520 HISTORY OF THJ COMMITTE1 ON SCIENC1 INDIKIIV 



Federal interference in the local educational decisions of elected school 

 boards. Fuc|ua remarked, with reference to his home area in Florida 



This is .1 responsibility oi the local school administrai ind 1 have talked 



with the School Superintendent there there was some question about tins program, 

 and he appointed a 24-meml immittee made up of parents, clergy, business, 



and other segments of the county. They reviewed this with the students and teachers, 

 and voted 2} 1 to recommend that the program be continued, so they have. 



So far as the independent committee review was concerned, 

 Teague commented that the committee did not have money to hire 

 outside review authorities, which left Symington wondering how the 

 issue would ever be resolved. Toward the end of the hearing, this brief 

 exchange occurred: 



Mr. Teague. The Chairman has just been informed we have $25,000 in the com- 

 mittee for consultants. 



Mr. Symington. Thank goodness the cavalry has arrived. 



THE FLOOR FIGHT OVER MACOS IN 1975 



When the NSF authorization bill was finally taken up on the 

 House floor on April 9, 1975, very few Members paid much attention 

 to the wide-ranging accomplishments of the National Science Founda- 

 tion in pushing forward the frontiers of research in physics, chemistry, 

 mathematics, biology, materials, oceanography, astronomy, and the 

 Earth sciences; the role of the NSF in stimulating new products, new 

 processes, and new applications, the work in fostering international 

 cooperation; the pioneer work in energy which was being turned over 

 to the new Energy Research and Development Administration; the 

 development of science education, and the many other areas in which 

 NSF took the leadership in keeping American science and technology 

 strong. On April 9, 1975, everybody's attention was focused on one 

 small program involving a minuscule portion of the $755 million NSF 

 budget: MACOS. And even that had no budgeted funds for 1975- 



Mosher was the first to bring up the subject during general debate. 

 He mentioned that one of the reasons the controversy had arisen was 

 that the committee had in past years been disturbed at the fact that 

 NSF had not been aggressive enough in getting curriculum materials 

 out to potential school users, once money had been spent on their 

 development. The committee felt it was a waste to let these materials 

 just sit on the shelf without being actively used. Mosher then explained: 



The controversy this year arose as the combined result of first, NSF pursuing 

 the committee-recommended policy relating to implementation, and second, the 

 implementation oi somewhat controversial subject matter. 



When it came time to consider amendments, Conlan immediately 

 offered a somewhat different amendment than he had in the March 6 

 committee meeting to ban funds for MACOS. His April 9 amendment 



