The North Texas STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) center is a partnership of Texas A&M College Station and Dallas Independent School District that establishes a center for STEM education that will research, create, and provide information on best practices for innovative teaching and learning. The NTSTEM center.s first year is an ACTION-PLANNING year seeking implementing best practices in STEM and school reform simultaneously with design teams in a three tiered format (including regional, project level, and campus level). These design teams will bring together school administrators, teachers, students, STEM professors, STEM business partners, community-based informal STEM institutions such as museums and also existing science networks like the Texas Science Collaborative, in order to provide opportunity for interaction between all of these stakeholders. The products of those interactions will include: development of curriculum, implementation of that curriculum, examination of those curricula for effectiveness and distribution of those best practices across the region and the state. That dissemination will be largely through a virtual office concept using state-of-the-art technology.

Through a partnership within the Texas A&M University System consisting of the Texas A&M Center for Distance Learning Research (CDLR) and the Texas A&M College of Education, the center will include a web portal, distance learning capabilities, video production of training modules, etc. This collaboration and another intra-university collaboration with the nationally ranked Texas A&M College of Engineering provides the very best opportunity to impact STEM education in Texas schools and across the nation all under the leadership of one of the leading professors in the nation on implementing effective school reform, Dr. Jim Scheurich, who has published multiple books, and countless journal articles on the subject. The NTSTEM Center will serve Emmet Conrad High School Academy in Dallas ISD, The Academy of Irving in Irving ISD, and three additional Dallas ISD high schools.