ATTENTION Science, Technology, Engineering and Math
(STEM) Education
CAUCUS STAFFERS:
December 2007 News Briefs on STEM Education
In this Issue:
8. Newly introduced STEM Education Legislation
Sometimes overlooked in this mix is how high schools can help cultivate a fresh crop of scientists, engineers and lab technicians. Secondary science and mathematics education is on the rise, with growing numbers of students in more challenging classes.
Researchers who track the American labor market told Congress on Tuesday that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the United States has more than enough scientists and engineers and that federal agencies and universities should reform the way they train young scientists to better match the supply with the demand for researchers.
3. Academic Competitiveness and National
SMART Grants Data Released
(Dept of Education 11/07)
Results are in! The year-one data for AC and
National SMART Grants have been compiled. The resulting national and state profiles
include suggestions for reaching the Department of Education's goal of doubling
the number of AC and National SMART Grant recipients nationwide by 2011.
4. Top-Achieving Nations Beat U.S. States in Math and Science
5. President Honors Mentors of Scientists and Engineers (NSF Press 11/19)
The value of mentoring in developing the scientists of the future was at front and center with the latest Presidential Awards for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM), a program supported and administered by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
6. Consumer Math Struggling to Find Place in Curriculum (Wash Post 12/2)
Once a common course offering, consumer math is being phased out as school systems raise their expectations of how much math students should know when they graduate.
7. FYI: 2008 Hollings Undergraduate Scholarship Applications Now Being Accepted
Applications for the 2008 Ernest F. Hollings Undergraduate Scholarship Program are now being accepted. Approximately 100 scholarships will be awarded for academic study or training in NOAA-related science, research, technology, policy, management, and education. The deadline for applications is February 8, 2008. For details, please visit the NOAA Office of Education, Hollings Scholarship web site: http://www.oesd.noaa.gov/Hollings_info.html
8. Recently Introduced STEM Legislation
This is a record of recently introduced legislation related to STEM Ed. but does not represent Caucus endorsement of any legislation
H.R.4151 Title: STEM Promotion Act of 2007
Sponsor:
Rep Reyes, Silvestre [D-TX-16] (introduced 11/9/2007)
Cosponsors: (none)
Committees: House Education and Labor
Latest Major Action: 11/9/2007 Referred to House committee.
Status: Referred to the House Committee on Education and Labor.
H.R.4250 Title: Building a Stronger America Act
Sponsor:
Rep Wilson, Heather [R-NM-1] (introduced 11/15/2007)
Cosponsors:
3
Committees: House Science and Technology
Latest Major Action: 11/15/2007 Referred to House committee.
Status: Referred to the House Committee on Science and Technology.
S.2392 Title: National STEM Scholarship Database
Act
Sponsor:
Sen Obama, Barack [D-IL] (introduced 11/16/2007)
Cosponsors: (none)
Committees: Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
Latest Major Action: 11/16/2007 Referred to Senate committee.
Status: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and
Pensions.
The Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Education Caucus’ primary mission is to promote all areas of STEM Education including K-12, higher education and workforce issues in Congress. At its core, the caucus functions to increase the visibility and importance of STEM Education and educate Members of Congress and their staffs on the technical issues and public-policy options surrounding STEM education. The Caucus serves as an information source and a catalyst for improving STEM education.
If you would like to join the Caucus, please contact Julia Jester (x53831) in Mr. Ehlers’ office or Wendy Adams (x52161) in Mr. Mark Udall’s office.
Chronicle of Higher Education, Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Researchers who track the American labor market told Congress on Tuesday that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the United States has more than enough scientists and engineers and that federal agencies and universities should reform the way they train young scientists to better match the supply with the demand for researchers.
At a hearing of a subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives science committee, Michael S. Teitelbaum, vice president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, told lawmakers that "although I know you routinely are told by corporate lobbyists that their R&D is being globalized in part due to shortages of scientists and engineers in the U.S., no one who has studied this matter with an open mind has been able to find any objective data of such general shortages."
Federal policy encourages an overproduction of science professionals, he said, because when federal support for research goes up, universities use the extra money to subsidize more graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Yet the number of permanent jobs in academe and industry do not necessarily climb as a result of that spending, he said. "This disconnect between demand and supply means there are substantially more science graduate students and postdocs than can find attractive real job openings and future careers in these fields," he said.
The Chronicle has recently reported on the poor job prospects for scientists and engineers and how that dissuades promising students from going into science careers.
For the most part, lawmakers at Tuesday's hearing, held by the Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation, ignored the warnings that their policies were creating an oversupply and instead concentrated on the effects of globalization. "This can sometimes be a heated issue," said Rep. David Wu, a Democrat from Oregon who is the panel's chairman. "Nobody wants to think about losing their job, and today's science and engineering graduates face an uncertain future," he said, referring to the outsourcing of jobs.
If there is indeed an oversupply, Congress appears poised to add to the problem. In August, it passed the America Competes Act, which authorizes a doubling of spending for the National Science Foundation and for support of physical-science research in general over the next seven years, but does not actually appropriate the money. Mr. Teitelbaum praised portions of the act, especially provisions calling for more federal support for teaching science and mathematics in elementary and secondary schools, and for basic research in the physical sciences.
But he urged Congress to avoid past mistakes and to subsidize some research into how the federal government can finance university science without producing too many science professionals.
At the hearing, Harold Salzman, a sociologist and senior research associate at the Urban Institute, also challenged the conventional wisdom that the nation needs more scientists and engineers. In interviews with engineers and managers at technology firms, he found that many counsel their children not to go into engineering because of the poor job prospects. One engineering professor even told him that he urged an American student not to go into engineering, although the professor said the profession may be a good career option for foreign-born students who do not have the same opportunities as domestic students.
Tuesday's hearing was the fourth in a series held by the science committee to examine the globalization of research and development and innovation. Like leaders in academe and industry, members of Congress have worried about the outsourcing of high-skill jobs to other countries, particularly China and India. As one measure of the increasing competition coming from Asia, Rep. Vernon J. Ehlers, a Republican from Michigan and a former academic physicist, said that China now produces more English-speaking engineers each year than does the United States.
Mr. Ehlers challenged the witnesses who warned about producing too many scientists and engineers. "I think it's better to have an oversupply of something like this. I also think people trained in science and engineering have opportunities in other fields."
But Paul J. Kostek, an engineer at Boeing and vice-president for career activities of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a professional association known as IEEE, responded that an oversupply would lead talented students to go into business or other nonscience fields, where they can more easily get good jobs. He also told the committee that the nation has a vast pool of available engineers. In fact, many midcareer engineers have given up and left the field. "We'll have a resource of people we can use if we keep them properly trained," he said.
The market may be different for technically skilled high-school graduates and students with two-year degrees. Henry Becker, president of Qimonda North America, a company that makes memory products for computers and electronics, said his firm had formed partnerships with high schools and community colleges to produce more potential employees for its manufacturing plant in Virginia. "The United States is just not producing enough skilled workers," he told the committee.
Earlier on Tuesday, Mr. Salzman discussed his research on the scientific work force at a forum at the Urban Institute. Last week, Mr. Salzman and B. Lindsay Lowell, director of policy studies at the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University, released a paper online that examined the production and employment of scientists and engineers. While high-tech firms have publicly complained about a shortage of skilled workers and have lobbied for expanding the numbers of foreigners admitted under H-1B visas, Mr. Salzman and Mr. Lowell contend in their paper that "purported labor-market shortages for scientists and engineers are anecdotal and also not supported by the available evidence." The paper, " Into the Eye of the Storm: Assessing the Evidence on Science and Engineering Education, Quality, and Work-Force Demand," has not yet been submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.
The title of their paper plays on the name of an influential report called "Rising Above the Gathering Storm," which was issued by a National Academies committee in 2005. That report warned that the United States is losing its competitive edge, in part because other nations are producing more and better students in science and math.
At the forum, Mr. Salzman challenged the oft-cited contention that American students perform far worse than those of other nations in international tests such as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, or Timss. While it is true that the United States does not lead the rankings, he and Mr. Lowell say in their paper, American students are doing well on average and showing steady improvement in their performance on international math and science tests. On the Timss test, only Hong Kong and Latvia have shown such consistent improvements.
Education Week: November 13, 2007
Top-Achieving Nations Beat U.S. States in Math and Science
By Sean Cavanagh
Students in the highest-performing U.S. states rank well below their peers in the world’s top-achieving countries in mathematics and science skill, according to a new study that judges American youths on an international scale.
The study, published Nov. 14 by the American Institutes for Research, compares the performance of 8th graders in individual American states not against each other, but against students in top-performing foreign nations, such as Japan and South Korea, as well as against children in recent lower-scoring ones, such as Bulgaria, Jordan, and Romania.
The analysis found that, on the one hand, most American states are performing as well as, or better than, most foreign nations in the study in math and science.
But it also concludes that even students in states such as Massachusetts, Minnesota, and North Dakota, which have scored well on recent U.S. exams, do not match students in top-performing foreign countries.
The study’s comparison uses a statistical model to link U.S. students’ science results from 2005 and math scores from 2007 on the National Assessment of Educational Progress with the country-by-country results on the 2003 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, a prominent international exam known as TIMSS.
Gary W. Phillips, a chief scientist at the Washington-based AIR, took the results of two separate tests and came up with a common method for judging states and nations. His study projects NAEP achievement levels—specifically, the percentage of students scoring at or above the “proficient” level—on the TIMSS scale.
The analysis allows states to “monitor progress toward improved science and mathematics achievement while seeing how they stack up within an international context,” the report says. “This strategy is analogous to converting world currencies to dollars as an external benchmark for tracking local economic progress.”
Releases of NAEP test scores are closely scrutinized by state leaders, who typically greet them with varying degrees of pride or dismay, depending on whether their students scores rise or fall and on how well they fare relative to other states. Mr. Phillips, in an interview with reporters, said he hoped state officials would be similarly motivated by his state-to-nation comparisons, at a time when many U.S. education and business leaders fret about students’ ability to compete in the future, global economy.
‘Do What We Do Better’
The study compares most of the 50 American states and the District of Columbia with foreign nations in both math and science. A few states are not ranked in science, because they did not take part in the 2005 NAEP in science, a subject in which participation is voluntary.
One of the states that fare well in the study is Massachusetts, which in 8th grade math is shown to rank ahead, by a statistically significant margin, of all but four countries: Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan. The state ranks at a statistically similar level to Japan, and its performance is better than the 41 remaining nations in that category.
By contrast, 17 nations, including Australia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Russia, top Alabama’s performance in 8th grade math in the study. Ten countries perform at levels similar to Alabama’s showing, and 19 nations rank below the state, including Botswana, Chile, Egypt, and Norway.
Mr. Phillips called the findings “a mixed bag,” though he added that “the bad news kind of trumps the good news.” The results demonstrate the need for U.S. policymakers to focus on improving the math and science skills of students, particularly in early grades, he said. Doing so, he argued, will encourage more students to pursue math- and science-related careers, and produce a public that is capable of dealing with daunting challenges facing the United States, and the world, in science, health, and other areas.
“These are complicated problems,” Mr. Phillips said, mentioning climate change and disease prevention as among the concerns. “The solution to them requires that we have a literate citizen-public.”
Vivek Wadhwa, an adjunct professor in the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University, agreed with the report’s conclusions about the importance for all countries, including the United States, of investing in education. But he also said that many of the countries in the TIMSS study have much smaller populations than the United States, and do less to nurture creative thinking among students across many subjects.
Mr. Wadhwa, now on a fellowship at Harvard University, co-wrote a study last year that argued that fears about China and India producing more engineers than the United States are exaggerated. ("Study: U.S.-Asian Engineering Gap Overstated," January 4, 2006.)
“If you compare U.S. education on a variety of factors, the picture looks much different,” Mr. Wadhwa said in an e-mail. “Our children are more inquisitive, innovative, and broad-minded” than those from many foreign countries, he added.
“The fact is we have many advantages,” Mr. Wadhwa wrote. “We don’t want our children to be subjected to the rote learning that is common in countries like China and India. We want to do what we do better.”
Vol. 27