IN THE NATIONAL INTEREST

THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IN THE REFORM

OF K-12 MATH AND SCIENCE EDUCATION

SEPTEMBER 1991
Reprinted MAY 1993

A Report of the
CARNEGIE COMMISSION
ON SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND GOVERNMENT

The Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology, and Government was created in

April 1988 by Carnegie Corporation of New York. It is committed to helping government
institutions respond to the unprecedented advances in science and technology that are transforming the world. The Commission analyzes and assesses the factors that shape the relationship between science, technology, and government and is seeking ways to make this relationship more effective.
The Commission sponsors studies, conducts seminars, and establishes task forces to
focus on specific issues. Through its reports, the Commission works to see that ideas for better
use of science and technology in government are presented in a timely and intelligible manner.
Additional copies of this report may be obtained from the Commission's headquarters.

IN THE NATIONAL INTEREST

THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IN THE REFORM
OF K-12 MATH AND SCIENCE EDUCATION

SEPTEMBER 1991
Reprinted MAY 1993

A Report of the

CARNEGIE COMMISSION
ON ScaBNCB, TECHNOLOGY, AND GOVERNMENT

CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

PART I:

THE SOCIAL CONTEXT FOR A FEDERAL

REFORM EFFORT

15

PART II:

INADEQUACIES IN PRE-COLLEGE MATH AND

SCIENCE EDUCATION: A CHRONIC AND SERIOUS
THREAT TO THE NATION'S FUTURE

18

PART III: ASSUMPTIONS TO GUIDE FEDERAL STRATEGY AND

ORGANIZATION

PART IV:

PART V:

20

NATIONAL WILL AND NATIONAL SCOPE

ELEMENTS OF A FEDERAL STRATEGY

25
26

FEDERAL ACTIVITIES IN K-12 MATH AND

SCIENCE EDUCATION

28

CURRENT STRATEGIES
THE MAJOR FEDERAL PLAYERS
MONEY MATTERS: FEDERAL SPENDING FOR REFORM AND
IMPROVEMENT
RESOURCES FOR MATH AND SCIENCE IMPROVEMENT

28
29
31
35

PRIORITY ROLES FOR THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT 38

IN MATH AND SCIENCE EDUCATION
ROLE FOR THE PRESIDENT
ROLES FOR THE AGENCIES
SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FEDERAL AGENCY ACTION:
EIGHT KEY INNOVATIONS
WHO SHOULD Do WHAT FOR MATH AND SCIENCE
EDUCATION?

38
39
39
47

PART VI:

PART VII:

STRENGTHENING THE KEY FEDERAL AGENCIES

THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND NATIONAL SCIENCE
FOUNDATION
OTHER FEDERAL AGENCIES

48
48

DECIDING ADMINISTRATION POLICY AND

OVERSIGHT
ADMINISTRATION POLICY AND OVERSIGHT
ASSIGNMENT OF OPERATIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES TO THE
FEDERAL AGENCIES
A DoEo/NSF JOINT OFFICE FOR K-12 MATH AND
SCIENCE IMPROVEMENT
CONGRESSIONAL ACTION

52

49

52
56
56
58

PART VIII: BUILDING A NATIONAL STRATEGY FOR IMPROVING

MATH AND SCIENCE EDUCATION
CLOSING STATEMENT

6l

APPENDIX:

62

ALTERNATIVE ASSIGNMENTS OF FEDERAL MANAGEMENT

RESPONSIBILITY FOR K-12 MATH AND SCIENCE EDUCATION

60

ENDNOTES

65

GLOSSARY OF ACRONYMS

70

MEMBERS OF THE CARNEGIE COMMISSION ON SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY,

AND GOVERNMENT

71

MEMBERS OF THE ADVISORY COUNCIL, CARNEGIE COMMISSION ON

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND GOVERNMENT

72

MEMBERS OF THE TASK FORCE ON K-12 MATHEMATICS AND

SCIENCE EDUCATION

73

MEMBERS OF THE ADVISORY COUNCIL, TASK FORCE ON K-12

MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE EDUCATION

74

All who have meditated on the art of governing Mankind have

been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the
education of their youth.
Aristotle

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This report of the Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology, and Government was prepared by its Task Force on K-12
Mathematics and Science Education and adopted by the Commission
at its meeting on June 26, 1991. The members of the Task Force were:
Lewis M. Branscomb, Chair
Bill Aldridge
Richard Atkinson
Garrey Carruthers
Eugene H. Cota-Robles
Shirley Hufstedler
David Kearns*
Leon Lederman
Shirley M. McBay
Lauren B. Resnick
F. James Rutherford
Roland W. Schmitt
Maxine F. Singer
Sheila E. Widnall
The Task Force established an Advisory Council whose members were generous with their criticism and advice and contributed
many important ideas based on their broad range of expertise;
however, the findings of this report are the responsibility of the
Carnegie Commission and its Task Force. The members of the Task
Force and its Advisory Council and their affiliations are listed at the end
of this report. Also listed are the members of the Carnegie Commission
on Science, Technology, and Government and its Advisory Council.
The Task Force benefited from discussions with a number of
government officials, among them J. Thomas Ratchford, Associate
Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy; Walter Massey,
Director, National Science Foundation; Ted Sanders, then Deputy
Secretary, Department of Education; Christopher Cross, then Assistant
Secretary for Educational Research and Improvement, Department of
Education; Luther Williams, Assistant Director, Education and Human
Resources, National Science Foundation; and Peggy Dufour, Executive
Director, Committee on Education and Human Resources, Federal
Coordinating Council for Science, Engineering, and Technology.
The Commission is grateful to Dr. Branscomb for his leader-

* David Kearns resigned from the Task Force on May 20, 1991, when he was confirmed as Deputy
Secretary of Education.

ship, to the members of the Task Force and its advisors, to Rollin B.
Johnson, the project director, and to David Z. Robinson, who served
as principal liaison to the Commission and its staff.
Joshua Lederberg, Co-Chair
William T. Golden, Co-Chair

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
A large numberprobably a majorityof American public
schools are failing to prepare their students adequately for the jobs of
the future, for life in a diverse culture, or for the civic responsibilities
so essential to democracy. The President and governors are committed
to educational reform aimed at improving overly regimented schools
with dispirited teachers and unmotivated students. These efforts are
meant to produce fully functional institutions with properly trained,
motivated teachers who use modern materials and teaching methods
in creative environments and develop strong incentives for student
progress.
Unfortunately, that may not be enough for disadvantaged
students from poor communities. In the year 2000, when the national
goals agreed upon by the President and governors call for American
students to be "first in the world" in mathematics and science, one
American child in four will be poor; one child in three will be a minority
group member; and one child in twelve will lack the English language
proficiency required for learning. School reform alone will not suffice
to address these sources of disadvantage. Yet the Task Force on K12 Mathematics and Science Education is convinced that education is
the best hope for all children, and that math and science skills are
especially critical for good jobs, for further education, and for effective
participation in an increasingly technological world. We also believe
that rapid progress is possible, despite the aspects of disadvantage that
beset many schools, students, and families.
The charge given the Task Force by the Carnegie Commission
was to examine how the federal government is organized to make
decisions and implement change in the reform of math and science
education, and to identify changes in organizational structure and
decision-making processes that will help the federal government to be
an effective partner in education reform. Why focus on math and
science education when the schools are beset with systemic problems
not specific to any subject and by teaching problems in every subject
area? There are at least two reasons why the federal government
should pay special attention to math and science education: the
increasing demand for numeracy and problem-solving ability in
tomorrow's world, and the federal government's special responsibility
for assuring the nation's technical capability to address national goals
for the economy, environment, health, and security.
The Task Force shares with most Americans a sense of urgency
for bold initiatives that will provide real help to the nation's schools and
renew public confidence that dramatic progress can be made. There
is no shortage of motivated Americans with good ideas about how to
serve our children better. In short supply, however, is the institutional

capacity to aggregate enough resources, to build a national consensus

for action, andmost importantto persist with a specific program of
reform long enough for it to take effect, at least a decade and maybe
two.
The federal government should, therefore, support the most
promising initiatives in the country and build a constituency for
launching them on a scale that will make a substantial difference in
every school in America. The Task Force recommendations are
intended to help the federal government identify the best responses to
the challenges and support them more swiftly, wholeheartedly, and
intelligently.

ELEMENTS OF A FEDERAL STRATEGY

The Task Force devised a strategy for math and science
education reform with four elements:
Commit to change both how schools are organized and run
and what goes on inside the classroom. This requires the action of two
lead agencies, the Department of Education and the National Science
Foundation, working together through new mechanisms for collaboration with each other and with other agencies.
Deploy the resources of the technology-based agencies of the
federal government to improve math and science education and to
expand the supply of professionally trained scientists and mathematicians serving the nation as teachers and technical professionals.
Leverage state and private initiatives and support effective
change through greater emphasis on flexible, competitively evaluated
funding mechanisms and the best available understanding of the
education system and of teaching and learning strategies.
Build an informed, broadly participatory, and productive
collaboration among leaders of states and communities, federal agencies and Congress, private institutions, and the technical community,
using a variety of new institutional mechanisms to ensure that federal
activities are both effective and supportive.

Foremost among the federal responsibilities is the leadership

role of the President himself. The Task Force urges the President
to use the full prestige and influence of his office to mobilize all
Americans for a sustained, national, bipartisan reform effect.
The Task Force developed specific recommendations for
action by federal agencies in the following areas:

Provide fully qualified math and science teachers for

every school by recruiting teachers from under-represented groups; creating a single professional path to either
teaching or practice in mathematics and science; and
enhancing the knowledge, skills, and motivation of current
teachers.

Decide what students need to know and know how to

do by establishing requirements for the jobs of the
future. Engage the business community, scientists, and
citizens in this effort. Develop methods of assessment
appropriate to this goal.

Strengthen educational systems research and establish broad-based support for basic cognitive and applied learning research and field testing of innovations. A coordinated reform effort requires systems
research and "systems engineering" based on the best
analytical understanding of the K-12 education system.

Ensure diffusion of successful innovations: provide

access for all schools and all students to tested educational
improvements and support their successful adoption. Do
not be satisfied with successful demonstrations alone.

Empower all federal science agencies to take leadership roles in the reform of K-12 math and science
education. Every science agency of the government
should have an explicit education charter defining its
responsibilities to address pre-college issues that lie within
the agency's special technical expertise and human resource requirements.

Encourage private sector development of educational

materials, curricula, textbooks, and software for new
educational technology. Educational innovators in the
private sector not only make significant educational
9

investments but are able to diffuse innovations throughout

the country.

Support science centers and museums, educational

television, and other sources of "informal" education. Nontraditional education is a powerful way to
motivate students and interest parents in the serious study
of mathematics and science and to explode negative
stereotypes of science and scientists.

Provide an information and referral service to document innovations and help innovators locate federal
support for K-12 math and science activities. Individuals outside the federal agencies have difficulty in
locating the correct agency through which to gain access
to program materials, services, and information.

WHO SHOULD Do WHAT?

The Task Force recommends that federal science agencies play more significant roles in the reform effort:

10

The National Science Foundation should take the lead in

mobilizing the nation's universities and science professionals to revitalize math and science teacher education,
curricula, materials, and technology; support cognitive and
applied learning research; and stimulate science education
in unconventional settings. NSF should broaden its education experience beyond education research.

The Department of Education should take the lead role for

systemic change, for educational systems analysis to inform the reform strategy, for assessment of progress, and
for the diffusion of successful innovations. The Office of
Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) of DoEd
should help the nation develop a "cerebral cortex" for
education reform, and should acquire the capability to
manage the kind of competitive, innovative programs
necessary for rapid progress in math and science reform.

The Department of Labor should become a more active

participant, particularly with regard to defining goals for

educational content and skills needed for the jobs of the

future.

The Department of Energy should continue its leadership

of the Committee on Education and Human Resources of
the Federal Coordinating Council for Science, Engineering,
and Technology (FCCSET), and through that mechanism
ensure that all the R&D-intensive agencies coordinate their
contributions to math and science educational progress.

The Department of Health and Human Services, especially

the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute
of Mental Health, should design and carry out an appropriate long-range program, coordinated with NSF and DoEd,
to ensure the nation's supply of quality health professionals
as well as its future health.

The Department of Defense should create model schools to

demonstrate its capabilities in educational technology,
processes, and programs; transfer them to the private
sector; and facilitate the entry of demobilized personnel
with math and science training into public school teaching.

Because the math and science reform effort requires urgency,

vision, and dynamism, all technical agencies should develop a more
streamlined and responsive infrastructure.

NEW INSTITUTIONS
Besides strengthening existing offices dealing with math and
science education, the DoEd and NSF should create a mechanism for
collaborationa Joint Office for Math and Science Improvement. It
would report directly and jointly to the Secretary of Education and the
Director of NSF. We recommend that outside advice to DoEd and NSF
be channeled through an advisory panel reporting to theJoint Office to
facilitate close collaboration between these agencies.
To support the national reform effort, DoEd should set up, with
NSF participation, a national centerfor educational systems analysis
that can serve as "systems engineer" for new efforts to accumulate
research knowledge to guide reform, evaluate the effectiveness of
reform initiatives, and diffuse best educational practice; it should
include a clearinghouse for educational information. A Federally
11

Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) might be the

appropriate institutional form.
A nongovernmental national center for educational content
and assessment should be created, perhaps under the National
Education Goals Panel, to build consensus on what American students
should know and know how to do, and to assess their progress.
The National Education Goals Panel should be supplemented
by a council of education reform leaders from outside government
together with senior officials from the Executive Branch, Congress, and
the states, e.g., the directors of the Office of Science and Technology
Policy (OSTP) and NSF, chairs or staff directors of key education
committees of Congress, governors, and chief state and city school
officers. This council would support the work of the Goals Panel and
would convene a biennial national conference on educational improvement sponsored by either the Goals Panel or by OERI to review
the national strategy on math and science reform, and the progress
toward national math and science goals.

MONEY MATTERS
Given that state and local governments fund 94 percent of
school budgets, the federal government's role in reform should be to
leverage state and private investments and produce change in the
system, not to sustain it as it is. There is an immediate and substantial
need for reorientation of federal education funding toward educational
reform.
The Task Force recommends that, as a long-term goal, a
designated proportion (perhaps 10 percent) of DoEd's program
funding be allocated for discretionary activities aimed at more
effective achievement of program goals. These activities would be
devoted to change-oriented, competitive, professionally reviewed
programs that provide incentives for reform to states and communities.
As this flexibility would allow DoEd programs to be more effective in
serving the intended groups of students, learning in science and
mathematics would be enhanced along with all other parts of the
curriculum.
This flexibility is also needed in the only existing DoEd
program that targets mathematics and science. To this end, the
Administration and Congress should convert all the funding for
the Eisenhower grants program in DoEd to a competitive, peerreviewed program. This would almost double the funding directed
toward enhancing the performance of K-12 math and science teaching.
12

There is a strong case for greater priority attention and funding

by the federal government specifically for math and science education.
Indeed, science and mathematics are the only areas of schooling in
which American students are explicitly intended by the President and
governors to become "first in the world." But in 1991 the federal
government budgeted only $515 million, or only 4 percent of its total
contribution to public school revenues, directly for math and science
education.
The Task Force concludes that more of the federal precollege education investment should be targeted to mathematics
and science. The Task Force recommends that all federal
agencies concerned with science and technology devote some
percentage of their R&D funds to math and science education.
Since the federal government is the largest single employer of math and
science professionals, it has an interest and an obligation to reinvest
in the education pipeline. These funds, too, could be administered
through a competitive grants process to encourage the best innovators
and the best ideas.

MECHANISMS FOR COORDINATION AND MANAGEMENT

For oversight of the math and science reform effort, two
channels of White House oversight (in addition to the Office of
Management and Budget) are important. The Domestic Policy
Council, with the Secretary of Education as chair of its Education
subcommittee, coordinates overall education policy and should give
mathematics and science a high priority in the strategy. The President's
Assistant for Science and Technology uses the Committee on Education and Human Resources (CEHR) of FCCSET as an extension of the
OSTP staff to encourage and coordinate activities of the Department
of Education and the fifteen agencies with math and science content
in their missions.
As part of the quest for an integrated federal strategy,
CEHR should become a standing committee of FCCSET, with a
full-time staff devoted to the coordination of agency activities
and the review of agency strategies for K-12 math and science
improvement. The Director of OSTP should assign to an associate
director full-time responsibility for math and science education issues.

13

MECHANISM FOR CONGRESSIONAL REVIEW

The many congressional committees with jurisdiction
over DoEd, NSF, and other engaged agencies should cooperatively review the activities such agencies may undertake to
accelerate K-12 math and science education reform, and give
priority to math and science issues in the intensified program of
federal action. A temporary Select Committee on Math and Science
Education might be a useful instrument for this purpose. Where
statutory limitations hinder promising agency activity, they should be
removed.

Is there reason to be optimistic about lifting the capabilities of

American students to "first in the world" in the next decade? The
current situation holds out great promise of dramatic progress. On the
other hand, few areas of social development have more often seen
hopes crushed and cynicism prevail.
The one best hope for success is impassioned, persistent,
nonpartisan leadership by every American able to make a contributionbut most importantly by the President. His crusade in the cause
of education, if taken up by governors, congressional and other
leaders, and by presidents who follow, can turn this situation around.
We can once again be proud of our schools and confident that future
generations of young Americans will be equipped to lead the nation
to new levels of greatness.

14

PART I
THE SOCIAL CONTEXT FOR A
FEDERAL REFORM EFFORT
This report is about the serious shortcomings in U.S.
math and science education, and what the federal government
can and should do in order to play a much more effective role in
the national effort to remedy those shortcomings.
Inadequacies in pre-college math and science education are a
chronic and serious threat to our nation's future. The national interest
is strongly bound up in the ability of Americans to compete technologically. This requires not only an adequate supply of scientific and
technical professionals but a work force able to solve problems and use
the tools of a knowledge-intensive economy. All young people,
including the non-college-bound, the disadvantaged, and young
women, must be given the opportunity to become competent in
mathematics and science.
A large numberprobably a majorityof American public
schools are failing to prepare their students adequately for the jobs of
the future, for life in a diverse culture, or for the civic responsibilities
so essential to democracy. This conclusion is supported by both expert
and political assessment,1 even though some public schools provide an
excellent education for college-bound children from middle- and
working-class families. Most families, in fact, think their local schools
are finenot realizing how inadequate their children's education may
be in light of tomorrow's higher demands for skills and judgment.2
Most efforts at school reform, including those to which the
President and governors are committed, are aimed at improving overly
regimented schools staffed by dispirited teachers and attended by
unmotivated students. These efforts are meant to produce fully
functional institutions with properly trained, motivated teachers who
use modern materials and teaching methods in creative environments
and develop strong incentives for student progress. The current
division of federal and state accountability, even with today's per-pupil
expenditures, may be able to achieve this transformation in many of
America's public schools. Unfortunately, that may not be enough for
disadvantaged students from poor communities.
For the most rapidly growing segment of the children in our
landthe poor and other disadvantaged childrenpublic schools and
the other social institutions on which they depend are failing to reverse
a downward spiral that threatens to relegate the majority of these
children to a lifetime of second-class citizenship. In the year 2000,
when the national goals agreed upon by the President and governors
call for American students to be best in the world in mathematics and
15

science, one American child in four will be poor; one child in three will
be a member of a minority group; and one child in twelve will not be
sufficiently proficient in English to learn without special assistance.3
The state of American public education is therefore a reflection
indeed, a victimof the nation's social condition. With many children
in impoverished urban communities facing inadequate educational
stimulation and even basic nutrition at home, current financial,
political, and institutional arrangements do not offer a means of escape
from the spiral of despair. School reform alone will not suffice.
Yet the Task Force on K-12 Mathematics and Science Education is convinced that education is the best hope for all children, and
that math and science skills are especially critical for good jobs, for
further education, and for effective participation in an increasingly
technological world. We also believe rapid progress is possible,
despite the aspects of disadvantage that beset many schools, students,
and families. This report is directed to the federal government's
opportunity to contribute to that progress much more effectively than
it does today.
The charge given the Task Force by the Carnegie Commission
was to examine how the federal government is organized to make
decisions and implement change in the reform of math and science
education, and to identify changes in organizational structure and
decision-making processes that will help the federal government to be
an effective partner in education reform. The many Americans who are
driving education reform efforts around the country may feel that few
ideas for improvement originate in federal agencies. From their
perspective, it is more important for the federal government to identify
the most promising initiatives in the country and to build a constituency
for launching them on a large enough scale to make a substantial
difference in every school in America. Members of the Task Force
share this sense of urgency. Bold and dramatic initiatives that will
provide real help to schools may also renew public confidence that
dramatic improvements can be made in the nation's public schools.
It has been noted before that radical reforms are sometimes
more likely to be adopted than evolutionary steps.4 But the education
problem is not a shortage of motivated Americans with good ideas
about how to serve our children better: it is a failure to create the
necessary institutional capacity, to aggregate enough resources, and
most importantto persist with a specific program of reform for at least
a decade or two. Can the government at federal, state, and local levels
create those institutions, find those resources, and provide continuity
of effort through bad times as well as good? If not, how else can our
democracy assemble the capacity to act in its own national interest?
Thus, while this report does highlight a number of challenges
requiring dramatic national action, its focus is on helping the federal
government better identify the best responses to those challenges and
support them swiftly, wholeheartedly, and intelligently. We discuss
16

the most-needed improvements in the way the federal government

encourages, evaluates, and supports reform. We have made a serious
attempt to help the President, his cabinet, Congress, and the states and
communities make better use of their resources by recommending
ways to increase the institutional capability to attack the nation's
education problemsspecifically in mathematics and sciencewith
all the skill, judgment, and organized effort of which this nation is
uniquely capable.

17

PART II
INADEQUACIES IN PRE-COLLEGE MATH AND
SCIENCE EDUCATION: A CHRONIC AND SERIOUS
THREAT TO THE NATION'S FUTURE
A long series of reports5 citing poor student achievement,
vicious cycles of poverty and crime, illiterate and innumerate job
applicants, remedial education investments by businesses and by the
military, unequal educational opportunity, and shortages of American
scientists, engineers, and technicians are vivid and convincing testimony that our public school system is failing to prepare all our young
people for the future, and that this failing is particularly seriousin
both degree and consequencein mathematics and science.
There is, indeed, a serious problem with U.S. math and science
education. When 47 percent of our nation's seventeen-year-olds
cannot convert 9 parts out of 100 to a percentage,6 we know that math
education is not working. When 63 percent of American adults think
that lasers work by focusing sound waves,7 we know that science
education in this country is not working. According to the Department
of Education, only 7 percent of high school seniors are prepared for
college-level science courses.8 A school system whose graduates are
ignorant about science, repelled by mathematics, and confused by
technology is a system that is not working well.9 Many refer to this state
of affairs as a "crisis." If so, it is a crisis become chronic.
The crisis in math and science education was first recognized
34 years ago when the Soviet Sputnik could be seen crossing American
skies every 96 minutes, reminding us not to take our technical
excellence for granted. At that time government was primarily
concerned about the adequacy of the number and quality of professional scientists, engineers, and mathematicians needed to assure our
freedom from a Soviet threat. The National Defense Education Act (the
source of the only major pre-college math/science program remaining
in the Department of Education today) began the first of several waves
of education reform.
In the past ten years, the United States has experienced two
more major waves of educational reform, this time recognizing that a
secure and competitive nation must have a better-informed citizenry,
and a better-trained work force prepared for lifelong learning. The
alarm of the early eighties10 brought stricter standards, but no substantive change in how schools are staffed and run, and little positive result
beyond an increasingly aroused public.
By the middle and late eighties, designs for systemic change
were widely adopted by the governors, 11 but there was marked
18

reluctance on the part of the federal government to address the

problem with the urgency it deserved.12 The states undertook many
isolated innovations,13 and many governors gave priority attention to
reform. But too often the effort faded with the end of a governor's term,
the onset of hard times, or the absence of an effective strategy drawing
on all the needed resources, public and private, state and federal. The
sustained effort to address all the critical, interdependent elements of
K-12 schooling was not there.
In September 1989, the President and governors made a
number of dramatic commitments at an "education summit" in
Charlottesville, Virginia. Among them: By the year 2000, U.S. students
will be first in the world in science and mathematics achievement.
Governors, congressional leaders, and Administration officials14 are
now working together through the National Education Goals Panel,
and independently through proposed legislation, to reach that goal.
What does "first in the world in science and mathematics"
mean? In terms that are relevant to an America in rapid demographic
transition,15 it means a level of math and science competence that will
best prepare all Americans for the kinds of jobs that produce a
competitive and growing economy, keep our citizenry informed and
capable of self-government, and ensure that U.S. scientists and
engineers are as creative and productive as those of any other nation.16
The Task Force believes that math and science education should
receive priority attention as a specific focus area in federalpre-college
education reform initiatives. However, math and science educational
improvement must be undertaken in the context of systemic reform of
K-12 education as a whole: teacher capability and diversity, school
structure and management, and student motivation. Federal programs in general school reform and in math and science education
should be concurrent, coordinated efforts.

19

PART III
ASSUMPTIONS TO GUIDE FEDERAL STRATEGY
AND ORGANIZATION
American schools have been subjected to pressures for reform
since at least the 1920s. "A central paradox of education ... is that
schools, possibly more than any institution in our society, are
constantly changing in response to external pressures; yet they never
seem to change in ways that satisfy reformers."17 Throughout this
history there runs a contrast between the urgency, enthusiasm, energy,
creativity, and serious effort that reformers have brought to the task,
and the slow, ineffective, short-lived efforts to diffuse local successes
to other schools.
Each reform effort was rapidly supplanted by the next "new"
idea. Reforms have been based on simplistic rather than sophisticated
understanding of teaching and learning; they have rarely had the
benefit of an overall strategy. Systemic change has been preempted
by clever but fleeting and relatively superficial change, to which the
education system is highly resistant. Progress has more often faded
away than endured.
But the urgent, serious efforts of teachers, administrators,
parents, and citizens are more vital than ever to a new reform agenda.
The challenge is to engage all elements of communities in the effort, and
give their commitment a better chance to be effective than ever before.
The federal government can, if properly staffed, organized, and
"missioned," make a decisive contribution to that end.
The following assumptions underlie our recommendations on
how the federal government should decide its strategy for math and
science education improvement, how it should organize itself to carry
out that strategy, and how agency missions should be allocated.

There is no time to waste. Not all children are receiving

adequate preschool education, and in any case none of the children
benefiting from preschool intervention today will have graduated from
high school by the year 2000. Children now entering elementary
school will encounter many teachers with weak educational backgrounds in mathematics and science. The National Science Teachers
Association estimates that only about 35,000 of the 1 million elementary school teachers are specifically trained for math and science
teaching. According to leading professional associations in math and
science education, 67 percent of elementary science teachers have
inadequate course preparation in science and 82 percent are deficient
in mathematics.18 Every school day, students in these grades come to
school naturally curious about the world and go home having learned
20

to hate science and mathematics a little more.

The graduates of the class of 2000 have already finished third
grade. How can these graduates expect to be best in the world in
science if, when they reach middle school, they find that 86 percent of
the math teachers and 69 percent of the science teachers fall short of
standards for course-work preparation set by professional associations
of math and science educators? When they reach high school, will they
still find that 71 percent of their biology teachers, 69 percent of their
chemistry teachers, and 88 percent of their math teachers have
substandard preparation in their subjects, as is the case today?
Considering the magnitude of the problem, it is clear that
extraordinary efforts, both short and long term, will be required to help
children in every grade during this decade. With adequate remediation,
current students in all grades can make up for lost ground, but it will
take perhaps another decade before each child benefits fully from
improvement at all levels, preschool to 12th grade, and remediation
becomes much less necessary.

Deep and effective change in the K-12 education system

is needed if the goal is ever to be met. There is widespread
agreement that most American schools have limited control over how
they teach, are encrusted with bureaucracy, and are frequently staffed
with inadequately prepared and motivated teachers who teach outdated curricula and use strategies driven by inappropriate testing. This
agreement has created a receptive climate for some radical institutional
experimentation. However, reform will be very difficult to accomplish
with the resources now available, since most state education budgets
are in crisis, and federal contributions to K-12 education (discussed in
Part IV) are modest by comparison. The most immediate priority is to
achieve much greater leverage with the funds now available. Change
is also needed in the capabilities of the federal agencies and the policies
that guide them if the federal government is to be a fully effective
partner with the states, the private sector, and concerned citizens in
achieving the national education goals. Growing evidence of the
deepening commitment of the business community to education
reform makes it particularly important that federal agencies be able to
take advantage of private-sector experience in identifying weaknesses
and implementing structural change and effective management. This
is already occurring at the state level, where a number of chief
executive officers of large corporations affiliated with The Business
Roundtable have teamed up with governors to institute essential
elements of reform in state policy.19

Student performance will not improve nationally until

the teacher force is improved nationally. Who will teach science
and mathematics to the graduates of 2000? Will they be fully prepared?
Over 60 percent of junior high school principals report difficulty in
21

hiring physics, chemistry, and computer science teachers.20 Currently,

30 percent of U.S. high schools offer no physics courses, 17 percent
offer no chemistry courses, and 70 percent offer no earth or space
science courses. Fewer than 50 percent of high school graduates of the
class of 1987 took chemistry, and only about 20 percent took physics.
Only 7 percent of high school graduates evaluated in a national study
by the Department of Education had the preparation needed to take
college-level courses in science.
These dismal statistics paint a picture of students whose
educational opportunities are far below what the nation can and
should sustain. This is not surprising when one considers that their
teachers have come from the same schools and that those who enroll
in college-level teacher training generally come from the lower levels
of high school academic performance. A high priority must be
accorded to helping the teachers we have and attracting the best new
talent to teaching.

Reform strategies must be informed by the best available

understanding of the education system and of teaching and
learning practice. That understanding must rest on a sound base of
education research and on evaluation of what works, what does not,
and why. Recent advances in education research have the potential
to improve mathematics and science education greatly. Basic research
in cognitive science is revealing how people learn mathematics and
science, how the learning context affects learning, and what barriers
may block understanding. The potential for a breakthrough in learning
effectiveness is there. But too little effort has been devoted to applied
research, to bringing these ideas into realistic school settings and
curricula, testing them in the field, and implementing those that work.
Even under the best of circumstances, translation of major research
insights into practice takes a long time.

Effective educational innovations must be available to all

schools. A conspicuous shortcoming of reform efforts to date is the
absence of effective incentives and facilities for the diffusion of better
teaching methods, content goals and curriculum materials designed for
them, and support services for teachers. Past experience shows that
many innovations are quite successful, but their rate of adoption by
other districts is painfully slow. To reach the national goals, or even
to come close, a greatly accelerated rate of diffusion of best practice is
required. Two approaches are available: national incentives to adopt
standard content goals combined with more appropriate assessment of
progress, and network-based distribution of quality-assured materials,
methods, and services.
Targeted efforts to improve rural and urban schoolsarguably
the greatest challenge to reformare vital. Access to information and
assistance in adopting the best practices and materials in these schools
22

should be the first priority. Parental involvement must be encouraged

through all possible means to keep education high on the family
agenda even when children are not at school. Mechanisms for aiding
parental involvement and for providing special help, particularly for
single-parent families and families in poverty, must be instituted.

Specific reforms must also address what goes on inside

the classroom, especially with regard to science and mathematics. Changes in structure and organization, important as they are, will
not be enough. Education reform must be top-down, bottom-up,
inside-out, and outside-in.21 "Reformed" schools* will have the same
parents, the same students, and much the same educational process,
until those schools adopt content standards for what students should
know, and until that content is embodied in new curricula taught by
better-trained teachers and measured by better assessment methods.

Special Problems of Math and Science Education

There is little dispute that a number of outstanding problems specific to math and science education remain to be
addressed:

Rote learning in mathematics and science, aggravated by the

emphasis on standardized testing, leaves students without the
capacity to think quantitatively and solve problems for
themselves.

Even in schools that offer science courses, the sequential nature

of courses in different science subjects deprives students of
the opportunity for integrated learning.

The rapid obsolescence of scientific knowledge necessitates an approach to teacher training that is different from
that for most other subjects.

Declining minority representation (relative to the mix of

students) is a particularly serious problem among math and
science teachers and other professionals in technical fields.

* "New American Schools" are envisioned in America 2000. These schools, initially one in each
congressional district, are designed by each community with one-time federal review and startup support to adopt and reach the National Education Goals.

This is particularly important in mathematics and science, which pose

problems different from those of other subjects taught in the schools.
Enhancing the human relationships among teachers, and
between teachers and students, will greatly enhance the performance
of both. Teachers with strong collegial relationships and students who
are not anonymous occupants of a classroom will be more motivated.
Parents and the home environment are equally critical to learning
outcomesespecially in motivating students to apply themselves
wholeheartedly to the most rewarding, and often the most challenging,
courses of study.22
Children come to school naturally curious about the world,
always experimenting and learning how it affects them and how they
can change it. The public schools, parents, and communities should
do everything possible to nurture, encourage, and develop that
curiosity and that natural tendency to experiment. Children should be
guided in how to ask questions about the world, and how science and
technology can help them answer more and more sophisticated
questions. The excitement of pushing the limits of technology, or at
least of using the latest technology, should be communicated. The
ways science and technology have helped people and have transformed the world should be stressed to motivate children to pursue
science and mathematics with zeal in the classroom.

All young people, including the non-college bound, can

and should be competent in science and mathematics; in particular, efforts should be made to draw in women and minority
men. The crippling fallacy that math and science ability is innate, and
that many or most young people cannot learn mathematics and
science, though disproved by sound research,23 persists in the minds
of both parents and educators. This perverse idea becomes selffulfilling when poor academic performance is blamed on the children
instead of their parents, their schools, and their communities. The
result is the exclusion of a large proportion of children from the math/
science talent pool. As Harvey Brooks put it, "It is remarkable and
paradoxical to me that the country in the world that is most dedicated
to the proposition that everyone is equal is the first to accept the notion
of differences in learning abilitysomething which is much less
accepted in Europe and Japan than in the U.S."24
Today's system of education discourages most young women
and young minority men from the pursuit of mathematics and science,
creates the expectation of failure, and promotes the fallacy that women
and minorities will not be in thefront ranks of technical achievement.
This discourages the fastest-growing segment of the school population, unfairly deprives these young people of the skills needed to hold
jobs with a future, and cheats the nation of a substantial source of
needed technical talent.
We must also dispel the fallacy that students disadvantaged by
24

poverty, race, or language in urban and rural schools are not needed
to support the technical base in this country. Students in poverty
comprise nearly 25 percent of our student base and thus 25 percent of
our potential technical expertise. Because their school systems cannot
attract the best teachers or supply the latest teaching materials and
environments, poor urban and rural students are shortchanged in their
education. The benefits to our society of lifting these students out of
poverty can be immense. The results of Head Start and other programs
have already shown this to be true. From a purely economic
perspective, education can shift a growing fraction of the population
from a sink for public expenditure to a source of national wealth.
Another excuse for accepting student failure to master work in
science and mathematics is the fallacy that these subjects are only
important for the immediately college bound. The Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) in the Department of Labor
is addressing what high school graduates need to know and know how
to do in the jobs of tomorrow. SCANS* is analyzing the need for both
foundation skills, e.g. literacy and numeracy, and functional skills,
which are heavily technical and include complex problem analysis,
understanding of production systems, etc. A strong focus on preparing
students for real jobs and facilitating the school-to-work transition
should drive K-12 education goals and is critically needed for the
revitalization of the U.S. economy.

NATIONAL WILL AND NATIONAL SCOPE

The U.S. can succeed at educating and preparing our citizens
when there is the national will and the leadership to do so. In an age
when national security is defined by economic strength and environmental protection as much as by military readiness, a well-educated
and well-trained work force is more essential than ever. Therefore,
America must mount a national offensive in education with the same
bold leadership, commitment, and professionalism that it devotes to
national defense. However, the task of educational reform will be
much more difficult to achieve than a quick and decisive military
victory, even if substantial new resources were available. The goals of
education are more diffuse, the problems are systemic, and the
education structure is highly decentralized and adapted to local needs

* See Glossary of Acronyms for a complete list of acronyms used in the text.

25

and local visions. Hence, the reform of the nineties must be national
in scope, well coordinated, long-term in vision, persistent in execution,
and committed to the expectation of success in math and science by
every child in every American schoolroom.
The federal government's responsibility for public education
has a long history. Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton had clear ideas
about the connection between education and the national interest but
left the means for carrying out this responsibility undefined in the
Constitution. This report's underlying view of the federal role is that
there are national interests in educational quality and equity that go
beyond state interests, but the primary responsibility for both educational policy and administration rests with the states, cities, and
communities. Thus the federal government should dedicate its efforts
to helping the states and communities reform and improve the system,
leveraging state efforts rather than displacing them,25 New institutional
arrangements to enhance the collaboration of federal, state, and
private reform activities are required.

ELEMENTS OF A FEDERAL STRATEGY

These assumptions led the Task Force to formulate a fourelement federal strategy for math and science education reform:

26

Determine to change both how schools are organized and

run and what goes on inside the classroom. This requires
the action of two lead agencies, the Department of
Education and the National Science Foundation, working
together through new mechanisms for collaboration with
each other and with other agencies.

Deploy the resources of the technology-based agencies of the

federal government to improve math and science education and to expand the supply of professionally trained
scientists and mathematicians serving the nation as teachers and technical professionals.

Leverage state and private initiatives and support effective

change through greater emphasis on flexible, competitively
evaluated funding mechanisms informed by the best
available understanding of the education system and of
teaching and learning strategies.

Build an informed, broadly participatory, and productive

collaboration among leaders of states and communities,
federal agencies and Congress, private institutions, and the
technical community, using a variety of new institutional
mechanisms to ensure that federal activities are both
effective and supportive.

The goal is a federal structure for math and science education

that will survive changes in political climate and enable government to
be a more effective partner in this national endeavor than it has been
in the past.

27

PART IV

FEDERAL ACTIVITIES IN MATH AND SCIENCE

EDUCATION
This section describes what the federal government is doing in
math and science education and what more it could be doing, through
which agencies, and with what resources.

CURRENT STRATEGIES
The Administration has put forward two strategic plans for its
role in education reform. By the Year 2000: First in the World, prepared
by the Committee on Education and Human Resources (CEHR) of the
Federal Coordinating Council for Science, Engineering, and Technology (FCCSET), describes an effort by sixteen agencies and three
Executive offices to support math and science education at all levels.
It was released in February 1991 as an official part of the President's
budget, and requests an increase of $146 million for pre-college
education activities. At the pre-college level, the report emphasizes
teacher preparation, curriculum and materials development, organizational reform, and student opportunities. The report is particularly
important in view of the absence of close collaboration among many
of these agencies in the past, especially between the National Science
Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Education (DoEd), which
together control 86 percent of the federal investment in pre-college
math and science improvement.
America 2000: An Education Strategy, a report released by the
President and the Department of Education in April 1991, calls for
systemic change in pre-college education. It promises that the
Administration will "reward progress and spur change"; a $690 million
increment in the Department of Education FY1992 budget is requested
to fund its initiation. Much of the reform strategy described in America
2000 is based on empirical trials of new school concepts and ways to
expand parental choice. Dealing with K-12 schools as a whole, it does
not focus specifically on mathematics and science. Indeed, the FCCSET
report, released two months earlier, is not mentioned.
The America 2000 strategy is bottom-up (i.e., decentralized,
originating locally) and outside-in (i.e., initiated by non-school orga-

28

nizations). The By the Year 2000 strategy is top-down (created at the

state or national level) and inside-out (created by teachers, students,
administrators, or parents). Whatever the comprehensive program
eventually agreed upon by Congress and the Administration, we
believe that all four directions of strategy must be used in concert if the
nation is to reform its schools successfully.

THE MAJOR FEDERAL PLAYERS

Two agencies of the federal government share primary responsibility for programs in K-12 education: the National Science Foundation and the Department of Education. NSF is the agency most
specifically concerned with improving K-12 math and science education, and is best prepared today to mobilize the nation's best talent in
this endeavor. DoEd is responsible for K-12 education across all
disciplines, is experienced in the conflicts and complexities of educational politics and in addressing systemic problems that afflict all
elements of schooling, and has the networks in place for more effective
diffusion of innovations.
NSF accesses the best research capabilities in the nation,
including cognitive science and learning research that should inform
strategies for educational improvement. It is experienced in running
competitive programs to support the best ideas arising outside the

The National Science Foundation

The primary mission of the National Science Foundation is
the support of the nation's professional scientific and technological capabilities, through support for basic research. Out of
NSF's $2.4 billion budget request for FY 1991, 81 percent is for
scientific research, mostly at universities. But Congress also
assigned to NSF responsibility for improving science, mathematics, and engineering education at all levels. For this activity,
conducted in the Directorate for Education and Human Services,
$251 million was requested in FY 1991, of which 66 percent was
for K-12 education. Today, the pre-college program is receiving
increasing attention as concerns about the impact of poor schooling
on the nation's technical excellence grow.26

government and has an excellent reputation for integrity, technical

sophistication, and the use of peer judgment in program selection. The
research, universities, which have the most to offer to future science
teachers, are NSF's constituency. NSF has the capability to develop and
test educational materials, methods, and tools for assessment, and to
create institutional innovations. However, because of its modest
budget and its competing science research mission, NSF alone cannot
carry the federal role in math and science education reform.
The Department of Education's active participation in math and
science education reform is essential, because progress in mathematics
and science will be made only by literate, numerate students in fully
functioning schools throughout the nation. Even if the nation's need
for professional scientists and engineers were to be fully met by those

The Department of Education

The Department of Education has a long history. In 1867 a
non-cabinet-level education department (soon called an Office
of Education) was formed, and was associated with a variety of
federal agencies. Beginning in the 1960s, the federal education
responsibility was sited in the Office of Education in the
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW). This
office was given Department status by Congress in 1979, when
HEW was divided into the Department of Health and Human
Services and DoEd. DoEd strongly emphasizes providing equitable
educational opportunity for all, including the poor, the
handicapped, and the learning-impaired. Serving disadvantaged
students more effectively calls for reform and innovations which
are not necessarily the same initiatives needed to address math
and science educational issues. The major K-12 spending programs
of the Department of Education were devised primarily to reduce
the within-district inequities of state and local spending on schools
and students, and to help specific groups of students with special
needs that are poorly met by the schools. These include programs
of the Orifice of Elementary and Secondary Education ($7.8 billion
in FY 1991 outlays), Special Education and Rehabilitation Services
($4.4 billion), and Bilingual Education ($193 million). The major
programs in these offices are Chapter 1 programs for disadvantaged
schools and students; the Education for All Handicapped Children
Act (P.L. 94-142); and bilingual education grants to school districts
(ESEA, Title VII, Part A).27 Few of DoEd's programs are subjectspecific, and its statutes place some constraints on its role in
curriculum development and other activities pivotal to education
improvement.

30

schools of superior quality and by the immigration of foreign scientists,

both equality of opportunity and the quest for the best talent demand
that special attention be given to young women, minorities, and the
poor. The scale of the equity effort required is far beyond NSF's
capability, and DoEd must assist through its efforts to leverage state
action. But DoEd will need the collaboration of NSF, particularly for
those activities that must draw on the talents of science, math, and
engineering professionals, such as research-based development of
innovative materials, curricula, and methods for teacher preparation in
mathematics and science.
NSF and DoEd each has statutory responsibility for federal efforts supporting the reform of math and science education. Redundancy is not a problem; these are very different
agencies and their responsibilities are complementary. The
resources, skills, and cultures of both agencies are required if
rapid progress is to be made toward the national goals for
mathematics and science.
Some fourteen other agencies, of which the Departments of
Health and Human Services (HHS), Labor (DoL), Energy (DoE),
Defense (DoD), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are particularly important, are in a position to make
significant contributions to these goals. The Secretary of Energy has
a key role as chairman of CEHR, which coordinates the efforts of the
many agencies involved.
However, in terms of dollar investments, NSF and DoEd are the
major players in pre-college math and science education. The other
agencies together account for only 14 percent of the total federal
investment in activities directly related to K-12 math and science
education.28

MONEY MATTERS: FEDERAL SPENDING FOR REFORM AND

IMPROVEMENT
Within the federal government, NSF and DoEd have the
primary federal mission responsibility and budget authorization for
math and science education (see boxes for details).
According to the recent inventory by the FCCSET Committee
on Education and Human Resources, all agencies together spent only
$515 million specifically for pre-college math and science in 1991, $406
million of that being directed at formal, in-classroom activity.29
Why is it that the federal government directs the equivalent of
only 4 percent of its total K-12 public school expenditures30 to the one
31

area of schoolingscience and mathematicsin which American

students are intended by the President and governors to become "first
in the world"?
There is a strong case for priority attention and funding by the
federal government specifically for math and science education:

Quantitative problem solving, reasoning, and basic scientific understanding are, along with literacy, essential skills
for protecting the United States' comparative advantage in
the increasingly information-intensive world economy.
From a trade perspective, this is a legitimate and major
federal concern.

Federal agencies finance almost half the nation's research

and development ($64 billion out of $145.5 billion in 1990),
and federal investments in science and engineering make
critical contributions to industrial competitiveness and
hence to economic well-being.31 Shortcomings in K-12
math and science education may put federal missions, the
economy, and other national interests dependent on
science, mathematics, and engineering professionals at risk.

Federal Expenditures for K-12 Math and Science

Education
NSF's total FY 1991 budget outlays are estimated at $2.4
billion, with $213 million (9 percent) going to K-12 education.
Virtually all of this is directed toward math and science education.
DoEd's total FY 1991 budget outlays are estimated at $24.8
billion, with $7.8 billion (31 percent) going to K-12 education,
most of which is devoted to categorical programs that allocate
funds to states and school districts on the basis of fixed formulae.
DoEd invests only $228 million, or less than 1 percent of its total
budget and less than 4 percent of its K-12 budget, on pre-college
math and science education.32 Almost all of this is Eisenhower
Program funds. This investment is only slightly more than NSF's,
even though DoEd's total budget is ten times that of NSF.
The rest of the agencies combined devote far less moneyonly $74 millionto pre-college math and science education than
either NSF or DoEd.

32

Support for pre-college math, science, and engineering

education has been a statutory responsibility of the National Science Foundation since 1950.

Federal agencies, especially NSF, have excellent access to

university resources that are essential not only for educational research but for educating young people for both
teaching and research.

Successful teaching of mathematics and science is specifically dependent on subject-matter competence, and an
unacceptably large proportion of teachers in the schools
do not possess the requisite background.

The federal science agencies in FCCSET (which operate or

finance over 750 laboratories with over a hundred thousand scientists and engineers) have that subject-matter
competence, have been encouraged to include education
in their responsibilities, and have the capability to make a
much bigger contribution than they do today.

There is less political controversy over the content of math

and science curricula than in other areas, such as ethnocentric and multilingual teaching, and therefore less ideological objection to federal participation in reform of mathematics and science (with the lingering controversy about
evolution vs. creationism an important exception).

The President indicated his priorities by giving math and

science education priority attention in the FY 1992 budget
request (a 28 percent increase).

The Task Force concludes that 4 percent of the total

federal pre-college educational investment, which itself is only
6 percent of total public school revenues, is an inadequate
reflection of the priority accorded to math and science education hi the national goals.
But would increasing expenditures in the current programs of
the Department of Education solve the math and science education
problem? There is no question that substantial expenditures are
necessary to redress the crippling societal problems that impede or
prevent the schools from being more effective, such as poverty, crime,
and parental neglect. Although education will not eliminate these
conditions, it is a critical tool for helping young people escape them.
Therefore it is especially urgent that educational opportunities in lowincome areas be rapidly improved.
More funding could speed the reform effort in the entire cur33

riculum, including science and mathematics. The FY 1992 budget

requests an additional $690 million to support the America 2000
strategy, over and above existing funds in the Department of Education
and other agencies. For mathematics and science in particular, the
FCCSET budget requests an additional $146 million above last year's
$514 million, to a total of $660 million. Together, these increases
amount to $836 million in new funding for school reform. (With the
additional $150-200 million requested from the business community
for the America 2000 project, this amounts to about $1 billion in new
funding for federal initiatives in education reform.)
Many believe that far more should be appropriated for
improving the schools. Most immediately important, however, is how
funding will be used, and how well the agencies are prepared to use
it. The right question, then, is: Does the federal government have, or
can it acquire, a unique and effective capability, working with the
states, to achieve the national educational goals in time?
With federal contributions unlikely to increase dramatically
under present fiscal conditions, the federal government's role in
reform should be to leverage state and private investments and
produce change in the system, not to sustain it as it is. But real
change, brought to every state and every community, cannot be
achieved by subsidies for the existing system nor by exhortation. Real
change requires responding boldly to original ideas from inside and
outside the educational community, assessing them for effectiveness,
and institutionalizing them throughout the country when they are
successful. The role of the federal government, then, is not a passive
one, but is both empowering of and responsive to ideas from within
schools and from outside the educational system on how schools, and
the condition of children ill-prepared to come to school, can be
improved.

Federal K-12 Education Expenditures

Pre-college education is the only education most Americans
will experience and is the only formal education common to all.
Since 1920, the financial contribution of the federal government
to total pre-college education revenues has been small compared
to state and local expenditures. In 1980 the federal share of total
public school education revenues peaked at 10 percent. Since then
it has declined gradually and today it stands at about 6
percent.33 The bulk (over $200 billion) is funded by state (50
percent) and local (44 percent) contributions.34 The federal
government is not the financial heavy weight in the K-12
education arena.

34

A substantial reorientation of education funding toward educational reform is needed quickly. The states are occasionally able to
assemble moneys to finance a program to upgrade the public schools
or improve instruction. When they are, the amounts are generally
minuscule in relation to school operating costs. Inevitably, when the
local economy turns down, fixed costs consume whatever latitude has
been assembled. If only 10 percent of the DoEd's $ 7.8 billion annual
elementary and secondary education expenditure were appropriated
for funding incentivesfor improvement in all aspects of the education
system, this, added to NSF funding, would produce over a billion dollars
for reform. Even when spread across much of the country, such an
amount would represent a unique resource for planning and leveraging change at the level of a state, city, or community.
How much flexibility in funding for reform is currently
available to the federal agencies? It is difficult to pull out which parts
of the billions spent by the federal government on K-12 education are
for change, but we believe the fraction is much too small. The FCCSET
survey suggests that resource allocation priorities are not oriented
toward the planning and implementation of systemic change. The
FCCSET agencies together are investing only 11 percent of the federal
spending in pre-college math and science education on systemic
change, evaluation and assessment, and diffusion of innovations.35
Thus the flexible funds available for these vital functions, which are not
supported by state and local funding, are less than 1 percent of the
annual federal K-12 budget. The government should consider that,
because they draw upon the trained math and science personnel of the
nation, federal agencies should earmark some percentage of their
research and development funding for math and science education.
This would significantly improve the directed funding for enhancing
the math and science pipeline. If the percentage were set at 10 percent
of R&D funding, for example, another $4.8 billion would be generated
for math and science education.36

RESOURCES FOR MATH AND SCIENCE IMPROVEMENT

How might a federal strategy for general education reform be
strengthened? In order to recruit the best ideas from the best
innovators, the DoEd needs more funding flexibility.
The Task Force recommends that, as a long-term goal, a
designated fraction (perhaps 10 percent) of DoEd's program
funding be allocated for discretionary activities aimed at more
effective achievement of its program goals. These activities would
35

be devoted to change-oriented, competitive, professionally reviewed

programs that provide incentives for reform to states and communities.
As this flexibility would allow DoEd programs to be more effective in
serving the intended groups of students, learning in science and
mathematics would be enhanced along with all other parts of the
curriculum. These activities would be designed in collaboration with
states and communities to support constructive change in ways that
serve the same population to which each categorical program is
directed. Over time, the returns on better use of the formula-allocated
funds would result in an overall benefit-to-cost improvement.
A first priority is to strengthen DoEd in order to persuade
Congress and the governors that DoEd has the capability to manage
such programs with the needed professionalism. OERI is a likely office
for the management of these programs. Such programs would be
competitive, managed against clear objectives with measured out-

The Eisenhower Mathematics and Science

Education Programs
In math and science education, the largest federal program
is the Eisenhower Program administered by DoEd as part of the
National Defense Education Act. About $202 million is
distributed to the states by formula through the Eisenhower State
Mathematics and Science Education Program, which is managed
by the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. Threequarters of the funds received by the states are then distributed
by formula grants to counties or school districts. These grants are
intended to improve math and science teaching through in-service
training of teachers, but because there is no competition for grants
or follow up on outcomes by DoEd, many feel that this program
has much less impact than it could have. The other portion of
the Eisenhower Program, representing only about 5 percent of
the overall Eisenhower funds, is a competitive grants program
called the Eisenhower National Mathematics and Science Program,
administered by the Office of Educational Research and
Improvement. This smaller portion has better mechanisms for
review and accountability and a better record of attention to
reform. For example, the Eisenhower National Program has
contributed funding to the National Science Teachers Association's
Scope, Sequence and Coordination program and to Project 2061
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in
both cases sharing costs with NSE

36

comes, and targeted to the pursuit of the national interests in education

and achievement of the national goals.
How might a federal strategy aimed at rapid improvement in
math and science education be strengthened? The most immediate
step forward would be for the Administration and Congress to convert
all the funding for the Eisenhower grants program in DoEd to a
competitive, peer-reviewed program. Today these grants (see box
opposite) are almost all allocated by a population-based formula with
limited oversight and accountability, and thus may not be serving their
intended purpose of in-service teacher training as efficiently as they
might.
The Task Force recommends that the $202 million
Eisenhower State Mathematics and Science Education Program
be made fully competitive and devoted to change and improvement hi math and science education. This program, now managed
by the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, would be
combined with the $12 million competitive Eisenhower National
Program and both would be administered by the Office of Educational
Reform and Improvement (OERI). Together with existing competitive
programs at NSF, this would almost double the funding available for
enhancing the performance of K-12 math and science teaching.
The Task Force further recommends that all federal
agencies concerned with science and technology should devote
some percentage of their research and development funds to
math and science education. While many of the agencies support
efforts in post-secondary education, the immediate need is for additional funding to be directed toward K-12 math and science education.
These funds, too, could be administered through a competitive grants
process, which would encourage the best innovators and the best
ideas.

37

PART V

PRIORITY ROLES FOR THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

IN MATH AND SCIENCE EDUCATION
Earlier in this report, we concluded that the federal role is not
to subsidize the basic operating costs of schools* but to induce
constructive change and assist the states with the diffusion of new
policies, structures, tools, and innovations to all the schools. Federal
officials and agencies possess unique capabilities to facilitate that
process of constructive change.

ROLE FOR THE PRESIDENT

Foremost among federal responsibilities is the leadership role
of the President himself. The President has acknowledged his personal
responsibility to provide that leadership in his America 2000 report:
"The President, the Department of Education, and the entire Cabinet
will help keep the focus on this [reform] strategy, will spotlight areas
of trouble as well as areas of excellence, will reward progress and spur
change." The most difficult requirement for rapid educational progress
is the necessity of building a national coalition for change. Parents and
other citizens, school boards, principals and teachers, chief state
school officers, business leaders, teacher educators, state legislators,
Congress, and many others must collaborate if the national goals are
to be reached. The most difficult group to reach may well be the public,
particularly some older voters whose children are no longer in school
and who take a cynical attitude toward the likelihood of real improvement in the schools. The Task Force urges the President to use the
full prestige and influence of his office to mobilize all Americans
for a sustained, national, bipartisan reform effort.

*An important exception is the need for federal funding to support equity programs: rapidly
expanding the number of disadvantaged students pursuing science and mathematics, enhancing
the quality of their science and math teachers, and creating incentives for their professional
education for teaching or research careers. However, even these DoEd "Chapter 1" investments
might be used more effectively to leverage state investments and to influence state policies on
equitable allocation of funding for schools.

38

ROLES FOR THE AGENCIES

The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of
Education (DoEd) are the only federal agencies with a legislative
mandate for broad-based educational improvement and change. Their
contributions make up 86 percent of the total federal formal education
support for pre-college math and science education, as determined by
the Committee on Education and Human Resources of FCCSET. For
this reason, the following discussion focuses primarily on NSF and
DoEd.

SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FEDERAL AGENCY ACTION:

EIGHT KEY INSTITUTIONAL AND PROGRAM INNOVATIONS
The Task Force has identified eight areas for action at the
federal level that deserve high priority. Most of these require
institutional innovations or modifications. For each area, we suggest
how responsibility could be allocated among NSF, DoEd, and other
agencies.

Provide fully qualified math and science teachers for

every school, by (a) enhancing the knowledge, skills,
and motivation of current math and science teachers,
(b) ensuring fully professional training for math and
science teachers from diverse backgrounds, and (c)
recruiting math and science teachers for schools that
do not have them.

Enhancing teacher skills and knowledge: With a small investment compared to the current level of federal education expenditures,
the nation could retrain 50,000 teachers per year over the next decade,
thus empowering a half-million math and science teachers to transmit
the excitement of learning to a major fraction of our minority
population and our children in poverty. (According to Leon Lederman,
the Chicago Academy project and others show that quality retraining
costs about $10,000 for the initial training and $2,000 for follow-up per
teacher; the annual expense for training 50,000 teachers is thus about
$600 million.) Teacher summer institutes have been NSF's most
popular programs for K-12 math and science education in the past.
They gave teachers self-confidence by bringing them up-to-date in
39

science, but by most accounts, teachers' experiences were not linked

well to what they faced on return to their classrooms. This teacher
training model should be rethought to include training in how to teach
the basics of science, in new methods arising from cognitive science,
and in the transfer and use of the best educational materials and
technology. As noted above, special attention should be given to
measures for helping teachers adopt what they learn in institutesfor
example, by bringing teams (rather than individuals) from the same
school to support the pursuit of improvement objectives they have
defined and to overcome institutional resistance to change.
Encouraging the establishment of voluntary professional board
accreditation for superior teachers would do much to enhance the
quality of teachers. The National Board for Professional Teaching
Standards* is setting standards for professional board certification for
superior teaching ability. Congress has authorized DoEd to match
private contributions to finance the development of the necessary
assessments of how teachers meet those standards.
Ensuring fully professional teacher training, including the
single professional path to either teaching or practice in mathematics
and science: Colleges and universities with strong math and science
faculties should provide an undergraduate major in math or science
leading to a bachelor's degree, with electives that qualify a student for
a teaching certificate or entry to graduate study, or both. (Vanderbilt
University, for example, with the cooperation of the State of Tennessee
education authorities, encourages all its undergraduates to pursue this
option, which can be fulfilled with the proper choice of electives
without any sacrifice of the requirements for the science major. This
approach was recommended in the Carnegie Corporation's study A
Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century.11) The National
Science Foundation should encourage this integration of undergraduate preparation of future science teachers and researchers. This
approach offers NSF a means to align the interests of both its research
and education constituencies and allows federal investment in higher
education in science and mathematics to be leveraged to produce more
well-qualified teachers. Specific incentives should be created to attract
minorities into the profession, so that in ten years there would be
enough fully qualified math and science teachers and researchers to
more nearly match the demographics of the student body, thus
providing role models for all students.
Colleges and universities, along with science centers and
museums, are among the institutions appropriate for encouraging
young people, especially minorities and women, to pursue professional
*Creation of a board of this kind was a principal recommendation of the Carnegie Task Force on
Teaching as a Profession. The National Board is a private professional body, whose board of
directors has a majority of active classroom teachers, devoted to setting standards and providing
teacher assessments for professional board qualifications in teaching.

40

education in math and science. Professional societies and other notfor-profit institutions,37 together with national laboratories (e.g., in DoE
and NIH) and other laboratories, can also make substantial contributions to in-service teacher training and classroom enhancement.
Recruiting qualified math and science teachers for every school:
There are many urban and rural schools without qualified and
adequately trained math and science teachers. One way of addressing
this problem is through a teacher corps program whereby needy
schools could apply for teachers to be assigned for a fixed time,
provided the school district commits itself to picking up the full costs
of those teachers after this period. Alternative paths to teaching
certification will be needed to meet this goal. Another approach to
addressing this need is through competitive grants for teacher training
programs targeted to the inner city and rural areas.
The falling supply of math and science graduates for both
school teaching and professional practice, as well as the quality of
preparation of the teacher work force, are matters of serious concern.
As Nobel physics laureate Sheldon Glashow put it, "What I hope for
by the year 2001 is that middle and high school teachers know more
about science than their students are expected to learn."

Establish a national center for educational content and

assessment.
A federally funded but independent center should be created
to reach a consensus and advise the nation on what students need to
know and what competencies they require to be productive in the
workplace of today and tomorrow. This work would have a critical
influence on curricula, teaching materials, and teacher training.
Mathematics and science should have high priority in this work, and
might form the focus of its initial work.
That such an institution can be very important is demonstrated
by the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB), a congressionally established, OERI-funded, independent body that recently completed an assessment of eighth- grade math performance in U.S.
schools. NAGB is introducing open-ended questions that test students'
reasoning ability. This kind of work has important implications for
how any national assessment is done.
Research to develop better testing methods, defined in relation
to the descriptions of educational content, should be undertaken by
such an independent institution. Once the assessment methods have
been worked out, the assessments must be competently administered
by an independent organization. The same institution could serve this
purpose.
Such a center might well be established under the guidance of
the National Education Goals Panel, which would ensure that the
states, Congress, and professional organizations are full partners in this
41

work. The Department of Labor should have a significant role in it. The
consensus it seeks should embrace not only the diverse parts of the
education community but also parents, employers, and citizens
generally.

Strengthen educational systems research and analysis to

support the reform strategy. Establish broad-based support for
basic cognitive and applied learning research and field testing
of innovations resulting from this research.
Inadequate attention is being given by federal agencies to
research and analysis of the K-12 educational system to ensure that
public policy alternatives are based on solid evidence and strong basic
and applied research. Without a strong capability to pull together the best
data and analysis in this area, federal officials will have great difficulty
resolving conflicting views about what the national strategy should be,
and what the federal role is in it. The Task Force suggests that serious
consideration be given to establishing a center (organized as a Federally
Funded Research and Development Center) charged with assembling the
best analytical understanding of the K-12 education system and providing "systems engineering" support for educational reform programs. This
center should promote the closest possible relationship between university researchers and users of research results in the schools, such that
practice informs research even as researchers inform practice. The center
should be established by DoEd, most likely by the Office of Educational
Research and Improvement, but with NSF participation.
The last two decades have seen important advances in understanding of math and science learning. Unfortunately, the number of
experienced researchers is small, and the field has suffered from lack of
stable funding. In addition, there has been serious underinvestment in
applied research on translating new learning theories into classroom
practice, with field experiments to validate it.38 NSF estimates that it
devotes only a $7 million education research effort to that objective39; the
DoEd Research and Development Centers make additional investments
of a similar magnitude. While educational research has suffered from a
lack of consistent support and attention to quality in the past, rapid
progress in cognitive science and applied learning research is possible
if the research is funded competitively in response to the best proposals
from university experts and others. In addition to DoEd and NSF, FCCSET
should encourage other agencies to support peer-reviewed research
from diverse sources.

Ensure diffusion of successful innovations: provide

access for all schools and all students to tested educational
improvements and support their successful adoption.

42

It has been characteristic of educational research that many

innovations have been shown to be very effective when tested in one
or a few schools, yet few have been widely adopted. Neither the
federal agencies nor the education networks within states have been
effective in promoting widespread adoption of promising programs.
There must be much greater emphasis on diffusion and adoption of the
best education products and initiatives the nation can devise. Of the
$515 million devoted to math and science education by federal
agencies in FY 1991, only $5 million, or 1 percent, was devoted to the
diffusion of promising innovations. This is wholly inadequate.
If diffusion and adoption are not facilitated, the expenditures
on school reform, education research, and other activity that the states
cannot hope to fund themselves, will have been wasted. DoEd's
current efforts at diffusion, through the National Diffusion Network
and the Educational Resource Information Center, are underfunded,
have a poor reputation for turnaround time, and lack the collaborative
relationships required for successful technology transfer. A major
upgrading of this capability is required.
Successful diffusion of new ideas, materials, and methods
requires active collaboration between schools and those who have
successfully practiced the innovations. The Michigan Partnership, with
associated educational extension services, represents an important
effort to provide such services.
The private sector should be encouraged to participate in
diffusion activities. The textbook and computer software industries
make considerable investments in the development of integrated
curriculum materials, and are important intermediaries in the dissemination of curriculum innovation in math and science as well as other
fields. K-12 schools should have access to sources of support,
materials, in-service training, and other services from both public and
private sources.
This could be facilitated inexpensively by access to an electronic information network such as the proposed National Research
and Education Network (NREN). NSF has been the leader in the
development of NREN's predecessor, the INTERNET, and plays a major
role in the Federal Networking Council, which will determine how
NREN is to be created and managed. If teachers and principals could
have inexpensive access to sources of materials and expert guidance
on their use, costs could be minimized. But distributing ideas and
information to guide the adoption of successful ideas is not sufficient;
some form of extension service, presumably state-operated, is needed
in addition. Extension services of the Department of Agriculture,
which have been highly successful, provide a model, but the extension
agent model is expensivehalf of the USDA R&D budget is devoted
to extension services.
One means of facilitating diffusion and adoption might be a
two-stage funding incentive to outside organizations, which could re43

ceive a grant for initial demonstration of an innovation, to be followed,

if successful, by a larger grant to finance wider-scale implementation.40

Empower all federal science agencies to take leadership

roles in the reform of K12 math and science education.
Major innovative projects undertaken by communities, cities,
and states to improve math and science education should be able to
come to the federal government for guidance, evaluation, and an
opportunity to compete for funding. The President's America 2000
report promises to "unleash America's creative genius to invent and
establish a New Generation of American Schools, one by one,
community by community."41 The goal is to create over 535 such
schools (at least one in each congressional district) by 1996. While this
directive could win political support, targeting urban and rural schools
would address the major problem areas and be a more dramatic test
of reform strategy. Indeed, 250 out of the 16,000 school districts in the
country educate 30 percent of all schoolchildren.42 DoEd, with its
involvement in the school network in every state, is the obvious federal
leader in this effort. However, NSF can offer important insights into
how schools might be organized to access the scientific expertise of the
community, national laboratories, and universities and research institutions receiving government funding. Indeed, NSF has access to an
immense scientific network. The scientific capability of this nation is
a huge asset which has not been properly mobilized. NSF in particular
and the science agencies in general (through FCCSET) should do more
to tap this resource.
Improvements in math and science instruction require reform
of the school environment, and this reform requires the cooperation
of chief state school officers, local school officials, teacher organizations, universities, the private sector, and citizens' groups. Agencies
can encourage and stimulate such cooperation. For example, NSF has
initiated the Statewide Systemic Initiatives program (SSI) for math and
science education, placing states in competition for grants to create
detailed collaborative reform plans. This program has promise, since
the states, including some that did not receive grants, have made
substantial progress toward building consensus for reform. If such
programs are to reach all the states, NSF will be hard-pressed to finance
them. NSF's SSI program might be considered the model for an
expanded effort of this kind by DoEd once OERI has demonstrated the
relevant managerial capacity.*

*There is concern that DoEd does not have sufficient staff or experience with objective peerreview standards to take responsibility for the SSI program. The Task Force recommendations
on staffing and funding address those shortcomings.

44

Every science agency of the government should have an explicit education charter defining its responsibilities to address precollege issuesmaterials, elements of curricula, teacher skills and
knowledge upgrading, outreach of scientists and engineers to the
schools, encouragement of university/school linkagesthat lie within
the agency's special technical expertise and the agency's human
resource requirements.

Encourage private-sector development of educational

materials, curricula, textbooks, and software for new educational technology.
NSF, with its excellent relationship with university scientists,
professional societies, and the science academies, has historically
played a leading role in math and science curriculum development,
and continues to do so.43
However, NSF has given insufficient attention to collaboration
with educational innovators in the private sector: textbook publishers,
educational software firms, and video producers, who not only make
significant educational investments but have the capability to diffuse
innovations throughout the country. NSF should go beyond the
support of research and invest in prototype development, with primary
reliance on private firms for commercialization.

Encourage science centers and museums, educational

television, and other sources of "informal" education.
Ample evidence of the power of nontraditional education to
interest students in the study of science and mathematics and to
explode negative stereotypes of science and scientistsfor example,
through science centers and museums, television, and science fairs
suggests that this should be a significant component of the federal
strategy. Many of the best science centersSan Francisco's
Exploratorium and Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry, for
examplego far beyond the vital role of motivating young people to
be interested in science, and create much-needed educational materials. The Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley, California, for example,
produces science teaching materials used by 100,000 teachers and
5,000,000 students.44 This is another area in which the private sector
can be more involved, both through foundations and by opening
laboratories and making personnel available to the K12 classroom.
Some kind of coordinated encouragement could be managed through
a DoEd/NSF matching grant program.
The FCCSET report notes that $100 million, nearly 20 percent,
of the $515 million invested by federal agencies in pre-college math
and science education, is devoted to nontraditional educational environments. Since these activities touch the spirit and excitement of sci45

ence common to all the technical agencies in CEHR, NSF and the other
science agencies should be the main contributors.

Provide an information and referral service to document

innovations and help innovators locate programs, services,
information, and support for K-12 math and science activities.
Individuals outside the federal agencies have difficulty locating
the correct agency through which to gain access to program materials,
services, and informationa particularly severe problem, given the
large number of participating agencies. A central office is needed in
which requests for possible federal sponsorship of nonfederal activities are screened and referred to the appropriate agency.
It would also be valuable to develop a comprehensive picture
of who is doing what, by collecting information on innovations
originating outside the federal government. This would most appropriately be housed in DoEd, as such an office would probably not be
discipline-specific. Large programs, or those appropriate for multiagency support, would be identified and referred to CEHR to identify
and assemble cooperative resources. Much of the function described
here is analogous to the very successful National Library of Medicine,
and like that library's MEDLARS service, should be integrated with the
networks providing education diffusion services.
The complexity of these efforts for change and the links
between the responsibilities assigned to DoEd and NSF demonstrate
how essential it is for the two agencies to develop a very close working
relationship. This does not imply that other agencies of the government should be excluded from any of these activities. Lead responsibility for each endeavor, however, should be assigned to one or the
other of these two players. The Task Force recognizes that some time
must elapse before DoEd has all the needed professional capabilities
and NSF has developed the educational practice expertise and the
relationships with officials in states, cities, and communities necessary
for full effectiveness of their efforts.

46

WHO SHOULD Do WHAT FOR MATH AND SCIENCE EDUCATION?

In summary, responsibility for the recommended elements of
reform and innovation can be distributed between DoEd and NSF as
follows:
Primary missions for NSF:

New math and science teacher recruitment.

Math and science teacher education revitalization.

Math and science teacher enhancement.

Innovative curricula and educational materials.

Cognitive and applied learning research; field testing

innovations.

Nontraditional, motivational education activities.

Primary missions for DoEd:

Education research, field testing and education systems

analysis to inform the reform strategy.

Research on assessments of educational progress and their

national applications.

Incentives for state reform initiatives.

Rapid diffusion and adoption of successful innovations.

Innovative means of operating schools.

Clearinghouse and referral service for guiding new efforts.

47

PART VI
STRENGTHENING THE KEY FEDERAL AGENCIES
Before existing institutions and agencies can be effective in a
new, systemic reform initiative, they must acquire the mission capability and personnel required to sustain a significant effort.

THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND THE NATIONAL

SCIENCE FOUNDATION
In order to take the lead on the initiatives outlined above, the
Department of Education (DoEd) and the National Science Foundation
(NSF) need to be strengthened. DoEd, and especially the Office of
Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), should give priority
attention to the competence, experience, and management policies
necessary to operate the kind of competitive, targeted programs
required to make rapid progress in mathematics, science, and other
disciplines. OERI needs to augment its staff with experienced and
respected scientists and mathematicians familiar with managing innovations that are devised outside the government. To ensure the
continued infusion of talent, DoEd should ask Congress to authorize
the appointment of a limited number of "rotators," as NSF does. DoEd
should then be given greater latitude in the use of its funds in pursuit
of the national goals.
Until recently, the NSF Education and Human Resource
Directorate followed the practices of the research directorates in NSF
in responding to unsolicited research proposals, primarily from
university faculty. It now practices a more directed style, making
program announcements in pursuit of an agency strategy, and working
directly with states and schools in many of its K-12 activities. To be
even more effective, NSF needs to gain additional staff with field
experience in K-12 education, strengthen its relationships with all
elements of the educational system, and build a better balance between
permanent professional staff and rotators, who are essential for
increasing effectiveness and maintaining access to new ideas. Arrangements for close and effective collaboration with DoEd are of critical
importance.

48

OTHER FEDERAL AGENCIES

By taking the initiative on behalf of a government-wide effort
to upgrade math and science education throughout the nation, the
Secretary of Energy demonstrated the power of agencies with vast
technical resources to take a long-term view of their missions and act
accordingly. The Department of Energy should continue its leadership
of the Committee on Education and Human Resources (CEHR) of the
Federal Coordinating Council for Science, Engineering, and Technology. Through that mechanism, all R&D-intensive agencies can
coordinate their contributions to math and science educational progress.
The FCCSET report By The Year 2000 summarizes for the first time the
great variety of other agency activities touching on K-12 math and
science education, from programs of direct support of school-based
activity and informal education to the voluntary activities of federal
laboratory personnel. In some agencies, the activities derive from an
agency-specific charter (e.g., the Department of the Interior's Youth
Conservation Corps, programs for Native American youth, and other
programs totaling $22 million; the Agriculture Department's 4-H Youth
Development School Enrichment Program, costing $42.5 million; and
the Department of Labor's many efforts to enhance the competence of
our technical work force). In other agencies, the mission is implicit
because of their dependence on a continuing source of quality
scientists and engineers.
If orchestrated into a more coherent strategy for educational
improvement, the benefits of these programs might be leveraged
substantially. In addition, certain agencies with an abundance of
technical talent have specific opportunities to make a contribution that
the Administration and Congress might seize and put into effect.
Examples of such efforts by three agencies are given below. If,
however, these and other agencies are to make more substantial
contributions to pre-college math and science education, they will
need clearer statutory authorization to do so than they have now. In
a later section, we will recommend steps to be taken by the President
and Congress to address this issue.

National Institutes of Health

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National
Institute of Mental Health have research mandates similar to that of
NSF, but are directly oriented toward basic and applied health research.
Their involvement in education is heavily oriented toward postgraduate and professional medical education. In 1991, NIH's pre-college

49

math and science education investment was $22 million, or about 0.2
percent of its total budget; its participation in undergraduate education
was $6l million, or 0.6 percent of its total budget; and its graduate
investment was $414 million, or about 4 percent of its total budget.
As the shortcomings in K-12 math and science education begin
to affect the health professions in the same way they are affecting the
physical sciences and engineering, NIH will need to play a major role
and invest more heavily in early intervention to attract students and to
help prepare them in science and mathematics.
The Task Force recommends that NIH study the future
impact of deficiencies in K-12 math and science education on
the nation's health-related research and professional human
resources, assess the extent of its responsibility to address the
human resource pipeline on which the nation's health and
health industry depend, and design a long-range program,
coordinated with NSF and DoEd, based on the findings.

Department of Defense
The investment of the Department of Defense (DoD) in math
and science education is even more skewed toward higher education
than is the case in NIH. However, DoD has great experience with
efficient skills training and has unique capabilities and resources at
hand that may be very useful in the current reform efforts in the precollege area. DoD has been very aggressive in educational technologies, has success in training of students at all levels of ability and
socioeconomic background, and has proficiency at teacher training.
As part of the President's interest in "a new generation of American
schools," DoD might undertake to demonstrate its capabilities in model
schools serving defense-impacted communities.
The Task Force recommends that the Department of
Defense, recognizing the increasingly sophisticated technical
skills required of the voluntary military forces, consider creating model federal schools in which to demonstrate DoD capabilities in educational technology and processes, and transferring these capabilities to the civilian sector.

Department of Labor
The Department of Labor (DoL) may be the sleeping giant of
the national math and science education reform effort. With its
command of resources, outreach, and direct links to American
competitiveness, it has the potential to become a partner in math and
50

science education on the scale of NSF and DoEd. Until very recently,
most people have separated the world of work from the world of
school. This is the crux of the mammoth problem of the school-towork transition in the United States (which is much more successfully
dealt with in a number of other countries, notably Germany and
Sweden).
In the future, DoL will have a profound influence on school
curricula through its specification of the knowledge base and skills
base needed to move from school to the workplace. Its analysis of
technical competencies will have a profound effect in the areas of
science and mathematics. DoL should support and encourage high
school apprenticeships and other programs to facilitate school-to-work
transitions and other meaningful ways of integrating school and career
paths.
The Task Force believes that math and science education
would benefit from increased interaction among the Department of Labor, NSF, and DoEd; a mechanism for this interaction,
perhaps through the Federal Coordinating Council for Science,
Engineering, and Technology, should be devised.

Other Agencies
Other agencies with strong technical capabilities have much to
offer the public schools in mathematics and science. Some, like the
Department of Energy and NASA, have national laboratories of great
strength and depth, and can not only contribute to schools in their
communities but can motivate teachers and provide innovative ideas
to developers of curriculum and teaching materials. Still others, like
the Departments of Agriculture and Interior and the Environmental
Protection Agency, have a widely distributed federal professional
presence and, through programs like the 4-H Clubs, can reach very
large numbers of young people. Still others, such as the Department
of Commerce, can help enlist businesses and other institutions in the
reform effort. Specialized agencies, such as the Smithsonian Institution, have unique resources not available elsewhere. These opportunities have been extensively surveyed by FCCSET and, if properly
supported and coordinated, these agencies can make a big contribution.
The Task Force recommends that the coordination and
accountability for math and science education activities of all
the technically based government agencies should be firmly and
permanently supported through the FCCSET structure.

51

PART VII
DECIDING ADMINISTRATION POLICY AND
OVERSIGHT
The questions to be addressed in this section are:

Where should responsibility for decision making on policy,

strategy, and agency mission assignments for K-12 education be located?

Where should decisions on operational responsibility for K12 math and science education reform activities be made?

ADMINISTRATION POLICY AND OVERSIGHT

Ultimately, of course, the President decides both questions.
But the parallel and seemingly independent origins of the America
2000 and the FCCSET (By the Year 2000) strategies, mentioned above,
point to the need to clarify responsibilities within the Executive Office.
Further, the dispersion of responsibility across the Administration,
Congress, the states, and the private sector points to the need for a
continuing mechanism for interlacing their strategies.
The President has made education a highly visible part of his
domestic policy. The Assistant to the President for Economic and
Domestic Policy has been a focal point in the White House staff for
promulgating the strategy expressed in America 2000. However,
overall education policy clearly falls within the province of the
Domestic Policy Council (DPC),* and the responsibility for defending
and developing the education reform strategy falls primarily to the
Secretary of Education, who has also assumed the chairmanship of the
Education Policy subcommittee of DPC.
For questions of math and science education specifically, the
primary staff responsibility in the White House falls to Dr. D. Allan

* There is a largely moribund organization on the books called the Federal Interagency
Committee on Education, but it has apparently been superseded by FCCSET and other offices
in the Executive Office of the President.

52

Bromley, the President's Science and Technology Adviser, who also

serves as director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy
(OSTP). Dr. Bromley sits on the DPC and also chairs the FCCSET and
uses its CEHR to help coordinate the work of the many federal agencies
most involved with scientific and technical matters.
The Task Force concludes that two existing channels of
White House oversight of math and science education activities,
in addition to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), are
both required: (a) DPC for overall education policy (largely
through DoEd), and (b) OSTP, through its FCCSET structure,
overseeing NSF, DoEd, and some fourteen other agencies.
Figure 1. Organizational chart of policy oversight for federal
K-12 math and science education activities.

The Executive Office of the President (EOF) interacts with DoEd

through the Domestic Policy Council (DPC) to define overall
education policy, but in mathematics and science, OSTP and
CEHR have the stronger role.

The HOP interacts with NSF on overall science issues through

OSTP.

The math and science education activities of NSF, DoEd, and all
the other agencies are reviewed and coordinated by FCCSET's
CEHR, reporting through OSTP to the President.

53

This form of organization (Figure 1) is not as clean as a single

channel of authority with unique assignments of staff oversight
responsibility, but it reflects the reality that, while math and science
education is a vitally important matter in its own right, it is embedded
in the overall K-12 education system which is the focus of a highly
visible set of domestic policy issues going far beyond mathematics and
science.
CEHR has proved a very useful instrument at a time when many
agencies depend heavily on the human resources produced by the
math and science education process, and when NSF and DoEd, the two
agencies with primary missions in this area, have had little experience
in collaboration. Progress in developing a comprehensive federal
agency strategy on math and science education has been made
possible in part because CEHR is chaired by an influential member of
FCCSET from an agency other than NSF or DoEd (Admiral James
Watkins, Secretary of Energy, is chair of CEHR), and that OMB is well
represented. This mechanism may not be necessary in five or ten years,
when the joint development of NSF and DoEd activities should have
matured and when active relationships with the other member
agencies have strengthened.
The Task Force recommends that the OSTP appropriation be expanded to provide funding for the operation of CEHR
as a standing committee of FCCSET. In the interest of an
integrated federal strategy, a full-time staff should coordinate
agency activities and review agency strategies for K-12 math
and science improvement. The current pattern of two vicechairs of CEHR drawn from senior executives at DoEd and NSF
should be continued.
Within OSTP, the Associate Director for Policy and International Affairs manages K-12 math and science education issues,
helping Dr. Bromley provide oversight for CEHR. If CEHR is to have
a continuing role in the review and coordination of K-12 math and
science education, the demands on the time of OSTP staff will be a
substantial burden. We recommend that the director of OSTP assign
to one of the associate directors full-time responsibility for math and
science education. This associate director could also cover basic
research, to which education issues are closely linked. The K-12 math
and science education issue could be the sole responsibility of an
assistant director.
The FCCSET report observes that the "vast network of Federal
scientific laboratories, technical facilities, and expert personnel, and
the science- and mathematics-related information and materials they
produce ... have a previously unrecognized and under-utilized potential for rapidly improving the basic science knowledge of American
teachers and students."45 FCCSET makes an excellent case that all of
these efforts will be more effective if they are orchestrated into an
integrated federal response.46 Although the report advances a multi54

agency strategy to this end, it does not address explicitly the statutory
basis for the pre-college activities of these agencies (other than NSF and
DoEd). While advocating more emphasis on pre-college activities
(relative to graduate and postgraduate programs), the report may not
constitute a sufficiently strong mandate to produce the desired agency
response.
The nation faced a similar situation just after World War II,
when wartime research activities were being terminated and the
government was searching for policies to replace war work with
peacetime investments in research in fulfillment of federal missions,
both civilian and military. A particular concern, reflected in Vannevar
Bush's 1945 report to President Truman,47 was that the nation would
underinvest in that component of research of greatest value over the
long term: basic research carried out in university laboratories. The
practical interpretation of Bush's recommendations came in 1947 in
what is known as the Steelman report.48 The Steelman report set goals
for federal R&D funding (1 percent of GNP) and for public and private
R&D (3 percent of GNP); it also proposed a rate of progress toward
these goals (15 percent per annum). A few years later President
Eisenhower issued an Executive Order establishing the principle that
every agency making substantial use of science and technology
resources should proportionately reinvest in the source of that
knowledgebasic science.
Today, Americans find themselves in a similar situation. But
this time it is deficiencies in the skill base, in addition to the knowledge
base, that may frustrate the attainment of national goals. The FCCSET
report shows that agency heads are making efforts to use their
resources to participate in public education reform, especially in
mathematics and science. But their mandate to do so is sometimes
limited, sometimes unclear.
The Task Force is concerned that, despite the President's
encouragement to the agencies to make a contribution to K-12 math
and science education and the broad support in Congress for educational progress, the budget process will impede the "integrated federal
response" called for in the FCCSET report. Agency officials defending
their budgets before skeptical appropriations subcommittees may find
it difficult to defend long-term commitments in science education
without clear mandates from the President and Congress.

Accordingly, the Task Force recommends that every

agency dependent for its mission on a strengthened system of
math and science education invest hi improving the education
pipeline that creates the needed skills. This policy should he put
forward in an Executive Order, with implementation to be
guided by OSTP, OMB, and FCCSET. OMB should review the
statutory flexibility of each of the agencies to see if enabling
statutes need amendment.

55

ASSIGNMENT OF OPERATIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES TO

THE FEDERAL AGENCIES
There are various alternatives for assigning lead responsibility
for planning and directing activities in K-12 math and science
education. These alternatives are (a) to give lead responsibility to an
office in the Executive Office of the President, presumably OSTP; (b)
to assign the full responsibility to DoEd, with NSF and other agencies
in support; (c) to give NSF lead responsibility for math and science
education, relieving DoEd of this area of education; and (d) to merge
DoEd and NSF into a single Department of Education and Science.
(These options are discussed in the Appendix.)
The Task Force concludes that overall responsibility for
leading federal K-12 math and science education reform should
be shared between NSF and DoEd, with each assigned specific
responsibilities. Timely achievement of national goals for K-12 math
and science education reform demands capabilities and legislative
authority unique to DoEd and to NSF; both agencies must play
important and distinct, but interdependent, roles. In this partnership,
DoEd will play a lead role in systemic change; NSF will play a lead role
in research-intensive activities and teacher training specific to mathematics and science, drawing on the professional talent in the nation's
universities and laboratories.

A DoED/NSF JOINT OFFICE FOR K-12 MATH

AND SCIENCE IMPROVEMENT
As Walter Massey, the new director of NSF, put it, "Separating
science from science education is wrong, but separating science
education from education is wrong, too."49 As noted in Parts IV, V, and
VI of this report, math and science education should not be the sole
province of either NSF or DoEd. NSF and DoEd are far and away the
major federal players financially and programmatically in formal math
and science education. They require a special joint structure or
collaborative device apart from the FCCSET structure to take advantage
of their complementary strengths, coordinate similar efforts, maintain
communications, ensure common policies in dealing with the states,
and maximize agency accountability.50 This structure should also allow
the two agencies to approach congressional committees jointly on
math and science education matters.
56

The Task Force recommends that DoEd and NSF create a

mechanism for collaboration such as aJoint Office for Math and
Science Improvement. It would report directly and jointly to the
Secretary of Education and the Director of NSF.51

Figure 2. Recommended Joint Office for Math and Science

Improvement.

DoEd and NSF would collaborate in managing interdependent

responsibilities through a mechanism such as a Joint Office for Math
and Science Improvement, linking the DoEd's Office of Educational
Research and Improvement (OERI) and NSF's Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR).

The mission of the Joint Office (Figure 2) would be to ensure

coordination of policy, joint management of programs, and communication between the two agencies. To do this, it needs a small, highly
professional staff that will make use of existing agency facilities and
experience. The opportunity to have a significant influence on policy
would assist in attracting an outstanding executive director.
Because of the very large number of interested parties and
sources of expertise in any program involving federal, state, and
private partnerships, it is important that the two agencies in such a Joint
Office have access to the same sources of outside advice. One way of
accomplishing this is an advisory panelfor mathematics and science,
reporting to the Joint Office.
This panel should consist of both
educators and scientists.

57

CONGRESSIONAL ACTION

Congressional Committee Review

The education committees of Congress, in both the House and
Senate, are structurally divided along lines of responsibility much like
the executive agencies. The House Science, Space and Technology
Committee writes legislation and provides budget authority for NSF's
research and education activities, as well as those of NASA and other
independent agencies. The House Committee on Education and Labor
has similar legislative jurisdiction over DoEd, as well as the Department
of Labor and others. The situation is similar in the Senate. The support
of both sets of committees will be necessary if a tightly coordinated
federal program of math and science education reform is to be
successful.
The Task Force recommends that the education and
science committees, particularly those with jurisdiction over
DoEd and NSF, cooperatively review Executive Branch proposals to coordinate K-12 math and science education activities,
and determine together the priority that math and science
issues are to enjoy in the intensified program of federal action.
One possibility might be the creation of a temporary Select Committee
on K-12 Math and Science Education to bring together the appropriate
committees in the House and Senate.

Mechanisms for Funding Reform

The Task Force believes that, once the Administration and
Congress are convinced that significant budget increases for K-12 math
and science education reform will achieve significant results, additional resources will be made available. Whether such increases
become a reality now or later, existing federal funds must be spent
more effectively. As federal government support accounts for only 6
percent of school budgets, some mechanism is needed to ensure that
this funding is leveraged and targeted to reform efforts.
To this end, Congress should give DoEd new legislative
authority to guide the spending of an increasing proportion of
that 6 percent, i.e., to make the grants more competitive, to
coordinate and evaluate them, and to terminate funding if
grants are not well used to promote reform and equity. For math
and science education reform, the Office of Educational Research and
Improvement or the proposed Joint Office should be the site of most
58

of this activity. Congress should also give DoEd the additional

flexibility required for effective collaboration and joint funding of
projects with NSF and other agencies under CEHR guidelines. For
example, because of statutory restrictions on DoEd activities in
curriculum development, DoEd has experienced some difficulties in
co-sponsoring initiatives, such as Project 2061, with NSF.
The Task Force recommends that Congress remove any
statutory restrictions that might impede the close collaboration
between NSF and DoEd on math and science education projects.

59

PART VIII
BUILDING A NATIONAL STRATEGY FOR IMPROVING
MATH AND SCIENCE EDUCATION
How might the federal government and the states improve their
ability to execute their education reform strategies, addressing the
complex relationships among federal agencies, the states, private
groups, and Congress?
In Part II we called attention to the National Education Goals
Panel (NEGP) within which key governors, the congressional leadership, and senior figures in the Administration assess progress toward
the national goals for the year 2000. This high level of representation
is essential to sustain the commitment to the goals. NEGP has
assembled working groups of experts to guide the requirements for
data needed from the states and agencies for recommending standards
and measuring progress. However, broader representation is needed
now for successful future implementation of findings.
The Task Force recommends that the National Education
Goals Panel be supplemented by an Education Council composed of senior education and science officials from the Executive Branch, Congress, and the states. The directors of OSTP and
NSF, chairs and staff directors of relevant congressional committees, and leading state school officers should be included to
provide a stronger capability for implementation of consensus
strategies for math and science education.
To form those strategies, the views of federal, state, and local
government on reform strategy and priorities should be periodically
brought together with the views of the business community, teacher
organizations, school boards, educational research experts, parents'
groups, and many other groups deeply committed to the national
reform effort. Therefore, the Task Force further recommends that
the Education Council convene a biennial National Conference
on Educational Improvement sponsored by the Goals Panel or
OERI. The conference would be organized to review the national
strategy on math and science reform and the progress toward
national math and science goals. The outcome of this biennial
conference should be a public assessment of the pace of
progress and the identification of needed changes in strategy.

60

CLOSING STATEMENT
This report suggests ways the federal government can accelerate educational progress in math and science in our schools. Precisely
because the federal government has no operational responsibility for
local schools, it is free to focus its investments on encouraging systemic
change and providing new ideas, materials, teacher training and other
resources that the states have great difficulty providing for themselves,
with special attention to disadvantaged students.
To these ends, it is essential to rebuild the competence of the
Department of Education, so that it earns the confidence of Congress
and the public and gains more freedom to innovate. Equally important
is increasing the commitment of the science-intensive federal agencies,
which have access to the nation's scientific and engineering capabilities and the nation's universities. These capabilities, today the best in
the world, are invaluable assets in the quest for world leadership in precollege mathematics and science achievement.
Is there reason to be optimistic about lifting the capabilities of
American students to "first in the world" in the next decade? The
current situation has more possibilities for dramatic progress than have
been seen for many years. On the other hand, few areas of social
development have more often seen hopes crushed and cynicism
prevail.
The most likely path to failure, and ultimately to the destruction
of the American dream, is not what happens in DoEd, NSF, or even the
statehouses and school board offices. It is the complacency of too
many American parents who are unaware that their children's future
is at risk, the myopia of too many retired Americans who do not
understand that poor schools threaten their safety and social security,
and social conditions that result in too many children entering school
unprepared. Most unfortunate is the tragic message our current system
sends to young women, minorities, and the poor: you haven't the
talent to master mathematics and science, so you shouldn't even try.
The one best hope for success is impassioned, persistent,
nonpartisan leadership by every American able to make a contributionbut most importantly by the President. His crusade in the cause
of education, if taken up by governors, congressional and other
leaders, and by presidents who follow, can turn this situation around.
We can once again be proud of our schools and confident that future
generations of young Americans are equipped to lead the nation to
new levels of greatness.

61

APPENDIX
ALTERNATIVE ASSIGNMENTS OF FEDERAL
MANAGEMENT RESPONSIBILITY FOR K-12 MATH
AND SCIENCE EDUCATION
The Task Force has recommended that both NSF and DoEd
have essential and distinct responsibilities for K-12 math and science
education. However, these responsibilities are strongly interdependent: neither agency will be successful in achieving the pace and depth
of progress required to meet the national goals without the cooperation
of the other. Thus, we have discussed how the agencies might organize
to work cooperatively, for example, by establishing a Joint Office for
Math and Science Improvement. Further, we call attention to the
importance of oversight by OSTP and OMB, and note the usefulness
of FCCSET and its Committee on Education and Human Resources to
such oversight.
What are the alternative organizational arrangements for
achieving the same end, and why were they not recommended? There
are merits as well as disadvantages, in our view, in each of four other
alternatives:

1. Assign lead responsibility for federal K-l 2 math and science

education activities to OSTP or to a senior executive on FCCSET.
We have recommended that OSTP, operating through FCCSET's
Committee on Education and Human Resources, coordinate the
federal agencies and review their strategies. In theory, the chair of this
committee could also be given lead responsibility, working through
the committee, to engage the maximum number of federal agencies in
the task in order both to engage their talents and spread the cost; and
given that two agencies (NSF and DoEd) divide the math and science
responsibility almost equally today, there is a case to be made for giving
the balancing role to a third party. Indeed, the Secretary of Energy has
shown himself to be an articulate and committed advocate for federal
effectiveness in K-12 math and science education.
However, the Task Force feels that the primary responsibility
should be on the shoulders of one or both of the principal operating
agencies. Giving FCCSET responsibility for managing the math and
science education strategy risks separating responsibility from accountability. Although CEHR has proven itself effective, it is a staff
body, and its effectiveness depends too heavily on the leadership of
the head of an agency for which education is not the primary mission.
62

2. Assign lead responsibility to DoEd.

The "cleanest" solution from a management perspective is to
give DoEd the role of lead agency, with NSF expected to accommodate
its math and science education activities to the strategies of DoEd, or
in the more extreme form of this optionto transfer NSF K-12
education activities to DoEd, as favored by one member of the Task
Force.
During the past decade, few experts in education reform would
have advocated this approach, for DoEd was widely regarded as
ineffective and lacking in sufficient competence. Until recently, DoEd
was generally unresponsive to initiatives taken by NSF to open up
channels of cooperation. Few in the university educational research
community would have preferred this choice, and today many state
education officials prefer dealing with NSF rather than with DoEd.
Recent events support optimism that DoEd is to be rejuvenated. Its total budget swamps that of NSF; DoEd has much higher
political visibility and leverage. Virtually every member of Congress
cares about public schools; only a few have taken a deep interest in
science.
However, organizational decisions today should reflect today's
reality. DoEd, whose mission has been a matter of controversy almost
from its inception,* has never had the opportunity to develop its
capabilities. It has little capacity in math and science education beyond
some experienced senior staff in the Office of Educational Research
and Improvement and one or two other offices. Congress has not yet
indicated its willingness to unleash DoEd as the agent for structural
change in pre-college education, nor has DoEd shown how its internal
capability is to be upgraded.
The Task Force hopes that DoEd will acquire the sophistication
to take a leadership position in educational innovation and diffusion
in math and science as well as in other fields. However, the importance
of integrating the national strategy for math and science teaching into
the strategy for national leadership in math and science research is so
great that NSF will always be needed to play a major role.

* Within 18 months of its establishment, President Reagan came into office and recommended
that the Department of Education be abolished. While this was not done, there were deep
differences of view between the Reagan Administration and Congress over the mission and
budget of this agency for the next eight years.

63

3. Assign lead responsibility to NSF.

Another possibility is that NSF be given the lead agency
responsibility for math and science education improvement, with
DoEd expected to accommodate its programs to NSF's strategy as they
relate to math and science. This arrangement draws most directly on
the statutory assignments of mission, and reflects the much greater
strength of NSF staff in math and science than is found today in DoEd.
Thus, recruitment of students and teachers, teacher training and
retraining, curriculum development, and education research in mathematics and science would all be developed by NSF. NSF's launching
of the Systemic Statewide Initiative indicates that NSF can indeed
address systemic issues and can work with leaders in the states. DoEd
would be a secondary player employed primarily for its diffusion
capability.
Such an arrangement would require a major expansion of the
NSF K-12 education budget, something that may not be acceptable to
its research constituency, and implies that DoEd, a much bigger agency
with far higher political visibility, would in fact follow NSF's lead.
Neither prospect seems realistic. In any case, the larger job of systemic
school reform clearly requires efforts outside mathematics and science,
and should provide the context for NSF's focused effort on these
subjects.

4. Create a Department of Education and Science.

There is a fourth alternative, although favored by almost no one
in the U.S. scientific community. Many other industrialized democracies have Ministries of Education and Science, combining the functions
that in the U.S. are assigned to NSF and the Department of Education.
We do not recommend it for this country. The diversity of statesupported public and private universities is a major asset in the U.S.,
as is the competitive research support system from multiple federal
sources. The independence of universities from federal control also
facilitates institutional innovation, including cooperative relationships
between university science and industry. There are also powerful
reasons to believe that a Department of Education and Science would
not be in the best interests of U.S. excellence in scientific research, a
very important concern going beyond the scope of this report.

64

ENDNOTES
1. See, for example: U.S. Department of Education, A Nation at Risk, Washington, D.C.,
1983; Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, America's Choice: High
Skills or Low Wages, National Center on Education and the Economy, 1990; Committee
on Education and Human Resources, By the Year 2000: First in the World, Federal
Coordinating Council for Science, Engineering, and Technology, February 1991.
2. A recent survey by the National Association of Independent Schools reports that
three out of every four parents are satisfied with the public schools their children
attend, and 45 percent say they would continue to send their children to public schools
even if cost were not a concern: USA Today, Wednesday, July 24, 1991; p. 2D. See
also Arthur Powell, Eleanor Farrar and David Cohen, Shopping Mall High School,
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985.
3. Based on continuation of present trends and the following sources: Children's
Defense Fund, Child Poverty in America, Washington, D.C., June 1991, p. 2; Jeanne
E. Griffith, Mary J. Frase, and John H. Ralph, "American Education: The Challenge of
Change," Population Bulletin, Vol. 44, No. 4, December 1989, p. 10.; Joan M. First and
John W. Carrera, New Voices: Immigrant Students in U.S. Public Schools, National
Coalition of Advocates for Students, Boston, MA, 1988, p. 43, and National Center for
Education Statistics, Projections of Education Statistics to 2001, An Update, U.S.
Department of Education, Washington, D.C., December 1990, Table 1, p. 4.
4. Carnegie Task Force on Teaching as a Profession, A Nation Prepared: Teachers for
the 21st Century, Carnegie Corporation of New York, 1986.
5. Among such studies are The National Science Board Commission on PreCollege
Education in Mathematics, Science, and Technology, Educating Americans for the 21st
Century, National Science Foundation, 1983; U.S. Department of Education, A Nation
at Risk, Washington, D.C., 1983; Task Force on Teaching as a Profession, A Nation
Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century, Carnegie Forum on Education and the
Economy, 1986; U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment, Elementary and
Secondary Educationfor Science and Engineering, Washington, D.C., 1988; Corporate
Task Force on Education, Undereducated Uncompetitive USA, Union Carbide Corporation, 1989; Quality Education for Minorities Project, Education That Works: An
Action Plan for the Education of Minorities, Cambridge, 1990; Commission on the
Skills of the American Workforce, America's Choice: High Skills or Low Wages, National
Center on Education and the Economy, 1990.
6. J. A. Dossey, I. V. S. Mullis, M. M. Lindquist, and D. L. Chambers, The Mathematics
Report Card: Are We Measuring Up? Princeton: Educational Testing Service, 1988.
7. Robert Langreth, Science, Vol. 251, 1991, p. 1024.
8. Federal Coordinating Council for Science, Engineering, and Technology, Committee
on Education and Human Resources, By the Year 2000, 1991, p. 40.
9. F. James Rutherford, Reflections on the Federal Role in the Reform of Science
Education, Feb. 9, 1990, p. 1: an unpublished paper prepared for the Carnegie
Commission on Science, Technology, and Government.
10. U.S. Department of Education, A Nation at Risk, Washington, D.C., 1983.

65

11. Task Force on Teaching as a Profession, A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st
Century, Carnegie Corporation of New York, 1986. This reform strategy emphasized
increased qualifications, responsibility, and accountability for teachers and was
adopted without dissent by the governors at the National Governors Association
meeting of August 1986.
12. In 1981, upon assuming office, the President announced his intention to terminate
the recently formed Department of Education, and the budget for NSF's Science
Education Directorate was eliminated. Although the NSF Education Directorate was
abolished, it was re-established a few years later, and the Department of Education
suffered budget reductions but continued to exist.
13. Examples include systemic reform initiated by a number of governors; private
reform initiatives in collaboration with cities, as in Chicago; creation of dozens of
magnet and other special schools for mathematics and science; "school adoption"
initiatives by private industry; peer mentoring programs for disadvantaged students;
and the expansion of computer firms and not-for-profit institutions into new
educational technologies.
14. The membership of the National Education Goals Panel includesfrom the
Administration, the White House Chief of Staff, the Director of the Office of
Management and Budget, the Assistant to the President for Economic and Domestic
Policy, and the Secretary of Education; from Congress, the Majority and Minority
Leaders of the House and Senate; from the states, the governors of Colorado, Missouri,
Indiana, Iowa, South Carolina, and Washington.
15. The ethnic mix in the country among children under eighteen changed between
1980 and 1987 from 51.0 million white, 9.3 million black, and 1.7 million Hispanic to
50.4 million, 9.5 million, and 2.6 million, respectively (Source: Department of
Education, The Condition of Education 1990, Table 1:18-1). Minority populations
have grown dramatically since 1987; by the year 2000, some states will have "majority
minority" populations.
16. The Task Force suggests that, in addition to a dramatic reduction in school
dropouts, especially among disadvantaged students, an attainable minimum goal can
be expressed as follows: Ensure that the mathematics and science education
preparation of all high school graduates will allow them to be successful in entry-level
technical positions in the work force or to pursue successfully a quantitatively based
field of study in college without the need for remedial assistance. Math and science
preparation will enable graduates to fulfill their civic responsibilities with an
understanding of the scientific dimensions of policies and decisions that affect our
citizens and the world.
17. Richard F. Elmore, "Innovation in Education Policy," Conference on Fundamental
Questions of Innovation, Governors Center, Duke University, May 3-5, 1991.
18. Federal Coordinating Council for Science, Engineering, and Technology, 8, p.6.
19. See The Business Roundtable, Essential Components of a Successful Education
System: The Business Roundtable Education Public Policy Agenda, New York, 1990.
20. Federal Coordinating Council on Science, Engineering, and Technology, p.26.
21. James Rutherford, "Reflections on the Federal Role in the Reform of Science
Education," Feb. 9, 1990, p. 6; prepared for the Carnegie Commission on Science,
Technology, and Government; unpublished. "Top-down" refers to statewide or

66

national policies applicable to many schools; "bottom-up" to changes originating at

the local level. "Inside-out" changes are created by teachers and others in the schools;
"outside-in" changes originate outside the education system.
22. Robert Langreth, "School Science Surveyed," Science, Vol. 251, p. 102, March 1991.
23. There is ample evidence that differences in learning ability are related to the speed
of learning rather than what can ultimately be learned. A given level of learning
requires more effort on the part of some, but the capacity for learning is nowhere near
saturated for even the least gifted in our society. See Herbert Walberg, "Educational
Effectiveness: Psychological Problems and Possibilities," in Issues in Science Education: Science Competence in a Social and Ecological Context, Thorsten Husen and
John Keeves (eds.), Pergamon Press, 1991.
24. For elaboration of this idea see Harvey Brooks, "Educating and Training the U.S.
Workforce for the Twenty-first Century," in Dorothy Zinberg (ed.), The Changing
University, NATO, 1991.
25. For an excellent discussion of this issue, see Richard F. Elmore and Susan Fuhrman.
"The National Interest and the Federal Role in Education," Publius: The Journal of
Federalism, Vol. 20, No. 3, pp. 149-162, 1990.
26. American Association for the Advancement of Science, Research and Development
FY 1991, Washington, D.C., 1990, p. 78.
27. These programs were authorized to fund initiatives in virtually all school districts,
to assure that services for special groups served them directly, and to fund and motivate
local educators to deliver those services. Many of the largest programs also required
evaluation at local, state, and federal levels; grants to enhance the abilities of state
education agencies; and support for R&D programs to improve teaching, curricula, and
materials for disadvantaged students. Paul Hill, The Federal Role in Education: A
Strategy for the 1990's, National Center on Education and the Economy, Rochester, NY,
1989.
28. Sources: Office of Management and Budget, Budget of the U.S. Government FY
1992, p. IV-78; Federal Coordinating Council for Science, Engineering, and Technology, Committee on Education and Human Resources, By the Year 2000: First in the
World, February 1991, p. 313.
29. $100 million goes to "informal education," or off-school-site education: museums,
libraries, educational video and computer programs, etc.; $9 million is for evaluation
and assessment of both formal and informal programs. FCCSET CEHR report, By the
Year 2000: First in the World, February 1991.
30. The FCCSET CEHR report,30, p. 313, states that FY 1991 direct federal investment
in formal and informal science and math education in the schools was $515 million.
Of this, $406 million was directed at school-based, in-classroom activity; this is only
3 percent of the $13.2 billion total school revenues received by public schools from
the federal government in 1991. The informal (museums, television, laboratory
extension, etc.) spending was $100 million, and, while not part of public school
revenues, compares at only 1 percent of the total school revenues. The $13.2 billion
figure is calculated from the federal share of education revenues to public schools (6.2
percent in 1989; U.S. Department of Education, The Condition of Education 1991, p.
86), and the total school revenues from all sources for 1990 ($213.3 billion; ibid., p.
88).

67

31. The Task Force on Science, Technology, and Economic Performance of the
Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology, and Government has addressed these
issues in its report Technology and Economic Performance: Organizing the Executive
Branch for a Stronger National Technology Base, September 1991.
32. Since significant parts of the Chapter I, II, and III programs in DoEd do benefit math
and science education (along with other disciplines), a more generous accounting
might reach a little over $1 billion, but CEHR made the judgment that it was more
appropriate to base the accounting on efforts specifically targeted to math and science
education.
33. Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education,
The Condition of Education, 1990, Vol. I, Elementary and Secondary Education, p. 168.
34- U.S. Department of Education, Projection of Education Statistics to 2001, December 1990; Table 37, p. 62.
35. For science and mathematics specifically, the $515 million 1991 budget for formal
pre-college education, as determined by the FCCSET CEHR, includes $312 million (6l
percent) for teacher preparation programs, $86 million (17 percent) for curriculum and
materials development, and $42 million (8 percent) for student incentives and
opportunities. However, this budget includes only $40 million (8 percent) for
comprehensive reform programs and organizational and systemic change; $10 million
(2 percent) for applications of technology to education; $9 million (2 percent) for
program evaluation and assessment; and $5 million (1 percent) for diffusion of
information and technical assistance. These categories are presented with the caution
that they are the result of post hoc efforts of an interagency committee to categorize
very different programs. The categories under which each program was created within
each agency may have been different from those chosen here; similarly, a program may
have the characteristics of more than one category applied by the interagency
committee, or may not fall into any particular category.
36. Total 1991 RD funding (not including spending on facilities) for all agencies was
estimated at $65 billion; 10 percent of this is $6.5 billion. Total agency spending on
math and science education at all levels in 1991 is estimated at $1.7 billion. Thus, the
increment from such a program would be about $4.8 billion. Sources: American
Association for the Advancement of Science, AAAS Report IV: Research and Development FY 1992, Washington, 1991, Table II-l, p. 135; Committee on Education and
Human Resources, By the Year 2000, Federal Coordinating Council for Science,
Engineering, and Technology, 1991, p. 313.
37. The National Geographic Society, for example, has established a Geographic
Education Foundation which trains substantial numbers of teachers of geography, and
supports geography education through television and other programs. The "Kidnet"
interactive computer network program, funded by NSF, brings hands-on scientific
skills to middle school students across the country.
38. The categories into which the CEHR allocated the federal agencies' current math
and science education activities do not include an explicit category for "research." The
agencies do engage in relatively modest amounts of applied educational research,
which in the CEHR expenditure compilation is assigned to the most appropriate area
of application. For example, where the research is associated with development of
curriculum, it is included with development under the heading "pre-college curriculum materials." See By the Year 2000, 1 , pp. 120, 283.
39. Estimate by Assistant Director for Education and Human Resources Luther
Williams, May 25, 1991.

68

40. This concept is similar to the two-stage grants for research awarded by federal
agencies under the Small Business Innovative Research program. After receiving initial
support for research, and a subsequent showing of potential for commercialization,
the grantee may receive a fivefold larger grant to take the work to the next stage of
application.
41. U.S. Department of Education, America 2000: An Education Strategy, Washington,
D.C., April 1991, p. 15.
42. Shirley Malcom, testimony to Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources,
19 April 1990, p. 19.
43. Project 2061, a collaboration among NSF, the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and others, represents
a comprehensive effort to define an integrated and contemporary view of what adults
should know about science, with the development of appropriate materials for use in
K-12 schools. The NSF is also funding the Scope, Sequence, and Coordination project
of the National Science Teachers Association, which is designed to teach a range of
science courses every year starting in middle school, as opposed to the traditional
"layer cake" approach, with one course per year starting in high school.
44. Interview with Glenn Seaborg, Chairman, Lawrence Hall of Science; June 6, 1991.
45. By the Year 2000, ', p. 2.
46. By the Year 2000, 1 , p. 16.
47. Vannevar Bush, Science, the Endless Frontier, submitted to President Truman, July
5, 1945, republished by the National Science Foundation, May 1980.
48. President's Scientific Research Board, Science and Public Policy: Administration
for Research, 3 vols. Washington DC: Government Printing Office, Vol. 1, p. 26, 1947.
49. Walter Massey, presentation to the Task Force on K-12 Mathematics and Science
Education of the Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology, and Government,
March 25, 1991.
50. The current FCCSET Committee on Education and Human Resources is not a
substitute for this. It is a device for reporting to the President through his science
adviser, and it is concerned with missions and resource allocation, not with operations.
Further, it covers the activities of too many agencies in addition to NSF and DoEd.
51. Since it is only through a joint decision by the two agency heads that a stable
balance can be struck between collaboration in shared responsibilities and coordinated but separate activities, it is essential that the director of the Joint Office have
direct access to the two principals in the event there are disagreements between the
two agencies. However, the director must operate collegially with the key officials of
each agency: the Assistant Direaor of NSF for Education and Human Resources and,
presumably, the assistant secretary responsible for OERI of the Department of
Education. A management device to ensure their active involvement in the work of
the Joint Office will have to be created by the two principals.

69

GLOSSARY OF ACRONYMS
AAAS
CEHR
DoC
DoD
DoE
DoEd
Dol
DoL
DPC
EHR
EOF
EPA
FCCSET
FFRDC
FICE
HEW
HHS
NAGB
NAS
NASA
NIH
NIMH
NREN
NSF
NSTA
OERI
OMB
OSTP
SCANS
SSC
SSI
USDA

70

American Association for the Advancement of Science

Committee on Education and Human Resources, FCCSET
Department of Commerce
Department of Defense
Department of Energy
Department of Education
Department of the Interior
Department of Labor
Domestic Policy Council
Directorate for Education and Human Resources, NSF
Executive Office of the President
Environmental Protection Agency
Federal Coordinating Council for Science, Engineering,
and Technology
Federally Funded Research and Development Center
Federal Interagency Committee on Education, EOP
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, now HHS
Department of Health and Human Services
National Assessment Governing Board
National Academy of Sciences
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
National Institutes of Health
National Institute of Mental Health
National Research and Education Network
National Science Foundation
National Science Teachers Association
Office of Educational Research and Improvement, DoEd
Office of Management and Budget
Office of Science and Technology Policy, EOP
Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary
Skills, DoL
Scope, Sequence, and Coordination program, NSTA
Statewide Systemic Initiatives program, NSF
U.S. Department of Agriculture

MEMBERS OF THE CARNEGIE COMMISSION ON SCIENCE,

TECHNOLOGY, AND GOVERNMENT
William T. Golden (Co-Chair)
Chairman of the Board
American Museum of Natural History

General Andrew J. Goodpaster (Ret.)

Chairman
Atlantic Council of The United States

Joshua Lederberg (Co-Chair)

University Professor and President
Emeritus
Rockefeller University

Shirley M. Hufstedler
Attorney
Hufstedler, Kaus & Ettinger
Admiral B. R. Inman (USN, Ret.)

David Z. Robinson (Executive Director)

Carnegie Commission on Science,
Technology, and Government
Richard C. Atkinson
Chancellor
University of California, San Diego
Norman R. Augustine
Chair & Chief Executive Officer
Martin Marietta Corporation
John Brademas
President
New York University
Lewis M. Branscomb
Albert Pratt Public Service Professor
Science, Technology, and Public Policy
Program
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
The Honorable Jimmy Carter
Former President of the United States
The Honorable William T. Coleman, Jr.
Attorney
O'Melveny & Myers
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Professor and Deputy Director
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center

Helene L. Kaplan
Attorney
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom
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President
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Attorney
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Technology Strategies & Alliances
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Institute Professor
Department of Economics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Former Director
National Science Foundation
Sheila E. Widnall
Abby Mauze Rockefeller Professor of
Aeronautics and Astronautics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Jerome B. Wiesner
President Emeritus
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Honorable Daniel J. Evans

Chairman
Daniel J. Evans Associates

71

MEMBERS OF THE ADVISORY COUNCIL, CARNEGIE COMMISSION

ON SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND GOVERNMENT
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Douglas Dillon Professor of Government
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
William O. Baker
Former Chairman of the Board
AT&T Bell Telephone Laboratories
Harvey Brooks
Professor Emeritus of Technology and
Public Policy
Harvard University
Harold Brown
Chairman
The Johns Hopkins Foreign Policy
Institute
The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced
International Study
James M. Cannon
Consultant
The Eisenhower Centennial
Foundation
Ashton B. Carter
Director
Center for Science and International
Affairs
Harvard University
The Honorable Richard F. Celeste
Former Governor
State of Ohio
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Governor
State of Florida
Theodore Cooper
Chairman Chief Executive Officer
The Upjohn Company

Thomas Ehrlich
President
Indiana University
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Attorney
Powell, Goldstein, Frazer & Murphy
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Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
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President Emeritus
University of Notre Dame
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Director
National Science Foundation
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continued next page

72

Jonas Salk
Founding Director
Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Maxine F. Singer
President
Carnegie Institute of Washington
The Honorable Dick Thornburgh
Former U.S. Attorney General
Admiral James D. Watkins (Ret.)**
Former Chief of Naval Operations

Herbert F. York
Director Emeritus
Institute on Global Conflict
and Cooperation
University of California, San Diego
Charles A. Zraket
Trustee
The MITRE Corporation
* Through April 1990
** Through January 1989

MEMBERS OF THE TASK FORCE ON K-12 MATHEMATICS AND

SCIENCE EDUCATION
Lewis M. Branscomb (Chair)
Albert Pratt Public Service Professor
Science, Technology, and Public Policy
Program
John F. Kennedy School of
Government Harvard University
Bill Aldridge
Executive Director
National Science Teachers Association
Richard Atkinson
Chancellor
University of California, San Diego
The Honorable Garrey Carruthers
Former Governor of New Mexico
Eugene H. Cota-Robles
Professor of Biology Emeritus
University of California, Santa Cruz
Shirley Hufstedler
Attorney
Hufstedler, Kaus & Ettinger
Former Secretary of Education

* Resigned May 20, 1991, after confirmation

as Deputy Secretary of the Department of
Education

David Kearns*
Chairman (Ret.)
Xerox Corporation
Leon Lederman
Director Emeritus
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
Shirley M. McBay
President
Quality Education for Minorities
Network
Lauren B. Resnick
Co-Director
Learning Research & Development
Center
University of Pittsburgh
F. James Rutherford
Chief Education Officer
American Association for the
Advancement of Science
Roland W. Schmitt
President
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

continued next page

73

Maxine F. Singer
President
Carnegie Institution of Washington
Sheila E. Widnall
Abby Mauze Rockefeller Professor of
Aeronautics and Astronautics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Project Director
Rollin B. Johnson
Science, Technology, and Public Policy
Program
John F. Kennedy School of
Government
Harvard University

Liaison with the Carnegie Commission

David Z. Robinson
Executive Director
Carnegie Commission on Science,
Technology, and Government
Liaison with Carnegie Corporation of
New York
Vivien Stewart, Program Chair
Education and Healthy Development
of Children and Youth
Carnegie Corporation of New York

MEMBERS OF THE ADVISORY COUNCIL, TASK FORCE ON K-12

MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE EDUCATION
John F. Akers
Chairman and CEO
IBM Corporation
The Honorable Lamar Alexander*
President
University of Tennessee
Former Governor of Tennessee
Alan Altshuler
Director
Taubman Center for State and Local
Government
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
Gordon Ambach
Executive Director
Council of Chief State School Officers
Terrell Bell
University of Utah
Former Secretary of Education
Erich Bloch
Council on Competitiveness
Former Director
National Science Foundation
* Resigned after nomination as Secretary of
Education

74

Ernest L. Boyer
President
Carnegie Foundation for the
Advancement of Teaching
John Brademas
President
New York University
Harvey Brooks
Professor of Technology and Public
Policy Emeritus
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
Owen Bradford Butler
Chairman (Ret.)
Proctor & Gamble Corporation
George Bugliarello
President
Polytechnic University
The Honorable Richard F. Celeste
Former Governor
State of Ohio

continued next page

William T. Coleman
Partner
O'Melveny & Myers
Victor J. Danilov
Director
Museum Management Program
University of Colorado
President Emeritus
Museum of Science and Industry,
Chicago

Harold "Doc" Howe

Professor
Graduate School of Education
Harvard University
The Honorable James B. Hunt
Former Governor of North Carolina
Solomon Hurwitz
President
Committee for Economic Development

Linda Darling-Hammond
Professor
Teachers College
Columbia University

The Honorable Thomas Kean

President
Drew University
Former Governor of New Jersey

The Honorable Daniel J. Evans

Chairman
Daniel J. Evans Associates

Peter Likins
President
Lehigh University

Joseph Fernandez
Chancellor
New York City Public Schools

Margaret MacVicar
Associate Dean
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Ellen Futter
President
Barnard College
Columbia University

Shirley Malcom
Head
Directorate for Education and Human
Resources Programs
American Association for the
Advancement of Science

Mary Futtrell
Past President
National Education Association
Sheldon Glashow
Professor of Physics
Harvard University
Mary Good
Senior Vice President, Technology
Allied Signal, Inc.
Chairman
National Science Board

Frank Newman
President
Education Commission of the States
Frank Press
President
National Academy of Sciences
Peter S. Raven
Director
Missouri Botanical Garden

Patricia Graham
President
Spencer Foundation
Former Dean
Graduate School of Education
Harvard University

The Honorable Richard Riley

Former Governor of South Carolina

Gerald Holton
Professor of Physics
Harvard University

Glenn Seaborg
Professor Emeritus
University of California, Berkeley

Ian Ross
President Emeritus
ATT Bell Telephone Laboratories

continued next page

75

Albert Shanker
President
American Federation of Teachers
Irwin Shapiro
Director
Harvard Astrophysical Observatory
Principal Investigator
Project Star
Lee S. Shulman
Professor
School of Education
Stanford University
Theodore Sizer
Chairman
Coalition of Essential Schools
Brown University
Thomas Sobol
Commissioner of Education
New York State Department of
Education

76

Marc S. Tucker
President
National Center on Education and
the Economy
Linda Wilson
President
Radcliffe College
Harvard University
Joe B. Wyatt
Chancellor
Vanderbilt University
Dorothy Zinberg
Senior Lecturer
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University

REPORTS OF THE CARNEGIE COMMISSION ON SCIENCE,

TECHNOLOGY, AND GOVERNMENT
Science & Technology and the President (October 1988)
E3: Organizing for Environment, Energy, and the Economy in the Executive Branch
of the U.S. Government (April 1990)
New Thinking and American Defense Technology (August 1990; second edition May
Science, Technology, and Congress: Expert Advice and the Decision-Making Process
(February 1991)
Technology and Economic Performance: Organizing the Executive Branch for a
Stronger National Technology Base (September 1991)
In the National Interest: The Federal Government in the Reform of K-12 Math and
Science Education (September 1991)
Science, Technology, and Congress: Analysis and Advice from the Congressional
Support Agencies (October 1991)
Science and Technology in U.S. International Affairs (January 1992.)
International Environmental Research and Assessment: Proposals for Better
Organization and Decision Making (July 1992.)
Science, Technology, and the States in America's Third Century (September 1992)
Enabling the Future: Linking Science and Technology to Societal Goals (September
1992)
Partnerships for Global Development: The Clearing Horizon (December 1992)
Environmental Research and Development: Strengthening the federal Infrastructure (December 1992)
A Science and Technology Agenda for the Nation: Recommendations for the President and Congress (December 1992)
Facing Toward Governments: Nongovernmental Organizations and Scientific and
Technical Advice (January 1993)
Science, Technology, and Judicial Decision Making: Creating Opportunities and
Meeting Challenges (March 1993)
Science, Technology, and Government for a Changing World (April 1993)
Risk and Federal Regulatory Decision Making: Learning from the Environment (Forthcoming, Spring 1993)
Science, Technology, and Congress: Organizational and Procedural Re forms (Forthcoming, Spring 1993)
Copies of these reports are available free of charge from:
The Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology, and Government
10 Waverly Place, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10003
(212) 998-2150, Fax (212.) 995-3181

CARNEGIE COMMISSION
ON SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND GOVERNMENT
10 Waverly Place, New York, NY 10003
Phone: 212-998-2150 Fax: 212-995-3181

ISBN 1-881054-14-4