Education is America's single best investment in job creation. But our economic success relies not solely on helping students get their high school and college degrees; it rests upon our ability to graduate more students with highly marketable skills in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). It's the key to keeping America innovating, creating jobs and staying economically competitive with the world.

In Colorado, we already benefit from a terrific initiative for elementary and middle school students called Innovation Academy for a Smarter Planet, a collaboration of IBM and the St. Vrain Valley School District. At Innovation Academy, IBM employees, Colorado teachers and engineering students at University of Colorado at Boulder are helping young people learn the basics of engineering and creating projects to address pressing challenges in infrastructure, energy, communications, public safety and other areas.

We also greatly benefit from CU-Boulder's Science Discovery initiative, which offers K-12 students and teachers hands-on science experiences led by CU scientists and graduate students. Every year, Science Discovery provides 30,000 Coloradans with opportunities to learn about the science and technology present in their everyday lives through summer and after-school classes, teacher workshops, school programs and community events.

We need efforts like these in Colorado and across the country because we're falling behind in the STEM fields. A few decades ago, 40 percent of the world's scientists and engineers were here in America. Today, that figure has fallen to 15 percent.


In the field of computer science, for example, the number of related bachelor's degrees and secondary school computer science courses are on the decline despite the fact that more than 1.5 million high-wage jobs are expected to be created in this field by 2018. We should increase and strengthen K-12 computer science offerings through education-business partnerships, as called for in the Computer Science Education Act now before Congress.

We also need to sustain students' enthusiasm for STEM fields throughout high school and college. Roughly 40 percent of college students planning to study engineering and science end up changing majors, according to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. As a result, STEM-related degrees represent only about a third of all bachelor's degrees awarded in the U.S. By comparison, the ratio is more than one in two in Japan, China and Singapore.

Public-private partnerships are an effective way to improve that ratio, and the collaboration between St. Vrain and IBM is a prime example. The $3.6 million federal Investing in Innovation grant is helping provide up to seven additional weeks of intensive instruction each year to students in selected schools within the district.

As a nation, we still have a long way to go to build a strong pipeline of STEM students to win the jobs of the future, but there's strong evidence that Colorado is on the right track. According to the 2011 National Assessment of Education Progress released in May, Colorado's eighth-graders scored 10 points higher than the national average in science, outperforming all other states but one.

American leadership in the STEM fields is an essential element to maintain our global economic leadership and secure the jobs that can support a family. Let's make it a national priority to encourage the next generation to foster an interest in the technology that surrounds our daily lives, and to focus on creating it rather than just consuming it. If we can do that, will we strengthen our country's global competitiveness, create jobs and ensure the continuation of innovations that improve our lives.

U.S. Rep. Jared Polis represents Colorado's Congressional District 2. Pete Lorenzen is the senior location executive at IBM Boulder.