Educating Tomorrow's Engineers Act of 2015

Educating Tomorrow's Engineers Act of 2015

This bill amends the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to allow states to incorporate engineering design skills and practices into their academic content standards and academic achievement standards and assessments in science.

States and local educational agencies (LEAs) must use grants and subgrants under the Teacher and Principal Training and Recruiting Fund program to develop and provide professional development and instructional materials for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subject areas, including computer science and engineering.

The bill changes current references to the mathematics and science partnerships program to references to the STEM partnerships program, which provides funding to states, institutions of higher education, and high-need LEAs to recruit and train STEM teachers and improve STEM curricula.

STEM activities (currently, mathematics and science activities) are included within the before- and after-school activities funded under the 21st century community learning centers program.

Professional development in engineering education is included among the uses of the funds provided under the rural and low-income school program to rural LEAs.

The Department of Education, under the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002, must support research on engineering education and use that research to provide information to the public, and technical assistance to states, on best practices and promising innovations in K-12 engineering education.

The National Center for Education Research must sponsor and conduct research geared toward improving STEM, rather than just mathematics and science, teaching and learning.