Why Johnny can't engineer
Tam Harbert, illustration by Daniel Guidera -- EDN, July 1, 2004
When Kathy Gornik, president of Thiel Audio Products, looks for workers to manufacture Thiel's speakers, she has trouble finding high school graduates who can measure assembly pieces and calculate fractions to make sure the pieces are within certain tolerance ranges. "They don't come armed with the most basic of knowledge," she says.
Indeed, test scores of U.S. kids bear out the problem. In math, U.S. eighth graders rank 19th and high school seniors rank 17th among developed nations, behind even Slovenia (see "Out-classed," below). In science, U.S. eighth graders are 18th and seniors rank 15th. As Gornik's story shows, this inadequacy is a huge drain on U.S. companies.
And although inadequacy in math and science education is particularly relevant for high-tech companies, they suffer when skills are subpar in other subjects as well. Gornik once interviewed more than 400 applicants for a receptionist position. "All I wanted was someone with a personality who could speak in complete sentences," she says. "They couldn't match a subject, verb and object to save their lives."
The Mackinaw Center for Public Policy estimates that U.S. businesses spend $16.6 billion each year to teach employees and students skills they should have learned in high school. The problem prompted many large high-tech companies, including Intel, Texas Instruments and IBM, to back the controversial No Child Left Behind legislation, which passed in December 2001. But many executives doubt that federal law will be able to improve elementary and secondary education in the United States. The best any company can hope for, they say, is to work with its own local kids, teachers and schools.
Technology companies are doing just that. Beyond sponsoring scholarships and science competitions, many companies are forging links with their local school districts as well as nearby universities to improve primary and secondary education, particularly in mathematics and the physical sciences. TI, for example, has worked with Southern Methodist University to develop a high-school-level course in engineering that is now offered in Texas as well as in 10 other states, according to Paula Collins, director of government relations at TI. TI also routinely brings middle school and high school students into the company to teach them about the semiconductor industry.
Trade associations also offer programs that target the problem at the local level. The Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA) has an education foundation, called The National Science and Technology Education Partnership (NSTEP), which focuses on improving K-12 science, technology and critical thinking skills. The Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) group has a program called the Workforce Development Institute. The sponsoring companies work with local high school teachers, who select B- and C-level students with science aptitude to attend the three-day program.
The program is designed to catch the imagination of those students who are not straight-A students or students who may not yet have great enthusiasm for a particular career or area of study, says Lisa Anderson, vice president of workforce development at SEMI. "Our goal is to excite kids about the possibility of working in the high-tech environment," she says. The program educates the students about the semiconductor manufacturing process and how integrated circuits work and relates that to their teenage world, "such as how you can store 10,000 songs in your iPod," says Anderson. Company employees also talk to the kids about the educational requirements of their jobs. On the last day, kids bring resumes and are given mock job interviews.
Even small companies such as Thiel, which has only 30 employees, try to do their part to help local schools. The company has given tours to hundreds of schoolkids in its city, Lexington, Ky., over the years, says Gornik. During the tour, Gornik explains how she and her colleagues started the company and highlights its various departments, from R&D to packing and shipping. She also hands out copies of "I, Pencil," a pamphlet in which a pencil gives a first-person account of all the economic activity that contributed to its manufacture and sale. The pamphlet is published by the Foundation for Economic Education, a think tank. Her goal is to give the students a basic understanding of economics and show them what is required to start and run a small business.
In fact, many executives say that it's going to take more than better education to attract young people to engineering. "I don't think K-12 education is as big a problem as people think," says George Chamillard, chairman of Teradyne and the current chairman of SEMI. Teradyne recently co-sponsored the SEMI program in Boston along with Intel and Rohm & Haas. Weak education is only one of several factors contributing to kids' current lack of interest in science and engineering, he says. For one thing, many other careers may seem more attractive. After all, science, math and physics courses are difficult, and kids think, "Why should I do all this hard work? There are other ways I can support myself without working so hard." The recent bursting of the technology bubble, which led to the loss of many high-tech jobs, didn't help, he notes. Science and engineering also lack the allure of a generation ago, says Chamillard. In the 1950s and 1960s, the space race inspired a whole generation of students to work hard to learn science and math. In addition, the post-World War II generation was the first to have a real chance to better itself through education. But that ethic has faded in the U.S., says Chamillard. Now, it's the young kids in China and India who view engineering education as a pathway to opportunity, he believes.
Although the No Child Left Behind Act is a step in the right direction, "No one thinks it's a perfect instrument," says TI's Collins. "The important part of the NCLB Act is making accountability a national imperative. It's saying that it is not acceptable to have 68 percent of the fourth graders in this country not proficient in mathematics," she says. But many in the electronics industry fault the Act for allowing individual states, and even individual school districts, to set their own assessment mechanisms. "The states are permitted to set their own standards for identifying failing schools, which clearly has the perverse effect of initiating a race to the bottom," says the EIA in its recent policy playbook, "The Technology Industry at an Innovation Crossroads." (The lower you set the standard, the fewer schools will "fail.") What's more, Congress has not followed through to adequately fund the math and science partnerships specified in the legislation. These partnerships are designed to fund projects whereby school districts team with local universities to improve curricula and student development. According to the law, funding is supposed to be $450 million annually, says Collins. But Congress appropriated only $12.5 million in FY 2002, $101 million in FY 2003 and $150 million in 2004, she notes.
Thiel's Gornik doubts that the NCLB legislation will make much difference. Good education starts in the home and has to be supported by the family and the community, says Gornik, who home-schooled her only child. The problem with federal mandates such as NCLB is that "today's educational system is a monopoly driven by bureaucrats." Even trying to work with schools at the local level can be frustrating, she says. Her trials with hiring a receptionist led her to found the Partnership for Workforce Development in the state of Kentucky. The goal was better business training for students. But the partnership "was a poor return, relative to the amount of time I invested," she says.
The executives interviewed for this story aren't holding out much hope for improvements in K-12 education anytime soon. "The situation has continued to deteriorate," says Chamillard, who has been with Teradyne since 1969. "I have no hope for the future," says Gornik, who helped start Thiel 27 years ago. She notes with irony that whereas it took her more than 400 tries to find an acceptable U.S. receptionist, "My overseas distributors speak perfect English." Although Thiel is a growing company, it does not plan to add any employees in the U.S. "We're growing through outsourcing," she says.
Next month, national editor Tam Harbert looks at how the electronics industry is working with institutions of higher education.
OUT-CLASSEDEighth-grade test scores in developed countries
| Rank | Nation | Mathematics Average test score | Nation | Science Average test score |
| 1 | Singapore | 604 | Taiwan | 569 |
| 2 | Republic of Korea | 587 | Singapore | 568 |
| 3 | Taiwan | 585 | Hungary | 552 |
| 4 | Hong Kong | 582 | Japan | 550 |
| 5 | Japan | 579 | Republic of Korea | 549 |
| 6 | Belgium (Flanders) | 558 | Netherlands | 545 |
| 7 | Netherlands | 540 | Australia | 540 |
| 8 | Slovakia | 534 | Czech Republic | 539 |
| 9 | Hungary | 532 | England | 538 |
| 10 | Canada | 531 | Finland | 535 |
| 11 | Slovenia | 530 | Slovak Republic | 535 |
| 12 | Russian Federation | 526 | Belgium (Flanders) | 535 |
| 13 | Australia | 525 | Slovenia | 533 |
| 14 | Finland | 520 | Canada | 533 |
| 15 | Czech Republic | 520 | Hong Kong | 530 |
| 16 | Malaysia | 519 | Russian Federation | 529 |
| 17 | Bulgaria | 511 | Bulgaria | 518 |
| 18 | Latvia | 505 | United States | 515 |
| 19 | United States | 502 | New Zealand | 510 |
| 20 | England | 496 | Latvia | 503 |
| Many developed nations, including Slovenia and the Czech Republic, rank higher than the United States in eighth-grade math and science tests. Out of a ranking of 38 countries, the United States came in 19th in math and 18th in science. By the 12th grade, U.S. students ranked 17th and 15th, respectively. SOURCE: THIRD INTERNATIONAL MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE STUDY (TIMSS), 1999 |
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