Science

White House to Announce New ‘STEM’ Efforts

By Erik W. Robelen — January 06, 2010 1 min read
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At a White House event this afternoon on STEM education, President Obama will announce more than $250 million in public-private investments to help prepare some 10,000 new math and science teachers and train more than 100,000 existing teachers, according to materials provided by administration officials.

This will approximately double the commitments the president announced in November as part of his “Educate to Innovate” campaign for excellence in STEM education.

Among the initiatives to be announced:

• Intel Corp., based in Santa Clara, Calif., will launch a ten-year, $200 million “cash and in-kind campaign” to expand teacher training and other supports for math and science teachers.

• The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation will expand a program to revamp teacher education programs and bring new talent into classrooms to address significant shortages of math and science teachers. The effort, currently focused in Indiana, will grow to include Michigan and Ohio.

• The National Math and Science Initiative will expand its “UTeach” program to prepare more than 4,500 undergraduates in STEM subjects to be new math and science teachers by 2015, and 7,000 by 2018.

• NASA, in partnership with companies, nonprofits, and states, will launch a pilot program to enhance STEM learning opportunities for students during the summer.

• The Public Broadcasting Service and its 356 partner stations, in collaboration with the National Science Teachers Association, will launch a multi-year STEM initiative to expand the PBS teacher community, provide a platform for sharing effective teaching practices and inspire the next generation of teacher-leaders.

I’ll have more details in a Web story later this afternoon after the White House event. The president today will also honor more than 100 outstanding math and science educators.

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A version of this news article first appeared in the Curriculum Matters blog.