It was the college convocation speech heard around the world. A Georgia Tech sophomore’s excitement about mechanical engineering is lighting up the internet. Video of his speech has gone viral, it is comes during a big push to get more students just as excited about the sciences. Tom Foreman has the story.

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The post American Journey: Excitement about Science Growing on College Campuses appeared first on inSPIRE STEM USA.

By Nansen Malin

All of Washington must have been proud earlier this year when one of our very own was awarded the 63rd National Teacher of the Year. Jeff Charbonneau, a 9th-12th grade chemistry, physics, and engineering teacher from Zillah High School, was also praised for starting the school’s first robotics team.

Charbonneau’s work and the work of so many other Washington teachers are crucial, and the state continues to lead the nation in a tech-driven economy. The presence of Washington-headquartered companies such as Microsoft and Amazon has helped the area outperform the Silicon Valley with a 7.6% job growth in STEM fields over the past few years.

However, while STEM jobs are among the fastest growing in Washington, we still may be failing to produce enough qualified workers to fill them. By 2018, the U.S. will need to fill nearly 8,654,000 STEM-related jobs, and approximately 303,000 of those jobs will be in Washington, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The challenge of the nation’s STEM jobs gap was on display earlier this year when the U.S. opened the period for companies to apply for H-1B visas that allow them to hire foreign workers to fill vacant high-skilled positions. This year, the full allotment of 65,000 of the visas was exhausted within just five days. In the previous year, it took 10 weeks to reach the cap, which was set in 1990 and has not been updated to reflect a more technology-driven economy.

The need for addressing the STEM jobs crisis is clear, and Congress is considering the SKILLS Visa Act, legislation that would reform our high-skilled immigration program by raising the outdated cap on H-1B visas so that companies can immediately fill vacant STEM-related positions with high-skilled foreign workers.

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The post Immigration Reform Measures Could Fill Desperate Need in Washington State for STEM-Educated Workers appeared first on inSPIRE STEM USA.

By Alan Daley, Retired Businessman and Writer for The American Consumer Institute Center for Citizen Research

Every year, American universities grant advanced degrees to tens of thousands of bright foreign students. Upon graduation, unless they manage to procure an H-1B visa, these students typically return home and work for companies that compete with American employers.

It would be much smarter to welcome these workers onto the U.S. team than to force them to fight against us.

Today’s annual cap on H-1B visas is 65,000; the visas last for three years, and there are some exemptions for workers with master’s degrees and doctorates. In 2012, there were a total of 136,000 workers in the U.S. through the H-1B program. A bill before the Senate would raise the annual cap to 205,000, a modest recalibration and a smart move.

Some might point to the unemployment rate as evidence against admitting more immigrants. But in fact, a close look at the unemployment data suggests that the problem doesn’t exist among the highly skilled. While workers with a high-school education and no more have an unemployment rate of 7.6 percent, the rate is only 3.8 percent for college graduates, and it’s even lower for those with advanced degrees or specialized “STEM” (science, technology, engineering, and math) skills. For example, biomedical engineers have an unemployment rate of just 0.4 percent, suggesting that America needs far more of them. Skills shortages like this are common in some areas of the labor market.

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By Erik Telford, Vice-President for Strategic Initiatives and Outreach, Franklin Center

Although the conversation on immigration reform tends to unfold in terms of border security, enforcement of laws, and pathways to citizenship – there is one critical aspect this debate that has failed to break through all of the other noise. Immigration reform could help the economy grow–if done the right way.

Instead of getting bogged down in negotiations about amnesty and its various forms, conservatives should drive the conversation toward STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) and H1-B visas. These visas can help bring the world’s best and brightest to America–the kind of people who will start businesses, buy homes, pay taxes, and contribute to society.

Conservatives can take a solutions-oriented lead in driving economic growth in America’s high-tech sector by pushing through Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) Skills Visa Act independent of other legislation. The bill would make more H1-B visas available to foreign graduates of U.S. universities with advanced STEM degrees who are already in America, allowing us to capitalize on the investment we have made in educating these young people. By bringing this legislation to an immediate floor vote and pressuring the Senate to do the same, House Republicans can set the narrative on the immigration debate.

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The post STEM Visas Should Be No-Brainer in Immigration Debate appeared first on inSPIRE STEM USA.

Throughout my career with the Saint Paul Area Chamber of Commerce, one thing has always been apparent: the Chamber is effective because of the strength of our members. We are a member-led business advocacy organization and we thrive from the cumulative energy, strength and vibrancy of our members. While many macro-challenges to economic success remain, our members are increasingly telling us that finding, retaining, and growing skilled workers at the local and national level has become, if not a crisis, a major issue that needs to be addressed. We are at a turning point when it comes to our local and national economy as America grapples with a shortage of workers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields.

Without a sufficient amount of workers in STEM, one of the fastest growing sectors in the nation, our ability to continue as the world leader in innovation and remain globally competitive is in jeopardy.

This August, the Chamber and a wide array of other organizations and companies are urging congressional leaders to help address the STEM crisis as part of immigration reform.

STEM related issues directly affect Minnesota companies. For example, the Mayo Clinic, which serves more than a million people from all 50 states and nearly 150 countries every year, is one of the largest users of the H-1B visas, which companies use to fill vacant high-skilled positions. The Saint Paul Area Chamber of Commerce wants to support them and our greater business community.

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The post STEM Education Needed in the Pipeline appeared first on inSPIRE STEM USA.

By Daryl Acumen

Back when the golden spike was pounded in at Promontory, completing the transcontinental railroad nearly 150 years ago, immigrant workers in Utah meant Irish and Chinese laborers who performed backbreaking work for meager wages. Later came the Greeks and Italians to do the hard labor of mining. Add in the pioneers, and Utah truly was built by immigrant labor.

Utah still needs workers from around the world, but today strong academic backgrounds mean more than strong backs. Utah has undergone a long but radical transformation from an economy based on mining and ranching to one based on programming and microchips.

That is why passage of a bill called the SKILLS Visa Act now moving through the U.S. House of Representatives is vital. This legislation will ease America’s critical shortage of professionals with degrees in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields and computer science by raising the laughably low cap on work visas for immigrants with these qualifications.

The bill seeks to meet the demand for STEM workers by creating a STEM education fund to improve teaching of math and science in our K-12 schools. We must prepare and motivate more American kids to go to college and earn technical degrees. A quick look at Utah’s technology sector confirms the need for the SKILLS Visa Act.

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The post House Bill Offers to Ease Utah’s Tech Pro Shortage appeared first on inSPIRE STEM USA.

New England Council CEO Jim Brett was interviewed on WMUR on Saturday, July 27.

Brett discusses the need for more H-1B visas in the short-term and a stronger STEM education pipeline in the long-term to address the STEM skills shortage in New England.

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The post WMUR Political Scoop Interview with Jim Brett appeared first on inSPIRE STEM USA.

By Vivek Wadhwa

Diversity boosts high-tech innovation in America, argues Vivek Wadhwa.

Paul Solman: There aren’t enough IT jobs to meet demand? Vivek Wadhwa, director of research at Pratt School of Engineering, Duke University and a fellow at Stanford Law School, questions that claim. He responds to Wednesday’s post on the Making Sen$e Business Desk from Hal Salzman, B. Lindsay Lowell and Daniel Kuehn, in which they argued that competition from high-tech guest workers is keeping domestic workers’ wages low and making it harder for native STEM graduates to find jobs in their fields.

Wadhwa, the author of “The Immigrant Exodus: Why America Is Losing the Global Race to Capture Entrepreneurial Talent,” takes issue with much of their reasoning and shows that the demand for STEM workers in this country is still higher than the supply. “Data may say it’s a sunny day, but you need to open the window to make sure that it isn’t actually raining,” Wadhwa says, confronting Salzman’s work.

In earlier Making Sen$e posts, Wadhwa broke through conventional wisdom to argue that innovation comes from experience, and that twice as many entrepreneurs are over age 50 than are under 25. Now, read Wadhwa’s attempt to open the window onto another kind of Silicon Valley diversity.

Vivek Wadhwa: Early in my academic career, at Duke University, I researched the graduation rates of engineers in India and China. Based on the numbers, I concluded that India’s IT industry would perish, China would rule the world in innovation, and the U.S. was doing just fine.

I also read papers by academics who analyzed U.S. science and engineering graduation data. They said that the U.S. was graduating three times as many engineers and scientists as it needed and that the excess graduates were moving into other professions. They also claimed that U.S. student performance on mathematics, science and reading tests had improved relative to other countries — and that U.S. enrollment in math and science courses was increasing. The concerns that parents, academics, businesses and policymakers have about U.S. science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education were therefore, the papers claimed, unfounded.

I believed them and wrote about this in a BusinessWeek article titled “The Science Education Myth.”

Then I learned an important lesson: numbers never tell the complete story and some academics spend too much time in ivory towers. Data may say it’s a sunny day, but you need to open the window to make sure that it isn’t actually raining.

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The post The Immigrant Brain Drain: How America Is Losing Its High-Tech Talent appeared first on inSPIRE STEM USA.

By Maria Cardona, inSPIRE STEM USA Co-Chair

Like any mother raising two young children, much of my attention is focused on their education with an eye toward their futures and the opportunities they will have as adults in the workforce. For kids, grade school is the time for fun. But, like it or not, even at early ages schools and parents are also helping to shape whether our children will have an interest in the critical areas of math and science. This focus and this challenge for parents and educators should be at the forefront of most of our minds as we seek to ensure our kids have access to education strong enough to prepare them for top jobs as tomorrow’s computer programmers, scientists, inventors, engineers or astronauts.

Considering the state of education in science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM) and computer science today, we have our work cut out for us. According to the College Board, only 19 percent of 2010 high school graduates who took the Computer Science AP exam were female. Also, according to White House statistics, more than 40% of Hispanic/Latino and American Indian students who are interested in STEM fields are within four points of the cutoff number for math proficiency on the ACT exam.

The challenge we face has my attention as a parent, and I’m glad it also has struck a chord in Congress. The bipartisan immigration reform legislation passed last month by the U.S. Senate includes a national fund for states to dedicate to enhancing their STEM education programs.

The widespread support for the fund is undoubtedly based on an understanding that STEM jobs are the future of America’s economy. Occupations in STEM fields are the second-fastest growing in the nation, just behind health care, according to a Georgetown University study. And while 8.6 million STEM related jobs are expected to be available in 2018, as many as three million of those jobs might be unfilled, according to the National Math and Science Initiative. The STEM fund can play a crucial role in addressing this disparity and in ensuring that more women and minorities are represented in these fields.

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The post The Importance of STEM Education for Latina Mothers appeared first on inSPIRE STEM USA.

By Isabel Framer, CEO, Language Access Consultants, LLC.

All throughout the state, Ohioans gathered on Thursday in recognition of America’s Independence Day, the day 300 million-plus immigrants celebrate being a nation. Our celebrations last week were almost exactly as John Adams envisioned them 237 years ago, “solemnized with pomp, shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of the continent to the other.”

Some of the proudest among us celebrated their first Independence Day as American citizens. And thanks to the bipartisan immigration reform bill passed recently by the U.S. Senate, millions of others are closer to realizing their dreams of full American citizenship.

Thank you, Sen. Sherrod Brown, for joining 67 of your Senate colleagues in voting in favor of this comprehensive immigration reform package.

If this fix were easy, it surely would have been accomplished years ago. The bill was only achievable because Republicans and Democrats were able to come together to address one of the nation’s most pressing challenges.

The bill reforms the nation’s high-skilled immigration program and would make a historic investment in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and computer science education in Ohio and every other state. The bill also significantly strengthens U.S. border security and establishes a universal employment verification system (E-Verify), which would be implemented within five years. It also provides a tough and fair path to naturalized citizenship.

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The post Much to Celebrate in Senate’s Immigration Bill; The House Should Back This Needed Legislation appeared first on inSPIRE STEM USA.