Why should we care about cuts to funding for science education?

Key points:

The Trump administration is slashing the funding for new projects focused on STEM education and has terminated hundreds of grants focused on equitable STEM education. This will have enormous effects on education and science for decades to come.

Meaningful science education is crucial for improving all of our lives, including the lives of children and youth. Who doesn’t want their child or grandchild or neighbor to experience curiosity and the joy of learning about the world around them? Who wouldn’t enjoy seeing their child making careful observations of the plants, animals, landforms, and water in their neighborhood or community? Who wouldn’t want a class of kindergartners to understand germ transmission and that washing their hands will help them keep their baby siblings and grandparents healthy? Who doesn’t want their daughters to believe that science is “for them,” just as it is for the boys in their classroom?

Or, if those goals aren’t compelling for you, then who doesn’t want their child or grandchild or neighbor to be able to get a well-paying job in a STEM field when they grow up? Who doesn’t want science itself to advance in more creative and expansive ways?

More equitable science teaching allows us to work toward all these goals and more.

And yet, the Department of Government Efficiency has terminated hundreds of grants from the National Science Foundation that focused squarely on equity in STEM education. My team’s project was one of them.  

At the same time, NSF’s funding of new projects and the budget for NSF’s Education directorate are also being slashed.

These terminations and drastic reductions in new funding are decimating the work of science education.

Why should you care?

You might care because the termination of these projects wastes taxpayers’ hard-earned money. My project, for example, was 20 months into what was intended to be a 4-year project, following elementary teachers from their teacher education program into their third year of teaching in classrooms in my state of Michigan and across the country. With the termination, we barely got into the teachers’ first year–making it impossible to develop a model of what development looks like over time as teachers learn to engage in equitable science teaching.

You might care because not funding new projects means we’ll be less able to improve education moving forward. We’re losing the evidence on which we can make sound educational decisions–what works, for whom, and under what circumstances. Earlier NSF-funded projects that I’ve been involved with have, for example, informed the design of curriculum materials and helped district leaders. Educators of future teachers like me build on findings of research to teach evidence-based approaches to facilitating science investigations and leading sense-making discussions. I help teachers learn how they can help children be change-makers who use science to work toward a more just and sustainable world.  Benefits like these will be eliminated.

Finally, you might care because many of the terminated and unfunded projects are what’s called NSF Early Career Awards, and CAREER program funding is completely eliminated in the current proposed budget. CAREER grants provide crucial funding and mentoring for new researchers. A few of the terminated CAREER projects focus on Black girls and STEM identity, mathematics education in rural communities, and the experiences of LGBTQ+ STEM majors. Without these and other NSF CAREER grants, education within these fields–science, engineering, mathematics, data science, artificial intelligence, and more, from preschool through graduate school–will regress to what works best for white boys and men.

To be sure, universities have some funds to support research internally. For the most part, though, those funds are minimal. And, it’s true that terminating existing projects like mine and not funding new ones will “save” the government some money. But toward what end? We’re losing crucial evidence and expertise.

To support all children in experiencing the wonder and joy of understanding the natural world–or to help youth move into high-paying STEM jobs–we need to fight hard to reinstate federal funding for science and science education. We need to use every lever available to us–including contacting our representatives in Washington, D.C.–to make this happen. If we aren’t successful, we lose more than children’s enjoyment of and engagement with science. Ultimately we lose scientific advancement itself.