Members of the Committee,

When evaluating the impact of NASA and NSF structures on astronomy, please do not forget EDUCATION!

One of the greatest differences between NSF and NASA is that NSF has an enormous Education and Human Resources Department with decades of experience dealing with schools, education, and (IMPORTANT) assessment. NASA is to be commended for jumping into education the way it has, but there is no realistic way for it to aquire the expertise of NSF in education, even with a great expenditure of money. Assessment of education programs is more difficult and subtle than measuring the success of science missions, as NASA is just beginning to discover, but as NSF has struggled with and researched for decades. To spend money without serious assessment and evaluation is unscientific and wasteful.

The quality of EHR programs varies, but the best are the best programs the nation has developed for science education. People like Bruce Alberts know this from personal experience and in great detail. The AASC Report highlights the opportunity for astronomy to play a critical role in education. The national priorities are all set to increase edcation funding. Please do not set up a structure which hinders astronomy's role, or tries to re-create from zero experience NSF has built up over decades.

Please also keep very clear the distinction between education, and public outreach (PR), even though we often speak of "EPO" offices. NASA is much better at PO than NSF, and NSF much better at education than NASA. That is not a criticism; the missions of the organizations have been different, and each has focused on its primary mission. Our students need good science education to support and understand science in the future; that is critical for OUR long-term future.

I'm glad you are looking at management of national astronomy resources; good management is too often overlooked in academia. Any complete management plan must address astronomy's role in education.

PS In the mid 1990s I made a study of the world's best science museums (Exploratorium, Boston Museum of Science, Lawrence Hall, Ontario Science Center, Deutsches Musuem) to see how they created their programs. In every case the BEST programs came from cooperation between excellent scientists AND excellent educators. Any time the scientists or educators were mostly on their own the program quality suffered. Its very hard to get those two communities to cooperate. If they were organizationally disjoint I don't suppose they would ever cooperate.