鈥淎MERICA is in trouble,鈥� says Vernon Ehlers, a Republican representative from Michigan. The problem, thinks Ehlers, lies in the nation鈥檚 classrooms: 鈥淐hina and India recognised 20 years ago that the future belonged to nations that educated their children in math and science.鈥�
Now a $33 billion remedy is to be administered over the next three years. On 9 August, President George W. Bush signed legislation to recruit thousands of new teachers, update the science and maths skills of those already in classrooms and help science-orientated kids to launch research careers. It also calls for significant increases to the National Science Foundation鈥檚 $4.7 billion annual research budget, although exactly how much is unclear.
鈥淭he legislation should help recruit thousands of new science and maths teachers鈥�
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Elsewhere the act ploughs $300 million into a new funding agency designed to kick-start the transition to new energy systems. The Advanced Research Projects Agency 鈥� Energy, or ARPA-E, is partly modelled on a Pentagon scheme to support innovative 鈥� some say ill-considered 鈥� projects that commercial backers consider too risky. Some policy experts think the Department of Energy could do ARPA-E鈥檚 job just as well.