Save Our Science: How to Inspire a New Generation of Scientists (Kindle Single) (TED Books) by Ramirez Ainissa

Author:Ramirez, Ainissa [Ramirez, Ainissa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: TED Conferences
Published: 2013-01-28T03:00:00+00:00

* * *

Image: S.J. Driscoll / Creative Commons

Repeal or modify NCLB

When I was a child, one of my favorite Aesop’s Fables was the tale of “The Ant and the Grasshopper.” It is a story about how the ant prepared for winter by storing food, while the grasshopper was dilly-dallying all summer long. Here is a spoiler alert: This lack of preparation did not work out well for the grasshopper. In STEM, a country like India or China is the ant, and the U.S. is the grasshopper.

Here is some hard evidence to show the disparity in preparation. While visiting India to fulfill a lifelong dream to see the Taj Mahal, I was struck with both elation and despair. I was excited to see this magnificent structure, but on the drive to it, I was in shock when I noticed there was a new engineering school every 30 miles or so. STEM is a huge priority in India!

So India is the ant in the fable. While America is the grasshopper, but we don’t mean to be. We’re just dilly-dallying and focusing on the wrong thing — the tests and scores. We are suffering from a paralysis of analysis. That is, we are too busy trying to figure out the best strategy to treat the patient (STEM, in this case), when what we really need to do is just treat the patient. STEM is on the gurney and we are still looking at its chart. What is keeping us so distracted? Four simple letters: N. C. L. B.

In 1965, Lyndon Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), with the intention of improving education for the disadvantaged by setting high standards and accountability. In 2001, George W. Bush reauthorized ESEA as the No Child Left Behind Act, but for many, this became known as the No Child Left Untested act. This yearly statewide assessment (read: yearly tests!) focuses on reading and math, and the performance is directly linked to funding.

NCLB misses the mark for several reasons. Now that schools are grade focused and this leads to money and jobs, schools are going to do everything possible to make their scores look good. In essence, they teach to the test. This behavior was predicted to happen long ago. Ironically, Everett Lindquist, a creator of standardized tests, was a proponent of not teaching to tests. He wrote that “undue emphasis upon average test results, upon school-to-school and teacher-to-teacher comparisons . . . may cause the teacher . . . to neglect the interests of the pupils, and to be concerned instead with subject matter objectives and with higher average scores for their own sake”40,41 — as opposed to, say, using the tests to pinpoint individual students’ needs and to track their growth.

There were other unintended consequences of NCLB testing. By not including science tests as a measure of achievement, this legislation has caused the reduction in — and in some cases, the complete elimination of — science being taught in class. Schools have gained the mindset that “if it is not tested, then it is not taught.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.