Getting More For Science Education

NSF's Bassam Shakhashiri finds new support in his once-lonely campaign for funds to train the next generation of researchers WASHINGTON - After nearly six years of stoking the boiler at the National Science Foundation, Bassam Shakhashiri believes that the train with increased funding for science education is finally leaving the station. And his message to the scientific community is simple: Either climb aboard and lend a hand or be left back at the gate. As NSF assistant director for science and engineering education, Shakhashiri has watched his budget soar from $55 million in 1985 to a proposed $251 million for the 1991 fiscal year starting in October. He's just launched what could become an $80 million program to enable states to revamp their approach to science education. And cover stories in national magazines and an avalanche of reports give credence to his conviction about the direction in which funding for science education is headed. "You see, I don't have to say any more about it," he says, referring to an exchange during a Senate hearing March 29 in which Sen. Robert Kerrey (D-Neb.) berated NSF Director Erich Bloch and, in absentia, President Bush for failing to do enough about science education. "I can just sit there with my head held high. The vector has been defined, there's no doubt about that. . . The question that remains is about the magnitude of this vector." As the chief education officer at NSF, Shak-hashiri has been in the vanguard of efforts to focus attention on two serious national problems: training sufficient numbers of the next generation of scientists and raising the scientific literacy of the public so that it can understand and appreciate the potential contributions of science. Now, armed with a presidential directive to make U.S. students first in the world in math and science education by the end of the decade, Shak-hashiri is finally starting to reap the benefits of his tireless campaign. Even his often repeated statement that NSF's annual budget for education should be $600 million, some three times what it now receives, is beginning to look less like a negotiating ploy and more like a real target. The premise upon which Shakhashiri's arguments rest - that the country needs to improve the way it teaches science and math to students of all ages - is hardly new. Even the goal of global leadership in science education, one of several offshoots of last fall's education summit between President Bush and the nation's 50 governors, was first enunciated in a 1983 report by NSF's governing body, the National Science Board (NSB). Coming on the heels of the warning by a Department of Education-sponsored panel that the country was facing "a rising tide of mediocrity" in its schools, the NSB study was part of another rising tide - that of reports describing how to improve science education in this country. In fact, the number has grown so large that a recent NSF attempt to summarize only the most important reports highlighted no fewer than 13, and ran to 45 pages. In the past few months Congress has held hearings on a number of comprehensive legislative proposals, all aimed at averting a growing fear that the country is digging itself an economic and intellectual grave by failing to prepare adequately for a technological tomorrow. Among the most significant are a request for $125 million to begin several new projects under the auspices of NSF (S.2114, sponsored by Education and Labor Committee chairman Sen. Edward Kennedy [D-Mass.] and Sen. Mark Hatfield [R-Ore.]), a $400 million bill passed by the Senate in February, and backed by the president, with a narrower and less costly science component (H.R. 1675/ S.695), and a multibillion-dollar proposal from Rep. Augustus Hawkins (D-Calif.), retiring chairman of a similar panel in the House, that contains pieces of several other science bills along with formula funding for the disadvantaged (H.R. 4379). CLOSE-UP: BASSAM SHAKHASHIRI BASSAM SHAKHASHIRI, who's responsible for more than $200 million in NSF funds that go to support science education, is rarely seen in public without a button proclaiming "Science Is Fun." And a half-dozen times a year he sets out to prove exactly that, peeling off his suit jacket, shirt and tie to perform a gee-whiz chemistry spectacular for children of all ages. The one-hour demonstration, entitled "Once Upon a Midnight Cheery, In the Lab of Shakhashiri," is a re-creation of an event first performed in 19th-century England by the noted scientist Michael Faraday to raise scientific literacy in that country. And 20 years after the Lebanese-born Shakhashiri first donned his lab coat and protective glasses as a professor at the University of Wisconsin, he's still going strong. He's also working as hard as ever on boosting NSF's budget. To him, both the sparks and the speeches are sidelines to the main show - to improve science education. "I feel very strongly that this is my patriotic duty to do this," he says. "I'm a naturalized citizen, and when I took my oath to become a citizen, the words mean a lot to me . . . I tell you, frankly, that sometimes I get tired of 14-hour days, and I get unhappy about the misunderstanding that some of my colleagues have about what we are trying to do. But it's all part of the job, and I want very much to continue the work that we've been doing for the past six years." --J.M. There are several agencies involved in this bipartisan debate, and even a new interagency committee to coordinate their efforts. But NSF is generally seen as the agency most capable of devising an overall strategy, as well as launching programs to accomplish its objectives. Within NSF, Shakhashiri is part of an experienced team of administrators working on education issues. That lineup includes Luther Williams, senior science adviser to Bloch and co-chair of the interagency panel, and NSF deputy director Fred Bernthal. But both men are relative newcomers, with Williams having arrived one year ago and Bernthal on board only since March. For most of the past six years, Shakhashiri has been NSF's strongest and most vocal advocate for doing more. That's why, in part, the March 29 hearing on NSF's proposed 1991 budget was music to his ears. Although it permitted Sen. Kerrey to hurl accusations that the president, in Kerrey's words, has failed "to do more than prepare 30-second sound bites" in attempting to deal with the problem, it also demonstrated the high visibility of the issue. And it gave Bloch, in turn, an opportunity to make a spirited defense of the administration's request for another $47 million for science education programs within NSF. Shakhashiri hasn't always heard such a drumbeat of support for increased spending on science education. The 50-year-old chemist and educator, on leave from the University of Wisconsin, joined NSF in June 1984. At the time, NSF was recovering from an ideological assault by the Reagan administration that had eliminated science education from its 1982 budget. Since then, Shakhashiri has been the target of brickbats from academics who see his efforts as a threat to the continued flow of dollars for their research. Not surprisingly, the numbers are inconclusive. Shakhashiri is proud of the fact that science education has been the fastest growing component of the NSF budget for the past several years, more than tripling since 1985. In fact, Bloch emphasizes the boost in spending on what NSF calls human resources when testifying before Congress, knowing it is likely to add on to the president's request for science education. In contrast, the growth rate of that portion of the NSF budget identified as research-related activities, including grants to investigator-initiated projects, has been slow, usually in single digits. However, NSF officials stress that the comparison is unfair because the base for the research account - currently $1.7 billion, with a scheduled increase to $1.95 billion in 1991 - is much larger. And they believe that such new initiatives as multidisciplinary centers and other large group projects, another small but rapidly growing segment of the overall budget, do as much to foster research as do grants to individuals. Even so, the idea that science education is stealing from research is enough to make Shakhashiri's blood boil. "That criticism [of larger education budgets] reflects the lack of leadership among those who make it," says Shakhashiri. "Anyone who tells you that a dollar given to education is a dollar taken away from research is telling you a lie. It's just not so." Shakhashiri believes firmly that he is not playing a zero-sum game, in which increases for one portion of the NSF budget come at the expense of the rest of the budget. "What I'm talking about is not finding other ways to divide the same pie, but to make a bigger and better pie," he says. "I'm the strongest advocate there is for increasing the funding for research. Individual investigators are underfunded, there's no question about it. But you can't increase the funding for research unless the people who control the funding understand what basic science is all about. And that's why science literacy is so important." The need to increase scientific literacy among the general public has been part of NSF's mission since the agency was founded in 1950. But much of that time it has played second fiddle to the foundation's other major purpose: to support basic research and promote the health of academic science. Shakhashiri believes that the two goals are inseparable, but that most scientists have failed to understand the connection. "This agency, for a long time, has focused on increasing the flow of talent into science," he says. "In the past five years, however, we have been trying to expand the scope of what we do to include an emphasis on the public as well. This is a responsibility that has to be taken on by scientists, not by somebody else. Because it is our science that is being communicated to them." One of the boldest steps that NSF is taking in that direction is a new program to change how states teach science and math. Dubbed "Statewide Systemic Initiatives," the program, if funded for 1991, will give a half dozen or so states up to $10 million over the next five years to begin a total overhaul of one or more components of their educational system. "It's one of the most significant efforts NSF has ever undertaken," Luther Williams, Bloch's senior science adviser, told a recent meeting of the President's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology. The program is a direct response to the president's promise to make U.S. students No. 1. And the solicitation for proposals - letters of intent are due July 9, with formal proposals due in October 15 -encourages applicants to aim high. "It is possible that a state would propose an initiative to reform its whole system for education in science, mathematics, and engineering for grades K-16," it states. "Such a proposal would be welcomed." To ensure that the changes are comprehensive, the solicitation requires the proposals to come "either through the office of the governor or another office designated by the governor." And it puts out the welcome mat for state officials who might be intimidated by seeking an NSF grant, noting that "coalitions such as this program requires may have relatively little collective experience in planning and preparing proposals for NSF." The initiative demonstrates NSF's place as the leading federal agency in science education, says Roy Scheppach, executive director of the National Governors Association. "They are the first federal agency out of the box in trying to move the states toward achieving the goal that the governors and the president have set," he said at a March 27 press conference introducing the program. The Department of Education, he noted, "can provide reports and help in monitoring such activities, but the type of demonstration grants and catalytic programs to get states to change what they are doing is better handled by NSF." The state initiative is one of 30 programs within NSF that are meant to accomplish the "how" of improving U.S. science education. Unfortunately, Shakhashiri says, his colleagues are still wrestling with what should be done. That's too narrow a view, he warns them. "The scientific community, for the most part, is still focused on generating more scientists," he says. "That's a noble goal, but it cannot be the only goal, because those scientists have got to come from the general population. We don't know who, at birth, will be a Nobel Prize winner. And even if we did, we should be concerned about the entire student population."

Getting More For Science Education

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