Calling the country “woefully inequipped” to teach students about science and math, Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., introduced a bill Sept. 29 that would create an office to oversee federal efforts in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, reports The Hill. As a former science teacher for more than 30 years, Honda said America is lagging behind other developed nations in technical fields and needs better coordination among stakeholders to improve outcomes. His comments echo those from President Obama on Sept. 27 when he announced the White House will be attempting to recruit and train 10,000 new STEM teachers over the next two years. Honda’s bill would create an Office of STEM in the Department of Education at the assistant-secretary level in charge of coordinating all federal efforts to boost STEM education. It also would establish a voluntary consortium where states can collaborate to develop common standards for STEM in K-12 education. Finally, there will be a repository where educators can research the latest innovations in STEM. Honda said this bill is a precursor to comprehensive legislation he plans to introduce early next year that will provide a blueprint for improving STEM education nationwide. He noted that in 2006, the federal government spent more than $3 billion on 105 STEM programs at 15 different federal agencies without demonstrating any improvement in students’ performance. “Due to a lack of coordination, coherence, and cooperation, these investments result in little return,” Honda said…
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Obama calls for more STEM teachers, longer school year
Barely into the new school year, President Barack Obama issued a tough-love message to students and teachers on Sept. 27: Their year in the classroom should be longer, and poorly performing teachers should get out. Separately, the president also announced a goal of recruiting 10,000 teachers over the next two years in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).
American students are falling behind some of their foreign counterparts, especially in math and science, and that’s got to change, Obama said. Seeking to revive a sense of urgency that education reform might have lost amid the recession’s focus on the economy, Obama declared that the future of the country is at stake.
“Whether jobs are created here, high-end jobs that support families and support the future of the American people, is going to depend on whether or not we can do something about these schools,” the president said in an interview on NBC’s “Today” show.…Read More
U.S. ramps up efforts to improve STEM education
A grant program that challenges students to design their own video games is one of several new initiatives announced by President Obama Sept. 16 as part of a broad expansion of his “Educate to Innovate” campaign, which aims to spur students’ interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
The day before, Obama announced the launch of Change the Equation, a CEO-led effort to dramatically improve STEM education in the United States.
The National STEM Video Game Challenge competition, the first in a series of planned annual events, will be led by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop and E-Line Media in partnership with sponsors Microsoft Corp., the AMD Foundation, and the Entertainment Software Association.…Read More
Intel awards $1 million to schools
Things are looking up for six U.S. schools dedicated to providing innovative and effective STEM education, thanks to Intel Education’s donation of more than $1 million as part of the company’s Schools of Distinction Awards (SODA).
This annual award is in its seventh year as part of the company’s “quest to prepare tomorrow’s innovators,” and the six schools honored do just that in the areas of innovative math and/or science programs.
“The critical knowledge base provided by math and science education is the foundation for innovation,” said Shelly Esque, vice president of Intel’s Corporate Affairs Group. “These schools imbue a deep passion for math and science in the next generation, a critical requirement for America to remain competitive in the global economy.”…Read More
House passes major science, technology bill
The U.S. House of Representatives gave its assent on May 28 to $84 billion in federal funding to help keep the country competitive in the fields of scientific and technological innovation, just days before a new list suggested China is challenging America’s dominance in supercomputing.
Among other measures, the bill supports science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education through a coordination of activities at all levels.
Passage of the legislation, called the America COMPETES Act (H.R. 5116)—the biggest science bill that Congress is expected to consider this year—came on a third try. Republicans objecting to the cost of the bill succeeded in sidetracking it on two previous occasions.…Read More
House GOP stops major science, technology bill
It was strike two for a major science funding bill on May 19 as House Republicans again united to derail legislation they said was too expensive.
Going down to defeat was an updated version of the America COMPETES Act, legislation that would have committed more than $40 billion over three years to boost funding for the National Science Foundation (NSF) and other federal agencies involved in basic and applied science, provided loan guarantees to small businesses developing new technologies, and promoted science and math education at the K-12 and higher-ed levels.
Many college and university faculty rely on NSF funding to support their research, including an engineering professor at Northern Illinois University who created a video game that allowed students to design a desired movement or action using the required formulas and algorithms that apply to all types of engineering. Higher-ed researchers earlier this spring submitted proposals to the NSF that would grant them access to Microsoft Corp.’s massive cloud-computing power for three years.…Read More
Every child needed to boost economy
At a time when the global workforce demands more science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) professionals, education stakeholders worry that today’s students aren’t answering the call. To ensure that the United States remains a leader in the global economy, experts say the nation must engage and motivate more students in the STEM subjects, focusing on girls and minorities in particular to help fill future job quotas.
Continuing the national conversation about STEM education in the United States, education and industry experts gathered in Washington, D.C., earlier this month for Intel’s Visionary Conference 2010, with the theme “Technology @ the Intersection of Educational Change.”
The conference began by quoting statistics from the 2009 McKinsey Report, “The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America’s Schools,” which shows that if students from the U.S. were performing as well as just the average student in the best-performing nation, the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2008 would have been $1.3 trillion to $2.3 trillion higher.…Read More
Survey: Educators aren’t discussing STEM careers with students
In a recent survey, a majority of students said that while their science and math teachers seem knowledgeable and keep class interesting, they aren’t teaching about science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) career options. High school students also said they don’t believe STEM knowledge is integral to getting a good job, which doesn’t bode well for leaders counting on STEM education to keep the nation at the forefront of the global economy.
Spurred by the Obama administration’s “Educate to Innovate” campaign—a nationwide effort by U.S. companies, foundations, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations to help move America to the top of the pack in math and science education—the American Society for Quality (ASQ) commissioned market research firm Harris Interactive to conduct an online survey to uncover how well teachers transfer their knowledge and passion for science and math to their students and inspire them to pursue STEM careers.
The survey, conducted in December, asked more than a thousand students in grades 3-12 to provide a scaled report card (with grades ranging from A-F) on their science teachers’ classroom skills and activities.…Read More
National STEM program increases reach
President Barack Obama on Jan. 6 announced the expansion of the Educate to Innovate program he launched last November, including the creation of several new partnerships to help attract, develop, reward, and retain outstanding STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) teachers.
These partnerships build upon initiatives already announced by Obama Nov. 23, and include programs involving major companies, universities, foundations, nonprofit organizations and government agencies. (See “Obama launches new STEM initiatives.”)
“Several new public-private partnerships are going to offer additional training to more than 100,000 teachers and prepare more than 10,000 new teachers in the next five years alone,” Obama said.…Read More
Solving the STEM Education Crisis
As technology becomes an integral part of the workplace, science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) skills are no longer just “good skills” to have; they are increasingly important to a 21st-century education.
Training students for success in the STEM disciplines also is necessary if the U.S. is to remain globally competitive; recent results from the Program for International Student Assessment suggested the top-performing U.S. high school students were bested by students from at least 20 other nations in math and science.
Attracting students to the STEM disciplines is the first hurdle, and retaining student interest in these areas is the second. Solving the STEM education crisis won’t be easy—but with the generous support of Learning.com, we’ve compiled this collection of stories from our archives, along with other resources, to help you answer this challenge in your own schools.…Read More