C&EN Washington

When the winners of last year's Presidential Science & Engineering Mentoring Awards arrived in Washington, D.C., to collect their medals at a White House ceremony, they were filled with excitement. What better way to spotlight their hard work—and more important, the hard work of their students—than with the sort of national recognition that can be had only in an audience with the President of the United States?

But on this particular occasion, in early December, President Clinton apparently had other priorities. The annual Kennedy Center Awards were also taking place, and Clinton chose to spend his time with people who work in the entertainment industry.

"I think we need the publicity and the visibility that was given by the President to the movie stars from Hollywood in the Kennedy Center," says Zafra M. Lerman, director of the Institute for Science Communication at Columbia College, Chicago, and one of the science mentoring awardees who was among the teachers expecting the President to present her with her award at a White House ceremony. The award program itself is administered by the National Science Foundation (NSF) .

"I was so pleased when I saw him getting up and shaking the stars' hands and hugging Sean Connery," Lerman continues. "And I said, wonderful. Probably the same television cameras are going today to the White House when he will hug and kiss the mentors that touch so many lives. Really by physically touching, not just through the screen.

"I was very sad to hear that it was not clear if he would be able to come and that we changed the schedule because he needed the room, probably to have lunch with the movie stars," she concludes.

According to Lerman, the situation is classic for the very serious matter of U.S. science education: "Everyone pays lip service," she says, and then the matter is quietly dropped behind a virtual tide of studies and reports from years past.

On the other hand, other experts say, the subject of science education is often a political football picked up by this team or that—a situation that has prevented doing what is necessary for the U.S. to deal with the workforce and literacy needs of its science- and technology-based economy: a mission-oriented approach that would select fewer targets and aim for large-scale improvements in national science literacy.

And there is evidence that the neglect and game playing are having a negative impact. According to information assembled by the Center for Education Reform in Washington, D.C., 12th-grade students in the U.S. ranked 19th out of 21 industrialized nations in mathematics and 16th out of 21 countries in science. Overall, there has been a steady drop in literacy, including science literacy, since 1969. Half of the newly employed mathematics and science teachers are not qualified to teach these subjects. These are just a few of the dismal indicators suggesting that almost all U.S. citizens are woefully undereducated when it comes to math and science.

"It is the paradox of our time," wrote Rita R. Colwell and Eamon M. Kelly in an editorial in the Oct. 8, 1999, issue ofScience magazine. "In an economy driven by knowledge, the U.S. leads the world in innovation and discovery but lags in K-12 science and mathematics. The strain of this dichotomy is already becoming apparent to businesses dependent on an educated workforce, policymakers weighing complex technical issues, and parents concerned about their children's opportunities."

Colwell is the director of NSF and Kelly is director of the National Science Board (NSB) , the science agency's governing body. Together, they have begun to reshape NSF's Education & Human Resources Directorate (EHR), with a particular emphasis on programs for kindergarten through 12th-grade education. The directorate receives more than $600 million per year in federal funding. In turn, that money—through a variety of NSF's science and math education awards programs—makes its way into the U.S. education system at large.

One notable program funded by NSF and developed by the American Chemical Society is ChemCom, a yearlong high-school chemistry course for college-bound students. The curriculum is organized around societal issues involving chemistry. Students learn more organic and biochemistry than they would in traditional courses, as well as some environmental and industrial chemistry. The information conforms to the National Science Education Standards, which were developed in the 1990s by the National Research Council.

Considering all of the money that is spent each year on education in the U.S.—the Department of Education alone has a fiscal 2000 budget in excess of $1 billion—NSF programs seem to have impact and to achieve notable success. This is particularly true for programs aimed at helping the most disadvantaged children—inner-city kids whose desire to learn is often outmatched by daily struggles to survive in bleak neighborhoods plagued by drugs and violence.

According to Colwell and Kelly: "Over the past eight years, students in some of America's largest urban school districts were given the benefit of high-quality teaching materials, the best teaching practices, and uniformly high expectations. Their scores on standardized assessments went up, enrollments in advanced courses increased, and disparities in attainment declined. In Chicago, student performance in mathematics increased in 61 out of 62 high schools. In Dallas, the number of students passing science and mathematics advanced-placement tests tripled."

Still, it is somewhat difficult to pinpoint just what Colwell and Kelly have in mind for EHR. They have laid out their vision in the Science editorial, in various speeches and media opportunities, and on the NSF web site. But NSF officials won't share the details of a restructuring that, sources say, has been on the boards for at least two years. It's not even clear if a restructuring of EHR is under way.

Fear and political sensitivity may be keeping proposed changes or changes that are under way in EHR under tight wrap. Sources say that the result of a 1997 lawsuit brought against NSF by a white student who applied for a grant meant for minority students has caused the agency to look for and eliminate or change any programs that could be interpreted as "targeted" at minority students.

What's more, people who work in the directorate also seem to be kept in the dark concerning significant staff changes or other changes that might be in the works. There is a definite sense that agency officials are trying to predict and buffer the directorate against legal and public relations problems that, from past experience, have caused the agency great difficulty and meant the termination of programs and once, nearly the entire directorate.

A C&EN request to see a Government Performance & Results Act (GPRA) evaluation for the EHR Directorate has not yet received a response, because the agency isn't sure how to deal with the issue of when such reports for Congress can be made publicly available. GPRA evaluations—based on performance plans put forth by the agency—will be required to accompany 2001 budget requests, and, in time, the results of the evaluations may directly affect agency appropriations from Congress. This is the case for all government agencies, as stipulated by the GPRA legislation.

Perhaps the most significant staff change in EHR was last summer's departure of Luther S. Williams, the architect of the so-called systemic (urban, rural, and statewide) science education initiatives that were trumpeted by Colwell and Kelly in their Science editorial. The agency's announcement noted only that long-time NSF employee Judith S. Sunley, who formerly coordinated NSF's efforts to comply with GPRA, would be taking over as interim assistant director for EHR.

Williams' nine-year tenure in the job generally receives high praise. Esteemed educators, such as Walter S. Massey, president of Atlanta's Morehouse College, often refer to him as a visionary and one of the true advocates for science education for all Americans.

Others say he simply stayed in the job too long, and still others point to controversy that erupted during the last year and a half of his tenure, when he was fined nearly $25,000 by the NSF inspector general for accepting honoraria for speaking engagements that at least gave the appearance of a conflict of interest.

The Justice Department refused to take over the case against Williams as one of criminal misconduct, citing a lack of evidence. And Williams' defenders and longtime associates, most notably Massey, insist that he is an honest man.

But NSF is not talking about his departure, or at least officials there are not saying very much. Sunley will say only that Williams "left" the agency; others contend that he was "detailed" to the Payson Center, a project of Tulane University concerned with issues of international technology transfer. Tulane University—Kelly is president emeritus—ignored a C&EN request for more information about the Payson Center. However, C&EN learned that the center does maintain an office in suburban Washington, D.C.—in an office building next to NSF headquarters in Arlington, Va.

A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for Williams' personnel records, filed by C&EN in late December 1999, has not yet been acted upon by the NSF Office of General Counsel (OGC). In general, FOIA requests from journalists must be decided upon within 20 business days. OGC staff confirmed that the request did raise questions within the agency about just how much information it might be required to release, given that it is essentially a personnel matter and therefore subject to greater privacy concerns.

For his part, Williams—confronted by this reporter in an elevator in his office building—claimed that he was fired by the agency. Waving his arms and shouting, he refused to answer any further questions about his departure (he maintains an NSF e-mail address) or his current employment situation.

But whatever the reason behind the secrecy, paranoia, and high drama at NSF, the education directorate seems to be chugging along. Sunley, a mathematician by training, has an impressive grasp of the issues involved, and she speaks about the state of U.S. science education with comfortable authority.

She points out, for example, that the legislation that created NSF in 1950 "makes it clear that math and science education is part of the mission." It doesn't say at what level or define the breadth of focus, Sunley continues. "But the mission is there and has been there all along."

The directorate consists of seven divisions: undergraduate education; graduate education; human resource development; educational system reform; elementary, secondary, and informal education; research, evaluation, and communication; and the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). In addition, Sunley points out that the agency has education programs that span all of its discipline-oriented directorates.

One trend in EHR seems clear: A focused effort to link the various divisions into a chain that begins with programs aimed at kindergarten through 12th-grade science education. EHR's Division of Undergraduate Education, under the direction of Norman Fortenberry, supports programs, for example, that focus on the problem of science teacher shortages in primary and secondary schools.

The links between NSF's divisions and programs need to be strengthened, Fortenberry says, because the problems in K-12 education eventually affect everyone as students move ahead in their education.

He says people in higher education are beginning to realize that they must deal with the "strong mismatch between what it takes to get into college versus what it takes to graduate from high school."

Likewise, Susan W. Duby, director of EHR's Division of Graduate Education, says that a new program in her division funds pedagogical training for students in science and engineering. The training allows graduate and undergraduate students to serve as "teaching fellows" in grades K-12.

One of the biggest challenges for those involved with education at the federal level is the way in which education is tied to politics at the state and local levels. A good example is the decision last year of the Kansas State Board of Education regarding the teaching of evolution (it was removed as a curriculum requirement).

Although met with scorn by the education community at large, the Kansas board's political actions are still in effect, regardless of the potential impact on students and regardless of the widespread agreement among educators that the concept of evolution is basic to any notion of science literacy.

NSF and other federal agencies that fund education programs are powerless over these decisions. Sunley and others agree it is unlikely that anything resembling federal education standards will be enacted anytime soon.

The very idea that a bureaucrat in Washington, D.C., might be deciding what a child learns in Cedar Falls, Iowa—or any other locale—is often intolerable to parents and others who are used to having a great deal to say about education through locally elected school boards, parent-teacher associations, and so on.

In fact, Sunley thinks it may be a moot point altogether. She points out that programs funded by NSF—for example, the systemic initiatives and programs aimed at curriculum development—succeed in any case because they are often acknowledged for their high quality and therefore selected by teachers and other education decisionmakers.

Particularly for the systemic initiatives, NSF has been able to fund programs in school systems with the most desperate needs. Winning proposals can mean a major overhaul in terms of curriculum materials, teacher training, and other methods for boosting science literacy.

"In some sense, NSF has targeted what was hardest to deal with," Sunley says. Especially in the urban and rural systemic initiatives, the agency has funded what has amounted to nearly complete overhauls of school systems that serve the nation's most economically disadvantaged children.

And she says there are signs of success. "It's more apparent at lower grade levels," Sunley says, "but we have more influence on students at these grade levels."

Sunley and others point out that critical skills for all science and math learning need to be put together for students at this crucial juncture in their education. It is the time when they learn how to learn as well as learn basic operations, such as those in mathematics, that they will use over and over again. One notable example, she says, happened in Detroit, where students from that school system showed dramatic gains on Michigan state education achievement tests.

Similar results in other school systems also bear out the strength of the idea behind the systemic initiatives, she says. They support the idea that the agency is funding the best projects that have been vetted through NSF's rigorous merit review process.

But it somewhat begs the question: If the systemic initiatives are simply helping the poorest students achieve parity with their peers in the nation's most well-heeled school systems, is that enough? Has the agency gathered critical information about how students learn, and has it truly investigated the ways in which significant improvements for all students might be achieved?

According to University of Chicago psychologist Bennett Bertenthal, who just completed a three-year stint as director of NSF's Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences (SBE) Directorate, it does not. "We know less about the human mind than we know about black holes in outer space," he remarks emphatically.

Bertenthal takes issue with most of what passes for research in EHR as "derivative." It is research that does not generate new knowledge about how human beings learn and therefore how the scales may be tipped to advance an individual's capacity for learning. The whole subject, he says, is a frontier area of research that is virtually ignored by the agency and by many other education experts.

Although the agency devotes whole divisions to disciplines such as physics, biology, and chemistry, the Behavioral & Cognitive Sciences Division of SBE—one of two research divisions—must represent several distinct research disciplines in its programs. SBE's approximately $50 million budget pales by comparison to EHR and other NSF directorates.

"We are at the threshold of recognizing that we should be studying learning," Bertenthal says. "Very little attention is paid to the process of learning over time.

"I think there is a tremendous opportunity for [NSF] here that nobody has appreciated," he continues. "There is a tremendous gulf between communications [about the need to begin building this body of knowledge] and the job of funding basic research in these areas."

Other critics—most of them speak very highly of NSF's education efforts, even if they do see difficulties—say the agency grapples with an issue far larger than its budget or authority. They do not question the agency's good intentions; rather, they say the responsibility NSF has assumed for science education outweighs its true ability.

"NSF curricula and projects are considered models and are emulated throughout the world," writes former EHR staffer George W. Tressel in an article titled "Thirty Years of 'Improvement' in Precollege Math and Science Education" [J. Sci. Educ. Technol., 3, 77 (1994)]. "Some of the most successful competitor nations use materials adapted from NSF projects. Alumni of NSF teacher training institutes occupy influential positions throughout the educational establishment. Many countries envy and copy our techniques of informal education through broadcasts, hands-on museum exhibits, and youth programs."

Though his analysis of the directorate was written six years ago, Tressel says his conclusions still apply. He says the implicit promise that the agency's efforts will affect the overall quality of U.S. math and science education ignores several things: "The enormous scale of education problems (the total 30-year investment of NSF is only 2% of the $230 billion cost of a single year of U.S. education); the enormous practical and political obstacles to any effort to set national standards of content and pedagogy; and the severely limited ability of NSF and/or the academic community to carry out implementation as well as research."

Ultimately, Tressel says, the failure of NSF to live up to its promises—which, he says, is nearly guaranteed—will result in congressional disillusionment. Combined with ultraconservative reactions to science education—like the Kansas board's decision—national political forces will likely end the current high cycle for science education funding just as the past cycle was ended.

He is referring to the first push for increased science education funding at the agency that began in the late 1950s after the launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik. By 1980, vicious, arch-conservative attacks on programs that supposedly threatened family and moral values while setting the stage for a secular humanist federal curriculum brought the directorate to a point where it was nearly abolished by the Reagan Administration.

The agency, Tressel continues, must build a coherent system of formal and informal science education that will see wide implementation and produce measurable, large-scale change.

"If NSF is indeed interested in impact as well as good projects and good people, it should begin by assessing its own performance," Tressel writes. "It should commission a number of mission-oriented studies to examine its own goals, strategy, and implementation problems. The goal of these studies should be to assess impact and progress toward school implementation and to find ways to improve these.

"It is not enough to continue raising the science education budget for model projects. Unless these issues are addressed and the investments produce visible change in the quality of our students and widespread implementation in our schools, it seems likely that the result will be disillusionment, and the second cycle will end like the first."

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