Coalition Start-up Services

In some states, individuals already actively engaged in efforts to improve mathematics, science, and technology education (MSTE) are facing questions about how to scale-up their work and to refine and sustain it over time. In such states, NASSMC works to achieve a shared understanding of the current status of the state's system of MSTE, to accomplish a change of focus from improving specific components of the system to improving the system itself, to determine how business-education-policy coalition might add significantly to the effectiveness of individual efforts, and to engage a core group of leaders in establishing a collaborative effort. Actions that have proved effective in helping states to reach these outcomes include, but are not restricted to, some combination of the following.

• Identify state leaders from the business, education, and policy sectors who are engaged in independent efforts to improve MSTE.
• Conduct and summarize interviews of state leaders from the business, education, and policy sectors to sample leaders' perceptions of MSTE problems and the actions necessary to solve them.
• Assemble national and state data on a broad range of indicators that describe the nature and performance of the state's system of MSTE.
• Generate an organized summary of education policy that currently governs the state's system of MSTE and work with state policymakers to identify anticipated changes in that policy.
• Prepare, or help state leaders prepare, a state-specific MSTE Indicators Report that assesses both the state's MSTE status and the quality of the data used to make the assessment.
• Convene state leaders to examine the dimensions and status of the state's system of reform using an instrument developed by NASSMC and the Education Commission of the States.
• Provide information on the nature of and rationale for a coalition.
• Convene state leaders to consider the available data on MSTE and to define a course of action for a state coalition.

These services are provided by NASSMC staff, by members of existing state coalitions, and by representatives of organizations that are partnering with NASSMC. They have been financed through a combination of federal agencies, private foundations, and state sources.