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Executive Summary
Management is the capacity to handle multiple problems, neutralize various
constituencies, motivate personnel; in [schools!, it means hitting as well the
actual budget at break-even. Leadership, on the other hand, is an essentially
moral act, not as in most management an essentially protective act. It
is the assertion of a vision, not simply the exercise of a style: the moral
courage to assert a vision of the institution in the future and the intellectual
energy to persuade the community or the culture of the wisdom and validity
of the vision. It is to make the vision practicable, and compelling.
A. Bartlett Giamatti (1988)
Educational leadership, as Giamatti understood, is difficult business. Diffi-
cult enough in a university, the task is monumental in a larger pluralistic society
where so much of education is under local influence and control. By whose
authority does one lead? And how is the band inspired to play, let alone follow?
As Giamatti asserted, vision is the key; great obstacles can be overcome if there
is a coherence and logic and purpose to the vision.
This report offers a vision of what our schools might become: places in
which all the nation's children are taught about science from the earliest years in
such a way as to awaken curiosity and wonder and appreciation for the world in
which they find themselves. And it is about great obstacles greater obstacles
than most advocates of educational reform recognize. But it is also about
purpose and the need to see the difference between leadership and management.
A major theme of this report is that much of what passes for educational reform
is not leadership; it is tinkering with management.
This is an optimistic report. At some moments in history, societies are
susceptible to important change, the crescendo of inadequate performance begins
102
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
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to sound like failure, and the players are receptive to new ideas. In various
respects, particularly in science education, the nation's system of schooling has
crossed that threshold.
This report is explicit about a number of problems. Many (perhaps all)
have been recognized by previous committees and panels, but not much seems
to have changed. The centerpiece of this document therefore is the need for
leadership, specifically the need for leadership from the scientific community.
It is not that scientists and scientific organizations have failed to contribute to
the clamor for change. Indeed, on occasion there have been significant and
effective contributions to primary-school and secondary-school programs from
scientists in universities, industry, and government. The problem is that, like
virtually every other effort at reform, they remain local and isolated contribu-
tions, unguided by any overarching plan, unaccompanied by any independent
assessment, untouched by any means of propagation, and, hence, ephemeral.
We seek a program for sustained reform.
Our most important recommendation is directed to the scientific leadership
of the nation. This committee has developed a strong sense of what must be
done to improve science education in the years from kindergarten through high
school, and this document lays out both problems and means of solution. We
are certain, however, that the necessary changes cannot be made unless there is a
permanent organization to monitor and organize them. Moreover, the leadership
provided by the organization should be separate from its multiple constituencies.
We feel it necessary that the scientific community be involved as both guide
and goad, both resource and participant. Specifically, we urge the National
Academy of Sciences to create in the National Research Council a permanent
board or commission with the charge of monitoring and improving the state of
science education in the United States. We do not propose, however, that the
scientists undertake this task in isolation. The organization we envision must
be a cooperative venture that fully involves knowledgeable science educators
and outstanding teachers at all levels.
The challenge that faces us is enormous, and effective change will require
participation of individuals from national to local levels. The establishment of
a permanent Board or Commission on Science Education is therefore only a
start in the right direction. The specific tasks to be assumed by the new body
and the necessary initiatives that must be taken by other institutions concerned
with education constitute a major part of our report. We have also described
what understanding of biology will be required by Americans in the coming
years and what institutional practices must change at all levels to ensure that
this understanding is achieved. We examine both the obstacles and the potential
resources available to overcome them. In a number of instances, our definition
of specific problems is incomplete, because there is a compelling need for
research and analysis as well as guidance and leadership.
Before setting forth an agenda for such leadership, let us summarize the
present condition of science education in our schools and what needs to be
done to see improvement. At the outset, we acknowledge that conditions in a
number of schools, particularly in urban areas, make it nearly impossible for
teachers to teach and for children to learn. Where those conditions are present,
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
society's first priority should be to correct them, and we do not underestimate
the difficulty of the task. But this report looks beyond that first line of attack
and addresses issues specifically related to the teaching and learning of science
in general and biology in particular.
Science some knowledge of nature, some understanding of how knowl-
edge about the world is obtained, some feeling for the relation between cause
and effect, for uncertainty, for the magnitudes of space and time should be
presented in the earliest years of elementary school, but it is not. We do not
have a teaching corps trained for the task, and we introduce students to science
in the middle schools or junior high schools and continue in the high schools
with a curriculum that seems almost designed to snuff out interest. Inadequate
science education has important economic and political implications for our na-
tion, for citizens must be equipped with the ability to make informed judgments
about health and social issues, and the demands of an increasingly technological
economy will require a better-educated work force.
We do not start teaching science early enough, and we reduce science to
a language of foreign terms to be memorized. We fail in the middle schools
to recognize the interests and stages of development of the young adolescent.
Those mistakes deprive students of the opportunity to use scientific concepts
and related facts to respond to issues of health, such as alcohol and drug abuse,
and broader issues, such as environmental pollution, and they discourage able
students from entering scientific and engineering professions.
We reinforce the students' sterile experience with standardized tests that
require the recognition of terms, and we teach from textbooks that are often
too long, are abysmally crafted, and are written with little or no understanding
of biological concepts and with the implicit aim of avoiding offense to a
scientifically illiterate segment of the adult population.
Too many of our teachers are recruited from the lowest academic quartile
of the college population, and in the liberal-arts colleges and universities
prospective teachers are themselves taught in lecture formats that ill prepare
them for their future role. Schools of education present pedagogical information
so unrelated to the specifics of teaching science as to be of little or no help.
The opportunities for teachers of science to update their scientific knowledge
and skills and to interact with each other and with research scientists-once
a prominent part of inservice training-have withered, victims of misguided
policy at the federal level. And the teaching of science in an adequate laboratory
environment is available to few students.
As a result of those interlocking practices, science usually is presented
poorly and inadequately learned. Middle-school and high-school students do
not learn that science is a process of inquiry about the world, and they do
not become engaged themselves in developing an understanding of scientific
concepts. They memorize; because what they have memorized seems irrelevant
to their world, they soon forget. Worst of all, most students leave the experience
with the conviction that further exposure to science is something to be avoided
if at all possible.
We offer a large number of specific recommendations to address these
and related matters. They are summarized here, grouped in 12 categories in
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the sequence in which the background and reasoning appear in the body of
the report. The final category, "Leadership," returns to the need for direct
participation of the scientific community, in formulating goals and in creating
mechanisms to measure progress toward achieving these goals.
The Curriculum
The last 20 years have transformed the United States into a society that
is increasingly dependent on science and technology, but the transformation
has barely permeated our system of education. For deeper understanding to
occur, science must be treated as a high-priority subject. Like mathematics,
reading, and writing, science should be a core subject whose process must be
comprehended by all.
· Beginning in the formative years of elementary school, substantially
more time needs to be devoted to science. The biological science presented to
young children should have natural history as a major focus, be integrated with
other subjects wherever possible, and emphasize observation, interpretation,
and hands-on involvement, rather than memorization of facts. To prevent
the acquisition of detailed factual knowledge for its own sake, achievement
tests, when used, should stress conceptual understanding and development
of skills. Reading and writing about natural phenomena, appropriate for the
range of readers in elementary-school classrooms, should be an integral part
of language-arts and reading instruction. Many states have already developed
science frameworks or curricular guides outlining the amount and type of
science that should be taught at all levels, but states, districts, and especially
schools must ensure that the requirements are instituted. This will require much
more than token observance of new regulations.
· Because children of middle-school age are curious about their bodies
and full of misconceptions about health, hygiene, and disease, an orientation
to human biology holds great promise both for sustaining students' interest in
science and for addressing a variety of educational goals important to society
at large. Several groups are developing such courses, and their results should
be compared and evaluated by the science and science-education communities.
· At the high-school level, the central concepts and principles that every
high-school student should know must be identified, and the curriculum pared
of everything that does not explicate and illuminate the relatively few concepts.
Those concepts must be presented in such a manner that they are related to
the world that students understand in language that is familiar, and they must
be taught by a process that engages all the students in examining why they
believe what they believe. This requires building slowly, with ample time for
discussion with peers and with the teacher. Particularly in science it also requires
observation and experimentation, not as an exercise in following recipes, but to
confront the essence of the material.
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Textbooks
Most available texts are poor, but the problem of biology textbooks inter-
sects with other issues discussed in this report. We look to teachers to provide
instruction in science for our young people, and in this our teachers need enor-
mous help and support. Improving the textbooks requires a greater emphasis
on the place of concept and process in teaching biology, as well as a clearer
picture of the goals of science education from kindergarten through high school.
Achieving that emphasis needs consensus among teachers, changes in how
student accomplishment is measured, and changes in the expectations for texts
that state boards convey to publishers. If those changes can be accomplished,
the publishers will find it in their interest to produce better texts.
· Extensive review of science texts should be instituted by the scientific
community. Textbooks need to be assessed for scientific accuracy, currency, and
vision, and the reviews will need to be widely available to teachers, members
of school boards, and others at the grass-roots level. The broader scientific
community should collaborate with teachers in evaluating textbooks and, on a
local level, provide advice on textbook adoption. It is important that evaluations
include input from scientists, people experienced in the school classroom, and
researchers in learning and reading comprehension.
· Scientists should be engaged in the writing of middle- and high-school
texts, and control of content shifted from publisher to author. It is essential that
sufficient time be devoted to the project so that adequate classroom testing can
be done and analyzed before books go to press. Particular care should be given
to designing smaller texts around important biological concepts and principles.
Technical language should be used sparingly and never as a substitute for lucid
explanations of biological processes. Illustrations not only should be accurate,
but should be designed to increase understanding.
Laboratory Activities
Properly designed laboratory activities are essential for effective biology
courses. However, activities that merely illustrate what a text has presented do
not produce the desired results promoting interest, curiosity, and understand-
ing. The prevalent form of laboratory activity must be replaced by genuine
investigations, designed and tested to enable students to achieve the conceptual
changes necessary for intellectual development and understanding. Laboratory
work and field work are central to a major reconstruction of biology education.
· A major effort should be initiated to identify current exemplary labo-
ratory activities for the biology curriculum. Laboratory activities should take
advantage of recent research about how students learn science and should con-
tribute to the development of fundamental biological concepts. The effort to
find such activities could be underwritten with public and private funds and
carried out in conjunction with model inservice programs.
· Groups should be assembled to develop and assess model laboratory
activities. Such groups should include biology teachers, university research
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biologists, and researchers in science education. The inclusion of students
would be essential to test the activities. The groups should not only design and
test laboratory activities, but also develop appropriate measures and indicators
of the effects of laboratory work and field work on student understanding
of biology. The groups' work could take the form of summer workshops at
research universities.
· A system should be developed for providing inservice education in the
use of laboratories. It could take the form of regional meetings for teachers
in the summer or be conducted in cooperation with school-district inservice
programs. Such teacher education would enable teachers to be laboratory
students and to work through the laboratory activities with people who can
interweave laboratory experience with effective teaching, providing a model as
to how a particular activity is approached most effectively.
· Laboratory activities require more time than normally allotted. They
will not be able to occupy their appropriate place in the curriculum until time
is created to accommodate them.
Tests and Testing
Understanding of central concepts and principles of biology will not be
attainable as long as current classroom tests and standardized tests assess
only recall and recognition. Tests that are consistent with a new commitment
to understanding principles and concepts are essential to enable teachers to
know what they are accomplishing as they change their teaching methods and
emphases. They are also necessary to inform students that different learning
strategies are needed to achieve the goals of their biology course. Testing is
increasingly driving curriculum and instruction in a dull and pedantic fashion,
so it is imperative to address the issue of testing and evaluation in biology
at all levels national, state, school-district, and classroom. If appropriately
developed, tests might well continue to drive the curriculum, but in ways that
are in the best interests of students.
· A new array of test instruments and procedures should be made avail-
able to enable biology teachers to evaluate and improve their teaching and
their students' learning. Methods need to be designed specifically to address
how well schools are doing and be sensitive enough to show how students'
performance differs when teaching changes.
· The nation should be concerned more with evaluating the effects of
curricula, teaching methods, and materials than with ranking the performance
of individual students. The system's components should be probed, rather than
just the relative ranks of the learners.
Other Factors That Hinder Effective Education
Substantial improvement in the teaching of science will require change
in school administration. More flexibility is required in the scheduling of
classroom and preparation time in the pursuit of related professional activities
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by teachers and in teachers' sharing of responsibilities. Fiscal implications are
inevitable. True educational reform will rock many boats, and those who must
pay for change should be clear about the goals they wish to achieve.
.
Obstacles to creative teaching must be lifted. Inasmuch as textbooks
and testing play important roles in determining how biology is taught, teach-
ers must be encouraged to experiment with new techniques in pedagogy and
assessment. School policies, rather than perpetuating isolation, should be tai-
lored to encourage teachers to work together in developing ideas. Opportunities
for teachers to visit other classes, participate in inservice programs, or teach
cooperatively must be made available by released time and the use of mentor
teachers.
· Teachers should be enabled to devote nonteaching time to activities
that will enhance their ability to convey knowledge to their students, such as
preparing laboratories and tutoring students.
Preservice Education: Teaching the Teachers
The preparation of teachers needs drastic reform. Current standards for
content and pedagogy are inadequate to meet society's expectations. The
situation will worsen in coming years, unless teacher preparation becomes
much stronger. Effective biology teaching requires being able to do, as well
as to know, and new programs must ensure that teachers not only understand
biology, but have the skills to relate scientific concepts to children of different
ages.
.
A curriculum that treats science as a process for knowing about the
world can be effective only if the teachers have a deep understanding of that
process themselves. We therefore feel that every teacher who has responsibility
for a high-school science class should have had the experience of engaging in
original research under the direction of a research scientist. Ideally, this happens
as part of preservice education, even if only for a semester or a summer. For
practicing teachers who have missed the opportunity, inservice mechanisms
must be devised.
· Prospective teachers of high-school biology need adequate preparation
in cell and developmental biology, ecology, evolution, genetics, and molecular
biology and biochemistry. Those fields should guide their selection of courses
and should be supplemented by exposure to mathematics and the physical
sciences. We encourage experiences that explore new ways to break down
the traditional barriers among the natural sciences and between the natural and
. .
socla. . sciences.
University science departments and schools of education bear major
responsibility for problems related to teaching of teachers. Neither has provided
course work appropriate to teaching science at the K-12 level, and liberal-arts
faculties have not encouraged their best students to consider teaching as a career.
The most important change in the undergraduate curriculum will be to require
the participation of university faculty in creating environments for learning that
are less authoritarian and that engage future teachers in discussions of concepts,
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study of the relations between scientific disciplines, and cooperative analysis of
information.
· New processes should be developed for integrating pedagogical and
scientific subject matter more effectively. Schools that train many teachers
could create sections in which students have an opportunity to discuss how
their experiences at the university level could be best used as a foundation for
presenting important concepts and principles to younger age groups. Collabora-
tions should be developed between faculties of schools of education and science
departments to develop science-methods courses and to improve pedagogy in
undergraduate natural-science courses. The goal of such courses would be to
combine appropriate teaching methods with scientific method, and they would
be taught by scientists or science specialists.
· Undergraduate programs are needed that will better prepare teachers to
deal with science in elementary and middle schools. Such programs could have
an integrated science or science-mathematics major. The pedagogical character
of the programs will differ from that appropriate for high-school teachers, but
there are few if any usable models.
· Research is needed on what makes education programs for teachers
effective.
Licensing and Certification of Teachers
In efforts to improve the performance of our nation's schools, attempts
are being made to strengthen the licensing process and to create an alternative
in the form of professional certification. Changes in licensing requirements
have so far focused on examinations of debatable relevance and alternative
licensing schemes that hold considerable promise, but that are also subject to
administrative misuse. Plans for certification have the potential for creating
generally accepted national standards.
State licensing regulations should be adjusted to be consistent with
reformed preservice programs.
· The various alternative ways to obtain teaching licenses (late entry,
long internship, etc.) should be critically evaluated.
· Questionable routes to licensing, such as emergency certification and
seniority rules that cut across disciplines, should be eliminated.
· An independent national committee composed of biologists, teachers,
biology educators, and state school personnel should evaluate licensing and
certification plans with emphasis on their adequacy for assessing competence
to teach biology as a process of inquiry and discovery. Only a broad consensus
on national standards will engage all the groups required for reform to succeed.
The role of mentor teachers should be clarified. Mentoring is not a
common working concept for today's teachers, but it is a cornerstone of any
reform movement. We propose that mentor teachers be involved in devel-
oping appropriate criteria for defining mentor teachers, training new teachers,
disseminating new curricular materials, and contributing to local and national
curriculum development and other professional activities.
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Inservice Education: How Teachers Continue to Learn
Science has a continuously changing frontier, and society today is char-
acterized by change generated by science and technology. Moreover, science
teaching is a profession, and a notable difference between professions and other
occupations is that professionals are responsible for their own continuing educa-
tion. As part of their professional development, teachers must engage regularly
in inservice activities that update their knowledge of science and, especially
in their early years, enhance their effectiveness in the classroom. Few present
inservice opportunities are part of a conceptual approach that advances the dual
goals of increasing understanding of a discipline and honing insight as to how
it is best learned.
· There is clear need for national leadership in identifying and defin-
ing the kinds of inservice programs that will be most successful in fostering
inquiry-based teaching-teaching that promotes interest, curiosity, and increas-
ing understanding of scientific concepts. Effective inservice programs must
be:
Attractive enough to entice many teachers to participate and appropriate
to teachers' needs, as identified by biology teachers, biology educators, and
biologists.
Conceptually organized, eventually operated in conjunction with pre-
service programs, and run on a continuing basis.
- Able to compensate teachers for their time.
-Associated with opportunities for teachers to obtain small grants to bring
new approaches to the classroom.
Constantly evaluated for their effectiveness.
Scheduled with enough flexibility to ensure attendance.
- Designed to combine understanding of what to teach with knowledge
and experience of how to teach.
Designed and conducted with the collaboration of experienced science
teachers, educators, and research scientists.
Coupled to mechanisms for disseminating new information throughout
the school district.
.
Teachers need support after the inservice work, and they must be given
time to assimilate the knowledge and suggestions proposed during inservice
programs, to consider how the changes will affect teaching and learning in
their classrooms, and to consult with colleagues. Attention must be given to
the need for long-term collaborative arrangements among industry, college and
university biology and biology-education research communities, and schools.
Program development should involve primarily federal and private sponsorship,
rather than expressly commercial inservice ventures.
What has been said about inservice programs for high-school teachers
generally holds for elementary-school and middle-school teachers. The available
models are fewer and the backgrounds, motivations, and interests of the teachers
are different, even though the challenge is just as important. Because the nature
of the task is different from that posed for high-school teachers, we recommend
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111
the development of distinct cooperative inservice programs for these cadres of
teachers as well.
· We need improved mechanisms for assessing the success of the various
current experiments in inservice education; the assessments must be more
sophisticated than the traditional recourse to average scores of students on
regional or national examinations. We need improved models for distributing
information developed in successful inservice programs and for engaging the
participation of additional teachers. These are not matters that can be attended
to in a single effort; continuous evaluation involving longitudinal and case
studies will be required.
Recruiting Scientists, Teachers, Technicians, and Physicians
Teaching science as a process of knowing about the natural world is
appropriate for all students, whether or not they will be professionally engaged
in science or teaching. But an adequate supply of scientists and engineers is
also necessary for the nation's survival. Schools can best meet the challenge by
ensuring that all students are excited by science in their classrooms. Moreover,
universities must encourage their science departments to provide better science
training to both undergraduate science students and prospective precollege
science teachers. For example:
.
University leaders must make it clear to their science departments
that the quality and quantity of the service that each department provides to
precollege science teachers (both preservice and inservice training) and to the
general education of conscience majors will be an important consideration in
the distribution of university resources and faculty positions.
· Universities should develop programs that integrate all interested lo-
cal precollege science teachers into the various science communities of the
university.
· Major universities should be expected to develop permanent summer
inservice institutes for precollege science teachers either developed locally or
based on successful model institutes held elsewhere. Outstanding faculty from
university science departments should be recruited to teach in these institutes,
side by side with outstanding precollege mentor teachers.
The reform of education for biology teachers, particularly at the preser-
vice and certification levels, must address the growing disparity between the
number of minority-group students and the number of minority-group teachers.
Moreover, programs for educating teachers must compete with other attrac-
tive professions. Current efforts to restructure the teaching profession-which
ought to result in greater professionalism, higher salaries, better working con-
ditions, and more appropriate assessment techniques will all make teaching
more attractive to able minority-group students.
· One mechanism for recruiting is a national fellowship program for
science teachers. Such a program could have several features that would
further other, collateral goals. A competitive fellowship program could attract
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some of the ablest biology or elementary-education majors to science teaching.
It could be of immense help in reaching minority groups, which are now
underrepresented in the teaching force. With foundation underwriting, it would
be possible to couple the use of fellowships to institutions that have shown
interest and imagination in addressing the kinds of changes that are required
in preservice education. Prestigious fellows who have studied at institutions
that created the best conditions for research have made some of the most
important contributions to science, and a corresponding formula needs to be
tried in education. Fellowships need not be exclusively for future high-school
teachers; they could be used to attract individuals with an interest in science
to teach in elementary and middle schools. Similar fellowships could be
offered to established teachers; in the most ambitious form, they might be
used to underwrite year-long sabbaticals, during which teachers would attend
universities and participate in the development of new preservice and inservice
programs, as well as improve their own knowledge of science and how students
learn it.
· Practices that discourage females and minority-group members from
achieving their full potential in science and mathematics must be identified and
eliminated.
Colleges and universities should actively recruit women and minority-
group members to careers in science and science teaching. To that end, stronger
links could be forged between the historically black colleges and graduate and
professional schools in research universities. Community colleges are another
source of potential talent that has not been fully tapped.
· Gifted students or those who are excited by biology do not require a
conceptually different curriculum from other students. The needs of all students
will be best met by seeing that classrooms are staffed with able teachers who
have a deep understanding of fundamental biological concepts, enjoy teaching
science as a process of discovery, and are flexible and creative in addressing the
needs of individual students. All the recommendations in this report are directed
to that goal, and therefore a future supply of outstanding science teachers is
required.
· Community-based activities that foster involvement of parents should
be encouraged and extended.
· Early awareness of the wide array of vocational opportunities that can
build on an interest in biology should raise the expectations of young people
for success after graduation, particularly women, minority-group members, and
students who lack sufficient parental guidance or other environmental stimuli.
To ensure that advice does not result in frustration and disillusionment in a
restricted job market, the information provided to students must be current,
must be related to local conditions, and, wherever possible, must engage the
cooperation of potential employers.
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113
Integrating Biology with Other Sciences
Models for integrated or parallel programs in biology, chemistry,
physics, and mathematics should be developed and supported for both high
schools and lower schools.
Special Science Schools and Centers
· The relative autonomy of both state-sponsored residential schools for
science and mathematics and centers for science and technology provides a
unique opportunity for these institutions to serve as "laboratories" for curric-
ular reform. In addition to providing high-quality instruction, they should be
encouraged to continue in the development of new curricula, instructional ma-
terials, and techniques for assessment. They can also serve as inservice centers
for teachers from local high schools. For such experiments to have maximal
impact nationally, mechanisms should be devised for comparing and assessing
the programs at the several schools and centers and for disseminating the results
broadly in the educational community.
· Research is required to assess the effects of magnet schools on the
students they serve and on the associated neighborhood schools.
Leadership
In Chapter 8, we propose that the National Academy of Sciences through
the National Research Council assume substantial responsibility for lighting the
path to better science education for all by creating a standing body charged with
tracking the health of science education in the nation. Creating a board that
will be able to operate effectively will not be a simple task, however. Unlike
the mathematics community, the scientific community is fragmented into many
disciplines that rarely discuss with each other questions of either instruction or
curriculum. While stressing the urgent need for action, we do not underestimate
the obstacles. But we see a board within the NRC as offering an especially
promising opportunity for building bridges between the science and education
communities bridges that will facilitate the kind of broad consensus that is
essential if we are to achieve quality education in science.
Such a body would have no legal authority to lead; it would have to show
the way by displaying its vision of the future, by emanating "the intellectual
energy to persuade the community or the culture of the wisdom and validity of
the vision," and by making "the vision practicable, and compelling." Moreover,
it must engage the participation of outstanding teachers and science educators.
We would like to think that this report makes an important contribution to
defining that vision, but our efforts will achieve little unless this foundation is
built on. The issues that need to be addressed continuously that provide the
agenda for the kind of body that we propose be created within the National
Research Council-embrace aspects of our earlier recommendations and are
spelled out in detail in Chapter 8. The agenda is in fact open-ended, but
includes the following:
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· Developing recommendations for a science curriculum that starts in the
early grades and builds in a coherent way through high school and into college.
· Developing standards for the quality of textbooks; providing critical
and thorough examination for their accuracy, readability, coherence, and ef-
fectiveness in conveying science as a process and as a way of knowing; and
guiding the selection of textbooks in states and school districts.
· Evaluating the role of national and state examinations.
· Creating criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of preservice programs
for teacher education, stressing the linkage of pedagogy and content.
· Promoting interdisciplinary cooperation in the development of science
curricula, the use of laboratories, and the preparation of teachers.
· Developing standards and criteria for inservice programs based on
educational research, guiding the creation of new programs, evaluating the
effectiveness of programs, and creating mechanisms for the wide dissemination
of successful models.
· Finding new ways to promote professionalism in the community of
teachers.
· Identifying research needs in science education.
· Creating and enhancing mechanisms for the collection and dissemi-
nation of information on science education, perhaps including computer-based
networks or even regional institutions that teachers could visit to obtain experi-
ence with new materials and laboratory activities.
.
Finding new ways to interest women and ethnically diverse students
in careers in science and teaching and assessing more effective ways to teach
them.
.
Stimulating wider appreciation for the role of science in society.
Although the committee did not analyze in depth the costs of its recom-
mendations, it is clear that a major commitment of funds will be needed to
realize the goals set out in this report. The scientific community can provide
advice about the distribution of funds to the various areas that need to be
addressed to improve science education. Through an on-going collaboration
among scientists, teachers, and science educators, such a board would constitute
a unique forum for identifying areas needing the most immediate intervention
and for recommending and evaluating activities responsive to those needs.
In summary, implementation of plans to reform science education requires
national leadership from the scientific community. National leadership must
develop national consensus that will press the key players into action to
produce well-educated teachers, to insist on fine instructional materials, to
identify outstanding model curricula and make them available to all schools,
and to encourage cooperation among students, parents, and other adults in the
process of education. With this vision before us, we can approach the end of
the century with new confidence in our educational system.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
inservice programs
