Education NewsTaco August 13, 2015

It’s Time to Change the Equation in STEM Fields

*There are some stats you need to pay attention to in this piece. There will soon be 2.4 million STEM and computer science jobs in the U.S., but our colleges and universities only graduate 400,000 from such programs. And Latinos? Let me put it this way, less than 1/3 of high schools with a high percentage of Latinos offer calculus classes. So much work to be done. VL

u.s. news & world report logoBy Ryan J. Smith and Arva Rice, U.S. News & World Report

Silicon Valley, we still have a problem.

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus met with Tim Cook and other Silicon Valley leaders earlier this month to admonish their challenged attempts to diversify their companies, and with good reason.

[pullquote][tweet_dis]Latinos comprise 19 percent of the college-aged population, but receive only 8 percent of bachelor’s degrees and 6 percent of master’s degrees in computer science[/tweet_dis].[/pullquote]

Google, Facebook and Twitter’s most recently released U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity reports show that despite efforts to increase diversity, only 1.8 percent of the companies’ combined 41,000 employees – 758 people – are black. As a Mother Jones post points out, all of these employees could fit in a single Airbus A380 plane.

 These facts seem especially stark when juxtaposed against the backdrop of current events. Over the past year we’ve seen millions turn to these platforms to advocate for civil rights actions, from the continued force of the #blacklivesmatter calls, to the successful effort to take down the Confederate flag in South Carolina and the more than one million people who chose to “rainbow” their Facebook profiles after the historic Supreme Court ruling. Indeed social media and the Internet fuel this generation’s fight for social justice.
[pullquote][tweet_dis]Less than a third of our high schools with the highest percentage of African-American and Latino students offer calculus.[/tweet_dis][/pullquote]

Social media users are utilizing creative means in attempts to move the needle on important social issues. Tech companies should follow the example set by their followers and think strategically and creatively to double down on their own efforts to increase diversity within their ranks.

Click HERE to read the full story.

[Photo by woodleywonderworks/Flickr]
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