Newsclip
State House News Service
Friday, February 01, 2008
REPORT: BAY STATE MUST DO MORE TO INCREASE YOUTH STUDY OF SCIENCE AND TECH
By Catherine Williams
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE
STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, FEB. 1, 2008… A new study of the Massachusetts technology industry indicates that the Bay State is losing ground in churning out a high-tech workforce.
State officials fear that if the workforce shrivels, companies will look elsewhere to expand business. With companies like Microsoft Corp. and Novartis AG making heavy investments in Asia, state officials are competing in a global race for corporate dollars and federal research money, along with the attendant high-paying jobs and talented workers. Solving the problem means getting students interested in the sciences at a young age, said one education expert, who is encouraging state officials to support new statewide curriculum strategies.
Students in Europe and Asia are hungrier for engineering and science than American students because there is “general ignorance” in the United States about what engineers do, said Ioannis Miaoulis, president and director Museum of Science Boston. And engineers drive the technology economy, he said, reacting to the report.
“Teaching students about how many legs a grasshopper has is not going to increase innovation in Massachusetts,” said Miaoulis, who is heading up several national and international initiatives to expand science, technology, engineering and math education (STEM) in K-12 students. “With the current system we are doomed to have fewer and fewer engineers.”
The 88-page report by the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative indicates that Massachusetts K-12 schools are failing to “foster necessary interest in science and mathematics.” Ireland pumped out the highest percentage of science graduates, at 16.2 percent in 2003, compared to 7.1 percent in Massachusetts. The number of Massachusetts engineering graduates dropped from 5,004 in 2004 to 4,809 in 2006.
Michael Tavilla, a program manager at the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, said local universities including Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology successfully attract “world-class” science and technology students but there is a disconnect with the K-12 education system. Young students are not showing a requisite interest in fields like health sciences and biotechnology, he said.
“Folks out of high school are not showing the same kind of talent and preparation,” said Tavilla, the lead author of the MTC’s report. According to his analysis, enrollment growth rates in China and India are “stunning” and the overall sophistication of the education systems in those countries have been on the rise since 2002, he said.
The report also analyzes research and development spending, the number of U.S. patents issued, and percentage of students graduating with degrees in technology or science fields and compares technology industry growth among Massachusetts, other U.S. states and 14 countries, including Singapore, China, Germany, and India.
Among the findings: the life sciences industry is growing at a rate of 2 percent annually and yielded more than $29 billion in corporate sales in 2006. Massachusetts trailed only California in the number of biotechnology drug approvals, 31 approvals and 51 approvals respectively, from 2002 through 2006.
To keep step with the competition abroad, Miaoulis said Massachusetts should continue to support the engineering curriculum that was introduced in Massachusetts in 2000 and STEM training for teachers. Massachusetts was the first state to require engineering curriculum in K-12 schools, he said.
“Throwing more money to support the same curriculum used for the past 25 years will not solve the problem,” said Miaoulis, who serves as a member of Gov. Deval Patrick’s education task force, the Commonwealth Readiness Project. Four years ago, the museum began developing an engineering curriculum in Massachusetts schools and 42 other states. The museum has since established the National Center for Technological Literacy and its curriculum is used by 150,000 elementary students in Massachusetts.
Tavilla said the collaborative isn’t making any specific policy recommendations about how to increase the number of skilled technology workers in the state.
“We’re just trying to use the data as a call to arms,” said Tavilla.