Challenges of STEM School Reform in Urban Contexts

• In Event: Five Years of Research: Inclusive STEM Schools as Vehicles for Improving Educational Opportunity

Abstract

In this paper we present findings from a three-year comparative longitudinal and ethnographic study of how high schools in two cities, Buffalo and Denver, have taken up STEM education reform, including the idea of “inclusive STEM-focused schools” (here defined as public high schools that are non-selective and self-identify as a “STEM school” or as a school with a distinct STEM program) to address weaknesses in urban districts with a history of struggling institutions. Although introduced with great fanfare, data indicate that well-meaning efforts towards expanding opportunities in STEM-focused schools for low-income underrepresented minorities, quickly dissolved. We focus on mechanisms that seem to underlie this dissolution and consider its contributions to short and long-term inequalities.

In addition to describing the ways in which a larger STEM school initiative took shape in two cities, we pay specific attention to the nature of math and science courses made available to high-achieving (ranked in the top 20% of the class in math and science as determined by math/science state test scores) low-income students of color in urban contexts with different approaches to improving STEM education. Data reported here are drawn from district and school documents; interviews conducted over a three year period at each school with relevant math or science teachers, counselors, and 96 high-achieving focal students in math and science; and observations in designated classrooms. Interviews with students, teachers, and counselors focused on their experiences and responses to STEM-related opportunities at their respective institutions. School documents included published 9th-12th grade course offerings, sequences, prerequisites, academies, and tracks. Official student transcripts provided data on courses taken, grades, and standardized test scores. Follow-up survey data for each of two years post high school provide data on college matriculation and major.

Although STEM curricular enhancements and STEM schools are a particularly hopeful version of reform (Successful K-12 STEM Education: Identifying Successful Approaches in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics,” NRC, 2011), in that the reform effort centers change on curricular enhancements, pedagogical improvements, and, in the case of inclusive STEM schools, increased opportunities for lower-income and underrepresented minority students (in contrast to other recent reform efforts that concentrate on increasing standardized testing and replacing teachers/ principals), data indicate that actualizing expected outcomes posed particular challenges.

Findings offer a cautionary tale with regard to the successful implementation of recent STEM school reform. Our study illuminates the ways in which attempts to enhance curricular opportunities for STEM can be quickly unraveled, compromised, or re-directed towards less promising ends. Although inclusive STEM-focused schools can potentially alter critical opportunity structures for STEM, other dimensions of urban schooling (multiple mandates imposed simultaneously, demoralized teachers and students, high turnover, resource limitations, etc.) can interrupt the positive momentum that curricular enhancements in STEM signal. Our study points to specific mechanisms wherein momentum for curricular enhancement was compromised, and, in some cases, eliminated. Understanding and addressing these mechanisms of dissolution can potentially prevent the quick collapse of an otherwise positive reform movement.

Authors

• Lois Weis, University at Buffalo - SUNY

• Margaret A. Eisenhart, University of Colorado - Boulder