White House Wants To Totally Eliminate NASA's STEM Education Budget – Again
NASA Agency Budget Fact sheet
“STEM Engagement – $0.0 – The Budget provides no funding for the Office of STEM Engagement, redirecting those funds to NASA’s core mission of exploration. The Budget continues support for activities funded in other accounts, including the Science Activation program within Science, which delivers science content and expertise through cooperative agreements with more than 25 organizations.”
– NASA Budget Briefing
“Proposes termination of funding for NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement, including its portfolio of grants and cooperative agreements and redirects funds to NASA’s core mission of exploration.
– NASA headquarters will continue to be accountable for strategic direction and coordination of the agency’s STEM engagement efforts.
– Continues internships, fellowships, and student STEM engagement activities and learning opportunities funded by NASA mission directorates.
– SMD’s Science Activation program will continue to focus on delivering SMD content to learners of all ages through cooperative agreement awards.”
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Keith’s note: This is not going to happen. The Obama White House tried this – once – and that did not work out well for them. The current White House tried this twice in 2017 and Congress aid no each time and restored the budget. They will do it again this time. But this time, education is an issue that the Democratic House will fall on their swords for. Who knows – maybe they will increase it beyond last year’s level.
It does ring rather hollow to hear NASA leadership talk about all of the inspiration stuff when they look the other way while an effort is made to gut the heart of how NASA inspires: education.
– NASA FY 2020 Budget Fact sheet
– Ivanka Trump Supports NASA Education While Her Father Seeks To Gut It, earlier post (2017)
– Cutting NASA Education In Order To Save It, earlier post (2017)
– Senators Reject Trump Push To Cut NASA Education, earlier post (2017)
– Trump’s NASA Budget Guts Earth Science and Totally Eliminates Education earlier post (2017)
– Earlier Education posts
And Congress will vote it back in, and the dance goes on.
STEM, STEM, STEM… This is mostly BS. I found an aerospace career 50+ years ago with none of this. And I’ve seen plenty of NASA-mandated EPO money wasted. This will mostly increase the number of STEM dropouts who will switch their major after the first Calculus test.
As a liberal arts major who actually took calculus, and more: calculus is among the most beautiful inventions, or discoveries, made by humankind; and the fact that it is seen as an impediment due to difficulty is the result of shameful pedagogy.
Hi Bill,
STEM engagement is not just about getting kids to follow a carreer science. It’s about disseminating results, engaging with the public and showing the importance of the work that NASA does. It’s about informing collaborating and consulting with the people who ultimately pay for the work that NASA does. It’s about inspiring, educating and listening to people of diffferent ages and backgrounds. BS it is not.
Karl Byrne
Public Engagaement Manager
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Could this be funded out of some totally different cabinet department? Of course, if the SLS/Orion was totally cancelled, there would be money for STEM!
The budget does cut $375 million from the SLS and another $83 million from the Orion for a joint savings of $458 million. It also saves $700 on the Europa Clipper by switching it from the SLS to another “unnamed” Heavy Lift launch vehicle. So yes, there is enough saved on the SLS/Orion cuts to pay for it 10 times over.