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Clearly espousing emphasis in STEM education is all the rage these days—with good reason. However, despite theoretical broad support and frequent political lip service, successful implementation of STEM-fostering programs in public schools has been lacking.

That’s why a current competition funded by the Carnegie Corporation— Partnering for Excellence: Innovations in Science + Technology + Engineering + Math Education on the Changemakers website—sounds like a condonable endeavor. The website notes the lack of progress thus far, saying that “our communities are filled with many of the world’s most talented professionals in these fields. They work in hospitals, universities, and museums; biotech, engineering, and architecture firms; graphic-design and urban-planning studios; hedge funds, banks, and computer-software, gaming, and pharmaceutical companies. They just rarely directly impact our public schools.”

The online competition (that runs until August 3) aims to help address this discrepancy and make STEM-field access more available to less-advantaged students by eliciting ideas from the public to “spur creative ways for companies, universities, and other organizations with expertise in the STEM fields to partner with the public schools that need their talent.” They explain they want “models that bring STEM expertise into public schools, thereby using resources from the private and not-for-profit sectors in new ways to further student learning designed with a ‘long term, part time’ approach.”

An incentive for submissions: winners are eligible for cash and in-kind prizes. In addition to the Carnegie Corporation, the competition has partnered with Jhumki Basu Foundation, Alcoa Foundation, Amgen Foundation, ExxonMobil Foundation, Google, The Mind Trust, and Noyce Foundation.

I’ve perused  the submissions thus far, and found a few that  could be promising (including one that focuses on school gardens, one that would help schools develop aquatic ecosystems, and one that would have American schools partner with foreign schools to learn from each other as each takes on local STEM –related projects).

But these proposals need to be much more specific, and the competition really needs a lot more viable submissions to provide a solid array of options.

Other concerns:

One, I would also like the group to elaborate on the rationale behind the chart (pictured on the right) that shows their short-term, long-term, full-time, and part-time categories for STEM innovation involving traditional teachers, non-career teachers, and supplementary measures. What’s the context behind this approach? How exactly is the vision for executing it?

Two, the premise of the project seems to copy the long-established model in higher education of partnerships between companies and universities for science and math endeavors. However, on this level there are financial gains to be had for both parties—and I’m unclear on what the incentive is for companies on the elementary and secondary levels. Is it simply for PR, or are there expectations of legitimate research and innovation to come out of high schools? At least one of the submissions seems to allow for this latter scenario to some degree.

Three, it’s unclear how large of a footprint the project is planning to create. Will the competition and partnerships only benefit a few schools or districts, or are there plans to carry out innovative models on a larger scale?

Despite these ambiguities, I hope the competition goes well and that those involved find success in their implementation schemes. I continue to think that public-private partnerships can provide good solutions/results, and hope this endeavor will become an example of positive collaboration. And if you have an idea you think could work, you can submit it here.