Summary

Public policymakers and U.S. industrial leaders have expressed grave concern about precollege students in other industrialized countries significantly outperforming American students on recent international mathematics and science tests. In recognition of the Energy Department's (DOE) world-class scientists and engineers as well as its state-of-the-art research facilities, Congress made mathematics and science education a major mission for DOE in fiscal year 1991. DOE's precollege mathematics and science budget has grown about 1,250 percent--reaching about $27 million in fiscal year 1993. In the early 1990s, DOE did not effectively manage this program. First, DOE jeopardized the program's success by not using a risk management strategy to run the program's projects. Second, DOE forfeited an invaluable management tool by taking a lax approach to program evaluation. Third, DOE greatly reduced its chances of helping achieve National Education Goal 5--"By the year 2000, U.S. students will be first in the world in mathematics and science achievement"--by launching a variety of projects that did not clearly seek to improve student achievement. DOE has announced steps to substantially improve the program's management and evaluation functions; however, the depth of executive support for these measures and their subsequent staying power are uncertain.

GAO found that: (1) DOE heavily weights program funding toward teacher enhancement projects, including programs to upgrade teachers' mathematics and science skills; (2) research has not conclusively demonstrated a relationship between teacher enhancement and student achievement; (3) systemic reform, in which DOE has not implemented many projects, is a more promising approach for increasing student achievement; (4) DOE could improve its chances of increasing student achievement by further diversifying the types of projects it funds; (5) until recently, DOE did not require project evaluations, ensure that evaluations were adequate, or link project evaluations to budget decisions; and (6) DOE precollege program projects are not focused on student achievement or linked to achieving the National Education Goals.