ABSTRACT
Government's role in science and technology — from the office of the Science Advisor to the President to the Congress, agencies, and quasi-public organizations that determine agendas and provide funding — should be far more prominent than it is now. This role must be accepted as a crucial function of the federal establishment with high priority given to the responsibilities of oversight, policy-making, and thoughtfully designated support. Scientific leadership at the federal level has so deteriorated in recent years that such action as does emanate from the federal government is almost entirely reactive — response to crisis that is rarely well-conceived, thought through to consequences, or sustained past the memory of the event that triggered it. Science teaching should be part of elementary school curriculums, beginning with the earliest grades, taking advantage of children's curiosity about the world around them.
