Math and Science Education

The federal government invested an estimated $2.5 billion in mathematics and science education in fiscal year 1999. The Department of Education and the National Science Foundation supported the development of two-thirds of the 210 projects identified at the 11 agencies surveyed and worked with other agencies through an informal network of individuals involved in the development of materials. Overall, the materials incorporated the use of computer software and the Internet, and projects tended to focus on science rather than math. Agencies used various approaches to develop, promote awareness of, and distribute mathematics and science materials for kindergarten through 12th grade as part of their goal to increase public awareness, not to improve math and science education. Agencies also tended to disseminate their own information about materials rather than coordinating with other agencies; however, there is a trend toward making materials available through the Internet. No single comprehensive resource for all federally sponsored materials is available to educators seeking to make informed decisions about the materials, nor is there is information available about the quality of federally developed math and science materials. About half of the 61 materials available in fiscal year 1999 had been assessed by June 2000.

GAO noted that: (1) agencies used a variety of approaches to develop, promote awareness of, and distribute mathematics and science materials for kindergarten through 12th grade; (2) of the 11 agencies GAO surveyed, nine identified 210 projects that were actively developing mathematics and science materials in fiscal year 1999; (3) Education and the National Science Foundation supported the development of two-thirds of these projects as part of their effort to improve the teaching and learning of math and science; (4) however, most other agencies GAO reviewed generally developed these materials as part of their goal to increase public awareness of a specific subject, rather than to improve math and science education; (5) overall, the materials incorporated the use of technology, such as computer software and the Internet, and projects tended to focus on science rather than math; (6) to promote and distribute these materials, agencies generally relied most heavily on resources that were available within the agency, such as agency-sponsored conferences and workshops and agency publication distribution centers; (7) in addition, agency officials reported that there is a trend toward making the materials available on-line through the Internet; (8) to some extent, agencies producing math and science materials coordinated their efforts within and across agencies and with state and local organizations; (9) some agencies coordinated efforts on an informal basis; (10) some agencies also made some effort to coordinate with state and local organizations in developing math and science education materials; (11) agencies generally relied on their own distribution mechanisms to disseminate information about materials rather than coordinating dissemination efforts with other agencies; (12) although the National Clearinghouse for Mathematics and Science Education (Eisenhower Clearinghouse) was established to serve as a central source of information about math and science materials, most agencies did not send the clearinghouse copies of all their math and science materials; (13) as a result, no single comprehensive resource for all federally sponsored materials is available to educators seeking to make informed decisions about these materials; and (14) information was available about the quality of some of the federally developed mathematics and science materials, but little information was available on the extent to which these materials were used in the classroom.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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