk of the jobs of the present and future lie. Politicians, business leaders, and academics all herald the high demand for scientists and engineers.
“But they are, for the most part, wrong. The real facts suggest that, in many STEM specialties, there is a labor glut, not a shortage.”
“The apparent misinformation continues to this day. Microsoft founder Bill Gates has been particularly vocal about supposed shortages of skilled labor in the computer industry.”
Walter Hickey writing at the Business Insider stated,
“We clearly don’t have a STEM shortage. If we did, rudimentary economics would kick in and show either low unemployment for new majors or a rising price of computer science labor. People wouldn’t say they’re out of the industry because of no jobs.”
Michael S. Teitelbaum wrote a piece for Atlantic magazine titled “The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage.” He reported:
“A compelling body of research is now available, from many leading academic researchers and from respected research organizations such as the National Bureau of Economic Research, the RAND Corporation, and the Urban Institute. No one has been able to find any evidence indicating current widespread labor market shortages or hiring difficulties in science and engineering occupations that require bachelors degrees or higher, although some are forecasting high growth in occupations that require post-high school training but not a bachelors degree. All have concluded that U.S. higher education produces far more science and engineering graduates annually than there are S&E job openings—the only disagreement is whether it is 100 percent or 200 percent more.”
Links to these quotes can be found in my article https://tultican.com/2017/07/05/go-public-trauma-informed-education-and-encorps/
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/03/the-myth-of-the-science-and-engineering-shortage/284359/
Click to access 14stevenson.pdf
I know mathematicians with masters degrees who work at the gas station.
What allows them to claim a shortage of STEM workers is how they define the requirements for the jobs.
There are many people educated in mathematics, sciences and engineering who are perfectly capable (if not more capable than Computer science grads) of doing IT work, but they are not hired because the companies can hire foreign nationals on H1bs for less money.
I worked a good part of my career as a scientific programmer and the best software engineers as far as problem solving were NOT CS grads, but were mathematicians, scientists, engineers and philosophy grads.
And not incidentally, computer “science” (and scientist) is a misnomer.
The vast majority of it is not science and not even engineering.
And also not incidentally, any monkey can learn computer coding, but problem solving is a whole other ball of wax.
Lots of CS grads have the coding part down pat, but have troubles with the problem solving end of things because most of their courses are geared toward computer languages not problem solving, which is just the inverse of the case of math, science and engineering grads.
Adjunct professors work for slave wages with few if any benefits. Regional airline pilots also work for Walmart or McDonald wages with no benefits. These are all highly educated and/or highly trained skilled professionals. What’s going on? A huge part of the problem is a unionization rate of about 10.6%.
True. Joe…adjuncts get NO benefits.
For years, home health care aides have been one of the top jobs. We need compassionate people to take care of us as we age. Sure–call it a STEM job.
Once upon a time, WAY back in the late ’50’s, I was told that there was a shortage of scientists. Now, I liked science, and went to an ‘Institute of Technology’ not because I wanted a job, but because I liked Astronomy. I was told how ‘important’ that was. After my degree, I interviewed at GE Aerospace (flown out, wined and dined), however decided to go to grad school. You see, they really wanted engineers, not scientists.
Just a few years later, Boeing engineers were out selling pencils on the streets of Seattle.
All of these ‘projections’ of ‘needed skills’ are scams designed to create a surplus of ‘workers’. I have never, ever, regretted my decision to follow my interests (which eventually found me teaching in High School as a rookie when I was 30 years old). If you prepare yourself for life (a ‘well rounded’ education, including science and math, but not excluding what we once called ‘social studies’ and, of course, the study of History and Literature), you will have many options in your future (much like an organism that has a generalized diet). Thus, you can follow your inclinations rather than the dictates of a boss. Those who submit to STEM will be slaves.
(BTW, STEM is nonsense. Science is inductive logic, Mathematics is deductive, Engineering is mostly deductive and Technology is just another word for Engineering at best. To lump these together is absurd. I think the older ‘lumping’ of the Liberal Arts and Sciences is much more accurate. What the people who promote ‘stem’ want to do is pretend that inductive logic is the same as deductive and, thus, recruit people who might become mandarins for the ruling class. Imagine DeVos without mandarins. That’s even more scary than DeVos!)
The STEM scam began during the Obama administration and was connected to the roll-out of the Common Core.
Not many people recognize how the marketing of the Common Core and STEM were related from the get go, and how little research alctually justified STEM and the Common Core. The “Next Generation Science Standards” (2013) actually have less emphasis on engineering than all of the enthusiasms in this 2010 report on behalf of STEM recommended. The STEM report is from the National Science Foundation, prepared at the request of Obama. The report mentions the development of “common” standards in math and ELA as if that move provided a justification for common standards in STEM.
Click to access 2a–Prepare_and_Inspire–PCAST.pdf
Excellent analysis and explanation!
Unfortunately, lying comes easy to the people making policy.
As with the Iraq war justification, “facts” are simply fixed around the policy goals.
To paraphrase Karl Rove, “we create the reality and the rest of you are left to study what we did”
But this behavior is by no means limited to Republicans. It has become standard operating procedure in both Democratic and Republican administration’s.
It’s very sad.
Pathetic really.
The push for STEM began way before the Obama administration and common core. If one were to go really far back, it really began in the 1950s with the space race with the Soviets – the idea that they got their rockets up first must mean the US was behind in science and math. Don’t put all of this on Common Core and STEM. As for the CCSS and NGSS, their goal was not to produce more STEM folks per se, however the goal was so that students really understood what was happening when they did the math (i.e. why when you do the subtraction problem 34-17 do you cross out the 3 and make it a 2, and then put a little 1 near the 4, etc)
There is one area in STEM that is still lacking (and I know that some of you will find data that says this is not true, but I am not looking at data overall but rather personal experience – STEM teachers). Sadly, in my opinion, when folks talk about careers in STEM, teaching is never one of them. Somehow those in STEM value doctors, engineers, etc. but they don’t value those that teach the students those skills in HS.
“The Truth Gap”
The Sputnik Gap was really first
And Missile Gap, it followed next
The Gap in Truth is well rehearsed
With Science Gap, forever hexed
The belief of many of us who are members of AAUW (American Association of University Women) and DKG (Delta Kappa Gamma, an honorary educational society) and other groups is that the shortage is one of women and girls in science, math and engineering fields. Many of us contribute money for STEM camps and scholarships for females to go into STEM fields. Some schools in my area are considered STEM schools. Some want the Arts included so that it would be called STEAM.
What about history and geography? Are they not important as well? In fact, supremely important? WHY then, are they always left off of these lists????
STEM, Grit, Rigor…(repeat)
Zombie-like behavior, following unproven nonsense.
When I see the word “Scam” in the title, I get concerned about sensationalism. Haven’t read the article, yet.
Steve Jobs and management at Google and several other high tech companies perpetrated an illegal price fixing scam on their own engineers intended to squelch competition for workers and keep salaries down.
Of course, Jobs company was also contracting with Chinese companies that used children working long hours to make iPhones.
Heres a description of the illegal wage fixing scam that was led by Steve Jobs
https://www.inc.com/jeremy-quittner/silicon-valley-wage-collusion-class-action.html
Jobs was also involved in an ebook price fixing scam.
i’ve noted on this blog before that corporate “reform” cannot legitimately be separated from its constituent elements, like the SAT (or ACT) Advanced Placement courses, and STEM.
Many of those who criticize public education in the United States are also those who insist that we need to emphasize science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) to move our nation ahead. They are wrong on both counts.
First, there is no public education “crisis.” There never has been.
Although the central theme of A Nation at Risk was that a “rising tide of mediocrity” threatened American national security and “economic competitiveness,” there was no truth to the claim.
The Sandia Report (Journal of Educational Research, May/June, 1993), published in the wake of A Nation at Risk, examined carefully its specific claims. The Sandia researchers concluded that:
“..on nearly every measure we found steady or slightly improving trends.”
“youth today [the 1980s] are choosing natural science and engineering degrees at a higher rate than their peers of the 1960s.”
“average performance of ‘traditional’ test takes on the SAT has actually improved over 30 points since 1975…”
“Although it is true that the average SAT score has been declining since the sixties, the reason for the decline is not decreasing student performance. We found that the decline arises from the fact that more students in the bottom half of the class are taking the SAT than in years past…More people in America are aspiring to achieve a college education…so the national SAT average is lowered as more students in the 3rd and 4th quartiles of their high school classes take the test. This phenomenon, known as Simpson’s paradox, sows that an average can change in a direction opposite from all subgroups if the proportion of the total represented by the subgroups changes.”
“business leaders surveyed are generally satisfied with the skill levels of their employees, and the problems that do exist do not appear to point to the k-12 education system as a root cause.”
“The student performance data clearly indicate that today’s youth are achieving levels of education at least as high as any previous generation.”
Second, despite a larger, poorer, and more ethnically-diverse student population, public schools are doing pretty well for most students. Richard Rothstein recently reported this overlooked fact:
“The only consistent data on student achievement come from a federal sample, the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Though you would never know it from the state of public alarm about education, the numbers show that regular public school performance has skyrocketed in the last two decades to the point that, for example, black elementary school students now have better math skills than whites had only 20 years ago.”
Third, the need for more emphasis on STEM is equally suspect. A 2004 RAND study “found no consistent and convincing evidence that the federal government faces current or impending shortages of STEM workers…there is little evidence of such shortages in the past decade or on the horizon.” The RAND study concluded “if the number of STEM positions or their attractiveness is not also increasing” –– and both are not –– then “measures to increase the number of STEM workers may create surpluses, manifested in unemployment and underemployment.”
A 2007 study by Lowell and Salzman found no STEM shortage. Indeed, Lowell and Salzman found that “the supply of S&E-qualified graduates is large and ranks among the best internationally. Further, the number of undergraduates completing S&E studies has grown, and the number of S&E graduates remains high by historical standards.” The “education system produces qualified graduates far in excess of demand.”
Lowell and Salzman concluded that “purported labor market shortages for scientists and engineers are anecdotal and also not supported by the available evidence…The assumption that difficulties in hiring is just due to supply can have counterproductive consequences: an increase in supply that leads to high unemployment, lowered wages, and decline in working conditions will have the long-term effect of weakening future supply.”
Lowell and Salzman noted that “available evidence indicates an ample supply of students whose preparation and performance has been increasing over the past decades.”
Beryl Lieff Benderly wrote this stunning statement about STEM fairly recently in the Columbia Journalism Review:
“Leading experts on the STEM workforce, have said for years that the US produces ample numbers of excellent science students. In fact, according to the National Science Board’s authoritative publication Science and Engineering Indicators 2008, the country turns out three times as many STEM degrees as the economy can absorb into jobs related to their majors.”
So why the STEM emphasis by the likes of Bill Gates and Norm Augustine (former head of Lockheed Martin)? Benderly continues:
“Simply put, a desire for cheap, skilled labor, within the business world and academia, has fueled assertions—based on flimsy and distorted evidence—that American students lack the interest and ability to pursue careers in science and engineering, and has spurred policies that have flooded the market with foreign STEM workers. This has created a grim reality for the scientific and technical labor force: glutted job markets; few career jobs; low pay, long hours, and dismal job prospects for postdoctoral researchers in university labs; near indentured servitude for holders of temporary work visas.”
Benderly reports that an engineering professor at Rochester Institute of Technology told a Congressional committee this just a few summers back:
“Contrary to some of the discussion here this morning, the STEM job market is mired in a jobs recession…with unemployment rates…two to three times what we would expect at full employment….Loopholes have made it too easy to bring in cheaper foreign workers with ordinary skills…to directly substitute for, rather than complement, American workers. The programs are clearly displacing and denying opportunities to American workers.”
You have to wonder. When will those who continually scapegoat public education (and teachers) in the United States, and who push the fake STEM “crisis,” get exposed for their lies and for the ulterior motives behind them?
And when will those who say the are against corporate-style “reform” disassociate themselves from pet corporate-style “reforms,” including AP courses and STEM?
https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2015/article/stem-crisis-or-stem-surplus-yes-and-yes.htm
“No Scam Shortage”
A dearth of STEM
Is hardly right
But dearth of scam
Is not in sight