Progress Report on Coordinating Federal Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education

President Obama strongly believes that the United States must equip more students to excel in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). That is why the President’s 2016 Budget invests more than $3 billion, an increase of 3.8 percent over the 2015 enacted level, in STEM-education programs across the Federal Government. The 2016 Budget includes investments that will benefit students in a number of critical areas: Supporting more STEM-focused high schools, with a new $125 million competitive program at the Department of Education (ED) to help communities across America launch Next-Generation High Schools that will be laboratories for cutting-edge STEM teaching and learning.Preparing excellent STEM teachers, with $100 million in the 2016 Budget for high-quality teacher preparation within ED’s new Teacher and Principal Pathways program, including a priority for STEM teacher preparation programs that make progress on the President’s goal of preparing 100,000 excellent STEM teachers.Improving undergraduate STEM education, with the National Science Foundation (NSF) investing $135 million to improve: (1) retention of undergraduate STEM majors; and (2) undergraduate teaching and learning in STEM subjects to meet the President’s goal of preparing 1 million more STEM graduates over a decade.Investing in breakthrough innovation research and development in education, with up to$50 million for the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Education (ARPA-ED), allowing ED to support rapid-cycle, high-impact research and development of next-generation learning technologies, including for STEM education.In addition, with the overall number of STEM programs across the Federal Government already reduced by 40 percent over the past two years, the 2016 Budget continues efforts to reduce fragmentation among Federal STEM-education programs. It also focuses investment on the five key areas identified in the Federal STEM Education 5-Year Strategic Plan: K-12 instruction; undergraduate education; graduate education; broadening participation in STEM education and careers by women and minorities traditionally underrepresented in these fields; and STEM education activities that typically take place outside the classroom.