NSF Urged to Boost K-12 Effort

WASHINGTON—A $1.6 million study by an independent research firm is likely to provide ammunition for members of Congress who want the National Science Foundation to become more involved in pre-college science education. The study by SRI International of Palo Alto, Calif., requested in 1985 by Congress, was released during the August congressional recess. But it is likely to be “chewed over” next year, according to Thomas Van der Voort, staff director of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the NSF’s budget. The study concluded that NSF can take the lead in improving science education by adopting a more aggressive and strategic approach and by spending more money on the effort. “The NSF clearly has the potential to be the national leader of efforts to improve K-12 science education,” said Michael S. Knapp, co-director of the study. But while the foundation’s science and engineering education directorate is addressing several oppor- tunities, Knapp continued, “other opportunities are simply ignored.” For example, the report stated that NSF should make strategic efforts to improve content and instruction, to strengthen the teaching force and to influence the educational “infrastructure” while maintaining its support for such basic functions as the interchange between scientists and science educators. In all its efforts, the report concluded, NSF’s mandate at the K-12 level should be to enlarge the pool of science learners rather than to offer opportunities for the most able students to embark on a scientific career. The report is likely to find sympathetic ears on Capitol Hill, where many members feel that NSF has not rebuilt its education directorate with sufficient speed since it was temporarily abolished in 1982. Describing NSF’s approach, Director Erich Bloch said that “we’ve been singling out areas where we felt we could make a major kind of impact. We’ve been trying to build it up slowly.” That measured rate of growth has led some members of Congress to question the agency’s commitment to education. Before he retired last year as chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee, Rep. Don Fuqua (D-Fla.) suggested that NSF consider getting out of science education altogether and transferring its programs to the Department of Education. (See THE SCIENTIST, January 12, p. 3.) Other members have simply ignored NSF’s budget requests in the area and drawn up their own plans. In June the House Appropriations Committee voted to add $30 million to NSF’s pre-college activities for fiscal 1988, arguing that science education has been “severely short-changed.” NSF’s education directorate will spend $99 million this year on programs from the primary grades through graduate school, and has requested $115 million for 1988. The appropriations bill faces a vote in the House this month before it goes to the Senate. The initiatives recommended in the SRI report would cost an additional $600 million to $800 million over the next five years, more than twice what NSF has spent in the past five years. President Reagan’s promise to double the NSF budget by fiscal 1992 would help, of course, and Bloch said that his 1989 budget, now being reviewed by White House budget officials, would take SRI’s recommendations into consideration. But the process of turning the suggestions from the SRI report into reality involve more than money. The Senate’s Van der Voort warned against expecting too much from Congress. “Science education is an extraordinarily complicated issue,” he said. “It’s nice to think that we can commission a study, implement its recommendations, and everything will be solved. But I’m from Missouri as far as that’s concerned. I don’t think there is a magic solution out there.” Rothman is on the staff of Education Week.

NSF Urged to Boost K-12 Effort

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