The press and the average American keeps blaming education for not inspiring enough scientist and engineers. Being married to a teacher, I know that our public school teachers are not the most tech savvy. But that doesn't keep the kids from learning the technology on their own. And there is plenty of science and technology in our educational media. Many of those "foreigners" that take away American jobs are, in fact, trained in our education system.

The real problem is in our culture. We live in a society in which the culture teaches kids that there is more money to be made from the buying and selling of ideas, that originating or refining ideas. They see it everyday. Our company's pay too much for exploiters, executives and sales reps, and not enough for innovators, designers, engineers, developers and researchers. We reward the socially, politically savvy Ken and Barbie dolls, and punish the nerds.

It's high time we point to the cause and not the symptoms of the problem.