MINNEAPOLIS (KMSP) -
The Obama administration announced Wednesday they are ready to pour $1 billion into a new program to reward teachers in STEM programs. Those areas are science, technology, engineering and math.
The STEM Master Teacher Corps, as it would be called formally, would start with selected 50 teachers and expand to 10,000 in four years.
In exchange for modeling STEM education and mentoring their peers, those teachers would receive a $20,000 annual bonus.
The idea would need Congressional approval.
"If America is going to compete for the jobs and industries of tomorrow, we need to make sure our children are getting the best education possible," President Obama said in a statement.
STEM Master Teacher Corps would be located at 50 sites around the country. Obama says he wants to prepare 100,000 more STEM teachers in the next decade.
Democrats tried to secure funding for a similar program last year, but the proposal didn't reach either the House or Senate floors.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan said he hopes politics won't interfere.
"This initiative has nothing to do with politics," Duncan said, according to The Associated Press. "It's absolutely in our country's best long-term economic interest to do a much better job in this area."
But, not everyone is on board with this idea. An aide to Rep. John Kline (MN), chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, noted that the federal government already has more than 80 teacher quality programs and said it would be foolish to pump money into programs that may be duplicative or unproductive.
"Republicans share the president's goal of getting better teachers in the classroom," said Kline spokeswoman Alexandra Sollberger. "However, we also value transparency and efficient use of taxpayer resources."
© Kids raise their hands at Hiawatha Learning Academy in Minneapolis
