The FY 2003 budget cycle kicked off on February 4, 2002, with President Bush's presentation to Congress of the administration's funding proposals.
PERSPECTIVES ON FUNDING Below, with links to subsites of this site and to other sites, we present three perspectives on funding issues of interest to mathematical scientists.
OSTP: The 2003 budget requests record levels for federal R & D ($111.8 billion, an 8 percent increase.
AAAS: Bush Proposes Large Increases for DOD, NIH R & D; Mix of Cuts and Increases for Other R & D Programs with an overall increase of 8.3 percent over FY 2002.
CNSF: The Coalition for National Science Funding,
to which MAA
belongs,
publishes periodic summaries of federal research allocations and
proposals, and these reports are available at
http://www.cnsfweb.org.
For the FY 2003 NSF
budget, CNSF recommends an increase of $718
million (or 15 percent) for the FY 2003 above the FY 2002 level of
$4.79 billion, bringing the agency's budget to $5.508 billion.
HOW TO TRACK THE PROGRESS OF LEGISLATION
The American Association for the Advancement of Scence (AAAS) maintains a website where you can track the progress of various authorization and appropriation bills. See http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/approp03.htm
Another useful tool in following the progress of proposed legislation can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov. You can search by a bill's reference number or by key words.
PROGRESS NOTES
National Science Board Recommends NSF Budget Emphasize S&E Infrastructure
In a surprising move, NSF Director Rita Colwell wrote a letter on September 17, 2002, opposing proposals to significantly increase the NSF budget that would lead to a doubling over the next five years. A news report about her letter can be found at the SSTI website.
A bill that would increase the NSF budget by 15% in FY2003 was approved by a House subcommittee and sent to the full House Science Committee. On September 3, a Senate committee favorably reported out a bill called the "National Science Foundation Doubling Act" that proposes to double the NSF budget over the next five years. This is an authorization bill, not an appropriations bill.
A bill called the "Technology Talent Act" was passed by the House on July 9 and sent to the Senate for review. On September 6, the Senate Education Committee recommended approval of a bipartisan Techology Talent proposal associated with re-authorization legislation for NSF. Senate committee press release.
A Senate Committee has proposed that the Mathematics and Science Partnership program, a program designed to strengthen pre-college science and mathematics education, be moved from the Department of Education to the National Science Foundation. This is an authorization bill, not an appropriations bill.
Both houses of Congress have passed a bill that, if implemented by appropriations bills, would significantly increase the NSF budget. President Bush is expected to sign.
NSF Beat is a column by Sharon Cutler Ross giving a May/June update on NSF funding and new programs.
The CBMS2000 report on undergraduate programs in the mathematical sciences is now available at http://www.ams.org/cbms/. The report presents longitudinal data on mathematical sciences enrollments, majors, curriculum, and faculty. In addition, the CBMS2000 report studies the spread of calculus reform, distance learning, dual enrollments, the mathematical education of pre-service K-8 teachers, and the educational background of faculty teaching undergraduate statistics. Mathematics departments in two- and four-year colleges and universities will receive copies of the report, and individuals may purchase hard copies from the American Mathematical Society, or may down-load the report from the web site above.
ENROLLMENTS: Upper division undergraduate
enrollments and bachelors degrees awarded have declined. These phenomena
continue the pattern of decline over more than a decade. Lower division
mathematics enrollment have increased.
ACADEMIC EMPLOYMENT in mathematics has also
declined along with decline in upper division enrollments and degrees, in terms
of tenure and tenure-track positions. Employment of temporary, part-time, and
full time non-tenure track employment in mathematics has increased.
DISPARITY in the scope and range of programs
for majors in mathematics between bachelors-only and doctoral granting programs
that has always existed, may be growing to the point where a two separate but
unequal systems for undergraduate mathematics education may be developing.
[Source: Preliminary Report of CBMS2000 Survey,
The Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences
has just completed a report titled the Mathematical Education of Teachers. This
report is designed as a resource for mathematics faculty in colleges and
universities involved in education of elementary and secondary teachers of
mathematics.
A pending bill would replace the Department of Education's research arm
with a separate academy for educational research, would create
federal standards for federally sponsored educational research and would
do away with the Eisenhower Regional Mathematics Consortia and Eisenhower
Clearinghouses.
Further details of the proposal are available from
http://www.edweek.org/ew/newstory.cfm?slug=34oeri.h21
Congress Passes Bill to Overhaul Federal Education Research:
Congress has approved legislation that replaces the Department of
Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement with a
more independent Institute of Education Sciences.
The new institute will attempt to shake out the most effective
teaching methods through scientifically sound studies.
"Without sound science to back the claims of increased academic
achievement, schools are often disappointed," said Representative
Michael Castle (R-Delaware), who sponsored the legislation.
The institute will be overseen by a new National Board for Education
Sciences. The members of the board, as well as the institute's
director, will be appointed by the president.
The institute's findings will be compiled and distributed to
educators and policy makers by a Knowledge Utilization Office.
The American Educational Research Association praised the
legislation, saying it provides political independence for the
institute and "improves prospects for developing a culture of
research that has been lacking" in education studies.
Abstract from the NASSMC Briefing Service (NBS) that is supported by
the National Security Agency (NSA) and ExxonMobil Foundation,
Saturday, October 26, 2002. Full article is in the Chronicle of
Higher Education (Daily News), October 21, 2002.
"Having
a science policy at all implies that we have a systematic way of ordering the
opportunities so finite resources can be invested to best effect." -- John
Marburger
John Marburger, Director, OSTP and Science Advisor
to the President sets forth the policy position behind the priorities expressed
in the budget document.
William Kirwan President of the Ohio State
University, sets forth a perspective -- relating particularly to mathematics -
on how the current social context impacts on the profession and sets forth an
action agenda in response.
Copyright ©2002 The Mathematical Association of America
On behalf of the
MAA
Committee on Science Policy and
The Committee on the
Profession,
the Content Editor of the MAA Science Policy page is
Ken Millett of University of California, Santa Barbara
while
the Web Editor is Sarah J. Greenwald of
Appalachian State University. Please send comments, suggestions,
or corrections about this page to
millett@math.ucsb.edu