STEM Education Guide: STEM vs. STEAM, Careers, Achievement, Computer Science and Activities for K-12 Schools

STEM education is the teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, increasingly with computer science counted among them, in ways that ask students to apply what they learn to real problems: investigating questions, designing and testing solutions, working with data and explaining their reasoning. The National Science Teachers Association describes it as “an experiential learning pedagogy in which the application of knowledge and skills are integrated” through projects or problems tied to college and career readiness. Schools invest in it partly because of the job market. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that employment in STEM occupations will grow 7.4 percent from 2025 to 2035, against 3.2 percent for all other occupations, and reports a 2025 median annual wage of $106,360 in STEM occupations compared with $49,050 in the rest (BLS Employment Projections). They also invest because students’ results have slipped. In the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress, the average science score for eighth graders was 4 points lower than in 2019, and 38 percent scored below the NAEP Basic level (The Nation’s Report Card); in the 2023 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, U.S. eighth graders’ average mathematics score fell 27 points from 2019 (National Center for Education Statistics, December 2024).

This guide to STEM education explains what STEM and STEAM are and how they differ, why schools invest in them, what national and international assessments show, who has access to advanced STEM and computer science courses, what research says about integrated and hands-on STEM teaching, what STEM activities look like at each grade band, how clubs, competitions and career and technical education fit in, where the teacher shortages are, how laboratory safety connects to all of it, and what federal and state policy currently requires. It is written for district and school leaders, STEM coordinators, career and technical education (CTE) directors and teachers, with a section for families. It covers K–12 education in the United States; college programs are outside its scope. Each section links to edCircuit’s more detailed coverage.

Updated October 2026.

In this guide

• The basics: What STEM education is · STEM vs. STEAM · Why schools invest: STEM careers
• Evidence: Student achievement in science and math · Access and equity · Computer science education · What research says about STEM teaching
• In schools: STEM activities by grade band · Clubs and competitions · Career and technical education · STEM teachers and staffing · Lab safety
• Policy and people: Federal and state policy · Families · Questions to ask

What is STEM education?

STEM education is instruction in science, technology, engineering and mathematics that connects the four fields and asks students to use them together, rather than a single new subject. Two definitions frame most American discussion of it.

• The federal definition. The STEM Education Act of 2015, approved October 7, 2015, defines “STEM education,” for activities at the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, NASA and several other science agencies, as education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics “including computer science” (Public Law 114-59). The law settled a practical question: computer science counts as STEM for those agencies’ grants and programs.
• The teaching definition. NSTA’s position statement, adopted by its board in February 2020, describes STEM as an integrated, applied way of learning and states that it is “not a single subject, and it should not replace other subjects.” Its recommendations call for high-quality K–12 STEM for all students, access to technology and materials, sustained professional learning for teachers, and partnerships with employers for mentoring and job shadowing.

The two definitions point to a distinction that matters for planning. A school can teach the STEM subjects well, as separate courses with strong content, without doing much STEM education in NSTA’s sense; and a school can run engaging integrated projects that leave gaps in core mathematics and science. The usual aim is both: solid disciplinary courses, plus regular chances for students to combine them on a problem. Federal education law also treats the subjects as part of a broad curriculum rather than a separate track. The Every Student Succeeds Act’s definition of a “well-rounded education” lists science, technology, engineering, mathematics, computer science, the arts and career and technical education among its subjects (20 U.S.C. 7801(52)).

edCircuit has written about STEM in schools since 2015. For the case for starting early and for treating STEM as more than four separate courses, see:

• STEM-STEAM: Not Just for High School
• STEM Is Not an Acronym – Science, Technology, Engineering, Math
• STEM Education Is Workforce Readiness

STEM vs. STEAM: what is the difference?

STEAM adds the arts, and in some versions the humanities, to science, technology, engineering and mathematics; STEM education does not include them by name. The difference is less about subjects than about emphasis. STEAM programs stress design, creativity and communication alongside technical skill, often through projects in which students build something, present it and explain the science or mathematics behind it.

NSTA’s own STEM statement leans toward that view. It says STEM education leaders should go beyond a combination of the four disciplines “to include the arts and humanities (i.e., STEAM),” and argues that communicating ideas precisely, defending arguments with evidence and creating visual or digital models “require students to have a strong foundation in language and creative arts.” Federal law, by contrast, has no separate definition of STEAM; the arts appear in the Every Student Succeeds Act’s list of well-rounded subjects, beside the STEM fields rather than inside them.

The rows are a reading aid, not an official classification; the terms are used loosely and many schools use them interchangeably. For a district, the useful question is not which label to adopt but what students will actually do: whether the arts are part of the thinking in a project or added at the end, and whether integrated units still teach the mathematics and science students need for the next course. The research on integrated approaches, including STEAM, is discussed in What research says about STEM teaching. edCircuit’s STEAM coverage includes classroom accounts from teachers:

• New Tools For Supporting the 4Cs In STEAM, a sixth-grade science teacher’s account of design and media tools used in STEAM projects
• Connecting the Arts and STEAM Education through Country Music
• How Recent Space Missions Can Inspire STEAM Learning
• STEAM for Students with Additional Needs

Why do schools invest in STEM? What the job data show

Schools invest in STEM because STEM occupations are growing faster than other work and pay more, and because a strong grounding in mathematics and science in school predicts whether students finish STEM degrees later. How large the STEM workforce appears depends on the definition used, and the two main federal sources use different ones.

• The narrower count (Bureau of Labor Statistics). BLS counts computer and mathematical, architecture and engineering, and life and physical science occupations, with related managers, postsecondary teachers and technical sales jobs. By that definition there were about 10.9 million STEM jobs in 2025, projected to reach about 11.7 million by 2035, growth of 7.4 percent compared with 3.2 percent for non-STEM occupations and 3.5 percent overall (BLS, Table 1.11).
• The broader count (National Science Board). The National Science Board’s Science and Engineering Indicators, prepared by the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, also counts health occupations such as nursing and “middle-skill” technical jobs such as electricians and carpenters. By that definition there were 36 million STEM workers in 2023, 25 percent of the U.S. workforce; the STEM workforce grew 26 percent between 2013 and 2023, against 9 percent for the rest of the workforce; and full-time, year-round STEM workers had median earnings of $76,000, compared with $55,000 for non-STEM workers (National Science Board, STEM Talent: Education, Training, and Workforce, February 12, 2026).

The broader count carries a point that matters for schools: STEM careers do not all require a bachelor’s degree. In the Board’s figures, about half of STEM workers did not have a bachelor’s degree, and 63 percent of those worked in STEM middle-skill occupations; 36 percent of all STEM workers were in middle-skill jobs. The report notes that career and technical education and apprenticeships leading to credentials are another path into STEM work. A few examples of STEM careers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook, using its current 2025–35 projections:

A high growth rate in a small occupation adds fewer jobs than a modest rate in a large one, so the percentages are best read alongside the number of openings the Handbook lists for each occupation. Projections are also estimates, revised every year; the Board’s report, for example, used the previous BLS projection of 6 percent STEM growth from 2024 to 2034.

The link between school and later STEM success is clearest in mathematics. Among students who scored in the highest fifth on a grade 11 mathematics assessment and declared a STEM major in college, 71 percent completed a STEM degree, compared with 34 percent of those in the lowest fifth, the National Science Board reports. That is an association, not proof that the grade 11 score caused the outcome, but it explains why so many STEM plans begin with mathematics. edCircuit’s coverage of STEM careers and career exploration:

• STEM Education Is Workforce Readiness
• Centering Student Career Exploration
• Essential EdTech Skills for Careers in Computer Science
• Women in STEM: The Scully Effect

How are U.S. students doing in science and math?

U.S. students’ science and mathematics results fell during the pandemic years and have not recovered, and the drop has been steepest for the lowest-performing students. The main national and international measures:

• NAEP science, grade 8 (tested 2024). The average score was 4 points lower than in 2019 and not significantly different from 2009. Thirty-one percent of eighth graders performed at or above NAEP Proficient, 4 percentage points fewer than in 2019, and 38 percent scored below NAEP Basic, 5 points more (The Nation’s Report Card). Scores fell at every reported percentile, but more for lower performers, and the 10th and 25th percentile scores were the lowest ever reported on the assessment. Boys outscored girls by 2 points, a gap that had not been statistically significant in 2019 (National Assessment Governing Board).
• NAEP mathematics, grades 4, 8 and 12 (tested 2024). Fourth graders’ average score rose 2 points from 2022, and 39 percent performed at or above Proficient (The Nation’s Report Card). Compared with 2019, though, fourth graders remained 3 points lower and eighth graders 8 points lower, and the gap between students at the 10th and 90th percentiles was the widest at both grades since the assessment began in 1990. Twelfth graders’ average was 3 points below 2019 and lower than in any year since the current framework began in 2005 (National Science Board, 2026).
• TIMSS 2023. Between 2019 and 2023, U.S. fourth graders’ average mathematics score fell 18 points and eighth graders’ fell 27; science scores showed no measurable change at either grade. Fourth graders at the 10th percentile lost 37 points in mathematics and 22 in science. NCES Commissioner Peggy G. Carr noted that the U.S. score at the 10th percentile in fourth-grade mathematics “was the lowest in the roughly 30-year history of the assessment.”

Internationally, U.S. students do better in science than in mathematics. In TIMSS 2023, the number of education systems that scored higher than the United States was:

Source: NCES, December 4, 2024. Among the 18 advanced economies that took part at grade 8, 13 had higher average mathematics scores than the United States and 8 had higher science scores, according to the National Science Board.

Two further NAEP findings bear directly on how STEM is taught. First, fewer eighth graders in 2024 than in 2019 said they often or always did science inquiry activities; the share using experimental evidence to explain why something happens fell 5 percentage points, and the share using information to disagree with someone about a scientific idea fell 4 points (National Assessment Governing Board). Second, in the 2024 mathematics assessment, students taught by teachers with six or more years of experience, and students taught by teachers with traditional rather than alternative certification, scored higher, and students in schools with extracurricular mathematics activities such as mathematics clubs and competitions scored higher than those in schools without them (National Science Board, 2026). These are associations rather than proof of cause, but they point to the same levers this guide returns to: hands-on investigation, experienced teachers and activities beyond the classroom.

For one district’s approach to science intervention that keeps grade-level content while adjusting how students reach it, see edCircuit’s Low Floor, High Ceiling: Finding Science Intervention That Meets Every Student at Their Level.

Who has access to STEM courses?

Most public high schools offer the basic mathematics and science sequence, but fewer offer physics, calculus and computer science, and access to the full range of courses differs by students’ race and ethnicity and by school. The most complete count comes from the federal Civil Rights Data Collection for 2020–21, which covered about 26,200 public high schools enrolling about 17 million students. As summarized by the National Science Board (2026):

• Course offerings. More than 80 percent of public high schools offered algebra I, algebra II, geometry and biology; 75 percent offered chemistry; 67 percent offered advanced mathematics; and 61 percent offered physics. Fewer than half offered calculus or computer science.
• Who had the full range. Sixty-nine percent of Asian students, 55 percent of White students, 51 percent of Hispanic students and 47 percent of Black students attended high schools that offered a full range of mathematics, science and computer science courses.
• Calculus. About 35 percent of schools where more than three-quarters of students were Black or Hispanic offered calculus, compared with 54 percent of schools where fewer than a quarter were.
• Advanced Placement. About 2.9 million public high school students took at least one AP course in mathematics, science or computer science. Black students were 15 percent of high school enrollment but 8 percent of students in AP science and 6 percent in AP mathematics.

Access also differs by geography and school size. The National Science Board reports that in 2024 eighth graders in suburban and rural schools scored higher in NAEP mathematics than those in towns and cities. Code.org’s 2025 report, discussed in the next section, found that rural and urban schools, schools with many students receiving free meals, and small schools with fewer than 500 students are less likely to offer computer science.

Participation in the workforce shows a related gap. Of the 36 million workers in the STEM workforce in 2023, 65 percent were men; men made up 73 percent of workers in science and engineering occupations and 89 percent in STEM middle-skill occupations, while women were 65 percent of workers in science- and engineering-related occupations such as nursing (National Science Board, 2026). The reappearance of a small gender gap in NAEP eighth-grade science, noted above, is one reason the question has returned to district agendas. For a district, the practical steps follow from the data: check which advanced courses each high school actually offers and how many students from each group enroll, look at whether middle school mathematics placement closes doors to calculus later, and treat course access as a planning question rather than a matter of student choice alone. edCircuit has covered access gaps and efforts to close them:

• Closing the STEM Opportunity Gap with All-Access Video
• Not All Hands-On Learning Is Created Equal
• Women in STEM: The Scully Effect

Computer science education: who offers it, and who takes it?

About six in ten U.S. public high schools now offer a foundational computer science course, but only about 6 percent of high school students take one, and access has stopped growing except in states that require computer science for graduation. Those figures come from the 2025 State of AI + Computer Science Education report by Code.org and its partners, whose data were finalized on December 1, 2025. Its main findings:

• Access. Sixty percent of public high schools offered foundational computer science in 2024–25, the same share as the year before. The report says access “has plateaued” outside states with graduation requirements.
• Participation. In the states reporting data, 6.1 percent of high school students took foundational computer science in 2024–25, down slightly from 6.4 percent.
• Girls. Young women made up 34 percent of foundational computer science students, up from 32.5 percent the previous year. Tennessee, in its third year of a graduation requirement, reported that young women were 42 percent of computer science enrollment.
• Graduation requirements. Twelve states had a computer science graduation requirement as of 2025; West Virginia was the only state to adopt one that year. In the report’s comparison, participation in states with a requirement reached 10.4 percent in 2024–25, against 5.3 percent in states without one.
• Artificial intelligence. No state required AI and computer science for graduation; 4 of 50 states emphasized AI in their computer science standards; 5 provided professional development funding for AI and computer science; and 17 had guidance describing computer science as fundamental to AI.

The Code.org figure of 60 percent and the federal figure of fewer than half of high schools offering computer science in 2020–21, cited in the previous section, measure different things in different years: Code.org counts schools offering at least one foundational course using state data, while the Civil Rights Data Collection asks schools directly. A district comparing itself with either should use the same definition for its own count.

International results suggest room for improvement. In the 2023 International Computer and Information Literacy Study, 16 of the 33 education systems in the computer and information literacy assessment scored higher than the United States, and 14 of 23 scored higher in computational thinking, which includes programming. U.S. girls scored higher than boys in computer and information literacy, with no measurable difference in computational thinking (National Science Board, 2026).

Definitions matter here as well. In its April 2026 grant priority on artificial intelligence, the U.S. Department of Education defined computer science as the study of computers and algorithmic processes, including hardware and software design, computational thinking, coding, machine learning and AI, and added that it “does not involve using computers for everyday tasks,” such as browsing or using word processors and spreadsheets (Federal Register doc. 2026-07087). A keyboarding or productivity-software class, in other words, is not a computer science course, however useful it may be. edCircuit’s computer science coverage:

• Why Computer Science Should Be a Core Subject in K12
• Computer Science Education Week: Why It Matters in 2025
• 5 Resources to Support Coding in the Classroom
• 3 Keys to Creativity and Computer Science
• AI in Education: A Guide for Schools and Colleges

What does research say about integrated and hands-on STEM teaching?

Research supports having students investigate and design as a regular part of STEM learning, and reviews of integrated STEM programs find generally positive effects on knowledge and skills; but the effects depend on how integration is done, results for mathematics are weaker, and the quality of many studies limits strong claims. The main sources, in order of publication:

• Guidance versus discovery, 2006. In a widely cited review in Educational Psychologist, Paul Kirschner, John Sweller and Richard Clark argued that minimally guided instruction, in which students are left to discover concepts largely on their own, is less effective and less efficient for novice learners than instruction with strong guidance, and that the advantage of guidance shrinks only as learners gain enough prior knowledge to guide themselves (Kirschner, Sweller and Clark, 2006). The paper is a caution against hands-on activity without explicit teaching, not against hands-on activity as such.
• National Academies, 2014. A committee of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Research Council reviewed the research on integrated STEM in STEM Integration in K-12 Education. It reported a 2001 meta-analysis by Hurley of 31 studies comparing integrated mathematics and science instruction with non-integrated instruction, which found positive effects on scores in mathematics (effect size .27) and science (.37), with large differences depending on the model of integration; parallel instruction produced a small negative effect in science. The committee concluded that integration can increase conceptual learning in the disciplines but that the benefit is less evident in mathematics, that findings on whether it builds interest in continuing in STEM “are mixed,” and that concerns about study design and reporting “hamper the ability to make strong claims.”
• National Academies, 2019. A later consensus report, Science and Engineering for Grades 6-12: Investigation and Design at the Center, identified engaging in science investigation and engineering design as one of the effective practices that help students learn, and observed that current approaches in many classrooms do not reflect it.
• Chen et al., 2025. A meta-analysis in Review of Educational Research of 124 studies published from 2010 to 2022 found that integrated STEM interventions had a medium effect on students’ knowledge acquisition and a small effect on their perceptions, such as attitudes toward STEM; adopting integrated STEM had a large effect on cognitive skills. The authors noted that the type of task and the length of the program may influence outcomes (Chen, Chen, Wang, Tsai and Kirschner, 2025).
• STEAM, 2025. Evidence on STEAM specifically is thinner. A 2025 systematic review in the Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education found positive effects on learning achievement, affective factors and skills, but it rested on 15 articles, all published after 2019 (Amanova et al., 2025).

Read together, the sources support a measured conclusion. Investigation and design belong at the center of science and engineering teaching, and integrated units can deepen understanding when they are planned around clear learning goals, last long enough and include explicit teaching. They do not show that any project labeled STEM or STEAM will raise achievement, that integration is a substitute for sequenced mathematics instruction, or that activity alone produces learning. The NAEP data add a practical warning: the share of eighth graders who regularly use experimental evidence in science class fell between 2019 and 2024, so the most common problem may be too little investigation rather than too much.

Time is the other constraint, especially in elementary school. In the 2018 National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education, self-contained K–6 classes averaged a little more than 20 minutes a day of science, compared with about 90 minutes of English language arts and about 60 of mathematics; in grades 3–5, classes taught by a science specialist averaged 46 minutes a day, against 24 in self-contained classrooms (Horizon Research, 2018 NSSME+ data brief). Integrated units are one way elementary schools try to fit more science and engineering into a crowded day. edCircuit’s coverage of hands-on and inquiry-based STEM:

• Bring STEM to Life with Hands-On Learning
• Not All Hands-On Learning Is Created Equal
• Scientific Learning: Phenomena and Questions
• Phenomena-Based Learning and Digital Content

What do STEM activities look like at each grade?

Good STEM activities ask students to do what scientists and engineers do at a level suited to their age: ask a question or define a problem, gather evidence or build something, test it, and explain what happened. The Next Generation Science Standards, the basis for many states’ science standards, set engineering design expectations by grade band, which give a useful frame. At kindergarten to grade 2, for example, students are expected to “analyze data from tests of two objects designed to solve the same problem” and compare how each performs; by grades 3–5, to “define a simple design problem reflecting a need or a want” that includes criteria for success and constraints on materials, time or cost. Typical classroom examples by grade band, none of which requires a commercial kit:

• Kindergarten to grade 2. Observing and recording the weather, plant growth or shadows over several weeks; sorting objects by properties and counting or graphing them; sketching and building a simple tool or structure, such as a shelter for a toy animal, and comparing two designs; noticing patterns in the natural world and describing them aloud. edCircuit’s STEM-STEAM: Not Just for High School describes a kindergarten snack-time lesson on simple machines, built around an apple corer, that brings in counting and fractions.
• Grades 3 to 5. Fair-test investigations in which students change one variable at a time, such as the angle of a ramp or the type of insulation around a container; design challenges with stated criteria and constraints, such as a bridge that must hold a set weight with limited materials; collecting and graphing data and explaining the result; and early programming with block-based tools, often linked to mathematics.
• Middle school. Longer investigations built around an observable phenomenon students try to explain; engineering projects that go through several rounds of testing and redesign; analyzing real data sets, such as local weather or water-quality records; and introductory computer science and robotics.
• High school. Laboratory investigations designed partly by students; capstone engineering or research projects; computer science courses that include building programs for real users; data science and statistics applied to questions students choose; and work-based learning and internships through CTE programs. For examples of how arts and design fit in at this level, see New Tools For Supporting the 4Cs In STEAM.

Several choices matter more than the particular activity. The activity should have a learning goal beyond “doing STEM,” so that students come away knowing a specific idea or skill. It should give students real decisions to make, such as which variable to test or which design to try next. It should include teaching: the 2006 and 2014 research above both point to the cost of leaving novices to discover ideas alone. And it should end with explanation, in writing or in talk, in which students use evidence. For seasonal and event-based ideas, edCircuit has published Get Ready for National STEM/STEAM Day: Classroom Ideas That Inspire Every Learner, a list of 10 Great Movies for the STEM Classroom, and profiles of the pioneers who shaped STEM and STEAM that teachers use to introduce scientists and engineers from many backgrounds.

STEM clubs and competitions

Clubs and competitions give students time with STEM that a class schedule rarely allows: weeks of building, testing and repairing something, often on a team with an adult mentor and a deadline. Some of the programs are very large. FIRST, founded in 1989 by inventor Dean Kamen, held its first FIRST Robotics Competition in 1992 with 28 high school teams in a New Hampshire school gymnasium (FIRST). In the 2024–25 season, FIRST reported more than 650,000 students ages 4 to 16 in 77 countries in FIRST LEGO League, more than 109,000 students ages 12 to 18 in FIRST Tech Challenge, and more than 93,000 students in 35 countries in the 2025 FIRST Robotics Competition (FIRST at a glance). Other national programs cover coding, drones, engineering and science research; edCircuit’s club articles name many of them.

The evidence on clubs is mostly descriptive, and districts should be cautious about claims that a club by itself raises achievement. The National Science Board’s finding that students in schools with extracurricular mathematics activities scored higher on NAEP is an association; schools that offer such activities may differ in other ways. What clubs clearly provide is access to equipment, mentors and sustained projects, which is also why who joins matters. A club that draws mainly students who already have STEM experience at home can widen gaps rather than narrow them, so leaders should look at membership by grade, gender and school, recruit actively, and keep costs for travel and equipment from deciding who can take part.

Clubs also bring practical obligations: adult supervision during long after-school sessions, safety training for tools, batteries and soldering equipment, storage and maintenance, and, for drone programs, attention to Federal Aviation Administration rules. edCircuit covers each kind of club:

• Robotics Clubs in Schools Are Shaping Future Innovators
• Coding Clubs in Schools Build Future Innovators
• Drone Clubs in Schools Are Launching Future Careers
• The Rise of Robotics: Why Every School Needs a Robotics Club

How does career and technical education connect to STEM?

Career and technical education is one of the main routes into STEM work, particularly the technical and middle-skill occupations that do not require a bachelor’s degree, and its federal funding law names STEM directly. The law is the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act, known as Perkins V, signed on July 31, 2018 (Texas Education Agency summary). Three of its provisions are most relevant to STEM planning:

• What CTE is. The law defines career and technical education as organized educational activities that, among other requirements, provide “technical skill proficiency or a recognized postsecondary credential” (20 U.S.C. 2302(5)).
• Programs of study. It defines a program of study as “a coordinated, nonduplicative sequence of academic and technical content at the secondary and postsecondary level” that culminates in a recognized postsecondary credential (20 U.S.C. 2302(41)). For STEM, that means a high school engineering, information technology or health science sequence is meant to connect to a community college or other postsecondary program, not end at graduation.
• STEM in state leadership funds. Among the permissible uses of the funds states reserve for state leadership, the law lists support for programs that increase access, student engagement and success in “science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields (including computer science, coding, and architecture)” (20 U.S.C. 2344(b)(16)). The same law’s definition of “non-traditional fields” names careers in computer science and technology.

The National Science Board’s workforce data show why the connection matters: about half of STEM workers do not hold a bachelor’s degree, and in rural areas a larger share of workers are in STEM middle-skill occupations (13 percent) than in urban areas (9 percent). For a district, the practical work is to align CTE programs of study with STEM courses so that students do not have to choose between the two, to make sure CTE pathways include the mathematics that technical credentials require, and to treat laboratory and shop safety as a shared responsibility of science and CTE departments. edCircuit’s coverage of CTE and STEM safety training:

• Safety Training in STEM and CTE Programs a Necessity
• STEM Education Is Workforce Readiness
• Drone Clubs in Schools Are Launching Future Careers

Is there a STEM teacher shortage?

Schools report particular difficulty hiring physical science teachers, and fewer people are earning undergraduate degrees in science and mathematics teacher education than a decade ago. National figures:

• Hard-to-fill positions. Entering the 2024–25 school year, 74 percent of public schools had difficulty filling one or more teaching vacancies with a fully certified teacher, down from 79 percent the year before. Among schools with a vacancy in the subject, 71 percent of middle and combined schools and 66 percent of high schools found physical science positions hard to fill (NCES School Pulse Panel, October 17, 2024).
• Certification. In the same survey, schools filled 83 percent of mathematics vacancies, 81 percent of biology or life science vacancies, 78 percent of computer science vacancies, and 77 percent of both physical science and CTE vacancies with fully certified teachers.
• The pipeline. The number of bachelor’s degrees awarded in science and mathematics teacher education fell from 4,874 in 2013 to 3,306 in 2023; by 2023, more such degrees were awarded at the master’s level than at the bachelor’s (National Science Board, 2026).

The shortage matters for results as well as staffing. As noted above, 2024 NAEP mathematics scores were higher for students taught by teachers with more experience and with traditional certification. Districts have several levers: growing their own teachers through partnerships with teacher preparation programs, offering pay or incentives in hard-to-staff subjects, helping existing teachers earn added certification in computer science or physics, and supporting new STEM teachers, who often inherit laboratories and equipment without training. edCircuit’s coverage of new STEM teachers includes New Teachers, Real Risks: Safer STEM Strategies for Today’s Classrooms and Better Science and STEM Safety Approaches for New Teachers.

How does lab safety fit into STEM programs?

Hands-on STEM means chemicals, heat, tools, batteries and moving parts in classrooms, and a STEM program is only as sound as the training, space and supervision behind it. NSTA’s position statement on safety, revised in April 2024, says science safety training “should occur on an annual basis” and that “classes containing more than 24 students engaged in science activities cannot safely be supervised by one teacher.” It also encourages districts not covered by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Laboratory Standard to follow it anyway. The same questions apply to makerspaces, robotics rooms and CTE shops, which are sometimes planned as classrooms and equipped as workshops.

edCircuit’s Lab Safety Guide covers the subject in depth. Related articles:

• Safer STEM: Building a Culture of Confidence in Every Science Classroom
• Building Safer STEM Classrooms: Identifying Lab Hazards
• STEM Lab Storage Safety: When Storage Becomes Risk
• Occupancy Load in STEAM Instructional Spaces

What do federal and state policy say about STEM?

STEM education in the United States is governed mainly by states and districts, which set standards, graduation requirements and course offerings; federal law defines terms, funds programs and sets grant priorities. The main reference points, in order of date:

The April 2026 notice is one of several supplemental priorities the department has issued since September 2025; the same issue of the Federal Register carried a final priority on career pathways and workforce readiness. Supplemental priorities shape which applicants score well in federal discretionary grant competitions. They do not by themselves require districts to teach anything. Districts should also read their own state’s science and mathematics standards, graduation requirements and any computer science plan directly; the summaries here are limited to the laws and reports this guide examined and do not cover every state.

What should families know about STEM education?

Families can make a real difference in STEM at a few decision points: early curiosity, middle school course placement and high school course choices. Practical steps:

• Treat questions as the start of science. Cooking, building, gardening, fixing things and noticing the weather are all chances to ask why something happened and how to find out. None requires special equipment.
• Ask about mathematics placement early. Because the mathematics sequence decides who can reach calculus and many STEM majors, families should ask in middle school which courses their child is placed in, why, and how a student can move up.
• Ask what the high school offers. Nationally, fewer than half of high schools offered calculus or computer science in 2020–21, so families should check which advanced courses, CTE pathways and dual-credit options their child’s school actually has.
• Look beyond the four-year degree. About half of STEM workers do not have a bachelor’s degree. CTE programs of study, community college programs and apprenticeships lead to technical careers in fields from energy to health care.
• Encourage girls and students who doubt themselves. Girls take part in computer science at lower rates than boys, and a small gender gap reappeared in NAEP eighth-grade science in 2024. Families can encourage them to try a computer science course or a STEM club.
• Ask about safety. For laboratory work, clubs and makerspaces, families can ask how students are supervised and trained and what safety equipment is used.

For families, the most useful questions are often simple: what is my child investigating or building in science this year, which mathematics course comes next and what does it lead to, and what opportunities exist outside class? edCircuit’s Women in STEM: The Scully Effect and its club articles, listed above, are written with families as well as educators in mind.

Questions to ask about STEM education in your schools

For school and district leaders

• Which advanced mathematics, science and computer science courses does each of our high schools offer, and how does enrollment in them compare across student groups?
• How many minutes a week do our elementary students spend on science, and does that time include investigation and design?
• How do our state assessment results in science and mathematics compare with 2019, especially for our lowest-performing students?
• Does our state require computer science for graduation, and does every high school offer at least one foundational computer science course that meets the definition of computer science rather than general computer use?
• Are our CTE programs of study aligned with our STEM courses, and do they lead to recognized postsecondary credentials?
• Which STEM positions are hardest for us to fill, and what are we doing to grow, certify and keep teachers in physics, chemistry and computer science?
• Who joins our STEM clubs and competitions, and do costs or schedules keep any students out?
• Do our laboratories, makerspaces and shops meet current safety guidance on training, class size and supervision?

For teachers and STEM coordinators

• Do my students regularly use evidence from their own investigations to explain why something happens?
• Does each project have a clear learning goal, and do I teach the key ideas explicitly rather than expecting students to discover them alone?
• Do integrated or STEAM units still teach the mathematics and science students need for their next course?
• Do I give students real decisions to make, such as what to test or how to redesign?
• Which students rarely speak, lead a group or choose an advanced option, and what am I doing to change that?
• Have I had current safety training for the equipment and materials I use, and is my class size safe for the activity planned?

Building STEM that lasts

STEM education rests on a straightforward idea: students learn science, technology, engineering and mathematics best when they also use them to investigate and solve problems. The evidence supports that idea with conditions attached. Investigation and design help when they come with clear goals and explicit teaching; integration helps when it does not crowd out sequenced mathematics; clubs and CTE widen opportunity when every student can reach them. The national data point to where the work is most urgent: recovering mathematics and science achievement among the lowest-performing students, opening advanced and computer science courses in every high school, staffing physical science and computer science classrooms with trained teachers, and keeping hands-on learning safe. Districts that plan for those conditions give their students both the knowledge and the experience that STEM careers, and citizenship in a technical world, now ask of them.

Related reading

• Bring STEM to Life with Hands-On Learning
• STEM Education Is Workforce Readiness
• Robotics Clubs in Schools Are Shaping Future Innovators
• Lab Safety Guide

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