New! STEM Classroom to Career report

With its partners in the Research Consortium on STEM Career Pathways, NAPE conducted a national survey of high school students in STEM classes during Spring 2015. The resulting report draws on those data to identify opportunities, challenges, and promising practices for leveraging equity to meet STEM workforce needs.

Data from this sample of 7,325 student respondents suggest: 1) Equity efforts can increase the STEM workforce and 2) Realizing that potential requires strategic efforts.

Attracting and retaining females in the STEM pipeline requires:

• Boosting STEM career confidence
• Increasing STEM career aspirations

Attracting and retaining racial/ethnic groups historically underrepresented in STEM calls for:

• Ensuring stronger academic foundations in STEM
• Addressing unique barriers

Despite the fact that students, regardless of race, ethnicity, or gender, begin from the same place—rating STEM as extremely or very relevant to their future careers—obstacles remain.

But there are solutions:

• Support creative learning in all STEM classrooms
• Address structural inequalities that contribute to an unequal STEM playing field.

Taken together, these interventions can infuse the STEM pipeline with new talent to close the gap between supply and demand today—and to close the opportunity gap tomorrow.

Read the Report