The Need for STEM Education in Today’s Schools

According to a research report published by the National Academy of Engineering, STEM education (science, technology engineering, and mathematics) in our schools mainly focuses on science or math, rarely combined, and hardly places any emphasis on the importance of technology and engineering. Technology is often written off as something indirectly incorporated into other curriculum fields, while engineering is often has no formal place in the school day. Not only is an emphasis on the importance of STEM lacking in today’s overall education system, but women and other “minorities” are largely underrepresented. According to a report by the National Science Foundation, women in the U.S. only earn 20% of bachelor’s degrees in engineering, computer science, and physics. The American Association for the Advancement of Science additionally found that, out of the 69,300 science and engineering full-time professors employed in 2006, only 600 of them, less than 1%, were African American women.
Statistics such as these present a national problem. According to the Third International Mathematics and Science Study, U.S. high school students rank 18th below other countries in math and science literacy. Countries in Western Europe and Asia are, for the first time in history, surpassing us in STEM advancements.
The implications for such trends affect our standing as a world leader as well as our national economy as a whole. There is currently a shortage of highly skilled workers in our country, for which there is high demand, and a surplus of lesser skilled workers, for which there is low demand. This has led many of our businesses to “import brainpower” from others nations. In 2000 it was found that nearly 40% of jobs requiring Ph.D.s in science or technology were filled by foreign-born workers; in 1990 only 25% of such jobs were filled by foreign-born workers. Our nation is also, increasingly, filling its Ph.D. programs with foreign-born students; according to the National Science Foundation, foreign-born individuals in 2003 comprised the majority of all Ph.D. recipients in computer science (57%), electrical engineering (57%), civil engineering (54%), and mechanical engineering (52%). With increased presence and demand for highly skilled workers abroad, it is speculated that aspiring STEM workers from those countries will not only eventually cease coming to the U.S. for STEM education, but STEM employment as well. The absence of so many highly skilled workers would be detrimental to our future.
According to reports conducted by Eric A. Hanushek of Stanford University, putting into effect STEM education reform efforts would not only strengthen our country’s place in the technological world by encouraging more students to seek STEM professions, but such reform would also lead to great economic improvement. Hanushek projected that the U.S. gross domestic product would be 4% higher in 2025 than it would be without such reform and 10% higher by 2040. The 4% increase, alone, would be enough to cover the annual cost of K-12 public education.
STEM education reform is not an easy task. School districts would, potentially, face a variety of obstacles such as curriculum issues, time constraints, a lack of funding, a lack of qualified teachers, and potentially low teacher retention due to finances or motivation to pursue other careers. Societal attitudes may also prove to be a challenge to STEM reform; education in STEM content areas are often viewed to be “not for everybody”, irrelevant, too hard, or merely a stepping stone to a career too difficult to attain. The benefits of STEM education reform, nonetheless, are clearly reason enough to face these obstacles and lead our nation toward further educational, economic, and job prosperity.