High school students' science abilities dropping...

[BlooInBloo]

According to a recent study...

"The first science test administered in five years across the United States shows that achievement among high school seniors has declined across the past decade, even as scores in science rose among fourth-graders and held steady among eighth-graders, the U.S. Department of Education has reported.

The falling average science test scores among high school students, announced Wednesday, appeared certain to increase anxiety about American academic competitiveness and to add new urgency to calls from President George W. Bush, governors and philanthropists like Bill Gates for an overhaul of American high schools."

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/05/25/news/science.php


This is obviously a somewhat complex issue, and there are surely many reasons for it. I just want to mention *one* that no teacher will ever tell you: teachers are often unqualified:

"There was some debate about how to explain the 12th-grade declines. Assistant Secretary of Education Tom Luce said they reflected a national shortage of fully qualified science teachers, especially in poor regions, where physics and chemistry classes are often taught by teachers untrained in those subjects.

'We lack enough teachers with content knowledge in math and science," Luce said. "We have too few teachers with majors or minors in math and science. That clearly is a problem.' "


Shorter version: too many education majors, not enough majors in academic topics.

Education is a wonderful field to be in - I love it and value it. But populating it with people who know how to teach a subject they know little about seems like a recipe for failure to me.

[Selatius]

1. The answer, to me, is two-fold

1. Get more qualified teachers
2. Cut classroom sizes by a significant percent

The problem is how to get there. We spend 400+ billion on national defense and war, but we spend roughly 34 billion on K-12 public education. What message does that send to society?

[BlooInBloo]

2. I'd tack on a third, which seems independent of your 2....

3. Improve parenting/family lifestyles in relevant ways.

Not sayin' I know exactly how to achieve these 3, jus' sayin these three are what my goal would be,

[Massacure]

10. I have to agree with you.

As a senior, I am taking A.P. Physics, or at least I was until the exam. Anyways, in my experience, a vast majority of kids do not do all of their homework. A "normal" person will only study enough to get a C. A "dedicated" student will study hard enough to get an A and the "intelligent" will get an A whether they do their homework or not Then the "intelligent" students and the "dedicated" students get to take advanced placement classes. The people who are both "devoted" and "intelligent" will get the good grades, A's and B's. The "devoted" who are not "intelligent" will try to get good grades but will end up with C's, still very respectable in advanced placement classes. The "intelligent" that are not "devoted" will get C's if they are geniuses but will barely pass if they are "only" "smarter than normal".

I feel like such an asshole explaining it by profiling people in social groups, but I don't know any other way to explain it.

[BlooInBloo]

13. I'm with ya in spirit, but I think the details differ....

... In addition to the people you've described, I've also experienced substantial amounts of the following types of people:

1) idiots getting A's, because the material is so dumbed-down that anyone who simply consistently turns in homework is practically guaranteed an A.

2) smart kids getting C's because they're bored with doing work intended for dumbed-down idiots.

[ixion]

3. ironically, if * gets his type of 'overhaul'

students test scores will plummet as they start talking about 'intelligent design' :eyes:

[BlooInBloo]

4. Not if they change the test questions... LOLOL

Then we'll be geniuses!!!

:rofl:

[Stinky The Clown]

5. This could change when wesee a pattern of leadership that **values**

intellectuals and science and arts and philosophers and all the 'thinkers' we've come to villify by example from the evil that has gripped our country for at least the last 6 years.

When John Glenn and Scott Crossfield and Burt Ruttan and Michael DeBakey and Ben Carson are more respected than the latest member of the '15 Minute Brigade' of former Idols and Survivors and Apprentices we'll be far beter off.

[BlooInBloo]

7. I think the best source of that leadership is the parents....

I don't think American parents, as an aggregate, instill much appreciation for intelligence in their kids.

And its hard to make up that lack in other places.

[Stinky The Clown]

8. I agree. Parents play the biggest role .....

Unfortunately parents are people. And maybe, as people, and as parents, they might be just too old and too set to see much change in their behavior and parenting skills.

But consider .... just what if ...... what if our popular culture were to to start celebrating people of **actual** achievment. not o throw off the pop culture icons, but to add to those icons serious people, too. I'm put in mind Of Carl Sagan, the Cornell professor who, a few decades back, was all over teevee, almost rock star-like talking in easy to understand ways about science in general, and space (The Cosmos) in particular.

It isn't hard to create role models and national heros. It takes little more than some media attention. And then the parents can take up the charge.

Our media and pop culture are incredibly powerful devices. Used well they can turn this country to any path they (we) choose.

[BlooInBloo]

9. Yuppers. It may be the case that America NEEDS a generation of idiots...

... and lose wages due to outsourcing and what-not, to appreciate the value (even in crude monetary terms) of intelligence. They can then instill a "son, don't make the same mistake I made" value in them...

I dunno... just speculatin...


On your examples - don't forget Bill Nye and Alton Brown! lol

[Stinky The Clown]

11. don't forget Bill Nye and Alton Brown!

Eggggg-zakly!

In my childhood there were many such people to look up to and admire. In my adulthood there were.

Can anyone today name a cancer researcher? Or a physicist? Even an astronaut?

[BlooInBloo]

12. Yah - Brian Greene is an excellent speaker.... His pop stuff almost...

... counts as real - it's so good...

[Massacure]

14. I'm 17, I can't answer number 1 but can number 2 and 3.

Cancer Researcher? No clue.

Physicist? Newton, Einstein, Bernoulli, Hawking, that guy who discovered electromagnetism by spinning the wire around the magnet, grr his name is at the tip of my tongue, it's making my blood boil. :mad:

Astronauts: Armstrong, Aldrin, Sephard, Grisom, White, Chaffee, McAulife (did I spell this right?)

Edit: FARADAY!!! That's who I'm thinking of!

[JVS]

6. I think we should deport these HS students and give foreign students...

visas to come here and get better scores. This will send the message to our students that they are replaceable.

[G2099]

15. Is the American "culture" geared toward science and mathematics?

[XemaSab]

16. A lot of high school science is really boring

Very little of it seemed at all practical or interesting, and I think a lot of that is that the teachers are unqualified.

Some of the blame needs to lie with the students too... most young people are not serious about learning, because it's boring.

[eppur_se_muova]

19. Learning is not boring. Rote memorization is boring.

Most american kids have no idea how interesting learning is because they haven't really been exposed to anything beyond the three R's -- and only the absolute minimum of that.

[BlooInBloo]

20. What a perfect example of an American.... sigh....

[XemaSab]

21. What the hell do you mean by that?

I have a degree in science, and I'm here to say that very little of the HS science I had was at all engaging. And we wonder why kids hate science. :shrug:

[Spangle]

17. What about school size

I've seen it mentioned about class size. But what about these mega HS that are build in highly populated areas? I really don't think they work out well. The list is to long.

But as far as this topic goes.. Any time there are focus/computition, etc... only so many in a school get the medal. Huge schools? Only 3. Break those schools up, 3 from each of those schools.

Smaller schools are friendly. Teachers are less likely to suffer burn out. They are also safer. More likely to keep teachers. Less likely like a killin zone.

[Bozita]

18. Reminds me of "Innumeracy" by John Allen Paulos

I read it about 15 years ago. Interesting and entertaining.

Here's the Amazon stuff on it:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0809058405/sr=8-1/qid=1148786576/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-0298987-8216029?%5Fencoding=UTF8

[treestar]

22. Always blaming the teachers but if the students aren't interested

they aren't interested. The teachers shouldn't have to motivate them all alone.

It's our society that makes nerds of scientists. Face it our society values athletes and movie stars the most. Teachers can't counter the whole society by themselves.

[malaise]

23. This logical deterioration was not so

intelligently designed