NSTA Legislative Update: Bipartisan No Child Left Behind Legislation Introduced in House and Senate
Education leaders in both the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and the Democratic-led Senate have introduced bipartisan bills that would rewrite the 10-year-old federal education law. And there is not much love for the Obama administration’s long-awaited strategic plan for federal STEM education programs released in May. Read all about it in this issue of the NSTA Legislative Update.
Free Web Seminar for Preservice Professors
Are you a college or university instructor of preservice teachers? Join us for a web seminar on June 27 to find out how you can use the NSTA Learning Center as an interactive e-textbook for your classes. A panel of professors who are already using the Learning Center will share their insights and answer questions from the audience.
Read more and register for all upcoming web seminars
“Hidden” STEM Jobs Require Different Levels of Training
A new report released last week by the Brookings Institution shows policymakers could be overlooking an important segment of the STEM workforce as they appropriate funds for higher education. According to the report, The Hidden STEM Economy, 20 percent of all U.S. jobs are in the STEM fields, with half of those occupations available to workers who don’t have a four-year bachelor’s degree. Other key findings from the report:
- “STEM jobs that require at least a bachelor’s degree are highly clustered in certain metropolitan areas, while sub-bachelor’s STEM jobs are prevalent in every large metropolitan area. Of large metro areas, San Jose, CA, and Washington, D.C., have the most STEM-based economies, but Baton Rouge, LA, Birmingham, AL, and Wichita, KS, have among the largest share of STEM jobs in fields that do not require four-year college degrees. These sub-bachelor’s STEM jobs pay relatively high wages in every large metropolitan area.”
- “More STEM-oriented metropolitan economies perform strongly on a wide variety of economic indicators, from innovation to employment. Job growth, employment rates, patenting, wages, and exports are all higher in more STEM-based economies. The presence of sub-bachelor’s degree STEM workers helps boost innovation measures one-fourth to one-half as much as bachelor’s degree STEM workers, holding other factors constant. Concentrations of these jobs are also associated with less income inequality.”
Click here to download the full report.
Announcing Summer Scholarship Opportunity Through WCS’s Online Teacher Academy
The Wildlife Conservation Society’s award-winning Online Teacher Academy is pleased to announce a new Scholarship Opportunity for teachers enrolling in its professional development courses.
This summer, the scholarship will allow teachers to take any one of the following online courses for only $50* ($225 savings):
- Habitat Ecology for Educators
- Nature’s Thread: Weaving Environmental Education Into Your Curriculum
- Our Changing Planet: Climate Change and Wildlife Connections
These courses are designed to enhance your understanding of the living world and revitalize your love for nature and science. Entirely online, these six-week courses provide unique opportunities to examine the life sciences of zoology, ecology and conservation and are rich with CCSS, NGSS, and STEM connections.
*Graduate credits are available for an additional $165.
Free resources! Cutting-edge science! Register now at pd.wcs.org. Questions? E-mail teacherinfo@wcs.org or call +1-718-220-5136.