The Philadelphia Regional STEM Teacher Talent Development Coalition
About Our Coalition
The Philadelphia Regional Institute for STEM Educators (PRISE) at Saint Joseph’s University (SJU) will establish and lead The Philadelphia Regional STEM Teacher Talent Development Coalition. The Coalition will consist of science, technology, engineering, mathematics and computer science stakeholders from K-12, higher education, government, and out-of-school time (OST)/community organizations.
The Coalition will strengthen the STEM teacher pipeline to increase the number of diverse STEM educators serving Philadelphia students. It will address two recommendations from the report, Citywide Strategy for Diverse and High-Quality Teachers: a) articulate pathways to teaching and b) facilitate early exposure to teaching for two identified high priority groups namely high school and college students.
The Coalition will conduct yearlong stakeholder convenings to develop a range of regional cross-sector partnerships and initiatives to address STEM teacher-specific challenges. The Coalition will gather data on regional STEM teacher diversity, surface financial support for pathway exploration, identify regional challenges, create a template for local and regional opportunities to diversify the STEM teacher pipeline, and develop subgroups to expand the Coalition and continue its work beyond the period of the grant.
PRISE and the Department of Education at SJU will operate as the lead partner in establishing the Coalition as a Workgroup of Philadelphia STEM Ecosystem at the Philadelphia Education Fund. The Region 4 Comprehensive Center will provide capacity-building and technical assistance. The Mayor’s Office of Education, the School District of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Workforce Development Board, and OST/community-based STEM organizations are tasked with fostering area partnerships and aligning organizational priorities to support STEM teacher talent development.
The Coalition work products will include:
• A STEM landscape analysis will surface promising practices, challenges, and gaps in the STEM teacher pipeline. The analysis will ground the work of the Coalition to identify practical goals and solutions to address challenges and to scale promising practices.
• Proposals for funding to support (1) high school and college student early teaching.
experiences and (2) STEM teacher certification pathways, that are aligned with Coalition proposed goals and solutions.
• Work agreements among higher educations, workforce, K-12s, and OST/community stakeholders to meet the goals set forth by the Coalition.
• Established subgroups to manifest the goals of the Coalition beyond the grant period.
For more information about the coalition, contact Project Director, Greer Richardson, [email protected]. For more information about PRISE go to https://prisephilly.org/. The Coalition is funded by the PA Department of Education Aspiring 2 Educate grant.