NSF INCLUDES Planning Grant: Broadening Participation of Underserved Students in STEM and CTE in the Middle Grades

National Alliance For Partnerships In Equity Education Foundatio, Cedar Hill TX

Investigators

Abstract

This NSF INCLUDES planning grant is funded by NSF Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science (NSF INCLUDES), a comprehensive national initiative to enhance U.S. leadership in discoveries and innovations by focusing on diversity, inclusion and broadening participation in STEM at scale. The NAPE Education Foundation will build on the success of its NSF INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilot, Intermountain (IM) STEM, to plan for and develop a national alliance of local and state change agents--leaders from organizations with influence over policies, practices and resource flows--using a collective impact framework. The goal of this national alliance is to increase the participation, retention, and program completion in STEM and career and technical education (CTE) pathways of girls; individuals who are Black, Indigenous or Native, and People of Color; and individuals from the broadened definition of special populations in Perkins V, with a particular focus on students with disabilities and students from economically disadvantaged families. The recently reauthorized Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V), now aligned with the Every Student Succeeds Act, contains new provisions emphasizing the need for CTE experiences and career guidance and counseling in the middle grades (5-8 grades), which is a critical time for students’ STEM course-taking decisions. Using this critical juncture in the education pathway, NAPE and the co-PIs from the California Department of Education, the South Carolina Department of Education, the Utah STEM Action Center, Butler Tech Schools in Ohio, and other partners will create a national collective impact network to build capacity for diversity in CTE in the middle grades. This planning grant represents a national public and private partnership of large well-positioned organizations brought together to collaborate on addressing the broadening participation challenges in STEM and CTE. The project will advance the knowledge of how collaborative efforts can lead to transformative systems change. The planning process will focus on three design elements of collaborative infrastructure: creating a shared vision; building partnerships; and identifying goals and metrics to measure progress and outcomes. The process will also include an external evaluator who will conduct a formative evaluation and whose expertise will be used in setting goals and metrics. The planning process will include leadership development, partnership expansion, crowdsourcing, and virtual convenings resulting in a strategic plan for a national collective impact network to address equity gaps in STEM and CTE. This effort will bring the STEM and CTE community together to plan the formation of a collective impact alliance that will foster an ecosystem with the capacity to inform and empower educational stakeholders to create the needed systems change that will ensure the participation of underrepresented students in STEM and CTE. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.