STEM Ed Update 7/31/2017

Please enjoy this week's STEM Ed update.

Coalition Update:

Coalition Executive Director Testifies at House Science Committee

On July 26, the Executive Director of the STEM Education Coalition, James Brown, testified at the

House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Subcommittee on Research and Technology. The hearing was entitled, STEM and Computer Science Education: Preparing the 21st Century Workforce.

Fellow witnesses included: Mr. Pat Yongpradit, Chief Academic Officer, Code.org; Dr. A. Paul Alivisatos, Executive Vice Chancellor & Provost, Vice Chancellor for Research, and Professor of Chemistry and Materials Science & Engineering, University of California, Berkeley; and Ms. Dee Mooney, Executive Director, Micron Technology Foundation. Read more here.

Stay in the Know:

Latest STEM Education Policy News

Trump Ed. Dept. Changes Process for ESSA Feedback

EdWeek

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and her team have gotten big blowback for their responses to states on their plans for implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act. State officials and even some DeVos' GOP allies in Congress have said the department is being nit-picky, inconsistent, and going beyond the bounds of ESSA, which sought to rein in the federal policy footprint. So now the agency is changing the process, Elizabeth Hill, a spokeswoman for the department confirmed. Read more here.

Trump Donates $100,000- His Second Quarter Salary- To Education Department for Science Camp

Washington Post

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos announced at the White House on Wednesday that President Trump was donating $100,00

0, his salary for the second quarter of the year, to the Education Department to help fund a science camp. The headline of the news release issued by the Education Department said: "Secretary DeVos Accepts President Trump's Q2 Salary as a Donation for STEM-Focused Camp." STEM refers to science, technology, engineering and math. Read more here.

Betsy DeVos, Ivanka Trump Team Up For Girls' Reading Event at Smithsonian Museum

ABC News

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos teamed up

with Ivanka Trump on Tuesday at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, where the the pair read to a group of girls in an effort to excite them about science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). The pair took turns reading "Rosie Revere Engineer" -- which Trump said is her 6-year-old daughter Arabella's favorite book -- to a group of 6-to-10-year-olds from the Boys and Girls Club and a local YMCA in the Washington, D.C., museum's SparkLab. Continue reading here.

Around the Community:

Girl Scouts Add 23 STEM Badges

The Girl Scouts want to see more women in STEM careers. The organization on Tuesday announced it is adding 23 new badges related to science, technology, engineering, math and the outdoors. Girl Scouts can now earn badges through activities like prog

ramming robots, designing model race cars, writing code and going on environmentally conscious camping trips. The Girl Scouts of the USA, founded in 1912, has created badges with the help of organizations like Code.org, SciStarter, GoldieBlox and the Society of Women Engineers. Continue reading here .

Schools Are Missing What Matters About Learning

The Atlantic

When Orville Wright, of the Wright brothers fame, was

told by a friend that he and his brother would always be an example of how far someone can go in life with no special advantages, he emphatically responded, "to say we had no special advantages ... the greatest thing in our favor was growing up in a family where there was always much encouragement to intellectual curiosity." Continue reading here .

NCTM ESSA Toolkit

" Now is the time for our mathematics education community to do what we can to ensure that state plans adequately support teachers and the teaching of mathematics. "

Utilize the toolkit here.

Join the Coalition!

We at the STEM Education Coalition hope you have enjoyed this week's edition of the STEM Ed Newsletter.

Any organization may join the Coalition, and there is no cost to become an Affiliate Member. Affiliate members are listed on our website, receive periodic communications on policy matters, and will be signed up for the weekly newsletter.

Your organization can also apply to join the Coalition's Leadership Council, where they play an active role in setting the public policy agenda for the Coalition and are invited to participate in frequent interactions with policymakers.

If you would like to join the Coalition at any level, please read our message to prospective members or email us at [email protected].

We appreciate your continued support and involvement.

Our Coalition's Co-Chairs

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