President Barack Obama is expected to devote considerable time to K-12 education issues in his State of the Union Address tonight, my colleague Alyson Klein reports over at Politics K-12. She says he will call on Congress to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and link his education agenda to the nation’s economic future.
Don’t be surprised if he has a few things in particular to say about promoting STEM education. In another Politics K-12 blog post, colleague Michele McNeil highlights some of the guests who will be sitting in first lady Michelle Obama’s box for the address. They include several students who appear to have a special interest in the STEM—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—fields, as well as Xerox Corp. CEO Ursula Burns. She’s on the board of Change the Equation, a coalition of more than 100 CEOs focused on improving STEM education first publicly announced by President Obama at a White House event.
Here’s a blog post from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy about the guests tonight.