America COMPETES Act
Encyclopedia
The America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science Act of 2007 or America COMPETES Act was signed by President Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

 and became law on 9 August 2007. This was an Act, "To invest in innovation through research and development, and to improve the competitiveness of the United States."

On 29 May 2010, the U.S. House passed a measure to reauthorize the America COMPETES Act. On 22 July 2010, the U.S. Senate's Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation approved the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 and sent it to the Senate for a vote.

America COMPETES Act of 2007

The provisions of The America COMPETES Act of 2007 covered a wide range of activities of a great number of federal agencies and offices including the Office of Science and Technology Policy
Office of Science and Technology Policy
The Office of Science and Technology Policy is an office in the Executive Office of the President , established by Congress on May 11, 1976, with a broad mandate to advise the President on the effects of science and technology on domestic and international affairs.The director of this office is...

 (Title I), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

 (Title II), the National Institute of Standards and Technology
National Institute of Standards and Technology
The National Institute of Standards and Technology , known between 1901 and 1988 as the National Bureau of Standards , is a measurement standards laboratory, otherwise known as a National Metrological Institute , which is a non-regulatory agency of the United States Department of Commerce...

 (Title III), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration , pronounced , like "noah", is a scientific agency within the United States Department of Commerce focused on the conditions of the oceans and the atmosphere...

 (NOAA, Title IV), the Department of Energy
United States Department of Energy
The United States Department of Energy is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material...

 (Title V), and the National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...

 (Title VII). In many places, the Act mandates that each agency cooperate with its partner agencies and offices, and it calls attention to the importance of high-risk, high-reward research in areas of critical national need.

General Provisions

The America COMPETES Act of 2007 has many provisions in its 146 pages.

It created the President's Council on Innovation and Competitiveness (Title I, Sec. 1006). This council appears never to have been formed. Instead, the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) was formed in 2010 by President Obama to serve in its place. This committee is also known as the President's Innovation and Technology Advisory Committee.

It called for a National Science and Technology Summit (Title I, Sec. 1001) and numerous reports on the state of innovation and competitiveness in the United States (e.g., Sec. 1002, 1005, 1006, 1007, 2006, 3004, 3005, 3011, 7007, 7010, 7014, 7016, 7032) and assessments of each unit's effective support of the Act's science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education agenda (e.g., Sec. 2001.f, 3011)

In several places, it called for the enhancement of research capabilities and coordination (e.g., Sec. 2003, 5006, 5011) and emphasized the importance of undergraduate research experiences as tools that promote careers in STEM fields
STEM fields
STEM fields is a US Government acronym for the fields of study in the categories of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The acronym is in use regarding access to work visas for immigrants who are skilled in these fields. Maintaining a citizenry that is well versed in the STEM fields...

 (e.g., Sec. 2005, 7025).

The Act also sets baselines for targeted funding appropriations (e.g., Sec 3001, 5004.f, 5005, 5007, 5008, 5009, 5012, 6115, 6116, 6304, 6502, 7002) which range from overall levels of funding for an agency or targeting funding for new programs to be delivered by a given agency. Of special note is the Act's goal of doubling the annual appropriations for the National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...

 by the year YYYY.

Education Provisions

The Act pays considerable attention to the efforts each agency makes in the area of educating future STEM professionals, sometimes through amendments made to other Acts (e.g., Sec 5003.a, 3015, 4002, 5004), a general technique which is used in several places in the Act. In addition, the Act devotes considerable space to education and places it at the same level of prominence in the Act as the Federal agencies mentioned above (i.e., as Title VI). Title Vi, Subtitle A of the Act is titled Teacher Assistance and is divided into parts, each of which address separate provisions:
  • Part I: Teachers for a Competitive Tomorrow. Will develop and implement programs that will increase the production of professionals with both a baccalaureate degree in STEM and critical foreign languages and teaching certification (e.g., programs modeled off of the University of Texas, Austin's UTeach
    UTeach
    The UTeach teacher certification program is a collaborative effort on the part of the College of Natural Sciences and the College of Education at the University of Texas at Austin...

     program); will develop 2-3 year part-time masters programs in teaching for such professionals to enhance their content knowledge and pedagogical skills; and will develop professional science masters degree programs.
  • Part II: Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate Programs. Will raise the achievement of secondary students through AP and IB programs by increasing by 70,0000 (by 2008) the number of teachers qualified to teach AP and IB in STEM and critical foreign languages; will, increase by 700,000 the number of students from high-need schools who either (1) score higher than a 2 on STEM or critical foreign language AP exams as administered by the College Board, or (2) earn a passing score on an analogous IB exam; will increase the availability of and enrollment in AP and IB courses and pre-AB and pre-IB courses in high-need schools.
  • Part III: Promising Practices in STEM Teaching. Established a panel of experts to provide information on promising practices for strengthening teaching and learning in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics at the elementary school and secondary school levels.


Title Vi, Subtitle B of the Act is titled Mathematics. Its purpose is to enable all elementary and middle school students to reach or exceed grade-level academic achievement standards and to prepare the students to enroll in and pass algebra; to provide summer term programs in mathematics, technology, and problem-solving; and to provide targeted support for low-income and special needs middle school students and their teachers. Subtitle C of the Act is titled Foreign Language Partnership Program". It will increase the opportunities to study critical foreign languages and the context in which the critical foreign languages are spoken; and increase the number of American students who achieve the highest level of proficiency in critical foreign languages. Subtitle D of the Act is called Alignment of Education Programs, and it aims to coordinate learning outcomes and assessments across State and Federal stakeholders. Subtitle D of the Act is called Mathematics and Science Partnership Bonus Grants, which sets out modest (e.g., $50,000) awards to high-need schools in each state which show the greatest improvement on the State's assessment in mathematics, and another for the greatest improvement on the State's assessment in science.

Provisions for the National Science Foundation

Title VII addresses the National Science Foundation directly. The National Science Foundations is the only American federal agency whose mission includes support for all fields of fundamental science and engineering, except for medical sciences, so it reasonable for both the America COMPETES Act of 2007 and this article to single out the agency.

In Sec. 6002, the Act makes specific provisions on the appropriation for the following NSF programs in FY2008 through FY2010: the Major Research Instrumentation program, the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program, the Research Experiences for Undergraduates program, the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, the Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship program, the Graduate Research Fellowship program, a new the professional science master’s degree program, for Mathematics and Science Education Partnerships, the Robert Noyce Scholarship Program, the Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology Talent Expansion Program, and the Advanced Technological Education program. The NSF's FY2008 appropriation is set at $6.6 billion by this Act, and the appropriation grows to $8.132 billion in FY2010.

The Act mandates new proposal requirements such as a mentoring plan for all postdoctoral positions (Sec. 7008), that each institution receiving NSF funds for STEM research or education have a plan to provide training on the responsible conduct of research to undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers (Sec. 7009), and the sharing of final project reports (Sec. 7010, 7011).

It also appears that research directorates are being directed to share some of the cost of the educational work of the NSF (e.g., Section 7025).

The Act mandates that the NSF commission a report from the National Academies of Sciences about barriers to increasing the number of underrepresented minorities in STEM fields and to identify strategies for bringing more underrepresented minorities into the STEM workforce (Sec. 7032).

America COMPETES Act of 2010

The House passed a bill (H.R. 5116) to reauthorize the Act on 28 May 2010 by a vote of 262-150.. On December 17, 2010, the Senate passed an amended version of H.R. 5116 by unanimous consent. Then, on December 22, the House voted 228-130 to pass the Senate's version and allow it to become law.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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