By Tom Walker

Copyright © 2012, The Oklahoma Publishing Company

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s recent study, Competitiveness and Innovation Capacity of the United States, identifies things we need to do to boost our country’s ability to innovate.

Innovation is the path to wage and job growth, international competitiveness and long-term economic expansion. However, there is significant concern that, as a nation, we simply aren’t investing enough in the scientific and technological building blocks — research, education and infrastructure — that form the bedrock of an innovation economy.

Lately, we’ve been writing about the Oklahoma School of Science and Math (OSSM) — the amazing, tuition-free Oklahoma original that every year prepares more than 140 of our state’s brightest and most highly motivated high school juniors and seniors to excel in technical disciplines.

So, we immediately turned to the section of the Commerce Department report that talks about education.

The postsecondary education system in the United States arguably is still the finest in the world. One measure of that is the rate at which our colleges and universities continue to attract outstanding students from around the globe.

In 2010-2011, roughly 40 percent of these students were pursuing science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education.

Over the last decade, growth in STEM jobs was three times as fast as non-STEM jobs. STEM field workers earn more on average than workers in any other fields — in 2010, a 12 to 27 percent premium.

It’s not only that these disciplines are critical for research and engineering, such technical courses of study teach logical reasoning and problem solving skills that are applicable to everything from health care to finance to teaching.

While other nation’s students line up to study in technical fields, there are not enough American students seeking STEM degrees to power the innovation that this nation needs. Part of the reason for that is K-12 curriculums do not engage and prepare enough students in science and math.

And this brings us back to OSSM.

With 85 percent of its graduates choosing careers in technical fields, this school gives Oklahoma a competitive advantage that we ought to parlay. More than half of OSS graduates who have completed a degree work in Oklahoma, including 10 who have started their own businesses.

We should be increasing our investment in OSSM, not cutting back.

Tom Walker is president and CEO of i2E, Inc., a not-for-profit corporation that mentors many of the state’s technology-based startup companies. i2E receives state appropriations from the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology. Contact him at i2E_Comments@i2E.org.

DID YOU KNOW? More than three-fourths of the most celebrated inventors and entrepreneurs since 1800 had degrees in engineering, physics, chemistry, computer science or medicine.

Click here to read the article at newsok.com