On 19 December, less than a week before Christmas, members of the House of Representatives were scrambling to wrap up several pieces of legislation so they could leave for the holidays. One item on the agenda was the final appropriations report for an education bill that would authorize $26.5 billion in federal spending in 2002—about $8 billion more than in 2001.

The bill, promoted by President Bush as the No Child Left Behind Act, had passed both the House and Senate with overwhelming majorities and the president was eager to sign it into law. But Representatives Vern Ehlers (R-Mich.) and Rush Holt (D-N.J.), the two physicists in Congress, were not happy. A complex interplay of political ideologies and inattention had caused the final bill to be stripped of millions of dollars intended primarily for training elementary-school teachers to better teach science and math. The two scientists-turned-politicians used a procedural device called a colloquy to try to limit the damage.

Addressing appropriations subcommittee chairman Rep. Ralph Regula (R-Ohio), Holt said, “It is my understanding … that it is the intention of the committee that no less money than last year be spent on teacher training for math and science. Is this correct?”

“That is correct,” Regula replied. Ehlers then stepped forward. “It is my understanding that … no less than $375 million be expended on math and science professional development in fiscal year 2002. Is that correct?” Regula responded that Ehlers was “substantially correct.”

On those two exchanges, which establish congressional intent but do not have the force of law, hangs the bulk of the federal funding for training science and math teachers. Although Ehlers is hopeful that it will be enough to steer the money to science teacher-training programs, there are no guarantees.

Why Ehlers and Holt had to resort to a colloquy to try to save the funding is a complex story. It begins with the decision by the administration and some House Republicans to end the decades-old Eisenhower Professional Development Program, which for many years has earmarked hundreds of millions of dollars for math and science teacher training. In 2001 alone, the money available to school districts for developing math and science teachers, especially at the elementary level, was the $375 million figure mentioned by Ehlers.

But the Eisenhower program had become more than a teacher-training fund in recent years. President Bill Clinton increased the money in the program, then used it to fund a host of other education-related activities. To prevent the math and science training money from being diluted, the Eisenhower program was restructured so that about 85% of the overall money was guaranteed for math and science teacher training each year.

As the scope of the program was expanding, Ehlers said, House members who disliked it because it directed school districts to use the money for a specific purpose, repeatedly tried to kill it. “I’ve saved Eisenhower four times,” Ehlers said.

The Bush education proposal also called for eliminating the Eisenhower program, and instead proposed a $200 million math and science partnership program at NSF. Instead of giving money directly to school districts, the program would fund partnerships in which colleges and universities would work with local school districts to improve math and science teaching. Funding for the NSF partnership settled at $160 million, with $120 million of that coming from other NSF programs.

Meanwhile, back in the House, the education bill was being shaped so that it took much of the federal money that had been going to school districts under the Eisenhower program and lumped it together with class size reduction and other programs in a general $2.85 billion block grant. The grant didn’t specify money for math and science teacher training until Ehlers interceded. “I got language in the bill that a certain percentage of all of the funds [in the block grant] would be exclusively for math and science teacher training,” Ehlers said. The Eisenhower program was dead, but the money lived on based on Ehlers’s language. By making the math and science training funds a percentage, a “set-aside” from the larger block grant, Ehlers avoided establishing a separate program, which House Republicans didn’t want. Ehlers’s percentage language would have dedicated $450 million for math and science teacher training in 2002.

The Democrat-controlled Senate, however, did want a separate program and established a math and science partnership program in the Department of Education. The authorization for the partnership, which was separate from the NSF program of the same name, was a whopping $900 million. The House and Senate bills, each with significant money for math and science teacher training but with very different funding approaches, then went to a conference committee for a single, final version. The committee went with the Senate’s approach by setting up the partnership as a separate program rather than a percentage of the large block grant. The conferees then authorized funding for the Department of Education partnership at $450 million.

But when the education bill went before the joint appropriations committee, the $450 million all but went away. “As many people forget, an authorization isn’t an appropriation,” Holt said. “There was no one in the [appropriations] conference committee looking out for science education. I wouldn’t call anyone an enemy of the partnership, but there was no one who felt responsibility for the partnership.”

The appropriators, Holt said, looked at the partnership as a new program because the final education bill structured it that way. “When appropriators see a new program, they are reluctant to put too much money into it, and because nobody was there to explain what the history was, the partnership only got a small fraction of what was authorized.” That fraction amounted to $12.5 million.

With the guaranteed money for the partnership reduced far below the level needed to run state-based programs, Holt and Ehlers had to use their colloquy on the House floor to try to fund math and science teacher training from the $2.85 billion education block grant. Whether that will happen is not clear.

“While the block grant is there for professional development, it is also available for 13 other uses, including class-size reduction, hiring, merit pay, and teacher testing,” said Jodi Peterson, the legislative director of the National Science Teachers Association. “The teachers are already standing at the back of the line and if it comes down to a school district using the money for hiring a new body or training a teacher in math and science, we’re afraid training won’t be a priority.”

Instead of trying to create new partnerships with its $12.5 million, the Department of Education has indicated it will co-fund some of the NSF math and science partnership programs. “The NSF program was supposed to be the developmental project, the laboratory, for the larger Department of Education program,” an education specialist on Capitol Hill said. “It didn’t turn out that way.”

The funding situation doesn’t change much under the administration’s 2003 budget proposal, which calls for the NSF partnership to be funded at $200 million and the Department of Education partnership to receive $13 million. Ehlers and Holt indicated they will try to restore guaranteed math and science teacher training money that goes directly to school districts. In the meantime, they hope that their colloquy fills the void.