GOVERNMENT
Education Department's Senese Outlines Science, Math Programs Precollege science and mathematics ed the retraining of existing teachers, the in the field, and the White House science ucation is becoming one of the top issues development of new ones, fellowships for adviser's office is focusing its interest on of the coming election year. The debate is students, equipment, and various incen NSF programs in the field. Still, the Ed over the degree to which the federal tives for educational improvement, and ucation Department is going to do more government should be involved in the establishment of state standards of qual than simply pass out money. For example, funding of programs to raise the educa ity. In addition, the-Secretary of Educa the National Institute of Education is tional level of teenagers in the U.S. and tion will receive $35 million of the $350 currently in the throes of deciding its own their teachers to that of the other indus million to use as discretionary funds for form and function after several months trial countries. At stake, the fear goes, is added support of extraordinary programs of controversy over the quality of its leadership. The institute now has a new an accelerated decline of U.S. competi throughout the U.S. tiveness in science and technology, and The department still is pondering how director in Manuel Justiz and the con thus a weakening of its economic and to organize itself for the big new initiative, cerns involve such matters as whether the military security. which is almost certain to grow in coming institute should eliminate its regional By autumn, the Senate will have taken years. Its role is substantially different laboratories and focus on a structure more up S. 1285, the comprehensive Education from that of Ν ST. Although NSF is re like NSF or the National Institutes of for Economic Security Act, that will add sponsible for the intellectual content of Health, or return to the state and regional $425 million to budgets for improving the program, the department is seen as format, working through state organi secondary education in mathematics, merely shoveling out money to the zations. science, and engineering. The National states. In any case, the person in charge of Science Foundation will receive about $75 Federal programs are never all that shaping the department's new thrust into million for teacher training, curriculum simple. And although there is some truth science and mathematics education is development, graduate fellowships, and to the perception around Washington that Donald J. Senese, assistant secretary for research in science teaching, over and the Education Department is a passive educational research and improvement. above the $75 million it already is re participant, it does plan to have some role Although Secretary Bell is still trying to ceiving from its regular fiscal 1984 ap in the big national debate over excellence. determine how he will organize his de propriation for those activities. The House Its chief, Terrel H. Bell, has no plans to partment for the effort, the odds are high long since has passed its version of a stand still, but instead administer a kind that Senese will assume the major ad science/math education bill, H.R. 1310, of leadership by jaivboning the educa ministrative responsibilities. which roughly parallels S. 1285's provi tional establishment to do a better job. C&EN's Wil Lepkowski talked recently sions and equals it on funding. Congress could pressure the department with Senese, a historian by training, and asked him to outline some of the depart But by far the bulk of the money in both to be more active. bills will go to the Department of Edu So far, the White House and the de ment's functions, responsibilities, and cation to fulfill its own function of fund partment are having little contact over philosophies in precollege science and ing school districts for programs involving what the form of real leadership should be mathematics education.
C&EN: How is your department gearing up for the education bills emerging from Congress? Senese: Well, the final act the President signs will de termine the allocations. We're still discussing in the department where the math and science programs will be placed. It could be this office or the elementary and secondary division. As far as we're concerned, the edu cation act that created this department says we're to keep liaison with the National Science Foundation and keep ourselves abreast of changes in science education. In the last reorganization we had, I set up in this office the di vision of science and technology which Arthur Melmed 12
July 25, 1983 C&EN
heads. It is a three-man office, which at the moment seems adequate. But if we do get the math and science aspect, it might be increased or put into one of the ex isting other components. C&EN: In science education, how do you reconcile the Reagan philosophy of a more passive, nonintrusive role of government, with federal leadership in edu cation? Senese: The liberal approach would look on the gov ernment's taking a leadership role of not only high lighting the problem but also of action of putting pro-
grams in place and implementing them across the U.S. We saw that in the late 1960s and 1970s. With the Reagan approach, there's the realization that there are a lot of interesting and exciting things going on at the local level, but that you can still take a federal leadership role to highlight the problem without actually supporting programs that would be intrusive in the local school curriculum. If one problem in science education is teacher training, then our philosophy would be to get the states as much as possible to administer such a program. I think you can still have a federal leadership role to highlight the problems and still have the private sector get involved as well.
You can still take a federal leadership role to highlight the problem without actually supporting programs that would be intrusive in the local school
C&EN: The department has funded something called Lighthouse Schools that is supposedly designed to demonstrate innovation in science and math teaching and the use of the information technologies in the education process. What is the idea behind them? Senese: This comes out of the department's National Diffusion Network [NDN] that was set up in the 1970s. Up until then we had spent millions of dollars to find how effective various educational programs were. There was the concern over what to do after we discovered that. So NDN was set up to identify a number of programs and then to make this known to people throughout the country, and the government would provide training to enable school districts to implement some of these programs. The districts would compete for the funding of these programs. In the first year [of] this program . . . each of those schools averaged maybe 50 to 100 inquiries of bringing people in and trying to get new people to come out and train others. This is essentially seed money to spread information and knowledge on what works. A program will work for some schools and school districts, not for others. It's really up to them to decide. C&EN: Will the department get more active in assisting in curriculum development in one fashion or another, short of dictating curricula? Senese: I doubt it. If anything is to be done along that line, it will come from NSF. It had a math program in the 1960s. We had internally debated that in the department and decided that because of limited funds and political sensitivity not to consider getting up front with it. C&EN: There seems to be a lot less sensitivity about that sort of activity now, even though the term might still be touchy. You do have computer software studies. What if, as a result of those studies, some recommendations were made that some programs are worth supporting as a development project? Senese: We're very much aware of the software problem. There is a great concern that the software being developed isn't being applied, but because of the political sensitivity over developing curricula, we will stay away from this area. I will say that there are some hopeful trends out there. Some of the professional development
curriculum
groups have moved in the area. There's an operation in our Northwest Regional Lab that has information on the evaluation of software. We do have three projects going that are evaluating how computers can be used to effectively teach some subject areas. What we're trying to do is to focus on information sharing, working with schools in providing that type of information. C&EN: How much of the department's block grant money is actually going into math and science? Senese: To make the block grants less intrusive we haven't required those types of reports. There's a pro and con to that. The department is planning to spend about $700,000 on block grants evaluation. As part of that evaluation we will be trying to gather some of that type of data. C&EN: How about copyright ownership of software. Will you be looking at that? Senese: Usually if we're involved in any of that, it simply becomes part of the public domain. The rest will be settled in the courts. Everything we've produced in educational television has gone into the public domain and has been used over and over. C&EN: The Reagan Administration has strong political support from educators who feel that the scientific basis for Biblical creationism should be taught in the schools. Could you see the department funding a legitimate creationist software project so they can have their say in this field? Senese: No. This is something we'd rather stay clear of. You can see the point. We'd also have creationists protesting government support of Darwinian theory. Our feeling is to let them battle it out in the individual states and school boards. Once you get into the area of even helping or assisting in things like that, you're open to problems. D July 25, 1983 C&EN
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