Jesse Jackson pushes tech education at Microsoft event

REDMOND — The Rev. Jesse Jackson continued his push for tech education at a conference Tuesday morning on the Microsoft campus outside of Seattle.

The civil rights leader was in the Seattle area as part of West Coast tour focusing on minority employment in the technology industry. On Monday, he visited a school in Kent that focuses on helping minority and low-income students gain science, math and technology skills.

At the conference in Redmond on improving education in science, technology, engineering and math, a state group released a report calling on Washington state to increase its spending on science and math education. The report calls for teaching preschoolers to do math, improving science education in elementary school, counseling more students to pursue technical degrees and making more room for them in Washington universities.

The Boston Consulting Group concludes that an investment of $650 million in initiatives like these will lead to 24,000 more Washington students getting science and technology jobs and bring billions more in tax revenue to the state.

Among states with significant technology business, Washington is the largest importer of people with technology degrees they earned elsewhere, according to the report.

“The STEM skills gap in Washington is widening because of a lack of preparedness and program capacity,” the report stated. “The University of Washington, for example, is at capacity and turns away more than half of the qualified students who apply. The state creates a lot of high-impact jobs, but so far it has not created an efficient pathway for local students to get those jobs.”