Huge NSF Funding Infusion Will Back States In Their Push To Improve Science Education

In Their Push To Improve Science Education AUTHOR: JEFFREY MERVIS, pg. 1 Thousands of scientists may participate in the $75 million effort toward lasting improvements in the way kids are taught WASHINGTON--This month the National Science Foundation kicks off a $75 million program to improve the way that science and mathematics are taught in United States public schools. Thousands of scientists and engineers throughout the nation, from both academia and industry, are expected to play an important role in this effort, aimed at raising the skills of students in kindergarten through grade 12. The initiative, conceived 15 months ago in conjunction with the National Governors Association, is one of several attempts now under way to provide U.S. industry with a better-educated science work force for the 21st century and to reduce the millions of dollars now being spent on educational remediation. It also is driven by recent studies that show U.S. students lagging behind their counterparts around the world in basic math and science skills. The key to comprehensive and lasting reform of the nation's approach to math and science education, NSF officials believe, is the ability of a state to sustain its efforts once federal money has disappeared. That's why NSF insisted on a significant influx of nonfederal funds into each project, in some cases more than triple what the federal government expects to spend in each state. Such a requirement may seem like a fiscal impossibility at a time when many states are struggling with billion-dollar deficits. But education officials in the 10 states chosen in the first round of SSI awards responded creatively to the challenge with a variety of innovative ways to match those federal dollars. In some states, that meant starting slowly and hoping for sunnier financial skies down the road. That's why Connecticut officials designed their CONNSTRUCT project in such a way that the only thing they sought this year from their strapped legislators was a charter to create an academy of science and mathematics that will eventually serve as the hub of statewide reform efforts. "The state's facing a $2.8 billion deficit, so they aren't looking for new projects to fund right now," says Sigmund Abeles, principal investigator for the project. "Down the road, however, we will be going to the legislature and asking for a line item." In the short term, Abeles says, the project has received contributions from many of the high-tech companies in the state, as well as linking up with science museums and other "science-rich" institutions. It is also drawing on expertise from existing federally and state-funded projects to reform science education. In contrast, Louisiana officials are counting on $2 million in state funds during each of the next five years because of a 1986 decision by voters to create an educational trust fund with $500 million from a settlement with the federal government on windfall profits from oil and gas exploration. The interest from the fund, which has grown to $625 million, is evenly divided between higher education and elementary and secondary schools. The trust, combined with NSF funds under a separate program, has helped state officials to build up the state's research infrastructure, making its scientists more competitive in bidding for federal grants. The new SSI project, entitled Louisiana Systemic Initiative Program (LaSIP), is meant to build on that progress with a program of teacher training and curriculum reform that concentrates on grades 4-8. "Given our current financial situation, I don't think that we could have done it without the trust fund," says Gene D'Amour, head of Tulane University's office of research and project administration and head of the committee that oversees the program to improve the state's research base. "At the same time, when the citizens passed the constitutional amendment [creating the educational trust], we were facing our worst budget deficit in history, and it was the only one of 16 funding initiatives to pass. I think it indicates their understanding of the fact that the key to economic development lies in improved science and math education." here, state officials wooed legislators by lining up a broad coalition of private-sector groups to support the project. This spring, the Montana legislature approved $1 million in its two-year state budget cycle that begins this month, with the expectation that an additional $2 million will be appropriated in each of the next two 2-year periods. "I didn't hear any criticism of it during the debate," says state Sen. Mignon Waterman, a strong supporter of the Systemic Initiative for Montana Mathematics (SIMM) project and a former president of the statewide organization of local school board members. "Everybody thinks that it's important to do it, and that support from the private sector is vital, too." Ohio legislators likewise have okayed $2 million in their upcoming budget, divided equally between the departments of higher education and public instruction, to be used for the Discovery Project. That level of support is expected to continue in future years. In both Ohio and Montana, the key to success was the bipartisan support of the states' chief executives and legislators. "A 1988 study by the Board of Regents had identified strengthen- ing the science and mathematics pipeline as one of our top priorities, and we had just completed a major study on science and technology," says E. Garrison Walters, principal investigator for Ohio's project. "So when the state chancellor last fall asked [former Gov. Richard Celeste, a Democrat] to pledge his support, there was no hesitancy on his part. And when the new governor [George Voinovich, a Republican], was approached early in this year's budget, despite the worst fiscal crisis we've faced in many years, he readily agreed to put the money into his budget, too." --J.M. The program, called the Statewide Systemic Initiative (SSI), is based on the assumption that more than piecemeal reforms are needed to improve U.S. youngsters' science and math capabilities and that individual states know better than the federal government how to achieve such sweeping reforms. Some 30 states submitted science education project proposals last fall to NSF. After an extensive review, 10 states--Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island, and South Dakota--were selected to receive grants of as much as $10 million each over the next five years to carry out their projects, which are meant to achieve fundamental changes in state curricula and the way in which teachers are trained. "This is the most comprehensive and coordinated educational reform effort ever launched by the National Science Foundation," explained NSF Director Walter Massey during a May news conference at which the winning states were announced. "These states were chosen because of the quality of their proposals and the diversity of the approaches to be followed. But we're all working toward the same goal, as proclaimed by President Bush at his 1989 educational summit with the governors: to help U.S. students become first in the world in science and math achievement by the year 2000." The federal funds are slated to be spent on a broad range of projects intended to meet that goal. Some of the money will go to operate programs that bring working scientists into the classroom, while a considerable amount will be spent to train future teachers or to run workshops and summer programs to enhance the skills of veteran instructors. A major share of the funds will be used to pay the salaries of scientists working on these teacher-training projects, as well as those designing new curricula and other new approaches to teaching elementary- and secondary-school science and mathematics. The selected states also have agreed to invest a significant amount of money, in some cases three times the federal contribution. The matching funds--from state coffers, local companies, private foundations, and other nonfederal sources--are intended both to leverage federal dollars and to provide a financial base to sustain the programs' momentum once NSF funding ends (see accompanying story). The mechanism to improve student achievement varies from state to state. In some cases, major research universities will serve as the focal point for these educational reforms. here, scientists are likely to spend their time at one of many regional facilities geared to meet the needs of teachers and students in that area. One state, Connecticut, even plans to create a free-standing Academy for Education in Mathematics, Science, and Technology that will serve as both a think tank and an advocate for educational reform. Whether the emphasis is on training teachers, developing new curricula, or increasing the number of women and minorities taking science and math, the goal in every state is to bring about change in the classroom. And that will not occur, say educators, unless more scientists begin to take a personal interest in science education efforts. In North Carolina, for example, there is already a large and growing network of scientists spending time in the classroom. "It's been a lot more fun than I expected," confesses genetic toxicologist Donald Clive of Burroughs Wellcome Co., Research Triangle Park, N.C. In the past nine months, Clive has taught at some 16 elementary schools in the area. "I hope to stimulate a small number of minds to become excited about science in the same way that I was stimulated as a child," he says. "I'm getting an eyeful about how the educational system is failing, and I'm also getting a lot of satisfaction from working with the kids." Clive is one of more than 600 scientists who participate in a network begun two years ago in Wake County, N.C., by botanist Dennis DuBay, on leave from North Carolina State University. DuBay is principal investigator for the state's SSI project, called the North Carolina Science and Mathematics Alliance. "Our SSI is built upon two existing proposals, one to encourage scientists to visit the classroom and one to offer summer internships to middle and high school teachers," says DuBay. "We have three regional partnerships going as pilots, and our goal is to set up 10 across the state." NSF officials note that the SSI competition favored states that had already demonstrated a strong commitment to systemic change. (A second round is planned for fiscal year 1992, with the expectation that up to 10 more states will be selected.) The foundation is hoping that its imprimatur and its dollars will broaden existing efforts in a particular state. "Without the NSF grant," says DuBay, "we couldn't go statewide at nearly the same rate as we now plan to, and we wouldn't be able to move into other activities beyond having scientists visit the classroom. It's also a lever to attract businesses, universities, and the state legislature." In Connecticut, Wesleyan University mathematics professor emeritus Bob Rosenbaum has been involved for the past dozen years with a summer training program for elementary and secondary school teachers. The $1.1 million-a-year program, entitled PIMMS (Project to Increase Mastery of Math and Science), runs on the same balance of government and private-sector funds that the state is hoping to achieve with its CONNSTRUCT program. CONNSTRUCT also follows the approach, common to the SSI projects, of training a cadre of teachers who will return to their local districts carrying with them the message of science and math reform. Rosenbaum expresses no surprise that companies could ameliorate the need for this kind of management expertise: "As products get past research and development and are ready to be marketed, the small company can set up a relationship with the pharmaceutical house to do the marketing, production, and distribution." Besides the management issue, another significant finding of the survey is that companies in the 12 states with biotechnology regulations did not consider regulations any more of a barrier to success than those firms in the 38 states that do not have them. "We felt it was necessary to ask about this factor to see if those [in] states with regulations felt put upon," says Dibner. State Sought from NSF Matching funds CONNECTICUT $ 7.8 million $8.2 million DELAWARE $4.9 million $2.7 million FLORIDA $7.9 million $2.7 million LOUISIANA $10 million $10 million MONTANA $9.9 million $16 million NEBRASKA $4.4 million $1.5 million NORTH CAROLINA $7.8 million $20.7 million OHIO $10 million $30.6 million RHODE ISLAND $9.3 million $2.8 million SOUTH DAKOTA $7.5 million $3.7 million The results seem to show that regulations are not so awful. "They allow science to go on, and the public feels protected," he adds. Agricultural biotechnology companies cited public perception of biotechnology as the largest internal barrier they face. The recent Wisconsin and Minnesota bans on the use of genetically engineered bovine somatotropin, a hormone given to cows to increase milk production, are an example of negative public reaction, says Gries. On average, financing was not considered a barrier to success. However, when the companies were divided by size, the smaller ones did put venture capital as a barrier at the top of their list. One conclusion of the survey that might be misleading, says Dibner, is that a personnel shortage in bioengineering and fermentation is not considered a major problem. The companies rated this potential impediment 1.84, the second lowest, just ahead of availability of materials and reagents. Dibner thinks that this assessment shows a lack of foresight on the part of the managers, and he believes there will be a shortage of bioengineers in the future if something isn't done to increase the pool of available workers in this area now. "When more and more companies have more and more products on the market, there will be a need for this kind of personnel," the survey coauthor says. "When I look around the country I see very few programs that focus on bioengineering and fermentation. "I think we should start thinking about this issue on a national basis and set curricula to train people in this area."

Huge NSF Funding Infusion Will Back States In Their Push To Improve Science Education

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