Obama announced an expansion of the "Educate to Innovate" program that will seek to add 10,000 new science and math teachers over the next five years and train 100,000 current teachers. The president also challenged the nation's engineers and scientists to volunteer in math and science classrooms.

The $250 million, dedicated through private-public partnerships, nearly doubles the program's previous budget.

Obama today announced the "Educate to Innovate" campaign, a public-private initiative to encourage students to study math and science. "Administration officials say that the breadth of participation in Educate to Innovate is wider than in previous efforts, which have failed to produce a perceptible rise in test scores or in most students’ perceptions of math and science," the New York Times reports.

In remarks about his new education plan, Obama spoke in favor of offering extra pay to math and science teachers "to end a teacher shortage in those subjects."

In his confirmation hearing, Education nominee Arne Duncan pledged to personally travel the country recruiting teachers. "Given the tough economic times, that actually helps our chances of recruiting great talent," he added, though he did not specifically address recruiting science and technology teachers.