In 2020, building on the progress and momentum of our focus areas of nurturing positive work environments for teachers and improving foundational math proficiency, we announced our focus area of achieving equity in high school STEM. This effort centers on the catalyst challenge of state course requirements for STEM in high schools. 

Working together with nearly 40 partners, we spent the spring of 2020 “getting smart” on this focus area, resulting in our report “Shifting Courses: Achieving Equity in High School STEM.” We launched the report with a virtual event where partners and other stakeholders could dig into the research, and from the event, seven Project Teams emerged to tackle various underlying challenges. 

Since 2020, 52 partners have worked collaboratively across 14 Project Teams, developing tools for bringing more visibility to alternative STEM career pathways, supporting teachers to increase statistical literacy by integrating social justice/racial equity concepts into their teaching practice, and addressing implicit bias in high school STEM courses.

Special thanks to Dell Technologies for their generous support of our work in this focus area!