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

这项NSF INCLUDES规划拨款由美国国家科学基金会全国工程和科学领域未被充分代表的发现者学习者社区（NSF INCLUDES）资助，这是一项全面的国家倡议，旨在通过关注多样性、包容性和扩大STEM的大规模参与来增强美国在发现和创新方面的领导地位。NAPE教育基金会将在其NSF INCLUDES设计和开发启动试点项目（Intermountain STEM）的成功基础上，利用集体影响框架，规划和发展一个由地方和州变革推动者组成的全国联盟，这些变革推动者来自对政策、实践和资源流动具有影响力的组织的领导人。这个国家联盟的目标是提高女孩在STEM和职业技术教育（CTE）途径中的参与度、保留率和项目完成率；黑人、土著或原住民以及有色人种；以及来自珀金斯五号扩大定义的特殊人群的个人，特别关注残疾学生和来自经济困难家庭的学生。最近重新授权的《21世纪加强职业和技术教育法案》（Perkins V），现在与《每个学生成功法案》保持一致，包含了新的条款，强调在中等年级（5-8年级）需要CTE经验和职业指导和咨询，这是学生选择STEM课程的关键时期。利用这一教育途径的关键时刻，NAPE与来自加州教育部、南卡罗来纳州教育部、犹他州STEM行动中心、俄亥俄州巴特勒技术学校和其他合作伙伴的共同项目负责人将创建一个全国性的集体影响网络，以建立中等年级CTE多样性的能力。该计划拨款代表了大型组织的国家公共和私人伙伴关系，这些组织聚集在一起，共同应对STEM和CTE中日益扩大的参与挑战。该项目将推进协作努力如何导致变革性系统变化的知识。规划过程将侧重于协作基础设施的三个设计要素：创造一个共同的愿景；建立伙伴关系;确定目标和指标来衡量进展和结果。该过程还将包括一个外部评估者，他将进行形成性评估，并将使用其专业知识来设定目标和指标。规划过程将包括领导力发展、伙伴关系扩展、众包和虚拟会议，从而形成一个国家集体影响网络的战略计划，以解决STEM和CTE方面的公平差距。这一努力将把STEM和CTE社区聚集在一起，规划形成一个集体影响联盟，该联盟将培育一个生态系统，有能力向教育利益相关者提供信息和授权，以创造所需的系统变革，确保代表性不足的学生参与STEM和CTE。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.