Now, let me mention the other. I think that what has happened in recent years is a wrong perception, but perhaps this is where my bias comes in. I think the scientific community came to feel that somehow or other there was a zero-sum game operating at some level in which more funding for science education meant less funding for basic and applied research. I think in the long run that is not true. It certainly should not be true because we know that what we cannot afford to do, having developed a strong scientific community, is withdraw the resources needed to do the job.

It makes it difficult to talk about, however, as long as there is this perception, and I think that one of the things we fail to do is to get enough support from the scientific community itself for science education. The community shares the notion that we are somehow trying to obtain the same dollar.

Mr. BROWN. That is a very elusive explanation, Dr. Rutherford. It bothers me a little bit. We embark on a heavy program of supporting science education on what were fundamentally wrong principles, and that is to produce a large and highly competent scientific and technological base. Even though developed on wrong principles, we now seem to have to support them. I gather that is the gist of what you said.

Second, is the question of if we recognize now that we were motivated by principles which were less than perfect. Later we made some steps to establish a framework of principle which we can now justify in a much sounder, more responsible way. Those are the two questions that are raised. I won't ask to have you respond. Do you want to respond?

Dr. RUTHERFORD. Yes, I would like to respond to them, and perhaps my colleagues, the Director and Dr. Cota-Robles, would, too.

In regard to the first, in my view, we don't have too many scientists doing science or engineering. Nor should we support them merely because they are there. I shouldn't give that impression. To the contrary, we are fortunate that we have them there because we need the science to be done. That is why I think that science education has to be looked at as a separate item, and that is how we have to establish the grounds for support.

For 2 years we have been arguing that this issue of scientific literacy on the one hand and the inclusion of bypassed people on the other provides a solid ground for refurbishing science and technology education in this country. Unfortunately, it is not quite that dramatic. It takes longer than a Moon race. If the community sticks with it, if OMB and the scientific community understand it, perhaps we could have a chance.

Dr. ATKINSON. I agree with what Dr. Rutherford has said. The issue must be considered in the context of the total Federal effort. During the time Dr. Rutherford is referring to, NSF's role in the support of basic research has been increased significantly; the balance results from factors outside the framework of the NSF budget. I am as concerned about the shift as Dr. Rutherford is, and I agree with his

remarks.

Mr. COTA-ROBLES. Yes. I guess I did take exception a little to Dr. Rutherford's phrase earlier about needing to put scientists to work. In reality we scientists are a tremendous resource to the country;

there are many new ideas and new approaches coming from scientists, the frontiers of science are being moved back by many of the practicing scientists. I realize there are people whose research is not being funded, however it is clear that this is so because some of these ideas may not be as worthy of funding. I do feel that we have produced a strong cadre of scientific personnel in the United States. For example, in 1955-59, we graduated 22,000 science Ph. D.'s in this country, and 10 years later we graduated 50,000 science Ph. D.'s. That is a great difference; the United States did put many resources into making that possible.

I do think that it is important that we continue to support basic research, but the approach that operated during the post-Sputnik era was a short-range approach. I don't know that it was necessarily a wrong approach, but it was a short-range approach as opposed to combining a long-range approach and a short-range approach. The long-range approach I favor is to modify our entire educational establishment so that we can include up-to-date scientific knowledge and encouragement of science in education throughout the educational establishment, and then to fund adequately the creative, productive scholars that this education develops.

Mr. BROWN. Thank you.

Mr. Hance?

Mr. HANCE. Dr. Rutherford, you mentioned in your testimony the resource centers and also I noticed in Atlanta you mentioned the Science Academy. I would like to elaborate on that a little, and also on what you are doing in New Mexico, if you have good participation in New Mexico as well as the Atlanta project.

Dr. RUTHERFORD. The Atlanta project, as you are aware, is composed of a variety of activities starting with very young children, who come to the Saturday Academy over a semester's period of time. They come and study science, mathematics, writing and have social activities. The interesting thing about the Saturday Academy is that it had hardly gotten started and it was oversubscribed. The second time around they had to turn away some hundreds of youngsters who wanted to attend.

They come on Saturday. They have kept attendance records to see if some of the kids didn't fall away. They have not. It doesn't matter what the weather is or the circumstances or what is on television. Those young people have been showing up and working hard and learning. So the idea there is to get them early and stay with them.

At the same time they are working with high school teachers in Atlanta, where these youngsters will go next, to get the teachers ready for them so they can do a better job.

The resource center has already undertaken to work with a number of small colleges in the vicinity because a number of the youngsters end up in small colleges, many of them black colleges. So the science faculty is encouraged to upgrade its knowledge of the field.

Finally, at the Atlanta Center itself, there are steps underway to vastly strengthen the research enterprise at the graduate level, to bring in new faculty members, and get some new facilities. So there will be a while pyramid of activity in that center. As near as we and outsiders can judge, the pieces are working quite well, especially with the young children.

Dr. COTA-ROBLES. Another important component of the Saturday Academy is the fact that young black college students, both undergraduates and graduates, participate in the instructional program for the pre-junior-high-school students, and that is very important.

Dr. RUTHERFORD. It is a little more difficult to tell in New Mexico because they essentially started a year later. The interesting thing is that they quickly got over what I considered to be the most difficult aspect of that project, which was to have two major institutions in the State learn how to work together. During the first 3 or 4 months they worked through that problem, and you know in a university how hard it is even to get departments to work together, let alone two institutions. They worked that out. They are now in communication with each other. They have divided up the work.

One of the interesting things is that they have visited Atlanta enough to see what is working there and have imported ideas so that they don't have to test them out themselves, including the idea of the Saturday Academy.

They have made contact with the schools. That part seems to be working well, too. They have begun to attract some non-NSF funds from industry and perhaps from some other agencies. They are beginning to attract attention and make their waves.

Mr. HANCE. The two universities are New Mexico State and the University of New Mexico?

Dr. RUTHERFORD. There are other institutions involved also, but those two have the major responsibility for making this work.

Mr. HANCE. Thank you very much.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. Pease.

Mr. PEASE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Dr. Rutherford, it is nice to see you. I have a couple of questions which you might just answer. Let me begin by asking in general what does NSF think about the relative emphasis to be placed on raising the general level of science literacy versus the need in our society to train a relatively small number of topnotch scientists who will be the cutting edge of science in the future?

Dr. RUTHERFORD. One thing we think, Mr. Pease, is that we shouldn't have to decide between one or the other of those they must go together or the system doesn't work. I think in responding to the question of quality, it is important to reflect upon the way the American educational system works. It really is a sort of a large pyramid or cylinder in which persons make individual choices. In this country choices are made; people decide in junior high school that they want a career of one kind or another or at high school or undergraduate level, and sometimes even later than that. It is the strength of our country that we have diversity and an opportunity to make choices all along. Very bright, talented people have lots of fields they can go into, they tend to sample and see what the world is like before they make up their minds. The most important thing to do in our society in order, to insure that we can reach into the pool of the most talented, is to make sure that we have a large pool at each level of people who are well-prepared in science and especially in mathematics and quantitative thinking. We want to be concerned with the young people, having them take science and mathematics all through their school careers and into college, constantly looking to find the talent whenever we can and then pro

viding some sort of incentives. That same process has the advantage of helping us to prepare a scientific and literate society. These have to go together. I don't believe we must, or should, sacrifice one for the other.

Mr. PEASE. If I read you correctly then what you are basically telling us is that NSF is committed to education, science education, at the lower levels in the hope that that will spark an interest on the part of the young people and that once they reach the college or graduate school level they will make it on their own. In other words, if you had to make a choice between one or the other you would choose to go down at the lower levels and try to exhibit a little general interest and leave the people in the colleges and graduate school on their own, is that right?

Dr. RUTHERFORD. Mr. Pease, you don't give me very happy choices. I suppose that if we were in the terrible position of having to decide to put all of our resources at one place or another, that I would go down to the 10- and 15-year-olds. I think there is so much evidence that that is when they make up their minds about themselves and about the nature of the world. They get interested in mathematics. They decide they can learn it or not. They cut themselves out of the possibility or not. It is just that the premise that we have to concentrate that strongly our resources seems to be wrong.

Mr. PEASE. I must say that I am concerned. I think I understand your position now, and I realize you would prefer it not to be an either/or choice, but if it is not either/or there are emphases involved, and I think you have indicated what NSF's emphasis is. That concerns me a little bit because the possibilities for dilution are so great when you are taking really what you have told us is an inadequate amount of money and spreading it over a great wide area. I just have very grave concerns that when we are spending a small amount of money rather than an adequate amount that we are not spreading it so thinly among the 10- and 15-year-olds as to make it almost ineffective in producing any kind of result. You apparently have faith that something is going to happen from that thin spreading of our resources over a very wide area.

Dr. RUTHERFORD. I would prefer that they weren't thin in the first place. I shouldn't over-emphasize. For every $1 we put at the precollege levels, we are putting $111⁄2 in undergraduate education. It is not as though we were overwhelmingly putting our money at the lower levels.

Furthermore, in our system, we deal with the parts but not all members of each part. That is to say there are 3,000 undergraduate institutions out there, and we really do not fund all of them because they compete. It is the better of them-in the sense of coming up with ideas for improving education-that get our support. When we talk about early adolescence, we are not supporting all of the schools and all of the teachers. What we are trying to do is to see if we can find ways to help the schools get better junior high school teachers in science and mathematics, those teachers who have a better understanding of science and how it fits into our society. We are talking about tremendous new kinds of materials and ways of teaching them to people. So we couldn't overpower any part of the system with our money even if we put it all in one place. Since it is a system, however, with all of its parts, we have to pay at least some attention to each of the parts.

Mr. PEASE. Dr. Rutherford, what is the increase this year percentagewise in your requested funding for the Education Directorate of NSF?

Dr. RUTHERFORD. The number is 9.6 percent. I think in looking at those numbers it is a little more difficult this year because they involve some of these transfers.

Mr. PEASE. You told us and Dr. Atkinson has told us about your concerns for science education, and if you are that concerned I would think that your budget figures from year to year would indicate more of a shift, more of an attempt to shift the emphasis from one area to another, and a 9.7 percent increase for this year over last year does not seem to represent any shift at all, much less a substantial shift. Does this tell us something about the depth of commitment of NSF to science education or the depth of your concern that there is an imbalance of some kind and we need to spend more on it?

Dr. ATKINSON. I don't think that can be answered in the framework of NSF alone. We must look at the total Federal investment in education at different levels and the total Federal investment in research, particularly basic research.

The National Science Foundation has been assigned an increasing role in support of basic research. To look at percentages and trends of percentages in NSF is not the way to look at the issue. NSF's program should be considered in relation to the total education effort.

There is no question we would like to see more funding. When I recruited Dr. Rutherford, I described to him the plans of the National Science Board for science education. At that time, we had a budget request of $120 million for fiscal year 1978; we are still a long way from that figure. It is clear that NSF puts a high priority on science education, but NSF also puts a high priority on basic research funding.

Mr. BROWN. Would the gentleman yield to me, just briefly?

Dr. Atkinson, I gather that one of the thrusts of your statement and Dr. Rutherford's is that we do need to put this in the perspective of the total effort of the Federal Government, both as to the basic research goal and the education goal as it may be conducted in other areas. So my question is, are you suggesting that we do need to look at the education budget here and possibly at the work we have done in the new Department of Education or the work being done in NIH or in other research funding institutions of the Federal Government? Dr. ATKINSON. Mr. Brown, very much so. Just as NSF coordinates total-budgets across various fields of science, NSF provides the same coordination of plans for science education. NSF has close working relationships with the National Institute of Education and other parts of that Department. Those relationships and the exchange of information are critical to NSF's funding decisions.

Mr. BROWN. I raise the question because it is conceivable that the committee is not looking broadly enough at this whole picture, and we might want to do a little bit of research on that.

Mr. PEASE. I thank the chairman for that contribution. It does interest me, however, that you would want to put our efforts in science education in a broader perspective. I think everybody knows that as a result of Congressional directive, the Administration's proposed FY 81 budget for the new Department of Education calls for a funding level