The money is not all in the bank yet, but 100Kin10, an organization dedicated to training 100,000 STEM educators in 10 years, has shored up commitments from some big players such as AT&T, Chevron, Google, Dell and others to donate $28 million dollars to tackle systemic challenges in the STEM education field.
“For most of the pledges, the funding does not come directly to us. It is a pledge by the funders to support one or more of our 100Kin10 partner organizations. We are out raising funds for the partners,” says Talia Milgrom-Elcott, executive director and co-founder of 100Kin10, in an interview with EdSurge. “They should focus on one or more of the specific challenges in the consolation of challenges addressing difficulties keeping great STEM teachers.”
Some of the challenges include: helping districts identify high-quality computer science curriculum, finding time for PK-12 STEM teachers to collaborate during the school day, increasing the number of testing and accountability systems that promote PK-12 STEM teacher creativity, and providing scholarships or loan forgiveness for STEM college majors entering PK-12 STEM teaching jobs. 100Kin10 is working with organizations such as The American Federation of Teachers, AGILE Mind, Center for STEM Education and several others to address these issues.
“So often in social impact work, we go right to the symptoms. We see someone hurting, and we try to fix it but very rarely do we get a chance to go underneath that symptom and learn why this is happening,” says Milgrom-Elcott. “In mapping out the challenges, we see all of the interconnections and the organizations working on those issues.”
100Kin10 serves as an intermediary, building partnerships and securing grants to train STEM educators.
