STEM Education Races to the Top
High school students work in a school lab (Image from NASA)
Eleven states plus the District of Columbia won the Obama Administration’s Race to the Top competition, and will divvy up the prize of $4 billion in federal education grants. But the ultimate winner may be STEM education, according to Education Week. It reports that all the winning states have plans to bolster STEM subjects and fully integrate them into their plans to reform their K-12 education systems.
For instance, Education Week notes: North Carolina is creating 10 STEM anchor schools, each focused on tying STEM education to local economic development; Florida is funding networks of rural school districts that are establishing high school STEM programs for gifted and talented students; and Maryland has plans for a new elementary STEM teaching certificate and development programs for teachers.
The contest’s guidelines urged states to weave STEM studies throughout their reform plans. Richard D. Rosen, a vice president at nonprofit consultants Battelle Memorial Institute, believes that was the right approach. The Institute helped Tennessee write its winning proposal and will oversee a statewide STEM Innovation Network there. Rosen says the competition should give a boost to STEM education for years to come, long after the grants have been spent. “The goal is, use it to create new systems and things that will have a lasting impact.”
Filed under: K-12 Education News
Tags: Education Policy, School Budgets, STEM education, STEM subjects
