Giving Compass' Take:

• The 100Kin10 Milgrom-Elcott funded effort to find 100,000 excellent STEM teachers to join America's classrooms by 2021 is on track to hit that goal but new issues arise, such as retaining these teachers once they are in the classrooms. 

• How will collaboration between STEM recruiters, educators, and trainers be crucial for retainment? 

• Read the Giving Compass STEM Education Guide to understand more about the STEM teacher shortage. 

At one point in time, Talia Milgrom-Elcott’s goal of adding 100,000 excellent STEM teachers into America’s K-12 classrooms by 2021 seemed like enough. Now, six years into the 100Kin10 effort that Milgrom-Elcott co-founded and for which she serves as executive director, that goal moves closer to reality. But another issue has surfaced that now appears even more daunting.

“Once we thought we were on track to hit the goal on time and had built a network capable of doing that, it gave us the invitation to ask the bigger question: Was it possible that in this goal we had avoided the bigger and more important question of why is it so hard to get and keep great teachers in STEM?” Milgrom-Elcott says. “If we didn’t solve that question, we were likely going to start 100Kin10 all over again in 10 years.”

While 100Kin10 oversees the process of identifying, nominating, and bringing in teachers willing to commit to the rigors of continued learning in STEM, the onus falls on the organizations to make it all happen, one teacher — or hundreds and thousands — at a time, by committing to investing in educators and embracing collaboration.

Each of the 280 partners is asked to focus on one of these areas and invite others to collaborate on “problem-solving projects.” By collaborating, not only will the effort be approached differently, but smaller members of the network can pool financial and talent resources. So far this year, 100 individuals have organized themselves into project teams to work on 13 issues, everything from drafting a toolkit on engaging rural communities in STEM to creating an evidence-based booklet on how to enlist undergraduate professors to encourage STEM teaching.

Read the full article about STEM teachers by Tim Newcomb at The 74