I wonder if the homeschoolers will be the bright stars of tomorrow?

If I had children I would never send them to public school.

I don't think the answer is in being a better competitor in this game... as usual (always?) the answer is in playing the game you can best win.

What that game *is* we don't know yet because we're still playing the game where India and the Pacific Rim shows so much promise. And we *do* want other countries to do well because we have learned that this is better for all of us.

Improving our schools and research capabilities is a good thing but as a strategy for winning this game it has some serious drawbacks. Particularly if it keeps us from recognizing the game we need to play *next*. For that we don't need entrenchment, we need flexibility and opportunity so that the kid (or kids) who recognize what comes next are able to do something about it.

Perhaps I’m naive, but I grew up in the 80’s when Japan was going to crush us. Somehow it never came about. American’s adapted and the Japanese tripped before the finish line.

However, I do believe that public schools are trying to bring about the great socialist utopia by dumbing-down our kids, so that everyone is equal, and then rewarding effort and not results.

Unfortunately, getting from "here" to "there" will require taking on and defeating the educrats that control public education today.

Given they own the Democrat party lock, stock & barrel, it is unlikely to happen before there's a crisis.

I got a PhD in chemistry, to some extent because the government kept claiming that about the time I'd get out of school, the US would have a 'shortage' of scientists and engineers. I got a job right away, so I'm pretty happy, but the numbers for scientists and engineers in general are not nearly as bad as projected. Further, as any 'shortage' developed, the government increased the number of visas for grad students, engineers and scientists, basically keeping the market near saturation, causing wages to stagnate.

A PhD in Chemistry can expect to make $75K (median, I think, based on the industry trade rag) with greater rewards going to R and D managers, and things top out quickly. Not hay, but also not great, considering the 5-7 years of schooling involved. Given a kid who was smart and capable in many directions, going into a scientific field requiring an advanced degree just doesn't add up financially. I can't speak for engineers, but reading editorials in their trade publications, I guess that the trends are similar.

When you are a kid, the 'way cool' part of chemistry is enough to motivate you. When you see your friends with PhDs going to law school and making fat (phat?) cash as IP attorneys, it seems less cool, especially with a wife and a couple of children...

It's a mistake to look for the next generation of engineers and programmers from school averages. High knowledge professions come from the cream of the crop. Our public schools are far from wonderful, but we still allow some smart ones to achieve.
The author is also flawed in recognizing America's advantages. Much of the top 20th century talent came here from other parts of the world. As long as the USA is a wonderful place to live, we'll keep attracting those brains.

Interesting article and interesting comments. I think the article is overly pessimistic, but there is no doubt that the public schools, especially in larger cities, simply aren't doing the job. Yesterday I was in a store where the clerk had to get a calculator to figure a 20% discount on a $30 item. This kind of thing is endemic in our society today.

I too remember when the Japanese were going to take over the US (also the Europeans!). Americans as a whole, I think, will continue to do just fine, because of the agility and flexibility of our economy and the vast knowledge base we have, but the gap between those who do well and those who don't isn't going away; I'm afraid it will get bigger. Used to be that most people could find a reasonably good paying job with reasonably good benefits without much education or training. Not so today. It's essential today to have that training, and the schools must do a better job of preparing kids. We need to quit worrying about self-esteem and get back to basics.

Dave,
Yes, we engineers are severely underpaid relative to other professionals with similar education levels. Lower levels for that matter...know any pharma salemen? I'm a civil engineer, but with my ability and a similar 6-7 year investment in education I could've been just about anything else more lucrative. 'course now I'm 31 and beating the median salary handily, so getting out involves a rather painful short-to-medium term pay cut.
On what I make right now, I couldn't imagine being able to provide any better of a life for children than the one I received on my dad's 33K/year.
No way I could recommend CE in good conscience to anyone.
-Gino

Let's not forget that these developing countries need a great many engineers and scientists just to keep developing. To assume they're all going to pitch into this race head to head with us ignores how far back they're starting from.

We can compete as long as we have the will. I want to believe the entitlement mentality is not as prevelant among kids today--if I'm wrong then we may have just such a problem as this writer believes.

We might also be better off if we stopped pretending that every kid was going to college. Most don't, and don't need to. Millions of tradespeople will leave the workforce in the next decade, and there is no one to replace them. Even here in the Bay Area, jobs that start at $18 an hour go begging because they are "blue colllar" jobs with "no future". Meanwhile, we send zillions of kids to third rate colleges to get Sociology degrees, and many more waste years in Jr College when they could be making real money. Stop the insanity. We need to develop a comprehensive vocational education system, leaving college prep for the minority who need it, about 25%. Spend a lot of money on the bright kids, get them interested in science and technology, and fund their education and grad school. Our current system is wasting it's time giving us milllions of college kids who don't finish, or can't do anything with their degrees. Meanwhile, the daily work of the country can't get done because no one wants "blue collar" work. Time for a change.

Give me a break. You want more scientists and engineers? Pay for them. Demonstrate that there's a future in the field.

You don't see people joining those fields because the work you put into it doesn't compensate for what you get in return.

Julie:

Homeschoolers (and private scoolers, to a lesser degree) are indeed the "bright stars of tomorrow", but most of them won't pursue science careers especially (engineering is considerably more attractive) because "modern" science curricula have been hyper-politicized to be in direct conflict with the worldview that led them to be homeschooled in the first place.

Let's face it, the vast majority of people committed enough to actually make the time, effort, and monetary sacrifices required by either home or private schooling are driven to do so by thier (mostly Christian) religious beliefs. There's no question that home/private school students are among the best that can be produced, and routinely trounce their public school counterparts. (Witness today's timely news about the homeschooler winning the Westinghouse Award.) But when the "scientfic" community throws all pretext of objectivity and real scientific method to the wind in order to "prove" thier own atheist/humanist/naturalist worldview, they can hardly be surprised when their fields of study are bypassed by those they deliberately seek to offend. (Since I'll no doubt get nuked by Neanderthal "scientists" for this statement, I'll provide a reference directly related to Neanderthal academic dishonesty: http://scienceagainstevolution.org/v1i12n.htm)

The recent attempts to redefine "science" by various school boards and the like are driven by determination to exclude any possibility of a Creator, not a pursuit of the actual facts leading to the truth, whatever it turns out to be. The real facts are ugly, incomplete, and confused, and *no one* can say much with certainty about origins *other* than from a position of faith. The only real question is, are we going to allow people of any faith consistent with the evidence, or only faith in certain, "politically correct" invented theories, even if those don't fit much of the evidence?

In a classic example of unintended consequences, our best and brightest students, because they also have superior discernment skills, are the ones most likely to recognize the sham being foisted on acedemia in the name of "science", and stay away in droves as a result. There is nothing new under the sun...

It's not our math and science that made us the great economic power that we are(although it definitely helped); it's our entrepreneurial spirit.

I don't know about engineering, but how could you recommend a math or CS major to anyone now...these are precisely the people whose jobs are being outsourced. My own company has programmers in Vietnam. Programmers used to be pretty smug back in the 1980s but there is no sure thing anymore.

And yes the over-emphasis on college for *everyone* is insane. How many people pursue all sorts of degrees, then change their minds and flop from one field or grad school to another, then drop out to open a B&B or do commercial fishing in Alaska...it's become just an egoistic pursuit, or supposed job insurance, so you can say later you were "overqualified" for some position and that's why you're waiting on tables at Perkins. But I'm in a university town so maybe my judgment is skewed a little.

Just BTW, ever notice how someone says "I'm going back to school to get MY master's degree or MY PhD," like it was already there with your name on it, just got to pick it up?

Amen, Scott in CA, JFH, ErikZ, and carol.

Dub Dublin, I'll grant your point that homeschoolers are mostly Christian, and highly committed to their childs education, but you're overreaching to imply that evolution dogma is what's keeping those students out of science & math. There are lots of scientific fields out there that don't rely on evolutionary biology. As to the overall adverse political environment in hard science academia, I can't imagine it's any better in the soft sciences and humanities if one considers that a homeschooled kid is likely to be conservative as well as Christian. Good luck talking about individual responsibility in those psych or social science classes.

PLUS, how significant, statistically, are the numbers of homeschooled students to the national level of achievement? Are they even a significant fraction of the 'best and brightest' that actually go on to achieve in science and engineering? I'm honestly asking here.

On background: my limited sample of former homeschooled relatives consists of one soon-to-be History PhD, one History undergraduate at a Christian college, and one chronic underachiever college dropout living at home and working in a camera shop. None of these kids ever showed much promise in math/science to begin with.

Some of the comments on economic and cultural forces being problems are very germain, but basics still need to be taught.

My twelve year old is still going through great angst in simple daily math because of what I can only describe as the "jazz stylings of math" curriculum in second through fourth grades (in the elite and advanced programin Aurora, CO no less).

Math is math, it has rules you must know and then, after applying these rules over time (we called this practice in my youth), you start to see the underlying magic that makes it all work.

The teacher I last explained this to (just before pulling out of the system entirely) told me I just didn't understand the new methods which "encourage the children to synthesize each problem and come to a fuller understanding of the total process". I told her my antique methods had placed man on the moon. Hers have kept us from going back.

My kid is now in Denver Public Schools where they seem to understand the old ways.

hmmmm...
Haven't heard much from NormAug lately. Last I heard, he was elected to Black and Decker's BoD, and was teaching engineering classes at Princeton.
Trying to drum up enrollment numbers?

I sometimes get annoyed with those who complain that their science PhD isn't paying them enough in the work field. Let me see: working in academia, I get to set my own hours, choose many of my own projects, and have huge flexibility in how I choose to do my job. I get paid for results, not time on the clock. I get paid to constantly learn new things. When all this is true, how can you complain that you are underpaid relative to corporate and law workers? That's not why you go into science.

And in engineering, you generally get lawyer hours & work environment, with scientist pay. That's a slight exaggeration, but not by much compared to the many lawyers and scientists I know.
My fault, of course, for not making an informed choice years ago.

That article just plain pisses me off. Yes, there is a problem. But the problem didn’t originate in the educational system, and the solution won’t be found there either. If Mr. Augustine wants to find the root cause of the problem, he need look no further than a mirror. I feel most of the responsibility lies in the decisions of American CEO’s .

Sorry for the lecture here, but I have a lot to say about this topic. Its near and dear to my heart, and I have been thinking about it for a long time. I have been an engineer for nearly 20 years, and a manager for the last 10. I have seen Corporate America systematically abuse technical employees, treating them like interchangeable pawns at best, and as unnecessary “cost centers” at worst.

Yes, a lot of this has to do with salaries. There is simply not enough incentive for kids or young adults to take an interest in this stuff. A lot of folks seem to be looking at this as a supply issue. If you pump enough information on this topic into the kids heads, it will eventually take. But it’s true; you can’t teach someone who doesn’t want to learn. And this is especially true with the difficult subjects.

And let’s face it, engineers and scientists need to have a certain level of intelligence. Most any intelligent kid thinks about his future. And when he starts researching salaries, and does a cost/benefit analysis of education vs long term reward, he can see immediately that the technical fields aren’t the best place to be. And it’s getting worse every year.

Sure, starting salaries are high. And if the person turns out to be a good performer, they can expect their salary to rise fairly well for a few years. But there is a definite ceiling around 15 or 20 years. Then you are basically stuck for the rest of your career, unless you move on to something else.

And at current levels, those salaries seem to be too big of a plum for the bean counters to resist, which leads to another major problem with tech careers. I know of literally dozens of good, experienced engineers who are currently unemployed. Many of those are willing to take 20-30% salary cuts, and relocate where ever. But they can’t find any takers. One reason is that almost all current expansion is going on overseas.

The way the game used to work, was that you laid off the folks during the down turns, hoped they fended well for themselves for a year or so until a business up-tick, and then you hired them (or a replacement) back. That was bad enough. But now many companies aren’t even hiring them back. Instead, they are opening up design shops overseas.

Here’s a recent example of someone who has had enough. A colleague, who is very well respected in the field, was laid off a few months ago. He was a “star”, and earned a six figure salary. A new management team took control of his company, and just lopped off every engineer above about $90k. He hasn’t found a job in his local area yet (Boston). He has a lead for one in Chicago, and actually several options in Canada. I would hire him in a heart beat, but I can’t justify it economically right now.

Here’s the kicker: this is the third time in his 14 year career that he has been through this routine. He is forced to pack up his family (2 kids in school, wife with a part time job), and move across the country if he wants to stay in the business. And because of foreign competition, he probably won’t make what he was making before. He is seriously considering becoming an electrician. After 4-5 years, he could actually be up near the same salary level. What’s wrong with this picture? And BTW, I’ve been through the same routine twice.

And you can argue, probably correctly, that the company who cut him so blindly will end up performing badly over the long term, and maybe suffer the consequences in the market places. Probably. But the CEO who made the decision will still be enjoying his golden parachute. And another batch of engineers were fed up enough to change professions.

I know what the foreign competition is like. I work for a multinational company. I just looked at my email in box, and so far this week, I have worked with engineers from France, Germany, Italy, Scotland, Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, and India. And they all seem to be competent and just as capable as any American engineer.

And I know the economics that drive this. I can hire a good engineer in Korea for about $25k US equivalent annual salary. For $30k, I can get a star. Cut that number by maybe 20% for India, or 50% for China. So there are some good bean-counting economic reasons for outsourcing technical jobs.

If the CEO’s truly care about the long term health of our country’s technical base, they have to learn to just say “No” to these layoffs and restructurings. Put up, or shut up. Lacking government intervention, they are the only folks who truly have the power to do so. This might be good for short term profits, but it provides even more disincentive for young folks to enter the field.

Who wants to invest 4-6-8 years of difficult study and thousands of dollars, to enter a field where your salary will max out at age 40, jobs are going overseas, and you can expect to be fired every few years?

And if the CEO’s want to give an immediate boost to US capabilities, while at the same time putting a dent in foreign competition, they need to stop lobbying for the H1-B visa program. Yes, it’s a quick and easy bump to the bottom line. But it also amounts to a highly sucessful OJT training program for foreign engineers.

I have worked with such engineers in the past. I was making $80k, while they were making $35k for the same job. It wasn’t good for the morale of either of us. But when the H1-B expired, the other engineer could go back to Taiwan or India, easily find a $15k job, and live with a much higher standard then he could in the US on $35k a year. And guess what? Many of the foreign engineers I am dealing with today did H1-B stints in the US. And it wasn’t educators who brought them here.

I’m not spewing sour grapes here. I believe in the power of free markets, and I think it’s great that other economies are growing. And its actually fun working with engineers from other cultures. Maybe it’s just free and open markets at work here. Or maybe we’re just on the leading edge of a down turn in the standard of living for all Americans. So be it.

I don’t like fact that I’ll probably never see another salary increase in my life time, or that I might not even have a job next week. But I accept it, and I’m prepared. My next career will be in the lumber industry. American technological capabilities be damned. It’s just not economically (or psychologically) worth it for me to stay in the business anymore.

I see the cost advantages and the possible long term benefits of outsourcing. Maybe this really will be better for us all in the long term. But when I see a CEO place the blame for declining interest in science and engineering on the educational system, I get a little angry. As I said, he should look in the mirror first. And then have a chat with some fellow Corporate Board members. And then with some buddies down at the country club.

engineering is not a job to do long term. it's a great way to learn business from the ground up and is transferable into many different things.

if you really want to stay an engineer all your life, you need to start your own firm so that you can keep your hand in it and be as involved as you want.

long careers working for someone else is just a bad model to pursue, it will leave you stressed, unhappy, and disappointed as you are always following someone else's plan.

money is in leveraging engineering/science skills to do something else, get into management, or start your own firm. if you absolutely positively can't ge flexible (and most likely have no social skills) work for a city/state/federal government department/agency. you'll be bored to tears and paid little, but won't have to handle a dynamic economy.

all of this chicken little bs misses the point of a dynamic economy and dynamic personal careers.

Hey, Hey,

Thanks for commenting, and saving me from feeling like I killed this thread. I agree mostly with what you said, at least in the current environment. But when I took my first job in 1987, it wasn’t this way. I worked side by side with engineers who were in their late 60’s. And, they were GOOD. Damn good. But those days are gone, I fear. Hence, my plan for a future in logging.

I also should add that my immediate future looks very bright, and I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. My salary is well into six figures. And half the engineers that work for me will pass six figures this year too. That’s well above the average. And our jobs are safe for a few years, at least.

But we are fortunate to work for a private company, where the approach is long term, and the owner/CEO understands the value we provide. On the downside, our salaries are severely at risk. Our basic pay is about 50% of the going rate. That’s what we earn monthly, but we get a bonus twice a year. And we have no upper limit to the bonus. Our pay is tied to the success or failure of our own individual projects, as well as corporate profits. The first few years I worked here, my pay wasn’t so great. But now that I have an established, positive track record, I’m making more than I ever thought possible.

This approach is working. We are kicking our competitors’ asses. And when adding staff, I can pick or choose between the best and brightest in the field. All the good guys want to work here. But I know this isn’t the environment most engineers face.

The point I want to make is this is all made possible by our CEO. If he was focused solely on quarterly or yearly profit/loss, I wouldn’t be in this position.

Have no social skills?

Stuff like that burns me. No, working for the same company isn't realistic in this day and age but the complete BS involved in the idea that a mind that is ideal for engineering can be turned toward *management* if only someone has the will and social skills... shoot me now, okay?

I suppose, what I ought to do is go get my CPA... good money in that. Slit my wrists after two tax seasons but *hey* that's because I don't have good social skills, right, and has nothing to do with the fact that PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT.

Bah.

This is strictly anecdotal evidence, but I work in a printing shop. Recently we printed an elementary school yearbook. With each entry the child expressed their aspirations for the future. It struck me that a lot of Asian, Indian, and Pakistani kids said things like, "I want to be a doctor", "I want to be an engineer", or "I want to be a marine biologist". Whereas the native-born American kids (both white and black) mostly want to be singers, musicians, actors, fashion models, football players, truck drivers, etc.

We are frickin' doomed.

Julie,

Have you ever met a CPA with good social skills?

Oh, they aren't so bad. :-)

It was just the first thing I could think of that I really, honestly couldn't do as a job to save my life.

So how about cooking instead? Everyone *can* cook if they have to, but some people would rather go stay at Gitmo than be forced to support themself or their family by being a chef.

It's simply not a character weakness to not be suited to either management or business ownership. It may be economically unfortunate, but it's *not* a character weakness.

Julie,

I agree completely. I didn’t mean to slam you or anything.

And, God, I would LOVE to be a chef. That’s certainly another self-proving career.

Cindi-

How do you know why I went into science? It was for the bucks, and the glamor. Actually, your point is well taken, that science is the kind of thing you do because you want to, because it's just damned cool.

And are you tut-tutting me about me complaining about relative pay because you've taken the 'high road' as an academic? Horsefeathers. More money is better than less, and we should get what the market will bear. Academics pay for their freedom, generally in forgone income. Pretending that isn't part of an economic calculation (e.g., one might value autonomy over dough; fair enough, but that's a value, a calculation, not a virtue. Maybe I want to donate all my phat industrial cash to charity. It could happen.)

As I said, I got a good job, and I get paid better than average. However, the point is that, left to market forces, industrial science and engineering would pay more on average, but the govt and industry don't leave it alone, and technical fields and technical people suffer. Lest you assume I'm just yanking this out of my derriere, much more is available at the National Bureau of Economic Research:
http://www.nber.org/~peat/PapersFolder/Papers/SG/NSF.html

Scientists and engineers would be foolhardy not to try and understand what economic forces are at play in our fields.

I know lots of tenured academics that would disagree that they get paid for what they produce. I get paid for what I produce in IP and new products. Just less than I otherwise would, and if one can see the game being rigged, calling bullshit is fair play.