We are putting the cart before the horse by asking why American students aren’t interested in STEM. If given the opportunity to learn and enjoy STEM fields, we believe their interests will grow and thrive.

Consider these troubling, but addressable, statistics:

· Across the country, elementary-school students receive, on average, only 2.3 hours of science instruction per week. Twenty years ago, they spent almost three hours per week on the subject.

· Schools that do not offer Calculus enroll a third of Hispanic students, more than a third of Black students, and a whopping 44 percent of American Indian students.

· In 2010 , Black and Latino students comprised 38 percent of K-12 enrollments while Black and Latino teachers comprised only 17 percent of the teacher force. Research suggests that students of color look to teachers of their own race as role models.

· States have radically different targets for what their 8th graders should know and be able to do.

It shouldn’t surprise us then that only 45 percent of U.S. high school graduates in 2011 were ready for college work in math and 30 percent were ready in science.

So what does that mean for us? These findings deal a severe blow to our ideals of equal opportunity. When students don’t even have access to classes like physics or calculus in high school they face a rather difficult time getting on a path to critical (and high-paying) jobs in fields like engineering and technology. And when they don’t have role models in STEM to whom they can relate, it’s harder to make the leap in perception that they themselves can excel in STEM.

All the rigorous courses in the world won’t fix what’s ailing us if we are unable to inspire students, particularly girls and minorities, to pursue STEM in school and beyond. And we know that one critical transition point is middle school. Change the Equation just launched iON Future (www.ionfuture.org), a suite of free online learning games designed to spark interest among middle school to early high school-age young people in STEM careers. By engaging young people around things they’re already interested in – by allowing them to explore real-world careers in a fun, inspiring tool – we are planting the seeds that will grow in the future. It won’t solve all our problems but it’s a start.

Ultimately, we believe that a truly literate nation must do more than just read. We must compute, investigate and innovate. We should be curious about how things work, driven to understand the causes of our biggest challenges, and inspired by the promise of science and technology to address those challenges. Our future depends on it.

By the time most students are thinking about college majors and careers, they aren’t even considering the sciences or engineering. Students think science is hard. They believe they aren’t good at science or mathematics. They think science is boring. These attitudes often stem from their school experiences. They might have had elementary school teachers who weren’t well-trained to give kids deep learning experiences in the sciences or answer their questions. Or perhaps they had teachers who weren’t really all that interested in science or mathematics themselves and those feelings rubbed off on their students. By the time they get to high school and have a teacher who actually majored in the sciences, it may be too late to spark their interest. Too many students never have positive or successful experiences with STEM subjects.

To encourage more students to consider studying a STEM field, we have to get them interested and excited about science much earlier, and we have to make sure teachers are well-prepared to teach science.

In 2010 the editors of Scientific American called on American schools to “Start Science Sooner.” “Good science education at the earliest grades is supremely important, but in most classrooms it gets short shrift,” they wrote. “Studies have found that children in kindergarten are already forming negative views about science that could cast a shadow across their entire educational careers.” They called science the poor stepchild to mathematics and reading.

Just last month, an article titled, “Science Returns to the Classroom,” appeared in the ABQ Journal. The article begins, “Fifth-graders at Emerson Elementary School are excited to learn science this year, and not just because they like hands-on experiments or learning about reptiles. For many of them, it’s their first exposure to science, having spent the first five years of their education focused on reading and math.” Indeed, evidence from across the country suggests that after the passage of No Child Left Behind in 2001, which required states to test students primarily in math and literacy, science class time ended up on the chopping block in many schools. President Obama’s education policies, as promoted through Race to the Top, encourage assessment in subjects across the curriculum. That could help reverse the trend away from science education.

But waiting until third, fourth or fifth grade to introduce children to the sciences won’t be good enough. High-quality science education must begin early, even before kindergarten—as soon as young children are able to start asking questions about the world around them. In preschool, 2- and 3-year-olds can be introduced to insects, plants or structures in such a way that prepares them to think like a scientist: observing, gathering information, testing hypotheses and gathering yet more information based on what those tests show. The early elementary grades should build on this learning by providing regular opportunities for exploration and inquiry, guided by knowledgeable teachers who are themselves passionate about science.

For too long the United States has relied on international students to fill a critical gap in the domestic STEM workforce. This approach is more of a band-aid than a solution to a much deeper rooted issue of access, equity, and equal opportunity for all. By failing to encourage domestic STEM participation by people of all races, ethnicities, and genders here in the United States, we are dismissing a large pool of domestic talent and diverse perspectives that could only enhance innovations and progress in these fields.

Broadening the participation of diverse population groups in STEM goes far beyond making science and math “cool” and preparing students to take on difficult coursework. Implicit biases continue to plague many of the STEM disciplines and affect student participation and success. These biases play out in the form of “chilly climates” for women and underrepresented minorities who often find themselves isolated in advanced science or math classes or in STEM academic departments. These students lack role models, mentors, and images of scientists or engineers who reflect their gender, cultural or ethnic backgrounds.

Social science research has much to offer about improving STEM education and workforce outcomes. Through its Center for STEM Education and Innovation, the American Institutes for Research engages educators, policymakers, and grant makers in efforts to bridge research with policy and practice to address topics including how to meet the diverse needs of all students—especially those from underrepresented groups, including women, minorities and English language learners, students with disabilities, and struggling and disengaged learners.

There’s nothing wrong with handing out green cards and visas to foreign nationals who bring strengths and innovations to our economic and national security. But it’s time to look more critically at our own practices, preconceived notions of who is good at and belongs in STEM, and how we can develop effective strategies for engaging a new generation of homegrown scientists.

Courtney Tanenbaum of American Institutes for Research wrote this blog on behalf of Gina Burkhardt.

The nation needs to connect students to jobs of the future with a two-pronged attack that includes re-engaging them in these important STEM fields of study, and producing more teachers who can help them excel.

Much of the conversation about STEM is focused on ways to get more students interested in science, math, engineering and technology. But we ignore a more systemic problem hindering our ability to attract more students to the sciences.

Harriet Sanford, President and CEO of the NEA Foundation, said it well: “Far too often, we simply don't capture students' imagination and help them connect what they do in the classroom with the world around them. To use a non-science metaphor, we give students nouns in the classroom when they're looking for verbs.” Through our Foundation, NEA is expanding the pool of students motivated to pursue STEM careers in rural Ohio and Milwaukee. The key: exposing students to practical, hands-on lessons that help them link math and science concepts to solving real-life problems. Effective STEM education isn’t just getting students interested, it’s keeping them interested, and that requires making connections that have relevance to them and their communities – their small slice of the world.

We must also expand the pool of quality STEM educators. That's why NEA launched a $500,000 challenge grant that calls on leading business and technology companies to help us increase the number of certified science and math teachers. There's a severe shortage, especially in low-income communities, and that needs to change. But we cannot do it alone.

The simple fact is, the U.S. will not remain economically competitive unless we produce more good scientists and engineers. STEM occupations have grown three times as fast as non-STEM careers over the past 10 years. Right now, the fastest-growing and highest-paying jobs require solid math and science skills. We must boost our ability to produce homegrown STEM graduates. This is an economic imperative – and it is our job as educators to give students the support, knowledge and practice that will enable them to fill the growing STEM gap.

The STEM gap is certainly real: nationally, prospective U.S. workers contend with an unemployment rate of about 8%. But for STEM professions, the unemployment rate is only about 5%.

Yet espite the plethora of available STEM jobs, 27% of students who are proficient in math still aren’t interested in pursuing a STEM major.

Why is this? It’s not because STEM isn’t cool, it’s because we’re not engaging students early on and broadening access to STEM professions so students can understand the breadth of opportunities available to them—and envision themselves in those positions.

It’s also because students aren’t succeeding early on with foundational skills like math and science; without them, students shun specialized STEM subjects later on in life. Of the 2005 high school graduates who took the ACT test, only 41% achieved the College Readiness Benchmark in mathematics, and only 26% achieved that level in science.

There are several ways businesses and schools can work together to increase the number of Americans entering the STEM field:

1. Providing a quality STEM education by equipping students with the foundational scientific, technical, and mathematic skills that they need to pursue and succeed STEM positions;
2. Fostering early awareness of STEM positions;
3. Ensuring access to and training for STEM jobs through internships and other hands-on opportunities.

School-Businesses Partnerships are uniquely positioned to do all of this—and as today’s students represent tomorrow’s workforce, it’s in their best interest to act now. Here’s a look at how a few school-business PENCIL Partnerships are moving the needle on STEM:

• International engineering firm Arup is helping to provide experiential STEM education at two Brooklyn schools through dynamic, project-based learning. Through various projects focused on renovating the school’s music room or building separate wind and turbine projects, students are learning how their math and science lessons can be put to use in the real world. Further, the principals at both schools saw an increase in on-time attendance and an interest in engineering.
• At Bronx-based IN-TECH Academy, team members from JPMorgan Chase and Co. are working with school leaders to increase students’ awareness of STEM and IT careers. Through conversations with STEM professionals, and hands on experiences, such as visits to JPMorgan Chase’s secure data center, the Partners are exposing students to the array of jobs that students can pursue, and how to obtain them.
• We can also increase access to STEM jobs by actually helping students get their foot in the door. Internships expose students to STEM professions from as early as high school, and can help them connect with hiring managers and future supervisors. Last summer, PENCIL placed several high school students work in STEM jobs through the PENCIL Fellows Program, a comprehensive career development program that includes paid summer internships. Working at firms like Arup, JetBlue Airways, American Airlines, JPMorgan Chase and Co., CA Technologies, and other industry leaders, students learned about the roles that they could have and the 21st Century Skills that they’ll need to thrive. This experience introduces students to careers they had never before considered, and helps them plan for the careers that they want.

We can cross the STEM gap—but only if schools and businesses begin working together.

Our nation's well-intentioned STEM-phasis is laudable. But the logic of what it will accomplish is flawed.

I’m working right now on a large education technology project. About one third of the 120+ people I work with were not born in the United States.

Many of us have exchanged information about how we got to where we are in life. Through this I have learned that the STEM problem we are trying to solve is a red herring and that even if it were a real problem, creating STEM programs and getting more kids into them would not solve it. It’s not about us, it’s about life options in other countries, economic options in the US, and the competitive landscape of globalization.

“It’s a Hobson’s choice,” one of my colleagues from India told me. “We grow up knowing that we have only one path to a good life: get a good education and a top job.” That “good education” is often a STEM education that leads to a high-paying career.

American students have more paths to prosperity. Our economy and our culture encourage kids to pursue a wider variety of life opportunities. But for many foreign students, opportunity presents itself within their countries and cultures as a forced choice.

Why do many foreign students choose STEM subjects? Because STEM careers can be found all over the world. STEM is geographically fungible; just about every country needs scientists, technologists, engineers, and math experts.

Why do so many foreign-born students come to the United States, in particular? My Indian friend tells me that, “Many of us want to come to the United States because the standard of living is so high.” Quality of life, especially for well-educated people working in STEM careers, is very good in the United States, far better than in many other countries.

Finally, we often forget the simplest thing: The total number of kids in every other country in the world is significantly larger than the number of kids in the United States.

Many of the people I work with come from China, India, Pakistan, and Russia. The combined population of just these four countries alone is higher than ours by almost a factor of ten. So the issue is not that such a small percentage of American kids can’t handle or don’t want to pursue STEM studies. It’s simply that we have a very small talent pool relative to that of all the other industrialized countries in the world combined.

As a percentage of the school age population of a single country, more American kids probably choose STEM studies than kids in most other countries. But the total number of STEM-educated kids world-wide is so large, and American life so sought after, that where STEM is concerned, we compete in a global marketplace, and with fewer kids in the game, it seems like we don’t compete as well as we should.

Getting more American kids into STEM is a worthy idea. But even if it is wildly successful, the change it brings is unlikely to be significant when viewed in context of world-wide growth in the same area. What will have a significant effect on the situation? Two things:

(1) Improving the quality, not the quantity, of STEM education opportunities in the United States so the students who opt for STEM studies are appropriately prepared and optimally competitive.

(2) Allowing more, not fewer, foreign-born STEM students into the United States so their STEM-focused family cultures and citizenship status combine across a generation to produce more American children growing up in families where at least one parent has a STEM career. This alone is more likely to increase the percentage of American kids pursuing STEM studies than anything else.

It’s good that we have recognized the need to improve our education system. It’s also good that we want to provide more opportunities for our children to receive educations that are likely to launch them into prosperous lives. But the issue here is not about us or our education system. It’s about opportunity, economics, population, and globalization.

In 2006 Kevin Carey and I wrote about this issue in the Christian Science Monitor. [Link here: http://www.educationsector.org/publications/expand-pool-americas-future-scientists]

Little has changed since then. Carey and I noted that the solution to this problem likely lies among students who today dropout or are unable to qualify for the scholarships and inducements we offer them:

"the best long-run strategy for boosting America's global economic standing isn't giving more students a reason to choose careers in science. It's giving more students the ability to choose careers in science. Without expanding the pool of well-prepared students who can take advantage of them, no amount of scholarships will make a difference."

In other words:

"Most of the [STEM] solutions being trotted out are similarly suspect. For the most part, the solutions to this "new challenge" are a familiar mix of scholarships and student loan-forgiveness programs. Even the Bush administration's sensible emphasis on helping high school students take more advanced courses is a small scale add-on rather than a substantial assault on the issue. Unfortunately, all these ideas ignore the fact that scientists, mathematicians, and engineers are disproportionately white, male, and from economically advantaged backgrounds.

Unless we believe that a substantial number of such students are failing to choose science careers for want of proper inducements, many of the scarce resources devoted to new scholarship programs may well reward people of means for choices they would have made anyway. In fact, the richest untapped source of future talent will likely be found in our underserved cities and among low-income and minority students who are failing to receive a good education in our public schools. A college scholarship is worthless unless you graduate from high school, but only about half of America's minority students even finish high school on time."

For policymakers this analysis points to a blend of short term fixes (immigration and visa policies) and a longer-term effort to address persistent educational under-performance in too many school systems.