By TechNet Vice President of State Policy and Politics David London

It is back to school time, which means this is a ripe moment for parents, teachers, tutors, and other caretakers to sharpen your math skills before the homework assignments start coming. To help, here are three math problems, courtesy of the TechNet team:

#1

(7+9) – 2 =

(Did you remember your order of operations?)

Note: the result will give you the number of states where TechNet helped enact computer science and science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education legislation so far this year.

That was just a warm-up. Now, a few more challenging ones:

#2

California: $161,756,000 +
Florida: $10,000,000 +
Illinois: $7,500,000 +
Indiana: $6,000,000 +
Minnesota: $2,000,000 +
Missouri: $700,000 +
Texas: $341,250,000 =

Note: the sum will give you the total funding that TechNet and our partners have helped secure for STEM and computer science education so far this year in states across the country.

#3

Alabama: 744,200 +
California: 6,211,000 +
Connecticut: 542,700 +
Florida: 2,756,900 +
Illinois: 2,050,200 +
Indiana: 1,046,300 +
Kansas: 497,300 +
Michigan: 1,537,900 +
Minnesota: 857,200 +
Missouri: 917,800 +
Nevada: 459,200 +
Oklahoma: 698,600 +
Texas: 5,431,900 +
Washington state: 1,073,600 =

Note: the sum will give you the approximate total number of students who stand to benefit from these new bills and investments in computer science and STEM education.

If you still are not sure what the answers are, you can check your work with the answers at the end of this post.

Computer science and STEM education is essential to preparing our students for success in the modern workforce. It is also critical for our economy. We simply cannot create and fill high-paying jobs, develop world-class products, and improve cybersecurity without enough people equipped with these 21st century skills.

Sadly, too many young people do not have the opportunity to learn computer science skills, leaving them unable to compete in the innovation economy and increasing the skills gap in the United States. In fact, there are currently over 500,000 vacant computing jobs across the U.S., yet just over 60,000 computer science students graduated into the workforce last year. That gap continues to grow each year.

At TechNet, we are fully committed to closing this gap by cultivating a homegrown and more inclusive STEM talent pipeline that empowers all Americans to succeed in the rapidly changing economy.

So far in 2019, TechNet has helped get across the finish line numerous pieces of legislation to address this opportunity gap, including more than $500 million in funding appropriated to support STEM and computer science courses in 14 states. In the months ahead, we will continue advocating to maximize investments in these fields in the other states where legislatures are still in session, in addition to continuing our work in Congress to pass at least $250 million in computer science education funding, among other education and workforce initiatives we are supporting this year.

Learn more about our state education and workforce priorities here.

Learn more about our federal education and workforce priorities here.

ANSWERS TO ABOVE MATH PROBLEMS

#1: 14
#2: $529,206,000
#3: 24,824,800