A federal committee has found that there is almost no evidence to judge whether the more than $3-billion the federal government spends annually to improve science and mathematics education is effective. The committee's report calls for greater assessment and coordination of such programs. The committee, known as the Academic Competitiveness Council, was created by Congress in 2005 to undertake a yearlong study of how to improve federal programs that hope to improve education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or the STEM disciplines. The committee's report inventoried a total of 105 federal programs, supported by $3.12-billion in federal dollars in the 2006 fiscal year. Twenty-four programs at elementary and secondary schools received $574-million, or 18.4 percent of the total, while 70 programs in undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate education received $2.4-billion, or 77.2 percent of the total. Yet there is almost no evidence that the spending is doing any good in terms of better educating Americans in science, the 81-page report says. The report could lead federal agencies to end some programs that are shown either to be ineffective or to duplicate other efforts, but not to any overall decrease in financial support for STEM programs.