Thanks to a $704,000 federal investment, KID Museum in Bethesda and Identity are partnering in a pilot project to improve STEM literacy among Latino second and third graders in Montgomery County.
U.S. Senators Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen delivered a check Tuesday and took time to try out some of the many STEM experiments at the KID Museum.
Museum and Identity staff will provide community-based educational services to Latino students involving foundational math, science and technology skills. The learning will come after school hours and will involve a student’s family. The program engages parents by helping them to understand STEM pathways and provide home-based STEM activities. The goal is for the parents and student to share what they learn with their siblings.
In Montgomery County Public Schools, 35% of the students are Latino. According to the Maryland Department of Education, only 23.1% of kindergarten through fifth grade Latino students were proficient in math during the 2022-2023 school year.
According to Cara Lesser, founder and CEO of KID Museum, 20% of young Latino students are proficient in math, and 3% of Latino high school students take AP STEM classes.
“We need to reverse this trend,” she said. “As a community and as a nation, we are failing too many students.”
While nearly 30% of all public school students in the nation are Latino, “Our kids continue to be behind,” said J. Antonio Tijerino, president of the Hispanic Heritage Foundation. STEM knowledge “is not nice to have, it is a need to have,” he said.
Identity has enabled 13,000 families to thrive in the workforce and school and also provides social and emotional support. Its mission is “to create opportunities for Latino and other historically underserved youth to realize their highest potential.”
Sen. Van Hollen works on his STEM skills during a visit to Kid's Museum in Bethesda to present $704,000 in federal funding @mymcmedia pic.twitter.com/Q3gNxDLzmq
— suzanne pollak (@SuzannePollak) October 8, 2024
