Page 18 - Standards for K-12 Engineering Education

Standards for K-12 Engineering Education?

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Introduction

This report comes at a time of widespread interest in improving science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in elementary and secondary schools. STEM
education at the K–12 level is important in part because it can develop student interest and
aptitude in subjects directly relevant to the nation’s capacity for research and innovation. This
capacity is largely credited with supporting U.S. economic health, national security, and quality
of life (NAS, NAE, and IOM, 2007). More generally, K–12 STEM education contributes to sci-
entific and technological literacy, important attributes for all citizens.
President Barack Obama has made STEM education a priority for his administration
(Obama, 2009), and policy changes and funding have followed. The U.S. Department of Educa-
tion has more than $4.3 billion to support the Race to the Top Fund, an initiative that includes
incentives for states to improve STEM teaching and learning (DOEd, 2009). The White House
is also backing Educate to Innovate, a major public-private initiative that will bring additional
resources and attention to STEM education (Chang, 2009).
At the same time, a coalition led by the National Governors Association and the Council of
Chief State School Officers has embarked on an effort to create common standards in core
subjects, including mathematics (www.corestandards.org). The hope is that states will adopt the
standards, thereby making curricula, assessments, and teacher professional development more
consistent and more rigorous and, ultimately, raising student achievement. In addition, the
National Research Council (NRC) is developing a content framework for the next generation of
science standards. A draft of the framework released for public comment in July 2010 included
a section devoted to engineering and technology.
Motivated by concerns that too few U.S. students are interested in or performing at high
enough levels in STEM subjects (e.g., Carnegie Corporation of New York, 2009), foundations
and businesses are supporting efforts by several states that are restructuring or are planning to
substantially restructure their K–12 STEM education systems (e.g., www.ncstem.org,
www.osln.org, www.californiastem.org).
Historically, the “T” and, especially, the “E” in STEM have not received the same level of
attention as the “S” and “M.” The “T,” technology education (and its predecessors industrial and
manual arts), have a long history (Herschbach, 2009), a small but dedicated teacher corps
(Dugger, 2007), and, as of 2000, a set of standards specifying what students should know and be
able to do to be considered technologically literate. These standards include engineering-related
learning goals. In fact, based on the shift in technology education toward engineering, ITEA
(International Technology Education Association) members voted in early 2010 to change the

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