And you think that eliminating education budget at NASA won’t have any ripple effects to education efforts in other departments at NASA?
e; To make this clear, just because one initiative is under a different department, doesn’t mean it’s safe from budget cuts. The ripple effect of elimination one educational effort could very well impact the educational budgets in other departments, such as Planetary Sciences.
As Travis and Sean mention, depending on private companies is a big IF.
I am sure NASA will communicate accordingly to the teams and regions that will be affected.
Well, then I withdraw my objection /s (I still think gutting education is a stupid thing)
But I’ll edit my previous posts.
Yep, this is still pretty awful. Among other things, there go hundreds of NASA internships…
When spending money whether its your own or somebodies else’s the question are you getting the best bang for your buck is always a good one. Your corporate sponsors are also asking themselves the same question every year. No surprise people in the government are doing the same. It is their job. You can bet that there somebody there saying we can better spend our limited resources somewhere else. FRC consumes a lot of money. Part of the our job as the collective we is to be showing what the benefits are. Assuming that that the benefits are obvious and the funds come automatically is a good way to loose them.
[quote=cbale2000;1660581Generally speaking, the statistics have held that as federal government spending on education increases, the quality of that education either stays flat or goes down. Currently the US is in the top 5 countries in the world in terms of educational spending, but doesn’t even make the top 15 in terms of test scores. Personally I think education should be handled at a much more local level, I don’t have a problem with the federal government giving out grants to specific programs like FIRST if they fill a void left by the shortcomings of the education system (it might even be the sort of thing you roll into an NSF budget) but these really should be more of the exception than the current “throw more money at the problem” rule. These are also the kinds of programs that could be funded at the state level, much as FiM has done.
My 2 cents anyways.[/quote]
The graph you show doesn’t have any relationship to your discussion. The fact is that educational achievement is highly correlated with the economic status of the parents within a district. If you look at only districts where less than 10% of students are on the free school lunch program, those students achieve the highest math/science scores in the world, beating the usual Asian nations that top the scores when rolling in all students. Achieving better education outcomes is about achieving better equity.
I wish I didn’t live in a world where the advancement of science and education is considered controversial and political.
The government should most definitely be funding a program like USFIRST. Trust me you do not want to live in a society that must beg aristocrats for crumbs, it never ends well. The entire NASA budget for the Office of Education, of which FIRST grants are only a small part, is only $115 Million dollars. That may seem like a lot, but only represents $0.35 per each of the 320 million Americans. We will never be able to raise even a pittance of the already limited funds that our Nation invests in science education and research if we force ourselves to rely on the “generosity” of the wealthy and corporations, rather than asking everyone to pitch in a few cents here or there.
This is more a function of the fact that as a society we have:
further committed ourselves to ensuring that all students, regardless of their socioeconomic status or cognitive, physical, and emotional abilities, have access to an equitable and quality education.
Become far better at recognizing and diagnosing cognitive and emotional disabilities that would have gone ignore or referred to as “social diseases” in previous generations (this is also the key to understanding the rise in autism rates in the nation.)
It is not that we are spending more money and creating worse results. Ensuring that all of our students receive an equitable education means making investments in the students who cost the most to educate. Our schools are actually producing better results than our nation ever has, and is producing some of the best outcomes in the world. The truth is that we our schools are constantly forced to do so much more with so much less, and we are now ensuring that the students who would have been driven out of the system are receiving the services they need to succeed.
And if you’re really upset, run for office.
Running for office in 2018 or 2020 won’t impact budget decisions in 2017. Running for state or local office in 2017 won’t impact the federal budget.
If you like NASA and want to make an immediate impact, you could support Tracy van Houten, a JPL engineer running in a special election!
Where did you find this information? When I went to look I couldn’t find it directly stated but it seemed to be implied that the education department was where it came from.
Page PS-5 (or page 130 in a PDF viewer) of their 2017 budget estimates. It’s in a section describing the Planetary Science budget, and says “Directorate Management supports the Robotics Alliance project.” The Robotics Alliance Project includes the FRC grants. I looked at 2015 and 2016 as well, and there were similar sections in each.
Boy oh boy I sure love mixing robotics and politcs.
Anyways, because FIRST is a huge not for profit that many people depend on I would assume they have a Business Continuity Plan (BCP). For those not aware of what a BCP is it is
the creation of a strategy through the recognition of threats and risks facing a company, with an eye to ensure that personnel and assets are protected and able to function in the event of a disaster.
It would only make sense that FIRST has a plan in place for some major threat like loosing their #2 sponsor. This is a real threat that not only FIRST but teams face; something like this is bound to happen eventually, there’s just not unlimeted money. Would it hurt FIRST yes but we’ll still have FIRST. I’d be interested in seeing their plan if it is publically avaliable.
Additionally, if teams don’t have a BCP I would highley recommend figuring one out not necessarily because of this but because they’re good to have.
Our PISA results would like a word with you.
Minor add, since I’m sure most don’t have any visibility into the behind the scenes stuff, while NASA may be the #2 sponsor in terms of number of teams sponsored behind DoDSTEM, I’m pretty sure NASA is still FIRST’s #1 monetary sponsor (and has been for 10-15 years).
In the past that has been upwards of $5MM/yr between direct support for teams, funding for regionals/Championship(s)/machine shop support at events/webcasting/etc.
Here’s an article that, in a more readable way, describes the new budget’s impact on NASA. https://apple.news/AFF1w0BiuRSS6Ye6S2PEXRw
Here’s a companion article detailing the bloodbath in science research in general under this budget. https://apple.news/ABM8xImj_SMme6daGYsSu3A
Underrated Posts.
You can put the torches and pitchforks away everyone, at least in regards to the FRC funding concerns.
:deadhorse:
