Creating a Well-Prepared STEM Workforce: How Do We Get There from Here?

February 18, 2009

In a conference room in downtown Sacramento, dozens of science and math teachers, business and industry representatives, legislative staffers, researchers and university officials were peering intently into their palms. In each palm, a translucent plastic fish flopped and curled. The room buzzed with speculation and giggles. Was body heat making the fish move so convincingly? Moisture? A combination of both? Neither?

Anne Marie Bergen, the incoming chairperson of the California Teacher Advisory Council (Cal TAC), had distributed the fish to her "students" moments before, asking the meeting participants to perform some of the tasks she routinely asks of her elementary school science students: observe, compare, speculate, hypothesize, discover. All too often, she and other teachers lamented, the sense of fun and discovery sparked by the mysteriously moving fish is missing from California's science and math classrooms - and so is the boost in critical thinking and problem solving abilities that accompanies them.

Co-sponsored by the California Council on Science and Technology (CCST) and the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning (CFTL), Cal TAC was formed in 2005 to bring real-world classroom experience - the "wisdom of practice" - to policy makers and others whose decisions affect the quality of science and math education in California.

The Sacramento meeting fulfilled a Cal TAC goal of connecting industry leaders, policy makers and classroom teachers to consider how California can do a better job of preparing today's students for the future Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) workforce.

The STEM workforce is one on which the state - and the nation - will depend for innovation and economic prosperity. Unfortunately, as keynote speaker Bruce Alberts noted, decades of warnings about the erosion of quality science and math education have gone unheeded, both nationally and in California.

"High-caliber science and math education pays many dividends," said Alberts. "It not only imparts precisely the critical thinking and problem-solving skills that modern business and industry need to compete in the global marketplace, but also promotes the rational decision-making that yields thoughtful, productive citizens."

The bad news is that most science and math education in California (and throughout the United States) falls far short of this potential, driven in part by tests that measure memorization and familiarity with definitions rather than any type of understanding or ability. The tests, in turn, are dictating textbooks and classroom practices that conspire to bore disinterested students - many of whom are turning away from science and math in droves, before they ever have a chance to discover how exciting and relevant these subjects can be.

In their brief time together, meeting participants identified specific options for creating a well-prepared STEM workforce, ranging from improving professional development opportunities for science and math teachers (so that the supply of qualified teachers increases and is more evenly distributed) to changing the assessment tools used to gauge students' proficiency in science and math. More details and recommendations stemming from the meeting will follow.