White House Touts Campaign to Improve Science and Math Education

A new White House campaign is urging businesses and nonprofit organizations to devote money, time, and volunteer efforts to encouraging science- and math-related pursuits among middle and high school students. The White House also will be pushing for increased funding and applied research efforts at the undergraduate levels.  This will most likely lead to increased scholarship activities in the sciences, health-related fields, math, and engineering fields.

The effort, dubbed Educate to Innovate and unveiled Monday by President Obama, focuses on activities outside the classroom. Among other elements of the program, media companies such as Discovery Communications and Time Warner Cable will devote TV programming time and online resources, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and technology industry groups will mount a contest to develop educational video games.