The Chronicle on the SOTU
February 1st, 2006Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
Here is how the Chronicle of Higher Education reported President Bush’s State of the Union speech last night:
In his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, President Bush proposed spending billions over the next decade on basic science research and on mathematics and science education. In his speech to a joint session of Congress, the president provided few details of his plan, which he dubbed “The American Competitiveness Initiative.” Specifics are expected to be provided in his budget request for the 2007 fiscal year, which is due out next Monday. However, sources familiar with the plan say it will provide $146-billion over the next 10 years, including $50-billion to double the budgets of three agencies: the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, and the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology. In the 2007 fiscal year, which begins on October 1, it would provide $910-million in additional funds for those agencies.
According to AAAS, in FY 2006 NSF, DOE’s Office of Science, and NIST received $6.93 billion for research. The President’s Budget will thus recommend a collective 13.1% increase for these agencies research budgets. In terms of these agencies overall budgets, the increase is closer to 10%.
February 1st, 2006 at 8:00 am
I’m glad to hear that President Bush supports increased spending on math and science education, but I remain concerned about how effective this spending will be under current “no child left behind” policies. The best way to teach science is through inquiry and constructivist teaching methods. These methods emphasize concept learning over rote acquisition of facts, leading to greater science literacy. Standardized tests that encourage this pedagogy and reward true science literacy, are difficult if not impossible to design. Teachers are stuck in the middle of following their state and national guidelines, which encourage inquiry, and demands to improve scores on standardized tests. Money directed at improving teacher quality will only be effective if teachers are allowed to use best practices in the classroom.
February 1st, 2006 at 7:30 pm
From the policy standpoint it would be interesting to see whether the NIST and DOE money is going to be used in house or in external grants. In the former case will this support ATP (hated by the Republicans when Clinton/Gore started it)? In the DOE case, does this save Jeff Lab for George Allan and John Warner.
So much to blog about.
February 1st, 2006 at 10:10 pm
And we heard today at AMS that the report “Rising above the gathering storm” released last year by the NRC was potentially one factor in this part of the speech. Goes to show the power of the linear model still influencing national science policy..