Wanted: Homegrown Scientists And Engineers
By Margaret Snyder (12/04/03)
According to a report in the November 20, 2003, Chronicle of Higher Education, a three-year study by the National Science Board finds that there is a dangerous shortage of American-born scientists and engineers. The Board, which sets policy for the National Science Foundation, suggests some ways the federal government can fix this.
It should be noted that the problem is real. Why should we care whether our scientists and engineers are American-born? Well, let’s fast-forward past a number of arguments and cut to this startling one: Our supply of foreign-born scientists and engineers may not be endless. The Board found that 38% of workers with PhDs in science or engineering were immigrants. And here is the kicker: from 2001 to 2002, the number of H-1B visas (those granted to applicants with needed skills in science and engineering) decreased by more than half, in part the result of economic downturn and more stringent visa requirements post 9/11.
It would seem prudent not to have to depend on imported brainpower. But how to increase the number of homegrown scientists and engineers? The National Science Board thinks the federal government should solve this problem by spending more money on more scholarships and for research and to attract better science and math teachers to elementary and secondary schools. Setting aside the question of why it should be supposed that the Federal government can produce a solution for every problem, let us consider some specifics here.
First, spending money on research for the purpose of employing scientists is putting the cart before the horse and is a recipe for minimally useful research. And what? They would stipulate that only American-born scientists could participate?
Second, spending money on scholarships would be like trying to squeeze blood from a turnip.
The turnip in question is most of the American education system as it stands today. Few American students major in sciences, math or engineering in college and of those who do, too many can’t compete against foreign students for the best graduate schools.
Our elementary and secondary schools could be improved drastically and probably fairly quickly if we could break the stranglehold of two institutions that guarantee mediocrity or worse: our whole system of teacher training and the teachers’ unions.
This will not happen, however. The teachers unions (the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers) are, along with trial lawyers, the backbone of the Democratic Party. That party could not survive without their financial support. As long as we have these unions with us, it will be impossible to find enough good science and math teachers. Why is it harder to find good science and math teachers than English or Spanish teachers? Because there are fewer of them.
Why are there fewer of them? One, because physics and chemistry and math are harder than English or Spanish. Sorry, all you English and Spanish (and History and Sociology, etc.) majors out there, but this is the truth.
Two, people who understand math and science have other, more lucrative and possibly more satisfying, options than teaching. That is, schools are competing against industry for scientists and engineers. And industry is not subject to artificial wage controls; companies are allowed to pay whatever it takes to get the quality of employees they need.
Schools, on the other hand, cannot pay math or science teachers any more than they can pay English or Spanish teachers. The teachers’ unions would not stand for it. Like the concept of paying good teachers more than mediocre or poor ones, it goes against their egalitarian, no-one-is-better-than-anyone-else mentality. If this means our schools are constrained from paying the going rate for people with degrees in math and science, so be it, is their attitude. It is more important to maintain morale by not having anyone earn more than anyone else.
If we could let market forces operate in education, the supply would meet the demand and we would soon have plenty of good science and math teachers.
That is, we would if we could just get rid of the huge and well-fed education establishment that acts as gatekeeper to the teaching profession and then, once teachers are certified, continues to stalk them throughout their careers, forcing them to attend mind-numbing “professional development” programs until they die or retire.
Those who have never experienced the teacher-training establishment do not understand that most of what is taught there bears the same relation to teaching that painting-by-number bears to art. Taken as a whole, however, the teacher-education establishment is a powerful force not likely to be dismantled in the lifetime of anyone reading these words.
The National Science Board has identified a problem, but instead of solutions, it has identified more ways to waste taxpayers’ money while aggrandizing bureaucracy.
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