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SUMMARY During the 1950's and 1960's a national effort to improve pre-college education resulted in the development of new courses and teaching materials for instruction in elementary and secondary school mathematics, science, and social studies, and resulted also in the offering of a large number of insti- tutes to increase the knowledge of school teachers and to help them learn to use the new courses and materials effec- tively. The 1970's brought a great reduction in the number of institutes for teachers and a substantial decline in usage of the new courses and materials. The National Science Foundation, which has played a leading role in the whole effort toward improvement, sought to determine the current status of teaching and learning in elementary and secondary schools, and to reassess its own responsibility for pre- college education. To that end, NSF commissioned three na- tional studies of the status of pre-college education, and then asked eight national organizations to review those three studies and to state current needs as they saw them. This report is one of the eight responses to that request. Survey data, firsthand observation, and other evidence from the three studies commissioned by NSF describe a troubled American school system. Declining enrollments, financial stringency, the unsatisfactory performance of many pupils and graduates, pressure for greater accountability, disagree- ments over educational policy â these and other forces have affected the teaching of science and mathematics as they have nearly every aspect of the nation's schools. Nevertheless, there are good students, eager to learn. Good teaching is to be found. Many teachers wish to improve their knowledge and skills and to have better texts and teaching materials. The first three chapters of this report describe the conditions under which these teachers work, the variability, the trends, and the problems as reported in the three NSF studies and as indicated by other reports and evidence. Drawing upon the findings of the three NSF studies and other information, the Panel on School Science of the National Research Council's Commission on Human Resources considered the current needs for improving education in science and mathematics and offers the following recommendations: 1. We recommend the establishment of a number of Science and Mathematics Teaching Resource Centers, each to
serve a large school system or a group of neighboring smaller systems. Each Teaching Resource Center would offer some or all of the following services: In-service training programs related to the science and mathematics courses being taught or to be introduced in the school systems involved. Construction, maintenance, repair, and dis- tribution of kits of materials required to teach those courses. Expert advice to teachers to help them learn to use new science and mathematics instructional materials and techniques, and to help them with their individual teaching problems. 2. We recommend increased support for the NSF program of funding the design, experimental testing, and revision of new courses in science and mathematics and their associated teaching and learning materials. 3. We recommend support of an NSF program of institutes for teachers, both to increase their knowledge of subject matter and to improve their skill in teaching the new courses that will be developed in the future, whether the development of those courses is funded by public or by private sources. 4. We recommend the development of additional science and technology centers of the kind that now exist in a number of cities. Furthermore, we recommend the strengthening of cooperative arrangements between these centers and nearby school systems to increase the extent to which the centers provide planned supplementation of the programs of the asso- ciated schools, and to increase their general value to children and adults who wish to learn more about science. 5. In order to give women and members of racial or ethnic minority groups greater opportunity to become inter- ested in and to prepare for careers in scientific and tech- nical occupations, we recommend that scientists and engineers work with their local school systems to provide special lec- tures and classes; tours of local scientific, engineering, and technical facilities; opportunities to meet with appro- priate role models; and other experiences intended to increase their motivation and to overcome their disadvantages in securing the education necessary for scientific and technical careers. In addition, we recommend that efforts be made to identify gifted but economically disadvantaged students early in their schooling, so as to ensure that they will be afforded adequate opportunities to prepare themselves for admission to scientific and technological programs in college.
6. We recommend vigorous efforts at local levels to combat the overemphasis currently given to scores on standard- ized tests of achievement in comparing the performance of schools, classes, and individual pupils. Because the tests most generally used for these purposes give emphasis to the more elementary and routine abilities necessary to meet "minimum competency" requirements, they constitute only a part of the basis upon which schools and pupils should be judged. In addition, in order to make available more desir- able tests with which teachers can appraise the performance of their pupils, we recommend the creation, for each major subject, of a large bank of test items, of varied types, and covering a wide range of skills and knowledge of the field. These test banks should be openly available to any teacher, school administrator, parent, child, or anyone else who is interested. Open availability of the entire bank of test items should improve the quality of test items and will give teachers latitude in selecting the test questions that match their educational objectives. Finally, we recommend that scientists take the lead in evaluating these and other recommendations for the improve- ment of science education at the pre-college level, and in developing the specific programs and activities necessary to implement the recommendations that seem most promising. Scientists will have to accept responsibility for leading the whole effort, for it is not likely that anyone else will.
