Quote:
Originally Posted by gblake
FYI: The material at these links describe the eligibility requirements Michigan was using at some point (I don't recall what academic year they are for). More than one type of "school" is eligible, but I'm not familiar enough with the nuances of Michigan education to interpret everything there for someone else. Interested folks should follow the links.
One thing that is obvious is that the tax dollars involved (Michigan and NASA) are being aimed at schools, not at communities (communities include schools, and many other groups that are fine vehicles for accomplishing broad STEM inspiration).
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The grant money from the MI public schools is for public schools, I'm not sure why you keep suggesting that it should go anywhere but public schools. I'm sure doing so would violate and least a couple of rules about spending public school money.
MI has nothing to do with NASA grants and the NASA grants are not targeted to teams at public schools, I know of community teams that have received the grant in the past.
The FIRST grant also mentioned in some of the materials again has nothing to do with MI and is not open to only public schools. Again I know of teams that were not at a public school that have received that grant in the past.
While we are at it FiM's reason for being is not to promote or facilitate robotics or STEM it is to promote
FIRST in the state of MI. So when they went to the MI public schools and asked for grants for
FIRST programs that is what they were doing, asking for funding for
FIRST programs, not robotics or STEM activites even though FIRST is robotics and a STEM activity.
I've seen something similar brought up in regards to the OSPI (Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction) grants in Washington state. "Why aren't they available to start or run VEX teams?" Because it was members of Washington FIRST Robotics and FIRST Robotics Competition teams who lobbied the Legislature and OSPI for the funding. "Why aren't non-Public schools eligible?" Because the Washington state public education funds can only be given to public schools per the laws of WA state.