Tough Choices or Tough Times: New Report Proposes Dramatic Changes to American Public Education

Calling for a complete shake-up of the education system in an effort to make the United States more globally competitive, The New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce issued Tough Choices or Tough Times on December 14. The recommendations are:

1. Assume that we will do the job right the first time.
2. Make much more efficient use of the available resources.
3. Recruit from the top third of the high school graduates going on to college for the next generation of school teachers.
4. Develop standards, assessments, and curriculum that reflect today's needs and tomorrow's requirements.
5. Create high performance schools and districts everywhere — how the system should be governed, financed, organized, and managed.
6. Provide high-quality, universal early childhood education.
7. Give strong support to the students who need it the most.
8. Enable every member of the adult workforce to get the new literacy skills.
9. Create personal competitiveness accounts — a GI Bill for our times.
10. Create regional competitiveness authorities to make America competitive.

The New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce is a bipartisan panel that includes New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg; former Michigan governor John Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers; Roderick R. Paige, former secretary of the U.S. Department of Education; Marc H. Morial, president and chief executive of the National Urban League and former mayor of New Orleans; D.C. School Superintendent Clifford B. Janey; and Susan K. Sclafani, Co-director of the State Alliance for High Performance at the National Center on Education and the Economy.

The Executive Summary is available at www.skillscommission.org/report.htm.

NASSMC's GrantSeeker Program Provides Information on Funding Opportunities for Member Coalitions and Constituents

GrantSeeker is a personalized, one-on-one assistance service that provides custom grants searches based on your program ideas and needs. GrantSeeker can help you identify both federal and private funding opportunities exclusively designed to meet the needs of member coalitions. Thanks to a recent expansion, NASSMC now has access to information on over 300,000 public and private sponsoring agencies, including program announcements and guidelines, application materials, the latest updates and deadlines, awards lists, and funded proposals.

Current posted opportunities include:

• The American Association of University Women (AAUW) Educational Foundation is now accepting applications for Community Action Grants. In 2007-08, the foundation's Community Action Grants program will award one- and two-year grants. Deadline: January 15, 2007.
• The Knowles Science Teaching Foundation Fellowships, which are designed to meet these needs of beginning high school science and mathematics teachers as they earn a teaching credential and through the early years of their career, are available to eligible candidtes who have have earned at least a bachelor's degree in a physical science, mathematics or engineering before the fellowship begins in June. In addition, candidates must enroll in a secondary teacher credential program before the fellowship is awarded. New teachers who are not yet certified, but are working on coursework leading to a teaching license, are eligible to apply. Deadline: January 16, 2007. Only online submissions will be considered.
• A variety of opportunities are also posted and available either nationally or focused on specific states.

Visit the GrantSeeker webpage at www.nassmc.org/grant_seeker/gsintro.html.

NASSMC Executive Director Attends National Math Panel Briefing at the U.S. Department of Education

NASSMC Executive Director Jim McMurtray was one of 60 invitees attending the National Math Panel briefing Monday December 11 at the U.S. Department of Education. The briefing included an overview of the Panel's progress to date as well as an opportunity to ask questions and engage in a free exchange of ideas. Invitees were selected because they represent an important constituency and are concerned about mathematics knowledge and skills of American students compared to their peers in other countries.

The National Math Panel was formed on April 18, 2006 to review the scientific evidence and make recommendations to the President and Secretary of Education on strengthening mathematics education, with a particular focus on improving students' success in algebra. The specific charge is laid out in the Executive Order, which can be accessed at www.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/mathpanel/index.html.

Einstein Fellowship and NASA Explorer Schools Program Applications Now Available

Einstein Fellowship Seeks Candidates for 2007-2008 School Year: The Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship is a paid fellowship for K-12 math, science, and technology teachers. Einstein Fellows spend a school year in Washington, DC serving in a federal agency or on Capitol Hill. To be considered for an Einstein Fellowship, apply and submit three letters of recommendation online by January 8, 2007.

The goal of the Einstein Fellows program is to provide an opportunity for teachers to inform national policy and improve communication between the K-12 STEM education community and national leaders. Selection is based on excellence in K-12 mathematics, science, or technology teaching; demonstrated leadership; an understanding of national, state, and local education policy; and communication and interpersonal skills. The Fellowship program was created in 1990 with support from the MacArthur Foundation. Congress formalized the program in 1994 by passing the Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship Act.

Apply online at applicationlink.labworks.org/applicationlink/default.htm

For more information about the Einstein Fellows program visit www.trianglecoalition.org/ein.htm or contact Andrea Bodmann at bodmanna@triangle-coalition.org.

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NASA Explorer Schools Program Application Now Available: NASA Explorer Schools, or NES, brings together a team of full-time teachers and a school administrator (Grades 4-9) in order to develop and implement a three-year action plan to address local challenges in science, technology and mathematics education. The objectives are listed below:

• Increase student interest and participation in mathematics, science, technology and geography.
• Increase student knowledge about careers in mathematics, science, engineering and technology.
• Increase student ability to apply mathematics, science, technology and geography concepts and skills in meaningful ways.
• Increase the active participation and professional growth of educators in science.
• Increase the academic assistance for and technology use by educators in schools with high populations of underserved students.
• Increase family involvement in children's learning.

Go to explorerschools.nasa.gov/ and select the "Program Application" link in the left navigation bar. Online applications must be submitted on or before January 31, 2007.

Announcement of Opportunity: U.S. Department of Education Teacher Incentive Fund

U.S. Department of Education Teacher Incentive Fund: This competition is a reopening of a competition run by the Department of Education for FY 2006 Teacher Incentive Program funds. Sixteen awards were made on November 1, 2006. At that time, applicants who were not awarded funding were notified. Previous applicants and all other eligible applicants are encouraged to apply. The purpose of the Teacher Incentive Fund, authorized as part of the FY 2006 Department of Education Appropriations Act, Public Law 109-149, is to support programs that develop and implement performance-based teacher and principal compensation systems in high-need schools.

Deadline for Notice of Intent to Apply: December 29, 2006
Deadline/Closing Date for Transmittal of Applications: February 12, 2007

Applications for grants under this competition (CFDA Number 84.374A) must be submitted electronically using the Grants.gov Apply site at: www.grants.gov.

More information about the Teacher Incentive Fund is available at www.ed.gov/programs/teacherincentive/index.html.

U.S. Department of Labor Awards $125 Million in Second Competition for President’s Community-Based Job Training Grants

On December 11, the U.S. Department of Labor awarded 72 community college partnerships $125 million for successfully competing under the President’s Community-Based Job Training Grants initiative. The institutions selected today will embark on projects in industries ranging from healthcare and construction to advanced manufacturing and energy. A total of 429 entries were submitted in response to a competition announced July 3.

“Community colleges are vital partners in educating and preparing workers for good jobs in their local area,” said Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao. “The $125 million these 72 community college partnerships will receive under the President’s Community-Based Job Training Initiative is going to help workers succeed in careers in health care, advanced manufacturing and other growing industries.”

More information is available at www.doleta.gov/business/Community-BasedJobTrainingGrants.cfm.

Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold Update

Absolute Zero, a two-part PBS television special scheduled to air in 2007, will demonstrate how civilization has been profoundly affected by the mastery of cold. The documentaries, which are a unique blend of science, cultural history and adventure story, will explore key concepts, significant individuals and events in the field of low-temperature physics and the enormous impact that the mastery of cold has had on society through such technologies as air conditioning, refrigeration and liquefied gases.

Absolute Zero will feature the struggles of philosophers, scientists and engineers over four centuries as they attempted to understand the nature of cold, to explore its deepest reaches, to create the “cold technologies” that have transformed society and to seek a deeper understanding of matter itself.

The Absolute Zero Community Education Outreach Guide is a resource for teachers and informal educators of middle school students. Drawing from the history of the human quest to explore the cold, this guide focuses on topics — from historical attempts to understand the physics of heat to modern day magnetically levitating trains — that are covered in the two-part public broadcasting special, Absolute Zero.

NASSMC is a national partner and on the National Awareness Advisory Committee.

Learn more about Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold at www.absolutezerocampaign.org/index.htm.

An Organization You Should Know About: Coalition for Science After School

The Coalition for Science After School (CSAS) is a strategic alliance among individuals and organizations from STEM education, youth development, and out-of-school time programs. CSAS's mission is to coordinate and mobilize community stakeholders to strengthen and expand opportunities for young people to do and learn science in after-school settings.

CSAS exists as a network of experts, committed individuals, and institutions from the fields of STEM and after-school education and youth development. Membership is open to any individual or organization that agrees to the principles of CSAS. Members of CSAS benefit from the connection to other members, and, in turn, agree to add their own efforts and expertise to the CSAS network. CSAS network members are in some NASSMC coalition states, so we encourage you to become acquainted with them.

Learn more at qt.exploratorium.edu/csas/.

Barbarian Science

NASSMC has received a limited quantity of Executive Director Jim McMurtray 1999 book, Barbarian Science. These books will be sold with 100% of the proceeds going to NASSMC's general fund. The $20 cost includes shipping. Published by Town Square Books (the Jackson State University Press), Barbarian Science was originally written for marketing to universities offering courses in the literature of science through the English Departments. It later reached a secondary audience in colleges of education.

This short book (100 pages) is about science literacy in America and the need to make science accessible to the general population. The current national attention toward making science available to a larger population has made the book more timely now than when it was written. Barbarian Science has been used in universities across the country and is still sold in college book stores here and there.

To order Barbarian Science, please send your check, payable to NASSMC, at $20 per copy, to Deborah Jones, National Alliance of State Science and Mathematics Coalitions, 1840 Wilson Blvd., Suite 200, Arlington, VA 22201-3000.

Of Interest...

Oceanographers discovered an undersea eruption as it happened last spring. Credit: Nicolle Rager Fuller, National Science Foundation

+ Scientists catch underwater volcanic eruption "in action" in Pacific Ocean depths: Nearly 2,500 meters beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean, magma erupted onto the sea floor last January in a new episode of sea-floor spreading, an occurrence never before caught in progress by scientists. Geologist Maya Tolstoy of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y., lead author of a recent Science Express paper on the finding, said that earthquake activity on the sea bottom steadily increased from 2003 to 2005, and predicted that an eruption was imminent. The research has "exciting implications that we may be able to anticipate future sea floor eruptions," said scientist James Cowen of the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, a co-author of the paper.

+ New 'quiet' stethoscope could save lives: A new "noise-immune" stethoscope could help doctors save lives on the battlefield, in disasters and in other noisy emergency situations. Stethoscopes help doctors detect sounds in the body to investigate the condition of the heart, arteries, lungs and other organs after injuries or other maladies. The head of the conventional acoustic stethoscope conduct sounds as pressure waves up the stethoscope's hollow tubing to the listener's ears. Noise from helicopters and other aircraft often used in medical evacuations from battlefields, train wrecks and other disasters make it hard to use stethoscopes. Sporting events, pop concerts and busy streets also make it difficult for physicians to listen through stethoscopes to properly diagnose and treat heart attack victims or other patients.

+ Does everyone smell different?: There are many good reasons to believe that we all have our own unique smell. Dogs, for example — as pets or police sniffers — seem to be able to distinguish individuals by their smell. And the mother-baby bond is cemented by their own distinctive odours. Now a large and systematic study led by Dustin Penn from the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Ethology in Vienna, Austria, has provided stronger support for the notion that your smell might distinguish you from others — maybe even as much as your face.

SUPER GALAXY. Nearby galaxy NGC 1316 recently played host to two supernovas. The explosion dubbed SN 2006mr (left arrow) was detected on Nov. 5, and SN 2006dd (right arrow) was discovered on June 19. The bright spot in the center is the galaxy's core, and the spot to the far left is a foreground star. Immler, Swift, NASA

+ Nearby galaxy is hotbed of supernova formation: Talk about an explosive personality. Large galaxies usually have no more than three supernovas blow up in a century, but the nearby galaxy NGC 1316 has had two such explosions within the past 5 months and four in the past 26 years. Amateur astronomer Berto Monard of Pretoria, South Africa, found both of the new supernovas. He reported the latest find in a Nov. 6 electronic telegram of the International Astronomical Union. After that announcement, Stefan Immler of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and his colleagues used NASA's Swift satellite to view the two most recent stellar explosions. They unveiled their image Nov. 20. The team confirmed that like the earlier two NGC 1316 supernovas, the most recent ones belong to the class called type 1a.

+ Bat's wrinkly face improves sonar: The strangely intricate wrinkles and grooves around the nostrils of many bats apparently could help them "see" in the dark by focusing their sonar, scientists in China have found. The discovery could help scientists improve sonar and radio technology, the researchers said.

+ Fearless iguanas too cool for their own good: In the absence of predators, marine iguanas on the Galapagos Islands have evolved an excessive tameness. It has left them with a blunted physiological response to what should be a stressful situation, a new study shows. Although these iguanas can move quickly under certain circumstances, they fail to ramp up their speed to escape danger. This inadequate response could mean that certain conservation measures are ultimately doomed, say researchers.

+ Ancient 'Jaws' had monster bite: A prehistoric "Jaws" that roamed the seas 400 million years ago had the most powerful bite of any known fish. The extinct creature, Dunkleosteus terrelli, could bring its jaws together with a remarkable force of 5,000 Newtons (1,100lbs-force). This performance surpasses all living fishes, including today's great white shark, and puts it up with some of the most powerful bites in all animals.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spots Spirit's backshell and parachute. Image: NASA

+ Forests keep active in old age: Old-growth forests can keep on squirreling away carbon from the atmosphere long after they have reached maturity, a study suggests. The discovery runs counter to the theory that established forests, although valuable stores of carbon, will not help to alleviate the greenhouse effect because they are already 'full' of carbon. Researchers sampled forest soils in the Dinghushan Biosphere Reserve in Guangdong Province, China, from 1979 to 2003. As they report in Science, the amount of carbon compounds stored in the soil increased by almost 68%, rather than remaining constant.

+ Probe's powerful camera spots Vikings on Mars: It is a feat millions of times more impressive than finding a needle in a haystack. The new Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has spotted about a dozen spacecraft on the Martian surface and, incredibly, taken pictures of such sharpness that scientists have been able to identify individual rocks that were first photographed by the Viking landers in 1976.

+ Startling discovery: The first human ritual: A startling discovery of 70,000-year-old artifacts and a python's head carved of stone appears to represent the first known human rituals. Scientists had thought human intelligence had not evolved the capacity to perform group rituals until perhaps 40,000 years ago. But inside a cave in remote hills in Kalahari Desert of Botswana, archeologists found the stone snake that was carved long ago. It is as tall as a man and 20 feet long. "You could see the mouth and eyes of the snake. It looked like a real python," said Sheila Coulson of the University of Oslo. "The play of sunlight over the indentations gave them the appearance of snake skin. At night, the firelight gave one the feeling that the snake was actually moving."

+ Kidney progress: drug slows cyst growth: An experimental drug called roscovitine may inhibit a degenerative kidney disease that so far has defied cure, a study in mice shows. Combined with promising results from animal studies on other potential drugs, the new finding brightens the outlook for people with the inherited condition called polycystic kidney disease (PKD). The disease, whose symptoms often don't arise until adulthood, usually causes back pain, high blood pressure, urinary tract infections, and, ultimately, kidney failure. Other than a complete-kidney transplant, available treatments address only the disease's symptoms.

+ Hybrid butterfly found on cold mountaintops: Some, apparently, like it cold, thanks to a rare form of genetic mixing between two butterfly species. The unnamed alpine-dwelling species of the butterfly genus Lycaeides appears to be a genetic mashup of two known species — Lycaeides melissa and Lycaeides idas — according to a new study. "The alpine populations possess a mosaic genome derived from both L. melissa and L. idas and are differentiated from, and younger than, their putative parental species," the authors wrote in a paper published online today by the journal Science.

+ Resilient form of plant carbon gives new meaning to term 'older than dirt': A particularly resilient type of carbon from the first plants to regrow after the last ice age — and that same type of carbon from all the plants since — appears to have been accumulating for 11,000 years in the forests of British Columbia, Canada. It's as if the carbon, which comes from the waxy material plants generate to protect their foliage from sun and weather, has been going into a bank account where only deposits are being made and virtually no withdrawals. Modelers of the Earth's carbon cycle, who've worked on the assumption that this type of carbon remains in the soils only 1,000 to 10,000 years before microorganisms return it to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, will need to revise their thinking if findings reported in the Nov. 24 issue of Science are typical of other northern forests.