Not so. A survey commissioned by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation found a deplorable state of science education in Bay Area elementary schools.
The knowledge gap starts when kids walk in the door. Students are barely studying any science. Many teachers acknowledge they're poorly prepared to teach the subject. And most are not getting the professional training they need to inspire students.
These developments are not accidental. There is a relationship between the withering of science education and the pressures from standardized testing. And until the state's testing and textbook bureaucracy - education's military industrial complex - changes the rules of the game, science education will lag.
Researchers found that 80 percent of kindergarten-through-fifth-grade teachers spend only an hour a week on science. In that time, there's no way they can plow through the state's content standards, covering life, physical and earth sciences, let alone help students develop skills in the scientific method. An additional 16 percent report teaching no science at all. Sixty percent of 147 districts in
In a 2000 national survey, elementary school teachers reported two hours of science - nothing to brag about, but twice the valley average.
The state does not require elementary school teachers to take professional development in science. Faced with other requirements, most don't. Two-thirds of teachers report less than six hours of training in the last three years. One-third say they took none.
More than a quarter of Bay Area school districts offer no professional development in science. Some have eliminated science coordinators.
The federal No Child Left Behind Act tends to be a whipping boy for all gripes, and in this case, it is partly to blame. Both it and the state Academic Performance Index for elementary schools foster neglect of science by focusing almost exclusively on scores in math and English language arts.
The state starts testing students in science in fifth grade, but the results count for less than 10 percent of a school's API score - a disincentive for teaching it. Low-performing schools facing state and federal sanctions have been forced to drop science altogether.
Dropping science for more scripted reading and math time punishes children and reflects weaknesses in curricula and failures of adult imaginations.
It needn't be like this. There are isolated programs of excellence, and several emerging science and math education initiatives could make an impact.
An encouraging alternative is Seeds of Science/Roots of
This could be a watershed year. Most K-8 districts are choosing science textbooks. For the first time in seven years, thanks to another curriculum developed by the
The full research brief is available on the web at www.lawrencehallofscience.org/rea/bayareastudy.
A short video summarizing the findings is available here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqZUjR-Ex34.
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