The hot parlor game recently among education advocates is whether the reauthorized version of No Child Left Behind will make it across the finish line this fall amid the turmoil in Congress and the unexpected departure of Education Secretary Arne Duncan at the end of the year.

Despite this, and the fact that members of the conference committee have yet to be named and the growing number of pressing issues Congress has to address in the next few weeks, Congressional education leaders (Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., plus Reps. John Kline, R-Minn, and Bobby Scott, D-Va., ) and their staff are diligently working on the differences between the House and Senate bills and hope to get compromise legislation that can be approved by both House conservatives and the Administration.

One big issue addressed last week was the accountability features in the legislation. A roundtable of prominent Senators and Administration officials called on law makers to ensure the new ESEA will help schools with low student achievement rates.

The Senate’s bipartisan bill, the Every Child Achieves Act (S.1177), contains a provision (S. 1177, Title II E, Section 2005) that would provide targeted funding to states for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education programs. However, the partisan House bill, the Student Success Act (H.R. 5), does not have a dedicated program for STEM.

Thanks to the support from many STEM education advocates, the final House Dear Colleague letter supporting the Senate language with dedicated STEM funding in the final ESEA conference bill garnered signatures from both sides of the aisle. Thirty four House members—9 Republicans and 25 Democrats–signed the Hanna-Courtney Dear Colleague.  NSTA and the STEM Ed Coalition worked with Rep. Richard Hanna (R-NY) and Rep. Joe Courtney (D-CT) to organize the bipartisan “Dear Colleague” letter.

STEM Education Act Is Now Law

President Obama signed the STEM Education Act into law last week. The bipartisan bill 1) officially adds computer science to the definition of STEM subjects for the National Science Foundation and other science agencies, 2) reaffirms NSF’s commitment to informal STEM education by reauthorizing certain informal STEM research priorities; and 3) expands eligibility for some categories of teachers for the prestigious NSF Noyce Teacher Scholarship program for STEM educators. Read more.

Jodi Peterson is Assistant Executive Director of Legislative Affairs for the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and Chair of the STEM Education Coalition. e-mail Jodi at jpeterson@nsta.org; follow her on Twitter at @stemedadvocate.

The mission of NSTA is to promote excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all.

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