Official Department of Education photo by Leslie Wiliams
To celebrate National Engineering Week, and to highlight the need for highly skilled science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) teachers, Arne stopped by the launch of the new public-private partnership 100Kin10. The 100Kin10 initiative is working to help meet President Obama’s goal of recruiting and training 100,000 world-class STEM teachers within 10 years.
Duncan pointed out at the launch that there is a chronic shortage of highly skilled STEM teachers in our schools, particularly in hard to staff schools like rural and poor urban areas. The problem will only get worse as the baby boomer generation begins to retire over the next decade, making the need to fix the pipeline for recruiting high-quality STEM teachers.
Following the event, Duncan noted on Twitter that the 100Kin10 initiative is “a public/private partnership at its best.” Investments like those made by 100Kin10, work side-by-side with stepped-up efforts by the Obama Administration to achieve the President’s goal. In the Administration’s recent 2013 budget proposal, ED is seeking to work with Congress for:
- $80 million for an Effective Teachers and Leaders program
- $2.5 billion for a competitive fund that will prepare highly-qualified STEM teachers
- $5 billion for RESPECT, a funding program for states and districts to pursue reforms that better prepare, support and compensate teachers
Read more about the 2013 budget, and click here to find out more about 100Kin10.