NSTA has joined education colleagues—including the Campaign to Invest in America’s Workforce, Coalition for Health Funding, Coalition on Human Needs, and the Committee for Education Funding—to sign on to a letter asking representatives to increase overall funding for the Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 Labor-Health and Human Services-Education appropriations.

NSTA also joined the national Title II coalition, which includes the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP), American Federation of School Administrators (AFSA), Learning Forward, and New Leaders, in a sign-on letter advocating for $2.4 billion, a 10% increase, in FY 2025 for the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) Title II funding. More information on Title II, which helps retain, recruit, and develop teachers and school leaders, can be found here.

Lastly, NSTA signed on to the letter to Congressional leaders detailing FY 25 appropriations priorities to increase federal investments in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education programs. Read the letter here. 

Congratulations to NSTA CEO Erika Shugart, who was recently selected by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine to serve on the Collaborative for Advancing Science Teaching and Learning in K–12. This group is tasked with developing evidence-based policies and practices for implementing and supporting state-level science standards, based on A Framework for K–12 Science Education. 

Recent global standardized test scores show that students in the United States are, in fact, lagging behind their peers in other wealthy nations when it comes to math. But America’s students are performing better than average in science compared with learners in these other countries. Read the report here. 

New federal data has given researchers some cause for optimism, suggesting efforts to make teaching more financially viable with strategies such as paying student teachers have helped to move the needle. Read the article from The 74. 

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) recently published their 2023 progress report on the implementation of the federal STEM education strategic plan. The report includes an inventory of all federal STEM investments and the FY 2022 federal STEM portfolio, sorted by agency and program. Read the report here. 

Stay tuned for more advocacy and policy updates in future issues of NSTA Reports.

The mission of NSTA is to transform science education to benefit all through professional learning, partnerships, and advocacy.