The journey to a thorough understanding your state's system of MSTE - and your beliefs regarding it - is long. Moreover, it's a journey that must be repeated periodically, because both system and beliefs keep changing.
NASSMC has developed state-and-time-specific tools to help coalition leaders to start themselves and others down that path. While generic versions of those tools (or specific examples designed for other states) suffer from quickly outdated data and the reduced impact that is a consequence of posing general or "not-in-my-state" issues, they provide the conceptual bases on which to build relevant revisions. NASSMC can assist states with that work.
A Self-Assessment Exercise:
The State's Status and My Beliefs/Expectations
Diversity of knowledge and viewpoint about MSTE is a, if not the, fundamental requirement of an effective coalition. Mustering that diversity in pursuit of a shared mission is the challenge. NASSMC has found that a simple MSTE self-assessment exercise helps individuals both to clarify for themselves what they know and believe and to begin a productive dialogue with others. This is a generic version of data-documented "quizzes" that NASSMC has developed for several states.
A State-Assessment Exercise:
Identifying, Measuring, and Questioning Indicators of the State's MSTE Status
NASSMC prepared this MSTE status document for leaders in the State of Michigan in January 1999. The report serves three important functions: (1) it identifies a broad range of indictors for measuring the status of MSTE in the state, (2) it presents current measures of those indicators along with the sources of the data, and (3) it presents caveats intended to induce thoughtful evaluation of the measures and to raise questions about the need for better or additional data. It is shared here as an example by permission of the Michigan Science and Mathematics Alliance.
A Policy-Assessment Exercise: Examining a State's Education Policy Package Affecting MSTE
Coherent education policy is at the hub of a 11-spoke wheel of key elements of a state system of MSTE, so coalition leaders must have a broad understanding of the state's current policy package. In states where a key element of the MSTE system has become the focus of legislative attention, general understand may need to be supplemented by a special-focus audit of state education policy.
A System-Assessment Exercise:
Examining the Status of the State's MSTE Infrastructure
The Education Commission of the States, in collaboration with NASSMC, has developed a tool for measuring the status of a state's system of education.. It groups the twelve key elements of a system into six major components and provides indictors with which to locate each of those components on along a scale of five levels of development.