Anderson@Large

Too Important to Fail

I will blog about the forum on STEM education that I attended yesterday at the Brookings Institution, at which Acting Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank unveiled a report, “Education Supports Racial and Ethnic Equality in STEM.”

But right now, I want to focus on a national initiative to stem the high school drop crisis among black boys, Too Important to Fail.

Tonight at 8:00 p.m. EDT, PBS will air Tavis Smiley Reports’ “Too Important to Fail,” an investigation of the root causes of education crisis.

To check your local listings, go here.

No Free Lunch for Ed Tech Companies

I had a visceral reaction to this headline, “Education is the next startup Gold Rush, Silicon Valley will be at its heart”:

Already the epicenter of tech innovation and venture capital investment, San Francisco is poised to become heart of a new industry that will be powered by the Internet. And unlike me-too food apps and daily deals websites, education is more than a hot fad. American taxpayers invested more than $536 billion on K-12 education between 2005 and 2006, according to the U.S. Department of Education, with an additional $373 billion in taxes going to fund higher education nationwide. The educational pie is enormous, and anyone who can get his or her hands on even a small slice can expect to reap huge returns.

As an advocate for diversity, the report that venture capitalists hope to “reap huge returns” with taxpayer funds – our money – was a call to action. Indeed, without vigilance there is little chance minority-led startups will share in the huge returns.

The Minority Media and Telecommunications Council’s newly released report, “Minorities and High Tech Employment,” found that in Silicon Valley, African Americans and Hispanics represent 1.5 percent and 4.7 percent respectively of the workforce.

The lack of diversity impacts minority-led startups’ access to capital. A study by CB Insights found that VCs invest in startups led by founders with high tech experience. So it comes as no surprise that black founders received one percent of VC funds.

Three of the top six Silicon Valley companies – Apple, Oracle and Google – refuse to file reports on the demographic makeup of their employees. They claim release of EEO data “would cause ‘commercial harm’ by potentially revealing the company’s business strategy to competitors.”

Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Cisco Systems filed their EEO-1 reports kicking and screaming.

All six companies are major players in the educational technology sector. At ISTE 2011, their business strategies were on display for all to see.

Tellingly, there was a notable lack of diversity among the exhibitors.

Now along come VC-backed education startups. Their “trade secret” business strategy has slipped out from under their iPad Smart Cover.

As ed tech companies feed at the public trough, they will learn there is no free lunch. Advocates and activists will leverage relationships with school superintendents, school boards, community leaders and other stakeholders to ensure compliance with EEO reporting requirements.

In the foreword to the MMTC report, Prof. LaVonda Reed-Huff wrote:

An investigation conducted by the San Jose Mercury News in 2010 revealed significant disparities in the employment of African Americans, Hispanics, and women in ten of the 15 largest firms located in Silicon Valley, the leading high tech region in the country. Similar data indicate that such disparities exist across the national high tech sector. Collecting and analyzing this type of data is essential to calibrating policies aimed at altering these trends, which, if left alone, could become intractable in a sector that thrives on secrecy, relative insularity, and non-transparent business practices. As such, the reluctance of some of the leading Silicon Valley technology companies to release data regarding the composition of their workforces only contributes to existing uncertainty regarding the true extent of minority underrepresentation in the high-tech sector.

For more info, visit the Equal Employment Oppourtnity Commission and the San Jose Mercury News’ Silicon Valley diversity database.

STEM is Cool

The U.S Commerce Department Economics and Statistics Administration’s report, “STEM: Good Jobs Now and for the Future,” found that growth in STEM jobs has been three times greater than that of non-STEM jobs over the past 10 years. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.

Some key findings:

• In 2010, 7.6 million people or 5.5 percent of the labor force worked in STEM occupations.
• In the coming decade, STEM occupations are projected to grow by 17 percent, compared to 9.8 percent growth for other occupations.
• STEM workers earn 26 percent more than non-STEM workers.
• STEM workers are less likely to experience joblessness.

Commerce Secretary Gary Locke wrote that STEM jobs will help the U.S. win the future:

Expanding the participation of students in the STEM fields – including girls, minorities and students with disabilities – is not just the right thing to do; it’s the smart thing to do.

Investments in basic research and the people who can make great discoveries with new ideas will help drive our technological innovation and global competitiveness. STEM jobs are the jobs of the future, and they are essential to growth in America.

And if you’re still not convinced that STEM matters, check out this piece in TechCrunch:

In a similar vein, many of the companies in Silicon Valley are succeeding precisely because they’re disrupting existing players in their industries. Amazon is doing really well right now (almost $10 billion in revenue in the last quarter alone). Borders…not so much. Go iTunes and Spotify. RIP Tower Records. Creative destruction is alive and well but how many people in Silicon Valley are thinking about what happens to that displaced worker at the record store or bookstore?

The short answer is: None. It’s about the “start-up of you.”

For more info, visit STEMisCool. Meanwhile, pity the fool who doesn’t think STEM is cool.

Hey, HBCU Buddy

I plan to write a “storified” post about National Journal’s Innovation Works Conference. For now, I want to share some info that’s been a long time coming.

As I was helping myself to breakfast yesterday, a handout on AT&T’s information table caught my eye. You can imagine my delight and surprise when I saw it was a photo of Jonecia Keels and Jazmine Miller, the developers of the mobile app HBCU Buddy.

The photo is in the trailer for “The Innovators.”

Kudos to AT&T for stepping up and showcasing the changing face of innovators.

STEM Rules

Source:LiveScience

STEM Education: Meet the Innovators

It’s hard to believe this is the last day of ISTE 2011. As I planned my daily schedule, I sometimes felt like a kid in a candy store.

Chris Lehmann, the founding principal of the Science Leadership Academy, is the closing keynote speaker.

I got a preview of Lehmann’s remarks at the Special Interest Group Innovative Learning Technologies’ forum, “I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Innovation!.” He said technology should be like oxygen – ubiquitous, necessary and invisible. “You know you’re there when technology becomes invisible.”

Lehmann’s passion is palpable:

We’re not about raising test scores. We’re about raising kids.

And forget about waiting for Superman. Lehmann prefers to wait for the pizza deliveryman to feed the parents who come together on Saturdays to talk about teaching and learning.

Lehmann brought along a small group of SLA students, including Rashaun Williams.

Rashaun described Lehmann as his teacher and mentor. He’s applying the lessons he’s learning at SLA to the nonprofit organization he co-founded, Phresh Philadelphia:

Phresh Philadelphia is an organization focusing on making Philadelphia a better place to live. Our approach to making this dream a reality is through building a solid foundation in the Philadelphia communities by teaming up with local programs, volunteers, and city officials, ultimately to bring neighborhood plans of a Greater Philadelphia into action.

To get connected with Phresh Philadelphia, complete a short survey and as Rashaun says, make it happen.

A Room with a View of the Blues

I started out Day Two of the International Society for Technology in Education’s annual conference in the Exhibit Hall. Four hours later, I had visited less than half of the exhibitors.

When I stopped by the Universal Service Administrative Company booth, it was a trip down memory lane.

I was a member of the coalition that advocated for affordable telecommunications and Internet access for schools and libraries, the E-Rate, in the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

In the era of Web 2.0, Internet access alone is not enough. I took this photo in the ISTE Press Room.

As I looked out over the Exhibit Hall, I got the blues knowing that classrooms with high concentrations of underserved students have access to few, if any, interactive tools and solutions.