During its mark-up of the Senate bill to reauthorize NSF (S. 2817),
the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee
approved an amendment that would consolidate the two existing Math and
Science Partnership programs into a single program within NSF.
As readers may recall, in FY 2002 similar but not identical Math and
Science Partnership programs were funded within both the Department of
Education and NSF. The purpose of both programs is to improve science
and math education through partnerships among states, school districts,
university science or math departments, and other eligible partners. The
NSF Partnerships were intended to be merit-based grants to develop model
programs and best practices; the Education Department program was
intended to provide funding to states by formula grant, to be
distributed to partnerships that include high-need school districts.
However, because the Education Department Partnerships received only
minimal funding ($12.5 million compared to $160 million for the NSF
Partnerships) in FY 2002, NSF is currently administering the grants for
both Partnership programs.
The HELP Committee, which in the Senate has jurisdiction over the
Department of Education as well as partial jurisdiction over NSF,
approved its version of the NSF reauthorization bill on September 5. In
addition to authorizing a doubling of the NSF budget by FY 2007 (see FYI #97 for
additional details of the bill), the HELP Committee's bill would
authorize the Math and Science Partnership program in NSF but eliminate
the Education Department's Partnership program.
According to reports, under the HELP Committee's version of S. 2817,
NSF would operate the Math and Science Partnership program as a
competitive grant program for three years (fiscal years 2003 to 2005),
at which time the program - still administered by NSF - would transition
to a formula grant program for fiscal years 2006 and 2007, with the
funds going to State Education Agencies for distribution. It appears
that at this point NSF might no longer have control over which
partnership proposals received funding.
Since the Eisenhower Professional Development program was terminated
in FY 2002, repeal of the Education Department's Math and Science
Partnership program would mean the end of all targeted Education
Department funding for improving science and math education. (There is,
however, generic Teacher Quality money that may be used for improving
science and math as well as other types of instruction.)
S. 2817 was marked up by the Senate Commerce Committee yesterday, but
no change was made to the Math and Science Partnerships provision. The
House version of the NSF reauthorization bill does not include the same
provision to eliminate the Education Department's Partnership program
and consolidate the Partnerships within NSF, and there are indications
that key House members oppose this provision. If the provision is not
deleted when the bill goes before the full Senate, this issue will need
to be reconciled during the House-Senate conference on the bill. The
conference has not yet been scheduled and conferees have yet to be
named.
