Expert Panels Tackle Ways to Improve STEM Education

Business leaders also launch group to push agenda.

Washington

Citing concerns about the nation’s long-term ability to prosper, two major reports issued separately last week put forward ideas to improve STEM education, but with decidedly different areas of emphasis.

One, from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology , looks broadly at the need to improve STEM education for all K-12 students, with a focus on new federal actions to better prepare and inspire them in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The recommendations include establishing a national STEM Master Teacher Corps that recognizes and rewards strong teachers; supporting the creation of 1,000 new STEM-focused schools over the next decade; and launching a coordinated initiative to support a wide range of STEM-based after-school and extended-day activities.

The other, from the National Science Board , raises an alarm about what it sees as the failure of the U.S. education system to identify and nurture the next generation of high-achieving “STEM innovators,” and proposes steps for both the federal government and the nation as a whole to reverse the situation. Those include casting “a wide net” to seize, early in the academic pipeline, on all types of talent and to reach far more...