Triangle Coalition For Science And Technology Education

Yesterday, Congress passed the FY2011 spending bill (H.R. 1473) to fund the federal government, including the agencies, through September 30th. The bill passed in the House by a vote of 260 to 167 and the Senate by 81 to 19. The measure makes historic spending cuts totaling nearly $40 billion, the largest non-defense cut ever.

The passage comes after a long, painstaking and highly partisan battle that almost forced a full government shutdown. The shutdown was narrowly avoided by an agreement that was reached just minutes before the deadline last Friday night.

While education did see its share of cuts, STEM education programs fared rather well considering the overall reductions. The Department of Education saw a $1 billion cut from levels enacted in FY2010. The budget of the National Science Foundation’s Education and Human Resources division was reduced by $10 million. It’s Research and Related Activities is also down $43 million. NASA Education’s budget was cut by $38 million. The Department of Energy’s Office of Science also saw a reduction of $35 million.

The White House reports, “We protected funding for critical programs that invest in science programs, our kids’ education, and critical health programs… Even though we will no longer double the funding of key research and development agencies, you will still see strong investments in National Institute of Standards and Technology, National Science Foundation and the Office of Science.”

The measure does continue two of the administration’s key education priorities, which were both initiated in the Recovery Act. The Investing in Innovation (i3) program is slated to continue with another $150 million. Although surprising to some, the Race to the Top will continue another round with $700 million. While Obama had hoped to see districts compete in the next round, the measure only allows for states to enter.

Several of the Department of Education’s programs were eliminated, including the $100 million Education Technology State grants. Unfortunately, the legislation also cut $138 million from Perkins by eliminating Tech-Prep and cutting back the Perkins Basic State Grants by $35 million.

National earmarks including Teach for America, National Writing Project, and the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards will now have to compete for funding through a 1 percent set-aside within the Teacher Quality State Grants program.

With the FY2011 budget settled, Congress can finally move onto the FY2012 budget, which will likely see the same arguments in the weeks and months to come.

STEM education became an unexpected topic of conversation and a unifying issue among a highly partisan Senate during a hearing on Wednesday. The hearing was held by the Labor, Health and Human Services Subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations to examine the Department of Education’s FY2011 budget request, as well as the current education jobs crisis. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan testified before the committee and was followed by a second panel of witnesses representing education at the state and local levels.

While the majority of the hearing focused on education jobs and the budget request, Sen. Shelby (R-AL) refocused the conversation when he brought up the issue of the STEM education priority included in the US Department of Education’s recent Race to the Top competition. In the application, fifteen competitive preference priority points, all or nothing, were attached to STEM initiatives. Shelby expressed profound disappointment that greater emphasis was not given to STEM. He asked witness, Dr. Joseph B. Morton, what his reaction was to Race to the Top allocating only fifteen out of five hundred points to STEM.

Dr. Morton, Superintendent of the Alabama State Department of Education and Council of Chief State School Officers member, responded that he was “stunned and disappointed” when he found out that only three percent of the points were based on the inclusion of a STEM component. “Our whole initiative (Alabama Math, Science, and Technology initiative) was built on the fact that we think that in Alabama and America, our students’ future is in math, science and technology,” said Morton. “If we’re going to be number one, we’ve got to invest in engineering, mathematics, technology, and biotech.”

“It seems like this is upside down” stated Shelby, and referred to Race to the Top‘s STEM focus as “a flawed program” that needs to be changed. Chairman Harkin (D-IA), surprised by this information, agreed with Shelby and Morton that more emphasis needed to be given to STEM. The Senators agreed to work together in a bipartisan effort to look into this further.

According to EdWeek’s Alyson Klein in the Politics K-12 blog, the fact that the Committee is questioning the program’s application content doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t fund the Department of Education’s request for the $1.35 billion in Race to the Top extension funds. However, Klein says it does seem to mean that Congress intends to begin weighing in on the program.

Secretary Duncan’s testimony at this hearing also included specific mention of improving STEM education outcomes, citing some of the STEM items included in the FY2011 budget request as outlined below. “The world our youth will inherit will increasingly be influenced by science and technology, and it is our obligation to prepare them for that world,” Duncan said to the committee. Duncan did not make any specific mention to the STEM priority points in Race to the Top.

He mentioned President Obama’s ongoing “Educate to Innovate” campaign, which fosters public-private partnerships in support of STEM education. The goal, Duncan says, is for American students to become the world’s top achievers in STEM over the next decade. The education budget specifically includes the following requests for competitive grant programs related to STEM education:

• $300 million -Effective Teaching and Learning: STEM programs
• $500 million- Investing in Innovation (i3) program, including $150 million for STEM projects
• $25 million- STEM initiative within the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education

For more coverage on the Department of Education’s FY2011 budget request or the Race to the Top program, check out Triangle Coalition’s previous Legislative Update posts.

Yesterday, the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) released the official draft of the K-12 Common Core State Standards, which will be open to public comment for the next three weeks. The process of developing these standards has been state led by the governors and chief state school officers in 48 states, two territories, and the District of Columbia, with input from a wide range of stakeholders- including educators, researchers, content experts, national organizations, and community groups.

The standards cover mathematics, English-language arts, and briefly, literacy in history, social studies and science and lay out grade-level specific goals, as well as college- and career- readiness standards. The CCSSO and NGA Center have said that once these standards are finalized, they will develop a set of common core standards in science and potentially other subject areas.

The standards are based on the following criteria:

• aligned with college and work expectations;
• clear, understandable and consistent;
• include rigorous content and application of knowledge through high-order skills;
• build upon strengths and lessons of current state standards;
• informed by other top performing countries;
• and evidence-and research-based.

National standards and college- and career- readiness have been an ongoing theme across the current initiatives of this administration, including Race to the Top, the ESEA rewrite, and within the President’s budget. While the Obama administration did not have a role in the drafting of the standards, both the President and Secretary Arne Duncan have avidly pushed for the development of a common, higher set of standards as part of an overall education reform agenda.

This morning U.S Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan appeared before the House Education and Labor Committee in a hearing entitled “Building a Stronger Economy: Spurring Reform and Innovation in American Education.” Originally the hearing was to take place February 10th, but was rescheduled due to the blizzard in Washington, D.C.

However, with tomorrow’s upcoming announcement of the Race to the Top finalists and the ongoing hearings on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) reauthorization, timing couldn’t have been better. Both the hearing room and the overflow room were packed with spectators, interested in what Secretary Duncan had to say.

The Department of Education has laid out the following priorities for the next two years:
• supporting reform of struggling schools
• improvements in the quality of teaching and learning
• implementation of comprehensive statewide data systems
• simplifying student aid

While Duncan did not make any new announcements, nor did he make specific reference to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, his testimony echoed the Department’s predefined goals and priorities. Committee members questioned Duncan on President Obama’s education budget, the agenda for education reform, including the ESEA reauthorization, as well as on the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act. Other topics of discussion included charter schools, supplemental services, especially after-school programs, teacher quality and development, and assessment for special education and English language learners.

Overall, Duncan spoke positively about his outlook for this year’s agenda, stating, “As hard as this work is, it is also critically important; and for all the challenges, I’ve never been more optimistic.”

Alyson Klein of EdWeek also has a good wrap up of the hearing, which includes some of the specific questions that were asked.

Stay tuned for more from Duncan as the Race to the Top finalists are revealed tomorrow!

Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/edlabordems/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Now that the President’s FY2011 budget request is out, a sense of urgency and excitement, especially surrounding education, flourished on Capitol Hill last week. Several briefings and committee hearings took place on various aspects of STEM education. Here is the breakdown of the week:

• Monday began with the positive news that the President’s budget request includes significant investments in STEM education, which we covered here.

• Tuesday, a briefing titled “STEM Professionals in the Classroom” was held to explore ways to involve STEM professionals in improving K-12 education. Current federal initiatives such as National Lab Day, part of the “Educate to Innovate” campaign, focus on public-private partnerships as the key to improving STEM education. National Lab Day links school teachers with scientists, engineers, and other STEM professionals who can bring hands on learning to the classrooms. Private sector programs like the “Transition to Teaching” program at IBM help address the shortage of skilled STEM teachers by supporting qualified employees in becoming accredited K-12 teachers.

Links and national resources for STEM professionals interested in becoming involved in the classroom include:

o NSTA
o National Lab Day
o Educate to Innovate
o Project Lead the Way
o Know of other good resources? Email us!

• Wednesday and Thursday, the House Appropriations Committee’s Commerce, Justice, and Science Subcommittee held a series of two hearings on inquiry-based instruction for STEM education. The subcommittee had previously added appropriations for STEM education and teacher preparation to the FY2010 budgets of NSF, NOAA, and NASA and continued those investments in the FY2011 request. These funds were to improve STEM education in grades K-6 while encouraging inquiry-based instruction in science education.

In day one of the hearings, witnesses shared information on how the environment around schools can be effectively used in inquiry based education. Dr. Eleanor Miele of Brooklyn College stressed the necessity of financial support for teacher preparation and science instruction materials, as well as for quantitative evaluation of the efficacy of inquiry-based instruction. “Teaching inquiry-based science is difficult-but worth the effort and it should begin before middle school,” stated Miele.

On the second day of hearings, Craig Strang of the University of California, Berkeley emphasized to the subcommittee members that “science agencies must have the mandate and the funding to devote significant intellectual and human resources to the endeavor of science education.”

• Thursday, the House Science and Technology Committee’s Research and Science Education Subcommittee held a hearing to examine the current state of STEM in higher education. With the committee reviewing the reauthorization of the America COMPETES Act this year, Chairman Lipinski addressed the need for taking a comprehensive look at STEM education reform at the college level as well. Members and witnesses discussed ways to improve the quality of STEM education for undergraduate and graduate students and the role of NSF in supporting reform. Recommendations included:

o Providing new and current professors training in current pedagogy
o Updating STEM curricula to incorporate current knowledge about how students really learn STEM; and
o Finding ways to combine disciplinary depth with interdisciplinary training and research opportunities

Also interesting to note is that several witnesses and members of the subcommittee remarked on the need for a cultural shift to change the common misperceptions of education and careers in STEM fields.  

This has been a good week for STEM Education. President Obama released his FY2011 budget request with an unprecedented investment in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education. The budget would grant $3.7 billion for STEM education across the federal government, including $1 billion dedicated to improving math and science achievement among K-12 students.

The U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) budget totals $49.7 billion, representing an increase of 7.5% from 2010 and the Department’s largest boost in years. Echoing the strategies of the Race to the Top program, the budget proposal emphasizes more competition, flexibility and accountability as the drivers of reform. The proposed budget would include a $3 billion increase in competitive funding for ESEA, and an additional $1.35 billion to continue Race to the Top. Secretary Arne Duncan commended Mr. Obama’s investment in education and his initiative to “educate our way to a better economy” through his “cradle to career agenda.”

The National Science Foundation’s (NSF) budget of $7.4 billion, an 8% jump from 2010, also makes a significant commitment to programs in STEM education. Priorities of NSF’s budget include the Graduate Research Fellowship and the Faculty Early Career Development Program which support students and early-career researchers to cultivate the next generation of STEM knowledge workers. Also, Climate Change Education and Advanced Technological Education support learning and development of the skilled and educated workforce in climate and high-technology, respectively.

The President’s investment in STEM includes a broad array of programs from K-12 education, undergraduate education and graduate fellowships, to evaluation and research. Getting down to the specifics, noteworthy STEM education initiatives and increases include:

• $824 million for NIH’s biomedical and behavioral sciences awards and fellowships
• $500 million in competitive awards for promising programs , including $150 million for STEM-focused projects in the Investing in Innovation Fund (i3)
• $300 million for ED’s proposed Effective Teaching and Learning in STEM program
• $197 million for programs promoting a well rounded education, including STEM
• $158 million for NSF’s science and engineering Graduate Research Fellowship program
• $103 million for NSF’s HRD program to increase the participation of students from underrepresented minorities in STEM
• $63 million for NASA’s K-12 education program, with $20 million for a science and engineering summer program for middle school students and teachers
• $41 million for NSF’s new Cyberlearning Transforming Education Program, which has a strong STEM focus for students and for workforce development
• $25 million for a STEM initiative in ED’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education
• $19.4 million for RE-ENERGYSE, to attract and educate future scientists in the clean energy fields
• Continued support for Educate to Innovate, a STEM education campaign promoting public-private partnerships, which has already mobilized $500 million in private resources

Also important to note is the consolidation of the Math and Science Partnerships fund under new legislation. The fund works to improve students’ academic achievement in math and science by promoting strong, quality teaching skills among teachers. At first glance, it may seem as if the funds, $180 million from FY2010, have been eliminated in FY2011. However, they have simply been reallocated as part of the $300 million request for the proposed Effective Teaching and Learning: STEM program under ESEA.

Overall, this budget makes a bold indication of the administration’s push for the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, formally titled the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). If ESEA is reformed and reauthorized, the President will then request an additional $1 billion from Congress to fund these programs.

President Obama made his intentions clear in saying, “This funding is tied to reforms that raise student achievement, inspire students to excel in math and science, and turn around failing schools which consign too many young people to a lesser future — because in the 21st century there is no better anti-poverty program than a world-class education.”