In 1957, the Soviet Union made history by launching Sputnik, the world's first man-made satellite, into orbit. The achievement put America's sense of technological supremacy into question.

In This Lesson

What is STEM?

Are California students behind in math?

Are students expected to learn Algebra?

How does California perform in math and science?

What are the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)?

What is the California Science Test?

How are California students doing in science?

Do science teachers have good curriculum materials?

Do California schools teach coding and programming?

How do schools recruit good STEM teachers?

How can students learn STEM online?

What is STEAM?

---

▶ Watch the video summary

★ Discussion Guide

In response, America invested in education. It built a long-term pipeline of rocket scientists and won the race to the moon. It also invested in colleges, scholarships, and educational programs. It worked, and other nations followed suit.

As described in Ed100 Lesson 1.3, technological innovation has changed the nature of work, and the changes are global. When it comes to school, kids in many other countries succeed at rates similar to America or better.

Educational investments in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and math (collectively known as STEM) play a key role in the shape of society. America’s schools have struggled to keep pace. Despite California's high-tech reputation, our students do no better than most in these subject areas.

This lesson covers a lot of ground, from math education to science and engineering. Over time, a lot has changed. The heart of STEM is math, so we will begin with that subject.

California lags in math

California lags many states in math proficiency rates, according to the Nation's Report Card (NAEP). About a quarter of students score at the proficient level or better on this test, which is considered the gold standard for state comparisons.

Based on California’s own annual state tests (CAASPP), math scores in the state have been stubbornly weak, with big achievement gaps — durable patterns of differences in academic performance between groups of students.

About half of California students in grade 8 are not meeting standards in English Language Arts. An even greater fraction — about two-thirds — is missing the mark in mathematics:

In 2026, a coordinated set of research studies (Getting Down to Facts III) aimed to diagnose the causes of California’s poor educational math results and suggest policies to improve them.

Math is a core academic subject that most California students study every year from Transitional Kindergarten (TK) through high school. (Districts and charter schools have the power to require fewer years of math in high school, but four is the norm.) The content and sequence of math study at each grade level is guided by the Common Core State Standards and further guided by an educational framework that the State Board of Education adopted in 2013 and revised in 2022.

In addition to establishing a content sequence for educators and publishers to work from, the rollout of Common Core urged educators to teach mathematical concepts using practices that build deeper understanding:

This increased focus on reasoning, rather than routines, led to new thinking about how to solve problems. There doesn't have to be one "right" way.

When should kids learn algebra?

Division over algebra in 8th grade.

All students need to learn algebra skills on their path to adult life — it’s crucial for solving logical problems and essential for learning about science, craft, technology and personal finance. There is little disagreement among educators about it. When should they learn it? That question has proved far more divisive.

In the Ed100 blog
California's math education crisis

The 2022 revision of California’s math framework sparked controversy because it added significant guidance about social justice in math education and removed the expectation that students should have the option of taking algebra in 8th grade. Disagreement about this issue has been so heated that it has been dubbed the Math Wars.

There are no easy answers for how to boost students’ mastery of math skills. The state’s math framework urges teachers to help students tackle questions mathematically, rather than emphasizing specific procedures. Still, each math competency requires practice, practice, practice. Learning anything is a function of the time you spend with your brain turned on.

Science education for the Next Generation

California and 22 other states have aligned their standards for science education through the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The consortium works similarly to the Common Core standards for math and language arts, guiding the development of textbooks and learning materials. Many other states quietly use these standards without formally adopting them.

The NGSS standards were used in the development of the California Science Test (CAST), the statewide science assessment administered in grades 5, 8, and 11. It is part of the CAASPP testing system, and the results are included each year as part of the California School Dashboard.

In 2025, 32.7% of California students met or exceeded the state standard on the CAST, similar to the prior year. A small percentage, 14.1%, scored in the lowest category of "Not Met". More than half of students scored in a range deemed "Standard Nearly Met". So… maybe that's good?

Perhaps not, based on the Nation's Report Card for 2024. Nationally, about a third of students (31%) scored at or above the "NAEP proficient" level, similar to the CAST result. But in contrast to California's state findings, about a third (31%) scored "at NAEP basic" and more than a third of 8th grade students (38%) scored "below NAEP Basic", the lowest level.

What could lift these levels? Sam Shaw, Director of Science for EdReports, which evaluates curricular materials, suggests that the system needs prepared teachers with good lesson plans. In 2024 he cautioned that the quality of learning materials for science varies dramatically. Unlike reading, where instructional materials are fairly well-studied and there is evidence of effectiveness to draw on, science curricula tend to be selected or invented by individual teachers. From the report:

The 2024 national Nation's Report Card indicated that 8th grade students across the country, on average, have gotten worse at science, and are no better prepared than their peers from 2009. An impetus for change might arrive in 2028, when state-level results about science education are expected to be released. For now, the most recent comparable results are from 2015. At that time, California's eighth graders scored in the bottom four states in the nation:

Introducing computer science to students

Computer science (CS) is the systematic study of computation, information, and algorithmic processes. In high school classes, students learn to solve problems and answer questions using code.

To support K-12 computer science education, in 2019 California adopted a Computer Science Strategic Implementation Plan. California does not require high schools to offer it as a subject, and does not provide dedicated funding relating to it.

Code.org tracks data about the availability of computer science education. According to their research, about 58% of high schools in California offer a foundational course in the subject. The Kapor Foundation estimates that only 14% of California high schools offer AP Computer Science, noting that schools in low-income communities tend to have the most difficulty establishing computer science programs.

Where are the STEM teachers?

Many of the challenges involved in teaching STEM subjects are human ones, such as recruiting and retaining teachers with the necessary subject knowledge and charisma. Historically, schools in high-need communities have had particular difficulty attracting qualified faculty in technical subjects. The STEM Teacher Drought, a report from EdTrust West, found that African American, Latino, and low-income students in California have less access to STEM learning opportunities than their more advantaged peers, and they experience worse academic outcomes in STEM subjects. According to the same report, only 10% of elementary students engaged in “practices of science” or had hands-on instruction and labs.

Nationally, the supply of prepared STEM teachers in America collapsed by about a third in the span of a single decade, from 2012 to 2022 according to research by Tuan D. Nguyen at the University of Missouri. "Overall, the data strongly suggest that STEM teacher production has dropped precipitously throughout the U.S."

To encourage teachers to work in communities with high needs, the state of California created the Golden State Teacher Grant program. It can help encourage math teachers to work in places where they are needed, but the program is vulnerable to budget swings. It competes with other programs for funding in the annual state budget.

Attentive and prepared teachers can present a student with the right challenge at the right time, but it is difficult to do so for many students at once. Khan Academy and other online learning platforms are finding favor with some teachers and parents partly because they create individualized challenges for students, making personalized learning and at-home practice possible. Students can take a lesson focused on a specific skill or problem and repeat it until they feel confident.

Science and engineering education stands to benefit from individualized computer-assisted learning as well, if only because achieving mastery in these fields requires pairing competent instruction with clear problem sets. But there is a difference between reading about spectrography and actually firing up a Bunsen burner.

What is STEAM education?

Add the arts to STEM education and you get STEAM. Fuse an art room with a workshop and you have a makerspace.

Real tech jobs are multidisciplinary. Designing a manufacturing solution, for example, involves science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) but also art, craft, teamwork, communication, project management, and problem solving. It almost certainly involves use of a spreadsheet and some kind of visual design tool. These sorts of varied skills are not easy to introduce without the right tools and, crucially, a teacher with the right skills.

This lesson was updated in June 2026