Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation America's Science and Technology Talent at the Crossroads (2011) / Chapter Skim
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3 Preparation
3 Preparation
Pages 53-90
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From page 53... ...
W Bush convened a historic Education Summit at Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1989 with 50 governors at which they agreed to set national education goals.
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of 2001 that pushed for increased accountability for states, school districts, and schools; more choices for parents and students, especially those attending low-performing schools; greater flexibility for states and school districts in the use of federal education funds in exchange for improved performance; and a stronger emphasis on reading. Tough sanctions would be imposed on schools failing to show improved performance, and those that narrowed the achievement gaps would be eligible to receive State Academic Achievement Awards.
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Recent reports show that previous efforts have produced mixed results for the general populace and have had limited effectiveness in bridging the achievement gap for underrepresented minorities, the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population.
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Figure 3-1 shows that between 1972 and 2007, the percentage of public school students who were white decreased from 78 to 56 percent, while the percentage of students from other racial/ethnic groups increased from 22 to 44 percent, largely reflecting the growth in the percentage of Hispanic students Thus, the K-12 pipeline is expected to have an inevitable majority of underrepresented minorities and must be a major focal point of intervention to cultivate the diverse talent pool needed to sustain the nation's future in STEM. The K-12 pipeline can be divided into four key transition points for the purposes of policy intervention for underrepresented minorities: prekindergarten, elementary school, middle school, and high school.
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As shown in Figure 3-4, the Education Trust conducted an analysis of TIMSS data that shows that average mathematics and science scores for underrepresented minorities are below the national average and thus even less competitive globally. There is a larger gap between Hispanic/Latino and African Americans in mathematics and science for grades 4 and 8, except
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in 4th grade science, where the average scores are about the same. African Americans scored lower than any group across the board.
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. (Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S.
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Understanding Mathematics and Science Achievement Gaps The achievement gap between white and minority students in K-12 mathematics and science is well documented in numerous research and statistical reports (e.g., Condition of Education, The Nation's Report Card, Science and Engineering Indicators)
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a gain of 101 points. By 5th grade, the gap between white and black students in average mathematics scores was 24 points, and the average score of black 5th grade students was equivalent to the average 3rd grade score of white students.
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grade, minority students' scores were lower than those for white students (Table 3-2)
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NAEP Mathematics The most recent NAEP assessments of educational progress for 4th and 8th graders in mathematics show that all racial/ethnic groups showed higher average mathematics scores in 2009 than in 2007 and 1990.7 Asian/Pacific Islander 4th grade scores were the highest followed by those of whites. Score increases did not consistently result in a significant closing of performance gaps between white and underrepresented minority students, although gains over the years for black students resulted in a smaller gap between black and white students in 2009 than in 1990.
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The average for white students was 31 points higher than for black students and 24 points higher than for Hispanic students. Male students scored higher on average than female students overall.
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Public school students scored lower than Catholic school students at all three ages in 2008. From 2004 to 2008, black and Hispanic students ages 9 and 13 showed no significant change.
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to collectively "create a body of educational research that informs classroom- and system-level practice and helps eliminate racial achievement gaps" and to "disseminate and implement effective
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There are currently 66 KIPP schools in 19 states and the District of Columbia serving nearly 21,000 students, 90 percent of whom are Hispanic or African American. KIPP began in 1994 when two teachers, Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin, launched a 5th grade public school program in inner-city Houston, after completing their commitment to Teach for America.
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The programs combine interdisciplinary teamwork and competitions whereby students in four different age groups fund, design, build, and compete with robots in local, national, and international contests. The 2008-2009 programs are as follows: • FIRST Robotics Competition for high school students • FIRST Tech Challenge for high school students • FIRST LEGO League for 9- to 14-year-olds • Junior FIRST LEGO League for 6- to 9-year-olds • FIRST Place for ages 6 to adult Teams are diverse, including underrepresented minorities (56 percent)
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In addition to this, students participate in collaborative study groups or tutorials led by tutors who use skillful questioning to bring students to a higher level of understanding. Many of the AVID participants are underrepresented minorities and the first in their families to attend college, and many are from low-income or minority families.
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workshops for educators, school boards, and administrators, including New Mexico science teachers, Utah Title 7 teachers, Navaho Nation science teachers, and NASA Explorer Schools. SOURCE: http://www.indigenouseducation.org/about.html.
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• In 2007, the high school completion rate of students in El Paso's three urban districts was 77 percent, the highest among all major Texas cities, including Austin, Dallas, and Houston. • In 1993, just 32 percent of African American and 36 percent of Hispanic students achieved passing scores on the math portion of TAAS, the Texas state wide assessment.
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Based at the University of Texas at El Paso, this initiative has become a national model. Informal Science Education: Seamless Networks Increasingly, informal science education is being used to address issues of scientific literacy, cultural relevance, equity, and access for women and minority populations.
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is designed to prepare children for entry into elementary school by cultivating the prerequisite developmental skills for success in the early grades, and the long-term benefits of high-quality early childhood programs for all children are well documented. Studies also cite the positive effects on absenteeism, classroom behavior, grade repetition, high school graduation rates, crime, and academic achievement, substantially countering the negative effects of family and environmental risk factors for low-income and minority populations.
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The recently enacted Stimulus Act18 provides a one-time infusion of $1.1 billion to double the number of children served by Early Head Start over two years, an additional $1 billion to expand and improve Head Start, and an additional $2 billion in funding for the Child Care and Development Block Grant.19 However, this level of funding will need to be sustained into the future. Program statistics for FY 2007 show that 30.1 percent of enrolled children identify as Black/African American, 34.7 percent as Hispanic/Latino, 4.0 percent as American Indian/Alaska Native, and 0.8 percent as Pacific Islander.
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Teacher quality is a major issue for public pre-K programs and Head Start. In a multistate study of pre-K, the National Center for Early Development & Learning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that about 81 percent of public pre-K teachers had a bachelor's degree or higher, and only 8 percent reported no postsecondary degree.22 This compares to 57 percent with a bachelor's or higher in nonpublic school 20 States offering no programs are Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming.
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The major issues confronting the nation in developing model preschool programs for underrepresented minority children are the following: • Funding: Per-pupil funding is too low for many states to improve the overall quality of programs, and there is growing disparity in funding between states. The bulk of federal funding for early childhood education now goes to Head Start and to the Child Care Block Grant, which provides childcare subsidies for poor families.
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Mathematics and Science Teacher Quality Rising Above the Gathering Storm recommends aggressive actions to recruit and strengthen the training of mathematics and science teachers and to foster high-quality teaching with "world-class curricula, standards, and assessments of student learning." The report cites exemplars in these efforts -- UTeach at the University of Texas and California Teach at the University of California, the Merck Institute for Science Education, University of Pennsylvania Science Teachers Institute, Advanced Placement Incentive Program, and Laying the Foundation. The report recommends also statewide specialty high schools and inquiry-based learning as means to increase the number of students who pass AP and IB science and mathematics courses in an effort to enlarge the pipeline of students who are prepared to enter col lege and graduate with a degree in science, engineering, or mathematics.
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Public school teachers have been predominantly white. In 2008, African American and Hispanic teachers each represented 7 percent, and other racial/ethnic minority groups represented less than 2 percent.25 The racial and ethnic distributions among middle school and high school mathematics and science teachers resemble that same pattern.
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In addition, the program supports the recruitment and development of NSF Teaching Fellows who receive salary supplements while fulfilling a four-year teaching requirement and the development of NSF Master Teaching Fellows by providing professional development and salary supplements while they are teaching for five years in a high-need school district. Teacher quality is considered the most critical factor affecting academic achievement.30 Research by Harris and Sass (2008)
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The National Math and Science Initiative also recommends keeping content knowledge the priority for elementary and secondary teachers and offers a guide for state policy makers to inventory their own policies and regulations to ensure that each contributes to solving the teacher pipeline problem.31 The Education Trust presents a plan for equity with immediate and longer-term steps to remedy the unfair distribution of teacher quality. The Education Trust presents a case study of how three states -- Ohio, Illinois, and Wisconsin -- and their three biggest school systems -- Cleveland, Chicago, and Milwaukee -- attempted to solve this problem.32 The result of their surveys showed that the current system of distributing teacher quality produces exactly the opposite of what is needed to close achievement gaps.
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Title I -- Improving the Academic Achievement of the Disadvantaged is "to ensure that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and reach, at a minimum, proficiency on challenging state academic achievement standards and state academic assessments." The assumption seems to be that these funds are added to an equitable base of state and local resources. However, the schools that have had the most low-income children have had the least qualified teachers who were paid less than veteran and fully credentialed teachers.34 Thus, school districts could spend less money in Title I schools than in other schools even with the addition of Title I funds.
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However, the tests also provide compelling feedback about the academic preparation of students throughout the K-12 continuum. The 2009 SAT and ACT reports document and reaffirm the achievement gap between white and underrepresented minority students.
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Meanwhile, African American students had the lowest average combined mathematics and critical reading score of 855, while white students had an average combined score of 1064 (Table 3-5)
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The ACT establishes college readiness benchmarks and reported that students from most racial/ethnic groups met the English benchmark, followed in order by the reading, mathematics, and science benchmarks.35 Three benchmarks were met by at least 50 percent of Asian American/Pacific Islander and white students, while one was met by at least 50 percent of American Indian/Alaska Native students. None of the benchmarks were met by at least 50 percent of Hispanic or African American students.
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Similarly, students who took AP or honors math courses had a 79-point advantage compared to the average mathematics score. And students who had previously taken the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test scored 121 points higher on average than those who did not take the test.
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Figure3.6.eps of underrepresented minorities on the 2009 SAT and ACT is indicative of the trend seen for decades. In a recent report, the College Board presented data showing that although there are increasing numbers of African American, Hispanic, and American Indian students participating in AP, these students still remain underserved and are less successful on AP exams, especially African Americans.36 As shown in Figure 3-6, African American students represent 14.5 percent of the public school graduating class of 2009, and 8.2 percent of the AP examinees (compared to 14.4 percent and 7.8 percent in 2008)
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States with large African American student populations are only beginning to address these disparities. There is general consensus that the factors that contribute to better performance also impact college enrollment and completion.
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Ferguson, a senior lecturer in education and policy at Harvard University Graduate School of Education, expects standardized tests, such as the SAT and ACT, to effectively measure the achievement gap over time. Although more students, especially underrepresented minorities, are taking the SAT, the growth in test takers is reaching deep into the high school student pool and testing lower-achieving students.
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Current measures do not attest to the cumulative impact of these national investments, too few target underrepresented minorities, and there is no systematic way to translate the results of the research into classroom applications. Partially addressing the issues, the Obama administration has issued A Blueprint for Reform to guide the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)
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