In the last decade, we successfully prepared over 100K new STEM teachers who have helped strengthen and improve the field and our world. Over the next decade, we are looking to build on that progress by preparing and retaining 150K new STEM teachers who increasingly mirror the diversity of their school community, especially for schools serving majority Black, Latinx, and Native American students. We’lll support our network to foster workplaces and classrooms of belonging so that everyone we reach can see a path for themselves in STEM. And in the decade after that, we are hopeful that our commitment to this work will solve the STEM teacher shortage once and for all.
In 2011, we took up a call by President Obama to prepare 100K STEM teachers in 10 years alongside 28 partner organizations. By 2021, 300 organizations worked collectively to surpass our shared goal and we prepared nearly 110K excellent STEM teachers to the field. We did this by focusing our radical collaboration on:
We support partners to succeed at their commitments and tackle the systemic challenges revealed by the map.
In 2021, Bellwether Education Partners conducted a third-party evaluation of our impact. They found that the network spurred five major advancements in STEM teaching and learning:
BETTER RECRUITMENT: 100Kin10 prep programs used improved strategies to recruit highly qualified STEM teacher candidates
IMPROVED PREPARATION: More STEM teacher candidates have access to evidence-based STEM preparation via 100Kin10 partners
EXPANDED EARLY STEM: 100Kin10 partner programs have increased emphasis on preparing and supporting elementary teachers with STEM skills, and in particular foundational math
ENHANCED PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: More teachers have access to quality STEM professional growth and collaborative work environments via 100Kin10 partners
MORE AUTHENTIC STEM: More teachers and students have access to meaningful, authentic, and rigorous STEM learning via 100Kin10 partners
The future of our country depends on today’s students becoming tomorrow’s innovators. We believe that young people have infinite potential and that when that potential is nourished in STEM classrooms, they will bring to life out of this world solutions to our biggest challenges. This is why we must tackle the underlying causes of our nation’s shortage of excellent STEM teachers. So we identified the 100 challenges to preparing and retaining great STEM teachers and created a roadmap that points the way toward transforming STEM education.
In 2021, nearly 600 young people shared their K-12 STEM experiences through a diverse, participatory storytelling effort called the unCommission. We knew their input was critical in order to identify action-ready considerations for the future of STEM learning and opportunity. Now, their voices are guiding our next chapter and goal on this journey to end the STEM teacher shortage with equity, representation, and belonging at the center of this work.
STEM has never been more important to our future.
The people who will cure cancer and dementia, desalinate water, help us avoid future pandemics and solve challenges unknown or invisible are in our nation’s classrooms today. And, we cannot solve these challenges without ensuring those most under-represented in STEM are centered in the work ahead.
To achieve our next shared goal, we are relaunching and growing our network with an explicit focus on Black, Latinx, and Native American teachers and students. In order for students to succeed in STEM, they need to feel that they belong in STEM classrooms and careers. That’s why we’re preparing and retaining 150K teachers in STEM, with an explicit focus on creating a sense of belonging and equity in our classrooms, and beyond. And we cannot wait for you to join us.
Radical collaboration among change-makers across industry and sector is the only way to effect real progress and move our world forward. Our role is to mobilize our network with a focused strategy, clarity of purpose, and vision for achieving change.
Together we can make momentous change in our world.
Commitment
To increase the number of STEM teachers that complete Western Governors University program, Teachers College (TC) will reimagine our STEM portfolio of programs, expand our portfolio to include a computer science (CS) pathway in partnership with the College of Information Technology and actively pursue targeted recruitment initiatives. This will be measured by the launch of a new program design by 2024 and a minimum of 10 percent overall increase in the number of STEM teachers over 5 years. This will result in 7,912 (total) number of STEM teachers prepared by 2027.
Western Governors University’s Teacher College commits to leveraging the work from our Center of Healthy Learning and the five pillars of SEL, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Character Education, Mental health, and Basic Needs as a guide to integrate healthy learning related curriculum. Doing so ensures our candidates are prepared to be successful in the K-12 communities they will serve. This work will be measured by a curriculum integration mapping project and follow-up assessments of our graduates’ preparedness once hired.
Commitment
By 2029, Young Leaders Strong City (YLSC) will support 100 STEM teachers to cultivate classrooms of STEM belonging, with 60% of teachers serving in schools that primarily serve Black, Latinx, and Native American students. We will accomplish this through training and professional development by providing intensive workshops focused on asset-based learning, confronting bias and low expectations, and equipping teachers with tools to foster culturally responsive teaching practices. In conjunction with peer coaching designed to deepen teachers’ understanding of systemic inequities while promoting self-reflection and growth. Also, creating spaces for dialogue and collaboration where educators can share experiences and strategies to build more inclusive STEM classrooms. Our impact goals are to ensure that 90% of teachers trained report increased confidence in fostering STEM belonging and equitable practices. As well as achieve a 70% retention rate among participating educators, bolstered by our comprehensive support system.
Commitment
The Young People’s Project will seek to train, certify and employ (or support the employment of) an additional 750 high school and college students as Math Literacy Workers in the next 10 years. Of those 750 who become Math Literacy Workers, YPP has the goal that at least 10% will matriculate into careers in the STEM teaching field focused on underserved and under-resourced populations in the US. In partnership with the Boston Teacher Cadet Program, YPP seeks to prepare 80 high school students and 52 college students to become high quality STEM educators of color in the Boston Public Schools by 2027.
YPP commits to hosting 1-2 constituent gatherings per year to maintain our network of over 1000 former and current Math Literacy Workers. BTC has specific program partners to support cultivation and retention of STEM teachers. We partner with WEOC: Women Educators of Color, MEOC: Male Educators of Color, SLOC: School Leaders of Color and ALANA: African, Latinx, Asian, Native American networking program to support retention of STEM teachers who identify as Black, Latinx and/or Native American.
YPP and BTC focus almost exclusively on lower and working class students of color in urban settings, and to a lesser degree rural white lower and working class students. YPP is committed to tracking the demographics of the high school and college students we train as Math Literacy Workers to ensure that the demographics of the students we serve match the demographics of the high school and college students we train.
