By Alabama Public Radio
Montgomery, AL – State School Superintendent Joe Morton is asking the Legislature for 36 million dollars for the proposed Alabama Math and Science Technology Initiative. Morton says the initiative gives students a competitive edge. He told a Huntsville audience Tuesday that it's also one of the state's more successful experiments in hands-on teaching. Students in 20 schools that used the initiative scored between five and 13 percent higher in math and science on an achievement test than did students in 111 schools in the same school systems that did not use the program. Morton says most of the support for the initiative currently comes from federal funds...but he says those grants will soon expire.