Effecting Change at School and District Levels

It can be a challenge for a regular classroom teacher to change or improve the science program in a school and/or district. I currently work for a K – 5 charter school where our administration pre-determines our curriculum based on the standards set forth by the state. Unfortunately, science is not tested by the state until fifth grade while testing for both math and reading begin in the third grade. Students in grades three and four, who we consider “at-risk” for passing their state assessments in math and reading, generally receive extra instruction in these areas which dramatically reduces the amount of time they receive science instruction. This poses an additional challenge for our fifth grade science teacher who has to prepare all of our fifth graders for their state assessment in science, which measures everything they should have learned in grades three through five. Without a solid basis in science during grades three and four, it only makes sense that many of our students do not pass their state assessment in science each year.

During staff meetings and professional development days, I often bring up the topic of improving our science curriculum. The response I typically receive from my administration is that our students need a stronger background in reading and math before we extend our focus on science instruction. We are encouraged to integrate some state science standards into our math and reading lessons but only on a limited basis. Our reading teachers are instructed to incorporate some science related passages into their reading curriculum and our math teachers are asked to incorporate data collection and analysis whenever possible. Although our fifth graders generally receive about fifty minutes of science instruction each day, the rest of our students receive dramatically less. Needless to say, I feel this is doing a disservice to our students.

I am curious what other suggestions or comments anyone can share that will assist me in getting my school’s administration to understand the importance of improving the quality of our science instruction.

Keeping Up with Global Competition

In his article, Thomas Friedman (2010) presents his perspective on what the United States must do to keep up with global competition in the future. For a while now, I have felt that our country needs to start spending less money on the war on terrorism and more money on improving our own nation’s economy. I find it interesting how Friedman (2010) was hoping we would reduce the reward for killing or capturing Osama bin Laden. I cannot even begin to imagine how much money we spent overall taking him down a few months ago. It is not that I feel we should completely end our efforts with the war on terrorism but I feel that we should also we making an honest effort to keep up with global competition.

The increased focus on STEM education in the United States is definitely a step in the right direction but I truly feel this is not enough. Just increasing our focus on STEM education is not going to dramatically improve our nation’s economy. Michael Mandelbaum states, “Our response to Sputnik made us better educated, more productive, more technologically advanced and more ingenious” which Friedman (2010) believes revived our education, infrastructure and science and propelled us for 50 years. This poses the question as whether we need a new Sputnik-like event to spark attention and commitment to science education reform to bring it back to the forefront of global competition. Countries like Taiwan have “amassed the fourth-largest foreign currency reserves in the world” and are said to have gotten rich “digging inside themselves, unlocking their entrepreneurs, not digging for oil” (Friedman, 2010). Personally, I do not think we should need a new Sputnik-like event to motivate our country to bring back a greater commitment to science education reform. We should already have the desire to help our nation keep up with, or stay ahead of, the rest of the world.

For right now, I think more focus needs to be place on science education reform at the state and local levels. In many school districts, too much emphasis is being placed on reading and math instruction with science following as a close third. With the highly technological society we live in, I feel that more emphasis needs to be on integrating STEM related skills across the curriculum. If individual states and/or school districts are not on the same page when it comes to science education reform, I believe it will be difficult for the United States to keep up with global competition.

Reference:

Friedman, T. L. (2010, January 17). What’s our sputnik? [Op-Ed]. The New York Times [Late Edition (East Coast)], p. WK.8.