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College Board Official Explains AP Chemistry, Biology Changes
Tweet Share on Facebook October 20, 2011 Comment (3)Yesterday, the College Board announced that a redesigned Advanced Placement chemistry course would enter American high schools starting in 2013. The AP biology course has also undergone a facelift and will enter classrooms next fall. I talked with Trevor Packer, the College Board’s senior vice president for the Advanced Placement program and college readiness, about the new curricula, what students can expect, and why the whole process took so long.
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Demand, Pay for STEM Skills Skyrocket
Tweet Share on Facebook October 20, 2011 Comment (3)People with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degrees or certifications are in a prime position in the economy, according to a new workforce study released this morning.
Workers with associate's degrees in STEM fields out-earn 63 percent of people who have bachelor's degrees in other fields. Almost half of workers with bachelor's degrees in STEM fields out-earn workers with Ph.D.'s in other fields, according to the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce.
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College Board Announces Changes to AP Chemistry Course
Tweet Share on Facebook October 19, 2011 CommentThe College Board announced today that it has revised its Advanced Placement Chemistry and Spanish courses. The new courses will go into effect starting fall 2013.
Trevor Packer, senior vice president for the AP program at the organization said in a statement that the courses were redesigned to “represent the best practices in their disciplines.”
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12 Hispanic Students Win 'Obama' Teaching Scholarships
Tweet Share on Facebook October 18, 2011 Comment (1)When President Obama won the Nobel Prize in late 2009, he donated his $1.4 million winnings to 10 different charities. Frank Alvarez, CEO of the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, knew just what to do with the $125,000 his organization got.
The fund decided to divide the money into 24 $5,000 scholarships for Hispanic students studying STEM-related fields. Award winners would also have shown an interest in giving back to the community and becoming STEM teachers.
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Press Release: STEM Summit 2012
Tweet Share on Facebook October 18, 2011 Comment (2)U.S. News and Co-Presenters Innovate+Educate and STEMconnector select Dallas to host Major June 2012 Conference Addressing America's Severe Shortfall in STEM Skills
Co-sponsors of STEM Summit 2012: "STEM Means Jobs" include Intel, AT&T, Monster, Lockheed Martin, CSC, and Ingersoll-Rand joining with the Business Roundtable, College Board, The Manufacturing Institute, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Conference of State Legislatures, National Math and Science Initiative, and 33 co-chairs from industry, associations, and education.
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U.S. News to Host June 2012 Conference Addressing STEM Shortfall
Tweet Share on Facebook October 18, 2011 CommentFresh off the heels of last month's Making Science Cool event, U.S. News & World Report, Innovate+Educate, and STEMconnector are hosting a three-day event called STEM Summit 2012 in Dallas on June 27, 28, and 29.
The event will bring together officials from major corporations including Intel, AT&T, and Monster, as well as policy experts from the National Conference of State Legislatures, and education experts from the National Math and Science Initiative and other educational organizations.
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Tech Companies Want More Foreign STEM Workers
Tweet Share on Facebook October 18, 2011 Comment (58)As U.S. firms struggle to find enough workers in STEM fields to fill job vacancies, many have turned to H-1B visas—a program that allows 65,000 highly talented foreign nationals per year to work in the United States for up to six years. While critics say that these immigrants are taking American jobs, some U.S. corporations are asking the Obama administration to raise the cap, which is usually hit early in the year.
"We need to accept the fact that we're global," says Donagh Herlihy, senior vice president and CIO of Avon Products, a cosmetics manufacturer that employs more than 42,000 workers, approximately 6,200 in the United States. "It's better to bring people in from overseas and to have them doing the work here and paying taxes to the U.S. rather than having them overseas and paying taxes somewhere else."
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Video Site Helps Students Make Big Decisions
Tweet Share on Facebook October 14, 2011 CommentGrowing up, Vinay Bhargava always loved math, but he wasn't sure what career it would lead him to.
Bhargava eventually found out. He became an electrical engineer and worked at Google, but he hopes his latest project will help young people learn more about their career options.
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Florida Governor May Divert Taxes to STEM Majors
Tweet Share on Facebook October 13, 2011 Comment (7)Florida Gov. Rick Scott has a message for any aspiring anthropologists in Florida: Look elsewhere.
The Republican governor told conservative radio show host Marc Bernier this week that the state is going to begin shifting funding away from certain liberal arts majors at state universities to favor STEM disciplines.
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STEM Heavily Featured in New 'No Child' Legislation
Tweet Share on Facebook October 13, 2011 Comment (3)After months of prodding from President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, it looks like Congress is finally getting around to reworking the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, more popularly known as No Child Left Behind, the much-maligned law that has governed K-12 education since it went into effect in early 2002.
For the past several months, Obama and Duncan have asked Congress to rework the law, which has been extended on a year-to-year basis since it expired in 2007. The administration has even granted waivers to states that exempt them from parts of the law. In March, Duncan told Congress that more than 80 percent of schools could miss testing benchmarks set by the law, and in June he called the law a "slow-motion train wreck."
