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Anna Krylov's avatar

Yes, yes, yes!!!!

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Judy Parrish's avatar

Cannot approve of this more. However, I would add, eliminate the STEM Education (formerly E&HR) Directorate. You can read their mission here: https://new.nsf.gov/edu

They do NOT evaluate the efficacy of programs, or if they do, they don't include an evaluation of whether a successful program is feasible for school districts to fund. Science education and literacy have gotten worse, not better, since the directorate was started, so clearly they have failed. And they soak up $billions. There's no guarantee, of course, that those $billions will be directed to science, but at least that will contribute toward DOGE's mission.

If they even evaluate at all, it's very secondary. I'll never forget a conversation I had with a woman who was supposedly one of the best science-education researchers in the nation. She was excitedly telling me about her very well funded program for science education. After she wound down, I asked her if the program worked. She was astonished and upset that I would even ask, telling me I was "just like her husband" (a physicist), only focusing on results. Well, yeah.

The argument that science should only directly and obviously serve the public is pretty weak because the fact is, as has been demonstrated abundantly, you can't predict what innovative scientific breakthroughs are going to happen and often, when they do happen, you can't predict all the good that will come from them.

There is another issue and that is ageism. I know of at least one program director who has stated openly that she won't fund anyone over 60, regardless of how productive and innovative they've been. I don't support funding someone just because they have a long history of funding, but I also don't support dropping funding just because they're getting older. Cutting off innovative programs just because they've been around awhile is stupid. A lot of money is diverted to funding early-career folks. I support that, too, but they shouldn't be supported just because they're just getting started any more than older, productive researchers should be cut off just because they've been around awhile. I know of NSF program directors who are worried about the fact that mid-career researchers are cut off in their prime because programs for young, unproven researchers soak up so much money, and I know a shocking number of truly amazing scientists, whom you would think should be funded, who got dropped past a certain point that could be defined by nothing other than age. What's the point of getting someone launched, only to cut them off at the knees once they start succeeding?

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