The National Consortium of Secondary STEM Schools (NCSSS) has released its 2023 Insight Survey that highlights comparative data among the organization’s high school members, many that are among the top-performing STEM schools in the United States.
The survey focused on four specific areas: student representation in STEM classes, school resources and offerings, graduates’ college majors and outcomes, and faculty recruitment and retention. The study was underwritten by the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts, an NCSSS member institution.
NCSSS is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that represents premier high schools focused on STEM education, affiliate universities, corporations and foundations. Its mission is to serve as a resource for these members by supporting collaboration and knowledge sharing while amplifying the importance of STEM education to policy makers, industry and education leaders across the nation and around the world.
The study says that NCSSS member schools “offer exceptional and creative classes within STEM fields in addition to offering a wide breadth and depth of offerings in the humanities.” Programmatic, structural, academic and curricular resources are helping students succeed in competitive and academically challenging STEM fields, the study adds.
“NCSSS member schools are offering their students a wide breadth of resources within the curriculum and as functional spaces,” said Todd Mann, NCSSS executive director. “There are course offerings that are not in college catalogs being offered to high school students. Schools are quickly incorporating the latest technologies like AR, VR and gamification, and over 80 percent of responding schools have at least one type of innovation facility, like a maker space or digital arts lab, for student use.”
About 90 percent of schools who participated in the survey reported having teacher mentors, peer-to-peer mentors or both available for their students. The same number also reported offering in-person tutoring, virtual tutoring or both to their students. About 53 percent of school said faculty voluntary mentor student extracurricular opportunities.
These are important interactions that ensure successful outcomes for students. ASMSA and other schools have built a framework with that purpose in mind, ASMSA Director Corey Alderdice said.
“Schools like ASMSA are intentional in developing a variety of academic programs, support systems and other resources that help students learn to their full potential,” Alderdice said. “ASMSA’s Student Success Framework is an example of how faculty, academic advisors, live-in residential staff and mental health professionals work collaboratively with young people toward a shared vision for helping our students mature into young adults while also preparing for their future careers.”
Mann said he was pleased to see that member schools who responded to the survey were providing all students opportunities to take the highest math and science courses. Survey results showed that students enrolled in two math or two science courses at their school positively reflect the school’s enrollment across race/ethnicity, gender and student socioeconomic status.
“It was encouraging to see that of the schools that responded regarding enrollment in their highest math and double science or math classes, in almost all cases, the enrollment mirrored the population of the schools,” Mann said.
Alderdice said the survey provides important information not only for survey participants but for all NCSSS members.
“ASMSA is proud to continue our partnership with NCSSS by making the Insight Survey possible through underwriting support,” said Alderdice, who is currently serving a term as president of NCSSS’ Board of Directors. “In addition to the school’s longstanding commitment to advocacy for STEM education and the needs of gifted and talented students, we believe it is important to seek out information on how ASMSA and our NCSSS peer institutions are leading the way in creating dynamic programs that inspire the next generation of innovators.”
Click here to read more about the NCSSS Insight Survey. You may read the Executive Summary of the survey here.