May 21, 2008
Obama Aims to Better Coordinate Federal STEM Education Programs
Barack Obama, the likely Democratic nominee for president, introduced legislation today aimed at bringing coherence to federal science and technology education programs.
The bill, dubbed the “Enhancing STEM Education Act of 2008” would create a committee within the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy to coordinate hundreds of programs operated by dozens of federal agencies. It would also consolidate the Department of Education’s STEM education efforts under a single office.
In 2006 the federal government spent $3.12-billion on some 105 STEM education programs, according to a report released last year by the Academic Competitiveness Council. Many of these programs do not share information or work collaboratively, according to the report.
In addition to coordinating federal programs, the bill would create a state consortium charged with developing “rigorous common content standards” for K-12 STEM education, among other things. Sponsors stress that the consortium is “not an attempt by the federal government to establish national standards” for STEM education.
Rather, “it is an incentive to encourage and support a group of states to take the lead on working together with local teachers, businesses, institutions of higher education and other stakeholders to address the workforce needs of an increasingly global 21st century,” according to a backgrounder provided by the office of Rep. Michael M. Honda, Democrat of California, who has introduced a companion bill in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Kelly Field | Posted on Wednesday May 21, 2008 | PermalinkComments
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A campaign contrivance which creates a new bureau but otherwise contributes nothing to STEM education. But, hey, it get’s a headline and lends the (incorrect) impression that Obama has an education platform!
— Skeptical May 21, 05:52 PM #
I’m curious about this bill … has Obama ever introduced another federal bill on education? Or can we expect a slew of new bills from Obama in the coming weeks and months?
— marci May 21, 09:13 PM #
Nothing but balloons with a lot of hot air. Bbame is glib but very shallow.
— rose smith May 21, 09:41 PM #
“What Mr. Obama has proposed is not selective engagement, but a blanket policy of meeting personally as president, without preconditions, in his first year in office, with the leaders of the most vicious, anti-American regimes on the planet,” Lieberman writes.
“If a president ever embraced our worst enemies in this way, he would strengthen them and undermine our most steadfast allies.
“A great Democratic secretary of state, Dean Acheson, once warned ‘no people in history have ever survived, who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies.’ This is a lesson that today’s Democratic Party leaders need to relearn.”
— rose smith May 21, 09:57 PM #
Let’s assume that Sen. Obama’s bill is a sincere and well-designed effort to bring “coherence to federal science and technology education programs,” that he actually gets it through the Congress, and that the executive branch is able to implement it effectively. Great — good job, Senator!
Now, go back to the Senate for another term or two, and give us a lot more well-designed, effective, and executable legislation, and then present yourself to the people as a presidential candidate. Most likely, I will still not agree with your policies, and you still won’t have the executive experience a president needs, but you’ll be much closer to qualified than you are now.
— S. Britchky May 22, 04:41 AM #
For “Skeptical” and others, the bill and initiatives within it were largely proposed by the National Science Foundation’s board, so i think it would behoove commenters to do a bit more research before jumping to any comment that will make a presidential candidate look bad.
I know he’s intro’d at least one other bill on education to form a database of all the STEM scholarships available on the Fed. level. I think the larger point is that he is a reasonable, logical personality that is willing to bring many sides of issues together to arrive at sensible conclusions (ie, even if he hasn’t had time to introduce tons of legislation on one given issue or another).
As for the comments on experience, the topic has been considered a great deal, and i review some of the thoughts on it on my blog here: http://election2008options.blogspot.com/search/label/Experience
— Hardison May 27, 11:24 AM #
Oh, a follow-up note to say that there is a Climate Change Education Act he also introduced last summer, so that makes three in the last year (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:s.01389:); i think he definitely has an understanding of the importance of education, particularly given his own background and the lifeboat that education was for him.
— Hardison May 27, 04:56 PM #