The National Science Foundation (NSF) today announced an award of $322,000 to Cornell University to train teachers in science and mathematics to work in some of the neediest school districts in New York state. Schools that will benefit from the program will include those in rural, urban and tribal districts, and school systems with high teacher turnover.

The award is part of $6.9 million in grants by the NSF to 15 U.S. universities and colleges, aimed at stemming the loss of mathematics and science teachers in the nation's neediest schools.

The local award was announced at a media conference at Lansing High School by U.S. Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Science Committee, who represents portions of Tompkins County, including the town of Lansing and parts of Cornell.

The teacher-training program, the Robert Noyce Scholarship program, was proposed by Boehlert more than a decade ago but was not funded by Congress until two years ago. It is now in its first full year of open competition. The awards being announced today will fund the education of more than 650 new K-12 teachers throughout the nation. The scholarship is named for the late Robert Noyce, co-founder of Intel Corp.

The award to Cornell will provide scholarships to six student-teacher trainees a year for four years to help fund their graduate studies in the Cornell Teacher Education (CTE) program. In addition, four Cornell undergraduates annually over three years, all with majors in mathematics or science, will be given scholarships for their senior-year study at Cornell. They will then complete the master's portion of the program.

Scholarship recipients will agree to teach for two years in K-12 in a high-needs school district for each year of scholarship or stipend support. As new teachers, the Noyce scholars will be given support and mentoring through the CTE program and through other programs on the Cornell campus that offer summer workshops to practicing teachers. CTE director Deborah J. Trumbull, associate professor of curriculum and instruction, says that the NSF funds, which provide both scholarship support and stipends, will enable prospective teachers to begin their careers with a signiÞcantly reduced debt. "The reduced debt load will make it easier for these talented and enthusiastic young people to pursue careers in high-needs schools, which typically cannot pay the salaries that are offered by the wealthier suburban school systems," she says.

CTE, based in Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, specializes in the preparation of secondary teachers for agriculture science, mathematics and the sciences. CTE students complete more than 100 hours of Þeld work in schools close to the Cornell campus, and many go on to teach in rural and high-needs schools across New York state.

The NSF funds will be awarded to current undergraduate students of science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines, as well as to holders of a B.S. degree who wish to become teachers.

Joan T. Prival, the program's director at NSF's Directorate for Education and Human Resources, notes that the grants go a step further than just helping prospective teachers get their diplomas. "We know that a large number of people drop out of teaching early on because of the difficulties associated with the first years of teaching," Prival says. "There's a lot of support for the recipients so they become successful teachers."

In a speech last year, Rep. Boehlert stated, "Obviously, a scholarship program will be able to reach only a small number of students, and not every top math and science undergraduate would make a successful teacher. But the federal government needs to start sending a stronger signal that teaching is an honorable – indeed, a critical – career."

The program was partly funded through the enactment by Congress last year of the National Math and Science Partnerships Act – a component of President's Bush's Leave No Child Behind plan announced in his Þrst State of the Union address – which initially provided $5 million. Congress has committed $7 million to the program for this year's budget. The Math and Science Partnerships program is managed by the NSF.