The National Science Foundation and Curriculum Reform: A Problem of Stewardship

Abstract

THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION (NSF), an independent federal agency, has always been confused and uneasy about its educational role. The agency's directors and its policymaking body, the part-time National Science Board, have defined the foundation's chief responsibility as the advancement of science through the support of basic research. Fellowships for graduate study fitted that aim and, along with basic-research grants, were among the agency's first programs when it began operations in 1951. Undergraduate scholarships, however, seemed a dubious undertaking, sure to provoke conflict with the U.S. Office of Education, and NSF has never established a scholarship program. To support science in schools below the college level seemed more hazardous still to NSF's board and director. The dangers were real, and they were not only the obvious ones of angering a sister government agency and of raising a cry of outrage from state and local officials about federal control of education. There were also, as this article aims to show, unforeseen conflicts of interest between government scientist-administrators and fellow scientists seeking to perform what both groups conceived to be their mutual purpose of advancing science. The conflict described here arose between NSF and the American Institute of Biological Scientists (AIBS) during their joint effort to improve high school biology courses. As a case study, the narrative that follows perhaps illuminates a problem that arises when warm--even cozy-