STEM

Oregon focuses much of its scarce educational resources on the achievement gap while the skills gap widens. Oregon has the worst dropout rate for white students in the nation. Expanding career technical education is an effective way to improve our abysmal graduation rate, prepare students for middle-class jobs, and support manufacturing and innovation that drives our economic engine.

Investments in advanced STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) are also critical to attracting and retaining high-wage jobs that grow our revenue base to fund schools and social services.

About 5,000 high school students from 207 teams in Michigan are expected to participate in this year's FIRST Robotics Competition. The teams build robots to compete against each other as they try to win a spot in the 64-team state championship, April 11-13 at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti.

Hamilton County (Tenn.) school officials want to put iPads, or similar devices, in the hands of as many students as possible, as soon as possible. They say it's the wave of the future. That's why they visited the STEM "school of the future" Friday, already up and running, on the campus of Chattanooga State Community College.

A new science, technology, engineering and mathematics school will be opening in the fall at North Hall High School, Hall County, Ga. In the new STEM wing, walls will be removed and glass walls will be installed. This will allow students to view others working on robotics, metal fabrication and computer technology. There are also plans to provide a feeder program for students in middle school.

An international research institute is supporting technology programs in middle schools throughout central Virginia. Battelle, a global research and development organization, presented school superintendents with a $43,615 award to launch the new iSTEM program from its facility in the University of Virginia Research Park.

The Global Impact STEM Academy Board has appointed Carl Berg as the interim director of the science, technology, engineering and mathematics school. Berg, who fills the STEM Academy's first full-time position, served as superintendent at Tolles Career Center, and while superintendent at Miamisburg, he received the Superintendent Outstanding Performance Award in 1999.

Assemblyman Rocky Chávez was appointed Tuesday to the California Task Force on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Education (STEM). The task force is responsible for recommending a blueprint on how to improve teaching, learning, and equal access to STEM-related courses and careers for students in kindergarten through grade 12.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is calling in the Navy — literally — to give Chicago Public School students the expertise they need to qualify for technology jobs. The Department of the Navy has disclosed plans to make a five-year, $2 million investment in students at Chicago’s Rickover Naval Academy and at five schools specializing in science, technology, engineering and math — known as STEM.

A new study has found that girls are shying away from pursuing math and science educations with increasing frequency. The report, which originated at the University of Sydney, saw an almost ten percent jump in girls declining from studying a form of math from 2001 to 2011, the website Phys.org learned. Additionally, only 13.8 percent of girls took a math or science subject for higher school certification in 2011.