Thursday, February 7, 2013

Just finished my second media interview

With Deseret News (out of Salt Lake City) on this school (I did one with an NPR affiliate back in the fall).

It's an IBM/CUNY joint venture high school that gives disadvantaged kids a chance to go through high school, get an associates degree, and end up with a job with IBM. I liked that it covered this school because it offered a chance to talk about the nuance of the issue (we'll see how much nuance gets into the article, although she seemed to really get it - and she brought up the term "market failure" so she seems relatively aware of the landscape). Basing it on the idea of "STEM labor shortages" is bunk, but we do have a bifurcated education system so taking kids that would have dropped out or just gotten a high school degree and giving them an associate's degree is great. There's also this issue that even though we don't have labor shortages we do have a STEM diversity problem and addressing that is always a good idea. We got into demand vs. supply side problems with STEM and how most of the problems are on the demand side, and we even got into implications of that point for policy (what policies I think are good ideas and what aren't good ideas).

Of course I'll share the link when this comes out. Hopefully there's some direct quoting in there and it's not just background.

5 comments:

  1. I'd like to hear the interview that you did with the NPR affiliate back in the Fall. I wasn't aware of this blog then. Can't wait to hear this interview too!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's here: http://www.changinggears.info/2012/04/19/do-we-need-more-engineers/

      It's a local public radio station. He thought the story might get picked up nationally - I'm not sure if it ever did. He talked to me over the phone and we were going to try to organize a taping that he could use on the broadcast, but that didn't work out. So my interview was more of a background conversation. My co-author, Hal Salzman, is quoted in that one.

      So my hope is in this one I actually get identified in the article!

      Delete
  2. I'm just a little guy, so I only get invited to do interviews on podcasts.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nothing, I turn them down every time. I've also turned down a few article requests for websites, including LRC. I'd be more apt to write because I can give things more thought, but I am not very confident in my writing abilities, so I don't do it. One thing I know I don't want to do is be asked to answer questions in real time, I'd be too critical of what I might say and I find it uncomfortable. I prefer to be a behind the scenes sort of guy for the most part.

      If I ever do grow a pair and say yes, then you'll be one of the first to know.

      Delete

All anonymous comments will be deleted. Consistent pseudonyms are fine.