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July 2016 • SMT Magazine 65 THE STEM TRAP assembly and test, as well as run and service the line 1 . However, there are some companies that are beginning to see the economic sense this makes. A favorite TV show of my impressionable youth was Rod Serling's classic sci-fi series, "The Twilight Zone." One particular episode stands out when I ponder the current state of high- tech electronic product design and assembly education. The episode was entitled "To Serve Man." An alien civilization arrives on earth and wants to share all their advanced technol- ogy with us—medical, food production, space travel, energy, everything! An alien provides a large book written in his native language that is believed to be a roadmap to the alien's largess. At first, translators are able only to decode the title, "To Serve Man." As the effort to decode the text continues, the alien extends his advanced civilization's spirit of goodwill by inviting thou- sands of volunteers to visit his planet. In one of the final scenes as the spaceship is being loaded with humans, a frantic translator rushes the boarding queue and screams: "We finished the translation! Don't get on the ship! 'To Serve Man' is a cookbook!" It is in the nature of many of us to think and hope for the best; give the benefit of the doubt; trust in the virtuous intentions of the "experts," who we entrust with a portion of our welfare—whether it be the defense of our coun- try, the safety of the food and water supply, the safety and efficacy of the medicines we ingest, or the education of our children. The cookbook provided by our educational system must be in the students' best interest. Right? That brings us to this month's topic: The STEM Trap. As you are probably aware, STEM is an acro- nym for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. In the U.S., the term accelerated in usage as dismal K-12 student academic per- formance compared to other countries and the exodus of tech jobs offshore broke into the pub- lic consciousness. There was political hay to be had by addressing this issue. Government at the local, state and federal level, of course, got in- volved —rightly so in this case since they have the core responsibility for the compulsory pri- mary and secondary educational systems. The National Science Foundation (NSF) established guidelines on what learning disciplines fell un- der the STEM banner. Spending money is what governments generally do in these situations to demonstrate their concern and just how serious and important they perceive the problem. In 2006, President George W. Bush an- nounced the American Competitiveness Initia- tive that increased federal funding for advanced R&D programs. President Barack Obama and former Secre- tary of Education in the Obama administration, Arne Duncan, have endorsed the not-for-profit Project Lead the Way, a large provider of STEM based programs to middle and high schools. In his 2012 budget, President Obama re- named and broadened the "Mathematics and Science Partnership (MSP)" to award block grants to states for improving teacher education in those subjects 2 . And, it goes on and on and on as the gov- ernment funding faucet has been turned wide open. Doesn't anyone recognize it as a real prob- lem that a significant task in STEM education is the need to educate the educator? Why hasn't the NEA (National Education Association) ad- dressed these issues proactively? What the heck have they been doing for three decades, just collecting paychecks? Now, we are going to ask them to solve the problem they have helped create? What an outrage! Manufacturing sciences are a relatively small part of the STEM initiative. This is ironic since offshoring manufacturing and product as- sembly were major contributors to the notion that the U.S. had a lot of work to do in stim- ulating educational interest in the sciences. I " Doesn't anyone recognize it as a real problem that a significant task in STEM education is the need to educate the educator? "