President Obama has a new plan to improve the quality of teachers, but it won't be cheap. The president is asking for one billion dollars to fund the STEM program.
The program gives money to our top technology teachers to help other teachers improve. STEM is a poor acronym for "the science, math, technology, and engineering master teacher corps."
Teachers in every school district across the country will be selected to become STEM teachers. Educators and business professionals will have a say in who the best teachers are and who gets to be selected.
Once those teachers are chosen, they'll enter into a multi-year commitment to mentor other teachers and help them develop lesson plans.
For the extra help, STEM teachers will get another $20,000 added to their base salary.
President Obama wants 50 teachers from each of our 50 states to be selected as our first stem teachers. If all goes as planned, there will be 2,500 STEM teachers when the program launches. The president hopes to see that number grow to 10,000 teachers within the next four years.
The total cost of the program is $1 billion dollars. Paying 10,000 teachers $20,000 each only adds up to $200 million. Where the extra $800 million is going the administration has yet to say.
STEM will only get funded if President Obama's 2013 budget proposal gets passed as is.
But, even without congressional approval President Obama is moving ahead with his plan. He's already dedicated $100 million to develop the STEM program.
TXT 24
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