testing testing iting and productive year as well before we proceed with today's hearing is a couple of administrative procedure items i'd like to mention for members first of all for the purpose of asking questions i'll recognize those members arriving prior to the beginning of the hearing in subcommittee seniority order and then for those arriving after the start of the his first hearing and now we're going to have a good hearing scheduled he g your participation and before to work with your writing well this morning we're going to hear from the national science board which is the governing body of the national science foundation the board establishes the policies of the f provides oversight of its programs and activities and approves its strategic directions and budgets the board is also an independent bother to the president and to the congress on policy matters related to science and engineering research and education this year the national science board is seeking four million dollars a slight increase above the joint funding resolution level of three point nine million dr baring i know that this is your first time testifying before this  committee we welcome you and look forward to hearing your testimony mr freeman has it would you like to make an opening statement but no opening statement but it's a pleasure to be working with you chairman model hand we've had the opportunity of the past to serve on other committees i look forward to this new assignment as ranking like the i'm and other members of this committee i have a keen interest in science and i know we all support the work of your board and the national science national science fourth since two thousand and two this is my first time testifying before us chairman of the national science sport a position to which i was elected in may of zero six and i am deeply honored to represent the national science board before you today congress established the national science for the one nine hundred fifty and gave a dual responsibilities oversee the activities often establish the policies for the national science foundation and serve as an independent advisory body to the president of the congress on national policy issues related to science and engineering research and education on behalf of the entire board in the widespread and diverse research and education communities that we all serve i thank the members of the subcommittee for your long term commitment to a broad portfolio of investments in science technology engineering and mathematics we search an education your continuing bipartisan commitment to excellence and us science and engineering research and education has ensured that the u s remains a leader in global innovation and discovery we particularly appreciate your recent initiatives to help us with the budget increases during  behalf of n s f the board generally supports a president's budget request before you today which reflects a commitment to the objectives of the american competitiveness initiative we recognize of the budget  four three billion representing a seven and a half percent increase over the recent congressional f y o seven budget appropriation for and is a highly significant investment and programs at a time of national i'm sorry to be appearing on this date after the stock market dissolved yesterday internationally nevertheless of this incumbent on the board in our role as an independent advisory body to both the present congress to note that the still represents a significant gap between the existing congressionally authorized f y o seven n s f budget of approximately ten billion that was included as part of the n s f act of oh two which sought to double the f budget in five years the american competitiveness initiative again calls for a doubling of the n s f budget over a ten year period we would respectfully suggest that the time to implement these admirable authorizations and  as never been more urgent than now it is also important to note that the recent congressional f y o seven budget appropriation for n s f is different from the president's all seven requests and this has potential impact the process in detail the board is scheduled to discuss this particular issue in depth during our march of zero seven meeting just four weeks from today i shall of course be pleased to report to you about the substance and the conclusions of our deliberations at that point the board has been especially concerned with a major area of n s f responsibility education in science technology engineering and mathematics education is one of the core missions of n s a even while you are a student relative performance in mathematics and science is declining on international assessments changing workforce requirements mean that new workers will need  sophisticated skills in stem disciplines following a request from congress was to consider establishing a new stem education commission the board held a series of public hearings which i was privileged to chair around the country and subsequently approved a new commission on twenty four twenty first century education in science technology engineering and mathematics in march of zero six this commission comprises a wide range of eminent experts representing the broad scope of interests and us stem education we look forward to receiving their drive for discussion at the march of zero seven board meeting as congress requested last year the board intends to provide you with a bold new action plan for improving our nation's stem education over the past year the board has been undertaking through its committee on education and human resources and examination of the energy e h r director of programs with respect to evaluation procedures and results we will be continuing that we view as we take into account the recommendations of the board stem education commission the report of the academic competitiveness council and the plans with the  director under its new leadership dr cora merit and again we will keep you apprised of the results of that review we are pleased that the proposed f y o eight budget will permit funding of new starts and f math and science partnerships if additional funds became available they also would be well spent in support of the h r programs that have been shown to be effective through rigorous merit review and assessment man will give you the specific numbers of that particular initiative another area of need is a biological science directorate in spite of exploding opportunities for discovery and biological science funding supports the integrated portfolio of investments in s and the research and education represented in the president so a budget proposal for another oversight with the guard to our regular oversight foundation's annual merit review report and provide that review and decisions on major awards or proposal funding requests including awards totaling six hundred and sixteen million dollars we also approved a new strategic plan for n s f entitled vesting in america's future a strategic plan f y o six to twenty eleven and accepted the foundation's zero seven facility plan the latter was released in conjunction with the president's budget in february seventh a special concern and very high priority for the board has been our continuing work with the n s f management and the office of inspector general to resolve the correction of the existing reportable conditions that have been longstanding in our and us annual audit we have reviewed the draft and as a corrective action plan for reportable conditions in the f y o six financial statement audit and feel confident that these issues can and will be resolved the board acting as science and engineering policy advisor to the president in the congress published and disseminated the number of reports letters and statements including among others hurricane warning critical need for national hurricane research initiative particularly proud of this document we presented on the last day of the last congress to the senate a letter response to request from senator john mccain that examines policies of federal science agencies on the suppression and distortion of research findings and the impact these actions could have on the quality and credibility of future government sponsored scientific research results was another reports the board statutory biennial report science and engineering indicators all sex and its accompanying policy statement of america's pressing challenge building a stronger foundation on the condition of u s stem education was provided to every state in the union to all members of congress to university presidents to governors of our nation's states and many others who had a special interest and has been a very important document for research in this whole area and out of it of course also rose on stem at your commission resources to authority and to strengthen the board's oversight responsibilities for the foundation enhanced border responsibilities stablished in the end of serve authorization act of zero two and directed by congressional report language includes the continued expanding role in power or advising in approving m r e of c projects new requirements for meetings open to the public and responsibilities for reporting on the foundation's  the board plans to continue to increase communication and outreach with university industry and the broader science and engineering research and education community congress federal science technology agencies and the public perhaps one of the most important board activities over the next year will be overseeing the employer been implementation of the new n s f strategic plan which addresses the broad priorities established in the board's twenty twenty vision for the foundation another very handsome publication which is available to you this was published in december of zero five we will be also looking to provide policy direction to the foundation with respect to recommendations of any new board policy reports the board will continue to review and approve and as of actions for creating major new programs and funding large projects in f y o eight as well as dealing with emerging and evolving policy issues in addition  the board welcomes congressional and administration requests for reports on national science and engineering policy issues and will itself continue to identify high priority topics focused specifically on and or more broadly o the policy issues that we feel should be examined and f y o eight the federal investment in the nation science and technology is a necessity for our future prosperity and security quote an editorial by microsoft founder bill gates in the sunday washington post if the united states is to remain a global economic leader we must foster an environment that and unable so a new generation to dream of in as other nations ramp up their investment in the infrastructure for research and innovation we cannot be complacent the u s must sustain its advantages through continued was adequate federal support for science and engineering resorts and education on the prize the national science for it is committed to working with you to ensure that limited federal funding resources optimally invested to sustain us leadership in science and technology thank you very much thank you dr being dr in your testimony generally supports the budget request for zero eight the national science foundation although you do make clear that you think additional funding  could be used to band aids used to good purposes and particularly in the education area you say here on page three your statement the board has been especially concerned with a major area f responsibility education in science technology engineering and mathematics education as a core mission of n s f which not only includes research but also shares in the responsibility for promoting quality math and science education as entertaining objectives at all levels of education across the united states so if more funding were vailable how much additional funding do you believe would be necessary to truly make a difference here well i couldn't bought a house with a gas but let me give you an example that is always on the minds of our scientific clients around the nation we use forty two thousand three  hundred exceptionally good proposals and we were able to fund only ten thousand four hundred going the last cycle so there's are great deal of additional outstanding proposal activity we couldn't address financially and the same is true in other parts of the budget the math science partnership the noise awards each of which are slated for slight increases but there is a great need out there and we could productively use more money for these projects that propose a ratio you just gave us out of the education portfolio savoie out of the education portfolio that's that's not my question really to you is what you express i'm sure you'd like more money everywhere but you express a particular interest in seeing additional funding in the stepchild in this request with your request and four percent increase which is a bit over inflation and i suppose you're also reinstituting about recommending reinstating some grant programs what you need in the part of that you know the question is for the comm e what what kind of increases should you be requesting in order to be able to implement a bold new plan well we're discussing round numbers of twenty percent increase w budget recommendations included in the draft report and now you've seen the draft report of the commission on the twenty first century education the stem report are even though of course not due until march one of the more controversy recommendations is the is to establish a national coordinating council are you at liberty to discuss this recommendation well there is not  y of opinion was in the committee and we have not yet discussed that within the board at all and the question of course comes up are mechanisms expand like the department of education accrediting agencies and so on that suffice those recommendations tent so i can't comment beyond can you tell us what or what are some of the concerns just in general what are the concern well one concern would be duplications of effort another would be with him with organizations like accrediting agencies local authorities like school boards and another would be competition  rt of education and another concern would be what kind of expenditure would be required to implement a brand new coordinating for the nation  gathering storm out there and you and others have articulated the needs i would like to focus my comments on the issue of education more science and math teachers comes to mind many members have had interaction with dean kamen and a lot of his good work relative to the promotion of science and math in particular his robotics work are you familiar with that you know i mean it's worth your attention to you have a phrase comes to mind catch them while they're young and the the focus has to be on elementary and middle schoolers it's not the we're writing anybody off here i just wonder whether your group has sort of how we get it  we get to grow the next generation of science teachers so very fair question as we have looked at the it has to do with money obviously as we've looked at the fundamental issue and we alluded to it in our companion piece for the indicators we look to other nations of economic competition with the united states and we find that there are students are required to learn english and do math and science very early on in total curriculum thirty days and short would be a major improvement i certainly would agree with that there is a problem in that so many of our teachers are not prepared to teach the subjects which they are asked to instruct the chemistry teachers are not prepared as chemists and physics teachers who are not prepared as physicists and so on and as we look at other nations they don't have a problem we don't have the involvement of parents and our k twelve program let other countries i was just in ireland recently and talked to a young woman who went nola further than i school but had two children in that particular school and she was engaged as a reader as a volunteer to help with the teachers and the students there learn about reading she not only listen to the students read but she also read to them and that's kind of volunteer effort bespeaks a commitment to education at the very earl levels i don't see in this country unfortunately so it's a sea change that we're going have to undertake if we want to be competitive in the next century which is so heavily dependent on science and math the educational architecture doesn't sort of lend itself to innovation and obviously there are political ramifications if you try to take on the educational establishment some of suggested i think it's very interesting although i'm sure it would be rejected in some quarters that you and you provide incentives to math and science teachers you know we don't want to necessarily disadvantage other members of the teaching profession but in reality  things what we ought to be doing and we ought to be accelerating idea that we're going to have our economic lunch eaten by the rest of the world i just want to ask your views you have the vision everybody needs to have a vision  what do you anticipate and maybe you never ask a question if you know the answer would be the reaction what has been the reaction of to your vision nationally from the office of management  references you've referenced in your remarks and then we just haven't delivered on it part of the somebody back at the office of management budget which i assume is putting some restraint on you not at this point because we haven't really  made new commission's recommendations a new board recommendations public bought it is disheartening to recognise as you've just alluded to that we first had a report twenty five years ago which clearly identified the same problems and issues nation and we need to have a new resolve on the local level that education is important to encourage families and students to not only begin the study of math and science and the liberal he's a fellow invented the segway and i will do he has done some remarkable work you know galvanizing literally thousands of young people unfortunately it's sort of out of the regular curriculum it's like an addendum you know like a program you take may be competing with sports and other types of activities but it's it's wildly exciting and god only knows we need to do something to sort of promote math and science the kids are all computer literate they're all text messaging right and left we we need to capture those you know the that spirit through the technology that they're familiar with every adult needs their grandchild to fix and some of the funding issues in particular i understand that over the next year the board plans to release its national plan for twenty first century education in science mathematics and technology i appreciate the focus you place an you know a new testimony on the need to improve mathematics science and technology education in our kate twelve schools and the commission is asked that we need not rehash old critiques but come up with a old plan of action but my concern is this the two thousand and eight and s f budget request seeks a seven point five percent increase over two thousand and seven appropriate level for education human resources but following the steep cuts in two thousand and five in two thousand and six in the flat funding in two thousand and seven these figures are one thousand percent below the two thousand and four levels in real terms of particular concern is the slight increase that's been requested for k twelve education in the division of research on learning in formal and informal settings d r l i'm troubled that inadequate funding of elementary education the stem fields will fail to bring about the passion for the sciences that once pirate children become scientific leaders and future engineers astronauts doctors and researchers were simply not growing fast enough in this country and it's a problem i'm acutely aware of in my district where the home of cal tech cal tech as you probably are aware operates the pre college science and mischa to a funded through d r l their research looks into different ways that children can come to be interested in learning about science and the connections among science literacy and technology how to assess important student learning in science to measure classroom practices on how science can be taught more effectively from our conversations with cap c they've commented on how each year it's become more and more difficult to achieve d r l grants they're going to look at different ways to access these funds but they're concerned that without adequate n s f funding for basic and applied research in stem education in both form one in formal settings they won't have the means to continue this important research is this merely the perception of or has there been an actual change in the number or size of grants awarded if you could give us your thoughts on that today but also submit for the record the proposal success rate for d r l grants in california during zero five and six further with an overall agency of increase of seven point five percent for the foundation do you have concerns that this three point five percent increase over the f y o seven request for d r l is not a sufficient share of the n budget and the other question i wanted to ask you in addition to the modest increase in the case twelve stem education compared to the overall n s f budget has to do with lie go and this year n s f prioritize the events laser interferometer gravitational wave observatory advance lego's one of its new starts which is i think wonderful this will allow us to approach a new limit in gravitational wave detection operating at two sites in hanford washington or livingston louisiana and sponsored by n s f it's managed i'm happy to say cooperative by cooperate agreement with cal tech and a very proud of the role the scientists and engineers account tech are playing in bringing gravitational wave detection to orders of magnitude far beyond existing from two years and i'm thrilled n s f is prioritized the second phase or advanced ly go for new start funding thoughts on the current status of the project improvements in the second phase and what impact this knowledge will have on our current understanding of relativity so if you could touch on those two years appreciated thank you i do not have an answer for  she was a member of the board as one of your extraordinary researchers and scientific managers has been an inspiration to all of us and we agree with you portions of this project has far reaching  be proud and we all should be proud that we are in the lead in this particular area of physics and i have high expectations for we don't know you might not have the information on the number of grants over the last couple years subscriber and we're not going to compete with the rest the world on wages we shouldn't try but our future lies in our entrepreneurship our ingenuity and our r and d and the fact that other nations are graduating more scientists and engineers doesn't bode well for our future china and india have both a wage advantage and they'll soon have if they don't already an advantage in engineers and at least in sheer number terms conjecture at least of not a specific number well i mean i have the numbers on that issue but if you could share with me philosophically how you think it will be possible for  us with a real dollar cut from two thousand and four aren't we moving in the wrong direction in terms of education this area if we're going to hope to inspire young people become scientists and engineers i would with you know i share with you one and i happen to like how the space program inspires young people and i'll just give you one illustration the something that shows the ability of that program to inspire had an astronaut come to visit my district and we were talking to a group of middle school students and one of these young students came up to him after his presentation he was all excited about space and he said how did you become an astronaut and the astronaut responded well i studied physics and this child so what is what is that what is physics and he said well physics physics is the the the way the universe operates sort of the rules about how things work why when you drop an object it falls to the ground it tells us how things around us function and the child looked up to him and said physics that's the thing for me now i guarantee that child did not go to school that day thinking physics that's the thing for me but he did go home from school thinking that way and  when i looked around that room and one of them one of these kids in the room solve the math problem that the astronaut gave about how many sunrises and sunsets he would see in a single day orbiting the earth i couldn't figure out the math involved and what that astro ass one of those middle school kids did and we have got this untapped potential in this country this young student who answered that math question that i got wrong is gifted and i don't know whether anyone knows he's gifted he may not know he's gifted himself his parents may not know he's gifted but we have all you know it cal tech we've got the scientists brilliant people coming from around the world but we have them right here at home and they're an untapped resource and so pre shared you're looking further into this but i you know we need to make that investment and i'm concerned that we're not adequately doing it do you have a challenger center in your district i don't know but have to check with   reveal in which you recommended that intercept develop a distinct foundation why transform a research initiative distinguishable by its potential impact on prevailing paradigms and by the potential to create federal funding for the transformer research initiative the board in visions differ from the standard way that in a sea of funds research that's question one are there aspects of this that could be applied to the national now technology  initiative we support basic research in new technologies only to see other nations build in the streets based on them by supporting the development phase what role does the board see for the federal government in supporting the development of thank you very much a very thoughtful set of questions the board has not yet completed its deliberations on that security issue but i felt some private discussions with our director and  and swift way to deal with that is to allow discretionary funds increases to each of our program directors so that they can use the macarthur foundation approach of identifying uniquely qualified scientists and researchers and give them a start up fund very early on not necessarily just early in their careers but early on and that particular investigative question amount of funds one of purpose and it's very small in comparison all the other funds are being allocated but it would seem that that's an avenue that was helpful get going and i'm sure many other suggestions that will to say be in a disciplinary because all too often we stand to compartmentalise ourselves in the areas of research and things like that and mechanism is expanding but the numbers are very small and if we're going to address the issue that congressman schiff was talking about you know in engaging more young people should we be looking at recommending increases in funding in these areas and not only st push it down to the local level where we need to emphasize with them the importance of education because there's a local teacher and a school board member i know that those things do exist at the local level but they're limited on how they can receive funds and they're really struggling without without the benefit of  that they develop a simple and transparent process for instituting this transformative research initiative to encourage maximum participation by the community and report back reasonable plan to us by the august meeting of this year so we're well on it but we haven't completed it will there be will there be an expanded role or a more  approaches and across the board i know you're an independent board and that gives you that i guess the form to you know speak a little bit more and more word the the efforts in  direction this country should be going into i think that's a very thoughtful suggestion and we do view that advocacy as one of our main missions and we will gladly continue the expanded i think and we're growing our second round members who weren't here before trying to in the first five minutes and then second subsonic rounds ten and then get all members a chance to ask all the questions they want going back march as you mentioned in your testimony we had a number of reports in the nation at risk report was that twenty years ago or so and i think the results coming out of that are disappointing it's fair to say with the second commission on stem education poised to be released in march you have to be debating it sometime and then you'll come up with your bold recommendation what do you expect to be different about this the nation at risk report that going to make it more more effective for us i hope that we can engage the governance listen to them that we can engage local school boards and even  parents to join a nationwide effort to help bring about more of a recognition of the importance of education to the family and to the future of our youngsters and perhaps a better understanding of where we stand internationally and comparing our programs to the of the nations so how successful in science and technology and engineering and mathematics and finally the economic success in other words not just a recommendation to close to a foundation but to really hit the population at large looking to you and you're going to be looking to this commission for recommendations and how you implement what do you recommend i think one of the tools subtle resonate well over a body has to be given grants for demonstration projects  the congress it could involve the department of education could involve the national science foundation itself could evolve as a it's foundations like the gates foundation and just local initiatives of the  school and chicago that deals with gifted and talented students to allow them to become scientists from the very beginning as middle school students it was a wonderful example of great success the cochairman of our commission is the original eight of last he's a nobel laureate in physics he begins his teaching of science by teaching physics and then biology chemistry and higher math follow and it's really remarkable to see the successes hasn't been copied very widely it hasn't been known very widely but one of the things we can do is to point up these examples to see if there was a bullet to generate interest to do it  programs and the low success rate of applications to the programming or sign up might find all the good applications you get correct and which i guess they're preaching about twenty percent over the last two years any amount would be valuable dr chris i'm not aware of the new specific recommendations so maybe you could come up with a more specific number for the record another area mentioned in your statement that's deserving additional funding as biology the board expressed a similar concern last year the fact that the biological science did not request the same proportion it increases as other areas at a national science foundation while the physical sciences are requesting increases of seven percent or better biological sciences only requesting four point one percent increase could you talk about your concern with once the funding increases for the various  college was biology so i'm slightly prejudiced in favor of your question i think this is an extraordinarily difficult charge for the management of n s a to try to with them a little later we're talking with you right now so we're asking about your concerns what are your thoughts about the inequalities and the funding for the directors what are the consequences for biology which were specifically interested in this question well i i would concur areas should we be is that optimum or should we be spending more money than some of these directorates and then that others or should we try to look for parity across the board and we're will be funding these here in the next couple of months i can absolutely talk to be meant would be the one who could give you a more informed response to  follow up with that freelance and let me fall in the step with the chairman there's a sense of urgency here to say the least and i'm not sure about the sharing of the few spoils you have to spend but certainly sure has you one way of looking at it you said you had forty two thousand applications for grants of the national science foundation as you know and you approve about they approve about ten thousand and thousand so that that involves if you'll pardon the expression about forty two thousand people looking for i assume individual researchers maybe they maybe a team of people working on i met arrested in engagement related to education obviously those who are getting the grants are well educated i'm wondering how they can turn around their enthusiasm for what they're doing and sort of do some pall on the zation in the institutions and communities in which they live i can remember i represent a military installation in new jersey i look after quite a few i also represent the princeton plasma physics labs so it's missed a shift talked about california  i'm pleased by what that department of energy lab is doing to reach out into the community and really pushing the envelope with local school districts i'm not sure who's done an inventory of what federal agencies are doing but i hope that your board would be encouraging every federal institution whether they be department of energy the department of defen let me just give you one anecdote but pick attorney arsenal the army chief of staff came up there once and what was great there were there were too many damn power points but he turned around and dressed all the people up there there are about four thousand scientists up there civilians and he turned around to the audience of maybe one hundred and he said you as a group need to do more to promote and that the teaching and the involvement of young people in math and science and i'd i would be interested in knowing i'm not sure it's within your jurisdiction must say i think the nationalists extremely boring and i think even some of those people admit it we need far more it's in the way of interactivity to challenge these youngsters so to put my two cents in here will get on your case on biology but if that's your your background certainly we hope that there's more activity in that area  chairman to bring in your written testimony you write that nearly a quarter of a century ago the national science sports commission and pre college education mathematics science technology assess the state of u s pre college education in the subject field and found it wanting in the intervening years our nation has failed to raise the achievement of u s students commensurate with the goal articulated by that commission that u s pre college achievement should be quote best in the world by one thousand nine hundred five and many other countries have surpassed us not only are they meeting us not first but by the time they reach their senior year even the most advanced us students perform at or near the bottom on international sessoms that's pretty amazing now if we recognise this  problem twenty five years ago and since then we've moved in the absolute wrong direction i guess i'm interested to know why you think that has happened we understood the  challenge a quarter century ago we knew we were risk of losing our dominance in science and engineering and then the last over the last twenty twenty five years  become the bottom of the national assessment why do you think that happened well i think we've become complacent and on the other side the foreign countries that have wanted to emulate  surpass us have sent their promising young students this country an enormous numbers they have learned what we have to offer and they've gone back home and improved upon it if you visit a career or china or india and you see the industry that individual students exhibit they're simply stunning they are working around the clock around the week the month the year to achieve whatever it is they're working at and they're clearly beating us and all segments of activity and you balance those two things together and you find that we have really slipped further behind and that's why there's a new study commission one simple thing that we've already recommended as a board is to pay teachers marketplace salaries is not a popular suggestion because there are those who wish that all teachers are viewed the same way in terms of compensation and yet the marketplace certainly rewards scientific activity higher than say studying history and that's recognized in foreign nations pay their scientists on a much different scale than they do non scientists so there are factors that we can identify that make us different and then the question is what can we do to follow ourselves back up  college students would look at this is a great opportunity for economic success do you feel that true mother think that's true i mean we just done a poor job in sort of disseminate information to let young people know that there are a lot of you know that there are a lot of great job opportunities and well paying job opportunities once they graduate perhaps not in teaching and that's probably a little too but when i talk to some of the engineering firms in my district for example i had a meeting recently with the c e o of jacobs engineering he was telling me how they try to to  snatch up every engineer for to do work for this company headquartered in pasadena i mean that's how crazy it's gotten and you have engineering companies going to venezuela to hire engineers that had been shed that's where we've come then i would imagine that the demand for scientists and engineers graduate from our own of us universities ought to be extraordinary and that's something that we propagate let students know if you know there are good hungry employers out there in these fields you're right and one of the other interesting byproducts of the evolution of that area is that our scientists and engineers who go into the workforce pretty soon wind up in management positions and those who wind up in teaching will not last more than four or five years and then go into the marketplace so the further skews the situation of available talent in the educational workforce let me ask you you know one of the dynamics with then hiring on on science and engineering i guess it was a brief decline between eighty six and eighty nine but other than that period up until the late ninety's we had a steady increase in number of earned bachelor's degrees in science and engineering during the late one nine hundred ninety s however the bachelor's degrees in that area leveled off part of it i think is that approximately twenty five to thirty percent of the students going into college plan on majoring in science and engineering only half of those students end up graduating with a science or an engineering degree so there's this big fall off the takes place during college now plainly these are not easy majors but what can n s f do to promote higher tension rates in the universities so that young people that start in science and engineering finishes scientists and engineers well we could clue that after our year round study and getting ready for this new stem education commission that the problem was not in college the problem was that k twelve and we're just not preparing our students sufficiently in math and science so that they have the requisite basic information to succeed in college and those are hard majors as what the come up with recommendations each one and in their recommendation oh i see what you're saying well they're the recommendations from these various committees come to the board as a whole and that is where the coordination is going to occur and is i know that the engineering education task force is focused on the university level education but from my conversations with the executives in silicon valley the lot of things that kids do intuitively that in our key twelve on twenty first century stem education looking at the concept of teaching innovation including in our key twelve curriculum teaching skills of creativity and enveloping those that are essential elements of being announced an engineer the in the idea of the idea of teaching innovation what is it that they're talking about when they say teaching elevation well utilizing the computer and utilizing the internet and being aware of what's available in science and technology today and not just read books write lesson plans and so on but actually got involved in project work and to learn by doing like we do in law schools and medical schools where you wouldn't think of just reading things nowadays but you actually have to do case method work and that kind of thinking hopefully going to be adopted k twelve education as well you know but hands on experience or hands on experience with technology is one thing abut preparing a youngster in teaching them how to be creative insightful and innovative is more of i guess what one would call intuitive but can of innovation creativity what i mean by that is you know when you go to all these high tech facilities invariably on the walls you see the whole line of engineers that they have a staff and then they display the patterns that the of the early one and invariably does or maybe want to chew out of the entire group that has spikes they've had maybe fifteen twenty thirty pounds and the idea is this to look at these folks who are successful and inventive and innovative and creative in finding out what is that what is it that they do that makes them so distinct from the rest of their peers and study that and understand the insights that they've developed over time study the the insights of the creative thinking and how they develop that i believe as a teacher that those skills can be broken down into teachable skills that we need to have our teachers learn to teach preschool and postgraduate and if we can do this for our youngsters across the board now in the science and tech but mass of music and other arenas and then a great them that that's the key that makes us distinct in this world and gives us the cutting edge and i think that if we do that and extract and teach that that we can maintain our edge as you know the countries that we're worried about mt there are scales of graduates because they become here to learn those techniques and it's that we we practice here then they go back in the pilot there but if we capture that i believe that we can maintain our edge into the future and maybe even extend moore's law but absent that you know just talking about putting hands on computers is not going to really address the real profound education as role models of individuals who think creatively and critically and analytically and have a passion for the subject and who transmit that attitude to the students and you know out is  oh i studied with professor so and so and i think that's absolutely key to turning this around emulating is one thing i think that having the ability  doing so that we can market that through our teachers with our youngsters i think is the piece that were overlooked and have the role models as great extract in the stuff out of them bearing as part of the science board's role as the oversight and policy setting body for the n s f the board must approve requests for funding and expenditure of appropriated funds for projects in the major research equipment and facilities construction accounting m r e f c the board is also responsible for setting priorities for funding of the m r e s c projects in the fiscal year two thousand and eight requests funds for some of the zero seven new starts are being used for cost overruns associated with the atacama large parameters it's been in development stage for many many many years academy's committees have looked at it even recommendations to the foundation as has the board there's been a complete revision of the original neon concept to arrive at the new neon if you will that is in the president's budget now it did get board approval for we having a request for the funding at the f y o seven level of the previous budget program both of these programs have partners with other agency efforts ocean observations and the know in particular and many of the different research communities are involved with them as well both very very important programs that will allow for a significant amount of research improving predictive modeling of environmental change over time in a number of different important  is the impact of this rebase lining and restructuring the funding for these three programs with regard to timing of bringing these projects online  at the february meeting as dr thiering just stated he made a request of n s f management to come back to the board at their march meeting to give a thorough overview of all of the impacts along the lines of some of the questions that you're asking right now and as you noted and as dr veering earlier on there is a established policy for approving allocation of funds that must go through the board or it's very interesting well let me just ask you how would this be a part of the only request if you have responsibility for overseeing this and approving these kind of changes for these major projects and you obviously based on your testimony here today have not done develops a comprehensive budget for the federal government to present to congress so this is not a decision that you incurred and this is a decision i i think that's a fair description yes thank you the board recently released a draft report concerning trends or research at the foundation first of all for the record would you just explain and define trans formative research for potential of having a major impact on the research establishment on the development of new knowledge and so hoping that we can have an initiative that will fund the promising young investigat final conclusions yet what prompted the commission this report in the release of this draft report well  i guess it comes from the scientific community itself there's a great feeling that we have not paid enough attention to this area of research when you by we i mean the national science board one of the findings of the report is that there is an external perception that n s f does not support transformative research cannot comment on that i think that's true the scientific community felt that we were not daring enough or not willing to go out on the edge for unusual ideas and research and that there isn't any visible told you earlier there are forty two thousand american reviews going on and over twenty five percent or so or are getting recognized with funding and what's happening to all these great ideas  surfing could it it's a challenge to identify potentially transformative research before you get the innovative idea and proposal from and from out in the field and i dr baring was alluding to is the board has been holding workshops around the nation for almost two years now and what they're hearing from the scientific community for many parts of that is that  the ideas that challenge the existing paradigms and actually challenge the very ideas and established dogma of the reviewers themselves perhaps doesn't fare as well in that kind of a system and that a new type of a review system perhaps needs to be established building on the current n s f outstanding merit review program to perhaps have a slightly different you look at some of dr ments recent speeches you'll see that he has been highlighting the need for n s f to remain at the cutting edge and to support transformative research and that was one of the recommendations projects is part of what dr thiering just spoke about in terms of the recommendation for n s f to develop this program the board also felt that it should allow n s f management and the experts in the field to in terms of funds being moved from one project to another is sort of left to the national science foundation is one of the number of accounts the you look at and i know that when you invoke zero and be you know people say you know signals go up so that they'd delve into the weeds here generally speaking is no longer involved in the final development of the budget that the president finally submitted but if a project happens to get say out of control costs you know somebody responsibility to approve any allocation of them are u f c appropriations so although the president's budget right now shows changes in the original request for zero seven those are not inactive budgets and those projects would have to come to the board for approval before any of these funds were allocated however board policy does allow the director of the foundation to make modifications within a project's budget i believe i can we can follow up and get you the specific numbers but i believe it's up to ten percent or something within a project however the neon funds ocean observation funds alaska research vessel funds are all considered a new for the acronym it's under this account it's the alaska alaska regional research  laypersons phrase moving the science forward is something lost is something being lost in terms of achieving scientific objectives because of everybody seems to have a piece of the action quite honestly now you've got such a diverse group and we're highly complimentary of all the time and effort you put in who actually has the overall  overview of what's happening in nanotechnology and certainly when you talk about the national science board you would think that that would sort of opinion lies the repository of perhaps of the nasa and i e p a justice homeland security and u s d a so rally it's a rally certainly everybody has a piece of it i just want to get back to earth to your statement the national science mathematics and science partnership then and that's our p s are funded through the n f f education and human resources budget and you say are important tools for addressing critical but currently very a currently very weak link between pre college and higher education then you go on in that paragraph you say recent assessment of data on such projects this is on the bottom of page four indicate that this program has been effective increasing student performance at all levels elementary middle and high school could you comment on that because this afternoon we're going to get maybe a i won't say it a different impression from mr orgreave augustine in terms of the gathering storm here he has some pretty alarming comments in his testimony maybe i'm just being too picky here but concur with their conclusions and what we're saying here is true but as you just said it's narrowly focused as a small number in comparison to the population and it's directly related to some of the grants that you have award size you say in a constrained budget environment achieving the reasonable balance of award signs and duration and proposal success rate at the foundation is an important concern of the board we've had several discussions with foundation management about this issue and are in to submitting a comprehensive report later this year looking to guidelines why discuss this concern with this talked to us about your concerns and then we'll look forward to the report has to have some so yeah i'm i'm concerned that we're not able to fund all commerce number one i'm concerned that we're not able to fully fun institution and to an investigator that when a major investment is made and there's usually a collateral investment almost always collateral investment by others the elsa too shall not be investigated it works for foundations private interests and so on i'm concerned that we give a sufficient guarantee of the work indeed be not just begun but successfully completed and that's all wrapped up in this statement here and i know that some of the directorates or concerned about that you mentioned earlier the disparity between biological and physical sciences that's wrapped up in those as well so we're going to have a very honest discussion with management disciplinary work and we think that there is a great deal of benefit to be had by thinking broadly and merging disciplinary approaches not just enough technologic sense  in an intellectual sense and that's also one of the advantages of course foreign nations so frequently have foot they're able to move more avidly into the disciplinary approaches  need to do that as well the i have one more question here which you recently released the report that you've already referenced there hurrican warning the critical need the keystone recommendation here was that we should marshal our substantial science and engineering research enterprise to have a focused sustained multireligious initiative to improve our understanding often ability to predict mitigate and respond to the impacts of hurricanes on the population the built infrastructure and the natural environment in global climate change and he talked about scale and space and specifics about what we ought to be doing with regard to global climate change or how the major recommendations are to intensify our ability predict hurricanes all dimensions of that to secondly to understand heresie interactions third to predict storm surge rainfall and inland flooding from hurricanes and tropical storms  next to improve on site observations and then on the the next set of priorities is to understand the relationship between the hurricanes and the climate in general and then to see whether there's any way we can modify a hurricane but those are the key findings here i think as you answer to the congress and and as an advisor to the administration you're in a unique position i think to comment on this question of the credibility of scientific information and the dissemination of research that comes out of the government funding you when you talk about it and under your party your testimony advice to the president and congress on page six the first full paragraph there you say the board responded to requests from senator john mccain to examine existing policies of federal science agencies concerning the suppression and distortion of research findings and the impact the could have on quality and credibility of future government sponsored scientific research results our meaning the board central recommendation was that an overarching set of principles for the communication of scientific information by government scientists policymakers and managers should be developed and issued by the administration to serve as an umbrella under which each agency would develop its its specific brawler recommendation has not yet been implemented but if you look at different agencies you'll find that they all have their own individual way of responding publicizing results of their work same elephant from the same side you've pointed a number of boards and commissions to look at various issues throughout this report actually i'm impressed by just how busy you are going to be at that march meeting when all this comes together and next august i think it is a sad day to look forward to as well have you undertaken any activity with regard to this issue which is really a very important topical issue out there right now beyond this recommendation i don't think so i would board not be in a really good position as an advisor to the congress and the administration to undertake a closer look at this with the idea of coming up with some specific recommendations well not at the march meeting hearing and i look forward to working with you on and just see if you are the perhaps a prayer we want we want to make sure we give us an that's particularly appropriate so interested in talking with you about that and look forward to following up with you stream has any other questions looks like you have a lot of requests to juggle and prioritize but obviously you know where to prioritize this request ahead of the others the hurricane report i have not had an opportunity to read it but obviously there are some costs associated with it given all the other things you have on your table on the old ask about the inherent costs of of such recommendations but the overall scheme of things since you have so string heights and thank you mike to thank dr thiering doctor crosby both of you and for the record your doctor wants me both of you for attending today's hearing thank you very much for your response to the questions else i would ask dr baring for your assistance here this committee will be moving quickly to complete our bill by july the fourth and in order for us to meet the schedule which is aggressive i need your assurances that the hearing record in any questions for the record and supporting information requested by the side committee are returned to the subcommittee within two weeks of receipt if we could have your coop appreciated thank you and finally each member's office will receive by email instructions for editing the transcript and some any questions for the record and i guess we're going to have to follow up with each office and make sure that they understand i understand that so thank you very much with that hearing it is