AM News: Mixed News / Reactions On NAEP Science Scores
8th Grade Students Make Gains in Testing on Science NYT: Eighth graders made modest gains in national science testing, with Hispanics and blacks narrowing the gap between their white and Asian peers, the government reported Thursday. ALSO Report: 8th-grade students still lag in science AP via Boston.com, Science Scores Draw Concern WSJ
House Passes Bill To Stave Off Cuts, But K-12 Advocates Still Worried Politics K12: Education advocates have been sweating for months over a series of planned cuts that are slated to hit every K-12 program in January - unless Brokedown Congress can figure out a way to stop it.
Vermont to Reconsider ESEA Waiver Politics K12: Vermont's governor and state board of education are weighing whether to continue with the process of applying for a waiver from the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, after the back-and-forth exchange with the U.S. Department of Education has led the state to stray far from the original proposal it sold to stakeholders.
Has Higher Ed. Ceded Reponsibility for Teacher Quality Control? Teacher Beat: The dean of the University of Virginia's Curry School of Education, Robert Pianta, pens a provocative piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education that poses what's probably the essential teacher-quality question du jour: Who should be responsible for defining and policing the standards of the teaching profession?
MORE NEWS ITEMS INSIDE
Chicago teachers conduct 'dry run' for strike vote Chicago Tribune: The Chicago Teachers Union polled its 25,000 members Thursday on questions involving the school board as part of what one official called a "dry run" for a potential strike vote.
Neighborhood admissions preference for charter schools to be studied Washington Post: District officials are moving closer to changes in the law that would allow charter schools--currently open to all eligible students citywide-- to grant admissions preference to families in surrounding neighborhoods.
Tennessee Bill Asks Parents To Grade Themselves On Report Cards AP via HuffPost: Educators exasperated by the need for greater parent involvement have persuaded Tennessee lawmakers to sign off on a novel bit of arm-twisting: Asking parents to grade themselves on report cards.
SC Senate panel advances private school bill AP via Boston.com: A bill giving tax breaks to parents who send their children to private school or educate them at home advanced Wednesday in the Senate, despite a panel's 3-2 vote against it.
Those interested should check out Singapore's School of Science and Technology if they want to see what really world-class learning of middle school science looks like in the 21st century. We have used it as a model for our science teaching and learning methods at One World Secondary School, which we are hoping to bring to California, where the most recent NAEP scores show that, in spite of having good science standards, our schools' ability to raise students so that they achieve those standards is completely inadequate. As long as our middle schools are focused on social adjustment, school dances, and the like, and as long as we are slow to invest in science education, our kids in even favorable neighborhoods will continue to lag, not to mention what happens in our ghettos.
Posted by: Bruce | May 11, 2012 at 12:44 PM
Again, I think adopting the same system of education as countries where students have literally killed themselves over a poor test score isn’t necessarily the best way to go about things. Education is certainly important, but to cut social development out of school is to dehumanize the process. School should be about more than learning mere fact, it should teach why those facts hold value to the world.
If you want to reform education, make education exciting again. Give students a reason to want to take science as an elective. As much as me saying “I dislike Gingrich” is an understatement at best, I do agree with one thing he said: “America needs something to strive for again, a frontier to conquer” (I’m paraphrasing there). Our periods of greatest achievement have always historically been the ones where we want to succeed over someone else at some unthinkable task, the internet race being the last one I can think of.
What’s holding students back now is pure economics. There’s insurmountable debt, and our country is focusing on very little past finding students a high-paying job, not encouraging them or giving them a reason to make a real difference
Posted by: Sarah | May 14, 2012 at 08:15 AM
To address the TN article, I think it’s rather amusing that Tennessee’s considering asking parents to grade themselves. Do they think parents are going to be honest? There may be a few who learn something from it, but I'm betting the majority won't. I hear it all the time in my town: "After a hard day's work, shuttling kids to sports practices or school meetings/functions, getting home and cooking dinner, and then getting household chores done, who has time for anything else?"
My parents sacrificed a lot so that my mom would be there for us after school. My friends were always envious because they came home to an empty house, were expected to do their school work on their own, and that was it for parental involvement when it came to school.
Posted by: Sarah | May 14, 2012 at 08:20 AM
Sarah, did you read anything about the school whose science programme I recommended? Here's the link: http://www.sst.edu.sg/.
The school has only been open for a couple of years. I know of no evidence that anyone has ever killed themselves there over a test score, nor have I read that that is considered a problem in Singapore, and I've read a lot about their education system. That's a more noted problem several thousand miles to the north, but Singapore is as far from there as we are from Ecuador. I certainly don't think they've dehumanized education; I think we are doing so. The SST, like all secondary schools in Singapore, is a school of choice, so its entire programme is elective. You really should check out the website and related materials.
Posted by: Bruce | May 14, 2012 at 11:23 AM