Building the STEM Workforce Our Future Economy Needs

Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation Oct 4, 2019
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Building the STEM Workforce Our Future Economy Needs

Giving Compass’ Take:

• The author highlights organizations such as Project Lead the Way which helps students from Kindergarten through high school learn STEM subjects in their core curriculum.

• How will learning STEM concepts earlier on help kids enter the workforce?

• Read about the individuals and organizations that are combatting the gender gap in STEM. 

As graduation celebrations turn to summer internships and, hopefully, new jobs, Missourians were greeted with a report that should ring the alarm and cause us all to rethink education.

The Missouri Chamber of Commerce highlighted that by 2030, Missouri will face a shortage of 200,000 qualified workers. This report mirrors other findings that point to deficits within the science-, technology-, engineering-, and math-based (STEM) talent pipelines.

This is not just a Missouri issue, but also a national issue. The nation must prepare its children for an economy we can’t predict, but are assured will be different. The key challenge is to ensure that any changes in education meet the needs of ALL students, not just a select few.

Thankfully, there are many opportunities to bridge the gap. Throughout many public schools and districts, there are pockets of innovation occurring that have promise to scale. Forbes recently profiled one such effort. Project Lead the Way is a national nonprofit that serves millions of kindergarten- through high school-age students. It is an in-school engineering, computer science and biomedical science program that uses project-based learning to engage students in STEM learning and complement the school’s core curriculum.

Read the full article about supporting students in STEM by Larry Jacob at Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

Learning and benchmarking are key steps towards becoming an impact giver. If you are interested in giving with impact on Employment take a look at these selections from Giving Compass.

  • This article is deemed a must-read by one or more of our expert collaborators.
    Click here for more.
    Building a 21st-century Economy That Works For Working People

    In Texas, Carmen Rojas worked to reform building permit rules, driving training and fair wages for construction workers. In New York City, Rojas helped set procurement standards linked to job quality. In Boston, Rojas is helping retiring small-business owners sell their companies to their employees. Workers in the U.S. have power beyond collective bargaining, says Rojas, the founder of The Worker’s Lab in Oakland. The daughter of Latin American immigrants, Rojas is bringing an entrepreneur’s mindset to building business models to redistribute wealth, increase wages and expand benefits. “How do we leverage public dollars to incentivize private action?” asked Rojas in an interview with ImpactAlpha. 21st-century workers face shrinking safety nets, a shift away from W-2 employment toward a “gig economy,” and increased automation. Rojas and The Workers Lab support more than 50 entrepreneurs, community organizations, technologists, and advocacy campaigns nationwide, helping workers transform low-wage industries and redefine work in the 21st century. Read the full interview with Carmen Rojas about The Workers Lab by Megan McFadden at ImpactAlpha.

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