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1
Introduction
T
he phrase “STEM education” is shorthand for an enterprise that
is as complicated as it is important. What students learn about
the science disciplines, technology, engineering, and mathemat-
ics during their K-12 schooling shapes their intellectual development,
opportunities for future study and work, and choices of career, as well as
their capacity to make informed decisions about political and civic issues
and about their own lives. A wide array of public and personal issues—
from global warming to medical treatment to social networking to home
mortgages—involves science, technology, engineering, and mathematics
(STEM). Indeed, the solutions to some of the most daunting problems
facing the nation will require not only the expertise of top STEM profes-
sionals but also the wisdom and understanding of its citizens.
Education in the STEM areas takes many forms in the United States.
Though there are compelling reasons for concern about the quality and
effectiveness of the education many students receive in these disciplines,
there are also many clear success stories. Policy makers and others have
looked for ways to identify the schools and approaches that are most
successful—and the characteristics that account for their success—so that
their models for best practice can be replicated.
At the request of the office of U.S. Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA),
the National Science Foundation asked the National Research Council
to explore these issues, and, under the auspices of the Board on Science
Education and the Board on Testing and Assessment, the Committee on
Highly Successful Schools or Programs for K-12 STEM Education was
1
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2 SUCCESSFUL STEM EDUCATION
BOX 1-1
Charge to the Committee
An ad hoc steering committee will plan and conduct a public workshop to
explore criteria for identifying highly successful K-12 schools and programs in the
area of STEM education through examination of a select set of examples. The
committee will determine some initial criteria for nominating successful schools to
be considered at the workshop. The examples included in the workshop must have
been studied in enough detail to provide evidence to support claims of success.
Discussions at the workshop will focus on refining criteria for success, exploring
models of “best practice,” and an analysis of factors that evidence indicates lead to
success. The discussion from the workshop will be synthesized in an individually
authored workshop summary.
formed to carry out this work. The committee was charged with “outlin-
ing criteria for identifying effective STEM schools and programs and iden-
tifying which of those criteria could be addressed with available data and
research, and those where further work is needed to develop appropriate
data sources.” The detailed charge is shown in Box 1-1.
To carry out part of its charge, the committee organized a workshop,
held in May 2011, that had three goals:
1. describing the primary types of K-12 schools and programs that
can support successful education in the STEM disciplines;
2. examining data and research that demonstrate the effectiveness
of these school types; and
3. summarizing research that helps to identify both the elements
that make such programs effective and what is needed to imple-
ment these elements.
This report is a summary of that workshop.1 The remainder of this
chapter elaborates on why STEM education is so important and on the
complexity of the task of identifying the features that are essential to
successful outcomes for students. Chapter 2 explores four different basic
1 The workshop sessions included formal presentations and structured panel discussions.
Because the primary purpose was for the committee to support its development of con -
sensus findings for a separate report, there were opportunities for the committee to ques -
tion presenters. There were also some opportunities for general discussion. This summary
synthesizes the material presented and highlights from the questions and discussion. The
committee also wrote a report summarizing its findings, conclusions, and recommendations
on STEM education (National Research Council, 2011).
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3
INTRODUCTION
types of schools that deliver STEM education in the United States, look -
ing both at research on each type and a few example schools. Chapter 3
addresses the research on practices and approaches to science and math-
ematics education, and Chapter 4 explores research on school conditions
that support effective STEM education. The closing chapter summarizes
the major points that emerged from the workshop discussion, with a
focus on goals for translating the next generation of standards (both
for the Common Core and the Next Generation Science Standards) into
curricula, professional development programs, and assessments. Future
research needs also were discussed. Following the list of references are
four appendices. Appendix A provides the agendas for the workshop
held May 10-12, 2011. Appendix B presents a list of registered workshop
participants. Papers commissioned for the workshop are listed in Appen -
dix C, and biographical sketches of committee members can be found in
Appendix D.
THE IMPORTANCE OF STEM EDUCATION
STEM education has many potential benefits for individuals and
for the nation as a whole, Norman Augustine explained in an opening
presentation. One factor that sets it apart from other branches of aca -
demic study for many policy makers is that literacy in STEM subjects
is important both for the personal well-being of each citizen and for the
nation’s competitiveness in the global economy. Various studies, Augus -
tine explained, show that between 50 and 85 percent of growth in the
U.S. gross domestic product over the past 50 years was accounted for by
advancements in science and engineering. He also noted that the U.S.
Commission on National Security, which issued its report early in 2001,
highlighted the two greatest threats facing the country as terrorism on
U.S. soil and “the failure to properly manage our educational system and
our investments in research.”
Rising Above the Gathering Storm (National Academy of Sciences,
National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine, 2007), which
reviewed the factors that influence U.S. competitiveness, highlighted the
critical importance of STEM education in its recommendations. Drawing
on a recent update of that report (National Academy of Sciences, National
Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine, 2010), Augustine
described a few of the reasons why the United States needs to improve
STEM education. “We like to think of America as being first in every-
thing,” he noted. But, for example, the United States ranks 6th among
developed nations in innovation-based competitiveness, 11th in percent -
age of young adults who have graduated from high school, 15th in science
literacy among top students, and 28th in mathematics literacy among top
students.
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4 SUCCESSFUL STEM EDUCATION
On the basis of these data and other evidence of ways the United
States is falling short in international comparisons, the National Academy
of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine
(2007) recommended a focus on improving STEM education; it high-
lighted parental interest and support and qualified, engaged teachers
as the essential ingredients. In the 5 years between the report and the
updated volume (National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of
Engineering, and Institute of Medicine, 2010), Augustine added, 6 million
more U.S. young people dropped out of school while many other nations
continued to improve their STEM education. At the same time, the U.S.
higher education system—widely regarded as first in the world—is under
threat, he added. Severe budget cuts at state universities and losses in
endowment funds at private ones have meant loss of faculty and other
resources. Universities in other countries, he noted, “have lists of faculty
members” they want to recruit, and some are recruiting promising high
school students as well.
As the U.S. population changes in composition, “we are going to fall
further and further behind,” Augustine argued, if schools are not able to
engage students from groups that have traditionally been underserved in
STEM education. “We need more pathways for top students to really excel
. . . and we need more alternate pathways for the kids who don’t want
to become scientists, but still need to be science-literate” he concluded.
DEFINING SUCCESS
The committee was asked to identify schools that have been highly
successful at K-12 STEM education and to draw lessons for schools across
the country, committee chair Adam Gamoran explained, but he stressed
that this is a more complex challenge than it might seem. STEM encom-
passes many disciplines and kinds of education, and there are many ways
to define it. Because of limits to the time and resources available for this
project, the committee focused on mathematics and science. The bulk
of the research and data concerning STEM education at the K-12 level
relates to mathematics and science education. Research in technology
and engineering education is less mature because those subjects are not
as commonly taught in a K-12 context, but the committee fully recognizes
the importance of engineering and technology education, of conceptual
connections among STEM subjects,2 and of other stages and types of
schooling (including informal STEM learning).
2 The
nature and potential value of integrated K-12 STEM education is the focus of another,
ongoing study of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Research Council
by the Committee on Integrated STEM Education. It is expected to be completed in 2013.
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5
INTRODUCTION
Gamoran and committee member Barbara Means outlined three key
questions and issues the committee considered in designing the work-
shop: What is “success”? How is it judged? What are the elements of
success?
Successful at What? In general, the STEM schools that gradu-
ate the largest numbers of successful STEM students are the ones in
which the largest numbers of well-prepared and highly motivated 9th
graders enroll, Means observed. Thus, it is necessary to disentangle the
effects of the schools from the effects of student selection; a more precise
question is which schools and programs add the most value for the stu-
dents they serve.
How Should Success Be Judged? There are several valued outcomes
of STEM education. Goals include preparing top students for advanced
degrees and technical careers in STEM fields, developing science literacy
for all students, helping all students prepare for college, and equipping
the future workforce to prosper individually and support the nation’s
prosperity. In identifying successful schools and programs it is neces-
sary to understand their goals and the students they serve. For example,
Means noted, the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce
has estimated that in 2018, just 24 percent of the STEM-related jobs are
going to require a graduate degree, 44 percent will require a bachelor’s
degree, and 20 percent will require either an associate’s degree or a certifi-
cate for some other postsecondary program. All of the workforce options
will be important to the country’s economic competitiveness.
Any broad look at the effectiveness of STEM education in the United
States, Means added, must also take into account the changing demo-
graphics of the population at large. The fastest growing group is low-
income Hispanics, and this group also has among the lowest rates of par-
ticipation in STEM occupations. Thus, success could be judged not only
on how many successful graduates are produced, or average achieve -
ment, but also on how effectively the achievement gaps between different
groups are narrowed.
What Elements Make Schools or Programs Successful? Programs
vary not only in their goals and in the students they serve, but also in the
geographic, educational, and demographic contexts in which they are
located, among other factors. They operate within an education system
that has many interacting layers—a “complex ecology,” as Means phrased
it—so a program or practice that works well with a particular group of
students in one context may not work well with another. Programs and
schools themselves are complex, and specific features or ways of imple -
menting a given program in a given school may be very important to their
success but difficult to isolate.
To help answer these questions, the committee developed a frame-
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6 SUCCESSFUL STEM EDUCATION
FIGURE 1-1 A framework for understanding what constitutes success in K-12
STEM education.
work for understanding what constitutes success in K-12 STEM edu-
cation, which guided the planning for the workshop. This framework,
shown in Figure 1-1, depicts the factors that influence the effectiveness
of STEM education. For example, the context in which education takes
place—the upper-most box—determines the curriculum, the resources,
the priorities, and students’ expectations and motivation. The program’s
specific goals, such as preparing top students for advanced study and
challenging careers, reducing achievement gaps, and/or improving math
and science literacy for all students, for example, would then dictate the
standards by which the program is judged. Schools and programs have
very different structures and these also must be taken into account, as
must specific conditions and practices within programs. Measuring suc -
cess also entails identifying specific indicators of desired outcomes. Test
scores are frequently used, but course taking, college readiness and per-
formance, choice of major, and choices and performance in the workforce
are some of the other outcomes that must be considered. The workshop
sessions explored these points and the available research.
Means noted that with only about 40 percent of students leaving high
school prepared for college-level mathematics, “we need to do a much,
much better job with many more students.” What is needed is a system
that is highly effective for each of the purposes and goals of STEM educa -
tion, and effective for different students in different contexts. There are no
easy answers, she added, and in many cases there is no solid evidence at
all about best practices. The workshop presenters were asked to highlight
both what is and is not known, to frame the problem, and to help identify
the next steps for the research that is needed to answer the questions.
