It is utterly fascinating to speak with others in this space who share similar concerns to me with respect to the looming supply problem America will face in STEM fields. Demand in these careers is only going to increase, and yet there is not the well-developed pipeline that should be.
I posted about this issue a week or so ago in this blog post. There are general pipeline issues with the STEM student pipeline. There are issues with minorities and underrepresented students entering STEM. There are issues with getting students involved in STEM at an earlier and earlier age. These are all problems that need to be addressed.
Luckily, there is a new bill going through Congress called the NEED Act which aims to address this supply problem. The title of the article that covers this is appropriately named, "The Future is STEM — But Without Enough Students, the U.S. Will Be Left Behind." You can read the article here.
What is most fascinating to me about this article and the NEED Act's method of addressing supply problems in America is through the housing of STEM curriculum. Taken directly from the article is the following quote:
"Congress has a chance to help turn this around, by passing the New Essential Education Discoveries (NEED) Act. This groundbreaking legislation aims to establish the National Center for Advanced Development in Education (NCADE) within the Institute of Education Sciences, a center that would be modeled after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
NCADE would bring promising practices directly into classrooms, leveraging the extensive research investments made by the institute over the past two decades. This is essential because unless the nation does something radical to transform education sciences research and translate the basic research in which the institute has traditionally invested into applied, practical, and scalable products and interventions, the already eroding U.S. lead in STEM will fade even further."
Things to consider...
I believe America does need to do something radical in order to transform education and introduce students at a younger and younger age to careers and what they COULD do with a STEM degree or even a focus on STEM. Remember, not all STEM jobs require a bachelor's degree or beyond. They just require an interest, curiosity, and awareness. All of which are lacking in current curriculums. Let me know your thoughts on the matter in the comments below.
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