House Approves $1.4B for "10,000 Teachers, 10 Million Minds"

May 8, 2007

The U.S. House of Representatives last month approved legislation that calls for more than $1 billion in spending over the next five years to, among other things, increase the number of mathematics and science teachers in public schools and to provide more university research grants.

The funding proposal was prompted by the National Academies of Science report Rising Above the Gathering Storm, which warned that "the scientific and technological building blocks critical to our economic leadership are eroding." China and India, the report said, "are gathering strength."

To increase U.S. competitiveness, scholarship money and various programs would be used to train 10,000 new teachers in mathematics and science in five years. If each of these teachers were to teach 1,000 students during his or her career, cumulatively they would reach 10 million students.

In a seperate bill, $125 million in National Science Foundation grants over the next five years is targeted to support outstanding university researchers at the start of their careers.

On May 2, the House approved legislation to reauthorize the NSF. The bill would keep NSF funding on a path to doubling in 10 years by providing $16.4 billion for research. The authorization also improves funding rates for young researchers and stimulates higher risk research by establishing a pilot program on one-year seed grants for new investigators, among other provisions.

Source: U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science and Technology