Advertisements
NSBA Annual Conference

BoardBuzz

« Connecticut NCLB lawsuit news | Main | School board members to descend on Capitol Hill »

February 1, 2006

Education nets passing mention in SOTU

Not too much talk about education in President Bush's State of the Union address last night. As was widely predicted, the president devoted the education section of his speech to call for an emphasis on math and science. As part of an American Competitiveness Initiative, the president proposed $380 million in FY2007 to train 70,000 teachers to lead Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate math and science courses, and encourage up to 30,000 math and science professionals to become adjunct high school teachers over the next 8 years.

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings' statement is here and White House details on the proposal here.

Bolstering math and science education has generated bi-partisan interest recently following the release of a National Academy of Sciences report. More day-after follow-up on the education proposal from the Los Angeles Times here.

One other big question surrounding the proposal will be paying for it. Coming off a year in which education funding decreased and with another tight budget year expected, where will the money come from? Will existing education programs be on the chopping block? Will a new program limit increases to already-underfunded Title I and special education? All questions lawmakers will have to answer. President Bush's FY07 budget will be released next week.

Posted February 1, 2006 2:33 PM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry

Comments(1)

Posted by: JimMc on February 1, 2006 4:17 PM

Hate to be a naysayer but I am wondering how all these math and science intiatives are supposed to "solve" the root cause of our issues: globalization. I ask that as both an engineer and programmer myself. The truth is there have always been proficient engineers, mathematicians, scientists and programmers from Asia, South America, etc., but what really has changed in the last decade is more of them are staying at home (or returning home from the U.S. for instance). What has been the driving force behind this? Globalization. Business went overseas so the tech folk followed the money. I wonder how exactly is having more domestic math and science majors going to turn this around? Will supply and demand drive down our white-collar labor costs? I don't mean to oversimplify and it's probably the subject of a much broader discussion, but I really do wonder how that's supposed to work.