Interesting report - http://cew.georgetown.edu/recovery2020/

"This report looks forward to the year 2020 and predicts the state of the American economy. Recovery 2020 provides vital labor market information such as which fields are expected to create the most jobs, the education requirements required to gain employment in the U.S., and the skills most coveted by employers.

Recovery 2020 finds that:

• There will be 55 million job openings in the economy through 2020: 24 million openings from newly created jobs and 31 million openings due to baby boom retirements.

• By educational attainment: 35 percent of the job openings will require at least a bachelor’s degree, 30 percent of the job openings will require some college or an associate’s degree and 36 percent of the job openings will not require education beyond high school.

• STEM, Healthcare Professions, Healthcare Support, and Community Services will be the fastest growing occupations, but also will require high levels of post-secondary education.

• Most jobs will require some type of post-secondary education, and individuals that only possess a high school diploma will have fewer employment options.

• Employers will seek cognitive skills such as communication and analytics from job applicants rather than physical skills traditionally associated with manufacturing.

• The United States will fall short by 5 million workers with postsecondary education – at the current production rate – by 2020.

http://www.opportunitynation.org/pages/the-opportunity-index

The Opportunity Index is the nation’s first – and only – tool designed to provide a snapshot of what opportunity looks like at the state and county levels.

Using more than a dozen data points grouped into three different dimensions of opportunity - Jobs and the Economy, Education, and Community Health and Civic Life - the Index ranks every state and assigns almost every county in America a first of its kind Opportunity Score ranging from “A” for excellent to “F” for failing.  

Armed with this knowledge, engaged citizens and leaders at the local, state, and federal levels can identify concrete solutions to improve economic mobility at the ground level.  First launched in 2011, the Index will be issued annual giving leaders a way to track the progress of their efforts.

Visit www.opportunityindex.org to see where your state ranks, enter in your zip code to see what score your county earns, and check out whether your area improved in not since 2011.

http://www.nsf.gov/nsb/sei/edTool/index.html

"How well prepared are the students in my state in science and mathematics? Am I doing enough to help my child as a parent? What are the career opportunities in science and engineering fields? How much do science and engineering workers earn?

This website allows you to explore the answers to those and other questions, by providing easy access to data on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and related careers."

Designed for parents, this site has direct links to numerous reports and publications re: STEM.

Baccalaureate Origins of U.S.-trained S&E Doctorate Recipients

Baccalaureate Origins of U.S.-trained S&E Doctorate Recipients

by Mark K. Fiegener and Steven L. Proudfoot[1]

Foreign institutions and U.S. research universities play large roles in the baccalaureate education of U.S.-trained science and engineering (S&E) doctorate recipients.[2] In 2011, about one-third (35%) of individuals earning S&E doctorates from U.S. universities held bachelor's degrees from foreign institutions, and 29% earned bachelor's degrees from U.S. doctorate-granting institutions with very high research activity[3] (table 1). Other doctorate-granting universities, master's colleges and universities, and baccalaureate colleges combined to account for another 28%. Among U.S. S&E doctorate recipients, the proportion with a foreign bachelor's degree increased 4 percentage points from 2002 to 2011, while the proportion with a bachelor's degree from a U.S. institution declined slightly over this period for each type of institution.

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf13323/

The Next Generation Science Standards are now available.

http://www.nextgenscience.org/next-generation-science-standards

The Next Generation Science Standards are now available.  Twenty-six states and their broad-based teams worked together with a 41-member writing team and partners throughout the country to develop the standards.

• NGSS Front Matter
• NGSS Structure
• Appendices to the NGSS:
  
  1. Conceptual Shifts
  2. Responses to May Public Feedback
  3. College and Career Readiness (Coming Soon)
  4. All Standards, All Students (Coming Soon)
  5. Disciplinary Core Idea Progressions
  6. Science and Engineering Practices 
  7. Crosscutting Concepts 
  8. Nature of Science(Coming Soon)
  9. Engineering Design in the NGSS
  10. Science, Technology, Society, and the Environment
  11. Model Course Mapping in Middle and High School (Coming Soon)
  12. Connections to CCSS-Mathematics (Coming Soon)
  13. Connections to CCSS-ELA Literacy (Coming Soon)
• Commonly Used Abbreviations
• Why Standards Matter
• Public Attitudes Toward Science Standards
• Video: Why NGSS?

Download PDFs of the NGSS:

Arranged by Disciplinary Core Idea (DCI)

Arranged by Topic

The standards are also available on Scribd.

The NGSS are composed of the three dimensions from the NRC Framework. Click on the links to the left to learn more about the standards

Monitoring Progress Toward Successful K-12 STEM Education: A Nation Advancing?

http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13509&utm_medium=etmail&utm_source=The%20National%20Academies%20Press&utm_campaign=NAP%20mail%20new%2004.02.13&utm_content=customer&utm_term= 

"Following a 2011 report by the National Research Council (NRC) on successful K-12 education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), Congress asked the National Science Foundation to identify methods for tracking progress toward the report's recommendations. In response, the NRC convened the Committee on an Evaluation Framework for Successful K-12 STEM Education to take on this assignment. The committee developed 14 indicators linked to the 2011 report's recommendations. By providing a focused set of key indicators related to students' access to quality learning, educator's capacity, and policy and funding initiatives in STEM, the committee addresses the need for research and data that can be used to monitor progress in K-12 STEM education and make informed decisions about improving it.

The recommended indicators provide a framework for Congress and relevant deferral agencies to create and implement a national-level monitoring and reporting system that: assesses progress toward key improvements recommended by a previous National Research Council (2011) committee; measures student knowledge, interest, and participation in the STEM disciplines and STEM-related activities; tracks financial, human capital, and material investments in K-12 STEM education at the federal, state, and local levels; provides information about the capabilities of the STEM education workforce, including teachers and principals; and facilitates strategic planning for federal investments in STEM education and workforce development when used with labor force projections. All 14 indicators explained in this report are intended to form the core of this system. Monitoring Progress Toward Successful K-12 STEM Education: A Nation Advancing? summarizes the 14 indicators and tracks progress towards the initial report's recommendations."

Need a Job? Invent It

Need a Job? Invent It - http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/opinion/sunday/friedman-need-a-job-invent-it.html?_r=0

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: March 30, 2013   

WHEN Tony Wagner, the Harvard education specialist, describes his job today, he says he’s “a translator between two hostile tribes” — the education world and the business world, the people who teach our kids and the people who give them jobs. Wagner’s argument in his book “Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World” is that our K-12 and college tracks are not consistently “adding the value and teaching the skills that matter most in the marketplace.....................Every young person will continue to need basic knowledge, of course,” he said. “But they will need skills and motivation even more. Of these three education goals, motivation is the most critical. Young people who are intrinsically motivated — curious, persistent, and willing to take risks — will learn new knowledge and skills continuously."

      

Josh Haner/The New York Times

Thomas L. Friedman