Opinions
Closing the Gap: Addressing STEM Workforce Challenges
SOURCE: EDUCAUSE By Cameron Evans (National and Chief Technology Officer, U.S. Education, for Microsoft), Madeleine McKenna (U.S. Government Affairs Fellow with Microsoft), and Beneva Schulte (Executive Director of the inSPIRE STEM USA Coalition) Few people know better than higher education professionals about the power of technological innovation to reinvent the ways in which we learn and work. With advances in mobile technology, online learning platforms, and open-course content, colleges and universities can now bring education to students’ fingertips, literally. Moreover, IT-skills-heavy jobs are some of the fastest-growing and best-paying jobs available, and technological know-how is becoming increasingly important for performance… Read More »
Innovation Requires Best, Brightest
SOURCE: Greenville Online By Randy Page, Director of Public Relations, Bob Jones University I have long been an advocate for school choice in South Carolina, because I believe parents should have a seat at the table when it comes to making educational decisions for their children. History shows us that when a state embraces choice, students’ test scores rise as all schools – both public and private – compete to offer the best to our children. Education is about choices and competition. So is business as well as life. When we have choices, we focus on what is best for… Read More »
My View: Broken Immigration System Loses Jobs
SOURCE: Deseret News By David Kirkham, CEO of Kirkham Motorsports This may be the first argument for legal immigration reform that incorporates the following: Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Mitsubishi machine tools, Utah’s state Legislature, Miss America, and my kids’ high school. How do these disparate elements fit together? Sen. Hatch sponsored an amendment to the so-called “Gang of 8″ proposal. The amendment, which was adopted by the Senate Judiciary Committee, is designed to meet the critical needs of American employers by raising the numbers of high skilled (H1-B) visas available for foreign workers. It also funds state efforts to enhance… Read More »
Why the National STEM Education Fund Is So Important
SOURCE: The Huffington Post By Maria Cardona, inSPIRE STEM USA Co-Chair Occupations in STEM fields are the second-fastest growing in the nation, just behind health care, according to a Georgetown University study. And while the nation is expected to have more than 8.6 million STEM-related jobs available in 2018, as many as three million of those jobs might be unfilled, warns the National Math and Science Initiative. At Spelman College, they call their robotics team the Spelbots. And though the team is relatively new to the college (the team was founded in 2004), they also call the team champions. The… Read More »
Utah’s STEM Problem
SOURCE: The Salt Lake Tribune By Matt Berry, Founder and CEO of Orca Health Earlier this year, Republican Sens. Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee came out as strong supporters of the Immigration Innovation Act of 2013, a proposal focused specifically on America’s shortage of high-skilled workers in science, technology, engineering and math — the STEM fields. But the immigration debate has changed in Washington, and we need continued engagement and leadership from our state’s U.S. senators to fully address this chronic crisis. As head of a healthcare technology startup based in Sandy, I know firsthand the challenge of hiring highly… Read More »
Klobuchar Needs Help to Promote STEM Education
SOURCE: PostBulletin.com By Tom Muchlinski, Minnesota Council of Teachers of Mathematics Executive Director A recent study from the University of Missouri reveals the significance of developing math skills at an early age. Children’s familiarity with numbers as they enter first grade directly correlates to how well they are able to understand and use mathematics later in life. Dr. Kathy Mann Koepke of the National Institutes of Health, which is funding research into math cognition, goes further, saying that math is integral to our functioning overall as adults. “It’s not just, ‘Can you do well in school?’ It’s how well can… Read More »
Immigration Reform Must Address the Skills Gap
SOURCE: New Hampshire Business Review By James T. Brett, President and CEO of The New England Council After years of debate and discussion about the need to update our nation’s immigration system, the issue is finally on the so-called “front burner” on Capitol Hill. From a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants to border security, there are a number of challenging issues our leaders in Washington must tackle. There is, however, an additional issue that any comprehensive immigration reform plan should also address: the shortage of educated, highly skilled workers in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields. The… Read More »
The Real Story on Guestworkers in the High-Skill U.S. Labor Market
SOURCE: The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation By Robert D. Atkinson and Luke A. Stewart Recently, the Economic Policy Institute issued a report claiming that there is no shortage of U.S. STEM workers and that increases in high-skill immigration are not needed and detrimental to the U.S. economy. In this report, ITIF presents a detailed rebuttal of the EPI analysis to provide a more accurate picture of the high skill labor market. We find that the EPI report’s conclusions are simply not supported by the evidence. In fact, the U.S. does not produce enough STEM workers domestically, STEM wages and… Read More »
Video: Senator Amy Klobuchar on the Importance of Strengthening STEM Education in the U.S.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) co-sponsored an amendment to the Senate’s immigration reform bill establishing a national STEM education fund. In this video, the senator discusses the importance of strengthening STEM education in the U.S. Senator Klobuchar: STEM Education Will Move US Forward from The Atlantic on FORA.tv
STEM Graduate Shortage? Computer Science Is Where the Future Jobs Are
SOURCE: The Seattle Times By Edward D. Lazowska (Bill & Melinda Gates Chair in the Computer Science & Engineering Program, University of Washington) Technology workforce issues are much in the news these days, stimulated by proposed changes to the nation’s H-1B guest-worker visa policy. A recent report from the Economic Policy Institute on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce supply and demand was covered last week by The Seattle Times, The Washington Post and others. The report argued that there is no shortage of graduates in STEM fields overall, and that this applies to all of the various subfields… Read More »