Transcript Status of Science Education in the U.S.: On the Brink of

Status of Science Education in the U.S.:
On the Brink of Cultural Extinction
Joe Evans
April 16, 2013
Discussion Topics
• Status of Science, Technology, Engineering,
Mathematics (STEM) Education in the U.S.
• Factors contributing to the dismal performance.
Is the U.S. on the brink of cultural extinction?
Headlines – Washington Post
February 11, 2011
The Myth of Declining U.S. Schools:
They’ve Long Been Mediocre . . .
by Jay Matthew
Results of the International Adult Literacy
Survey (IALS) . . . by Age Groups (ETS)
Attending Schools in the . . .
Ranked . . .
fifties ………………………………….
2nd
sixties …………………………………
3rd
seventies …………………………….
5th
nineties ………………………………
14th
U.S. Department of Education's
National Commission on Excellence in
Education, A Nation At Risk, 1983
“By the year 2000, U.S. students will be
the first in the world in mathematics and
science achievement."
Third International Math Science Survey (TIMSS – 1995)
Third International Math Science Survey (TIMSS – 1995)
Third International Math Science Survey (TIMSS – 1995)
Dr. Pascal Forgione, U.S. Commissioner of Education
Statistics, National Center for Education Statistics,
1996-1999
“All signs point to a deterioration in the quality
of American schools. Europeans and Asians
alike have rapidly expanded their educational
systems over the last 50 years. In the United
States, stagnation if not decline has been
apparent at least since the 1970s.”
8th Grade Science by Countries
(TIMSS)
TIMSS（1995）
1.
Singapore
Czech
2.
Republic
3.
Japan
4.
South Korea
5.
Bulgaria
6.
Netherlands
7.
Slovenia
8.
Australia
9.
Hungary
England (and
10.
Wales)
TIMSS2003
TIMSS-R（1999）
607
574
571
565
565
560
560
558
554
552
1.
1.
569 2.
Taiwan
2.
Singapore 568 3.
3.
Hungary
552
4.
550 4.
Japan
5.
South Korea 549
5.
6.
Netherlands 545
6.
7.
Australia
540
7.
Czech
8.
539
8.
Republic
9.
England
538
10.
Finland
535 9.
Singapore
Taiwan
South
Korea
Hong
Kong
Estonia
Japan
Hungary
Netherlands
United
States
10.
Australia
TIMSS2007
578
Singapore
571 1.
2.
Taiwan
558 3.
Japan
4.
South Korea
556
England (and
5.
Wales)
552
Hungary
552 6.
Czech
543 7.
Republic
536
8.
Slovenia
9.
Hong Kong
527
10.
Russia
527
TIMSS2011
567
1.
561
2.
554
3.
553
4.
542 5.
6.
539
7.
539 8.
Singapore
Taiwan
South Korea
Japan
Finland
Slovenia
Russia
Hong Kong
England (and
538 9.
Wales)
530
10.
United States
530
590
564
560
558
552
543
542
535
533
525
8th Grade Math by Countries
(TIMSS)
U.S lag in science, math a disaster in the making
William J. Bennett, CNN Contributor – 2/9/2012
Indeed, when it comes to math and science, we don't just
fail compared to other industrialized nations, we fail
ourselves. Only 26% of our nation's high school seniors
perform at proficient levels or above in mathematics and
only 21% of our nation's high school seniors perform at
proficient levels or above in science.
Underprepared Students need Developmental
Education upon Matriculating into College
• Half of the state's (Texas) 473,487 community college
freshmen and a fifth of 103,900 public university freshmen
matriculating in the coming weeks will need developmental
education. (Statesman.com, Ralph K.M. Haurwitz, August 15,
2011)
• Ninety-four percent of Chicago Public Schools graduates who
go to city community colleges need remediation in math.
Most also need to work on basic reading and writing skills.
(EDBLOGS, Linking and thinking on education ,Joanne Jacobs)
• Eighty-five percent of California’s incoming community
college students aren’t prepared for college math and 70
percent aren’t ready for college English. (EDBLOGS, Linking
and thinking on education, Joanne Jacobs)
U.S. Department of Education
National Statistics
• Nationally, 34% of all new entering college students
and 43% of community college students required at
least one developmental education class.
• Many U.S. states enrolled between 30% and 40% of
their student bodies in some form of developmental
program, with some states reaching more than 50%
participation in student remediation
Portland Press Herald
Thursday, April 11, 2013
• Report: Maine grads more ready for college than
others (January 17)
• The new data shows that 12 percent of this year's freshmen in the
University of Maine System who came from Maine high schools
needed remedial work . . . compared to 24-39 percent for the rest
of New England.
• Maine's community colleges reported that 50 percent of this
year's freshmen from Maine high schools needed remedial
courses compared with an estimated average of 60 percent
nationwide.
• "I find it mind-boggling that anyone can suggest 50 percent is a
success," said David Connerty-Marin (Director of Communication,
Maine Department of Education)
Internationals Recruited for Advanced Degrees
and STEM Workforce
About 40,000 graduate
degrees were awarded to
foreign STEM students in
2009, with 10,000 of those
going to Ph.D. recipients.
Foreign-born residents in
the United States makes
substantial contributions to
international patent
creation (25.6% in 2006).
140,000 internationals and
families on visas to
perform work in the United
States – the majority of
them joined the STEM
workforce.
From Learning Subject Matter and Patriotism to
Social Re-engineering
“The public schools lack focus; instead of concentrating on
education, they dabble in social re-engineering.”
Jean McLaughlin, President, Barry University
“Half our job is education, and the other half is social work.”
Superintendent, Miami-Dade (FL) School District
Olympians
100 m sprint – 5.8 s
Usain Bolt – 9.58 s
Weightlifting – 1984 lbs
H. Rezazadeh – 578.6 lbs
High Jump – 16 ft
Javier Sotomayor – 8 ft
Unfavorable View of Academics
• Terms of Endearment
Geeks
Nerds
• In the 60s
Diabolical old men – mad scientist –
intent on blowing up the world
Eccentric old men – unkempt, disheveled
– the “Einsteinian” look
Science Curricula in the U.S.
Dr. Schmidt, TIMSS Research
Actual cause for the failure appears to be weak
math and science curricula in U.S. middle schools.
A typical U.S. eighth-grade math textbook deals
with about 35 topics. By comparison, a Japanese
or German math textbook for that age would have
only five or six topics.
Negative Impact of Science-Religion
Conflict on Science Teaching in U.S.
That evolution is the central organizing principle
of all the historical sciences is not a controversial
issue among scientists, nor among most of the
world’s educated persons. Consequently, the
teaching of science worldwide stresses evolution
as a routine matter. The United States is
exceptional in this regard.
JON D. MILLER, EUGENIE C. SCOTT, SHINJI
OKAMOTO – 2006 Science
Evolution Less
Accepted in
U.S. Than
Other Western
Countries
The State of State Science Standards 2012.
Thomas B. Fordham Institute
GOOD SCIENCE, BAD SCIENCE:
TEACHING EVOLUTION IN THE STATES
LAWRENCE S. LERNER, 2000
Huff Post Education
April 11, 2013
• The Science and Engineering Readiness Index (SERI)
measures how high school students are performing in
physics and calculus -- based on publicly available data,
including Advanced Placement scores, National
Assessment of Educational Progress reports, teacher
certification requirements by state and physics class
enrollment data.
• The SERI (range 1-5) was developed by Susan Wite
from the Statistical Research Center at the American
Institute of Physics and physicist Paul Cottle of Florida
State University.
State Rankings for Math and Science Education
Well Above Average
Above Average
Average
Rank
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
State
Massachusetts
Minnesota
New Jersey
New Hampshire
New York
Virginia
Maryland
Connecticut
Indiana
Maine
Florida
Illinois
South Dakota
Wisconsin
Colorado
Kansas
Kentucky
Vermont
Georgia
Washington
Utah
Pennsylvania
Tennessee
Ohio
Delaware
Michigan
Oregon
Wyoming
Montana
Below Average
Far Below Average
National Average
30
Idaho
31
Texas
32
North Dakota
33
Missouri
34
California
35
Rhode Island
36
North Carolina
37
Hawaii
38
Iowa
39
Alaska
40
South Carolina
41
Arkansas
42
Oklahoma
43
Nebraska
44
Nevada
45
Arizona
46
New Mexico
47
Alabama
48
Louisiana
49
West Virginia
50
Mississippi
--
--
SERI Performance Compared to Quality of
General Science Standards and General
Biological Evolution Standards
Science & Engineering Readiness
Index (SERI) - 2013
Grades on General
Science Standards
Grades on Biological Evolution
Standards
Lerner, 2000
GPA Score (4.0)
States: Well Above Average
2.20 – low C
2.40 – mid C
States: Far Below Average
1.22 – low D
1.33 – low D
Impact of Grade Inflation
Times quoted an education advocacy
group’s finding that “80 per cent of
college students taking remedial classes
[in 2008] had a high school GPA of 3.0 or
better.”
Inflation of High School Graduates’
GPA - 1996-2006
SAT Math Scores for High School
Students – 1996, 2001, & 2006
SAT Verbal Scores for High School
Students – 1996, 2001, & 2006
ACT Composite Scores vs. GPA for
High School Students – 1991 & 2003
National Average Grading Curves Versus Time for
Public and Private Schools – 1960, 1980, 2007
Distribution of Grades at American Colleges
and Universities as a Function of Time
How college students think they are more
special than EVER: Study reveals rocketing
sense of entitlement on U.S. campuses
By Daily Mail Reporter, January 2013
Young people's unprecedented level of self-infatuation was revealed
in a new analysis of the American Freshman Survey, which has been
asking students to rate themselves compared to their peers since
1966. About nine million young people have filled out the Survey
since its inception.
It asks students to rate how they measure up to their peers in a
number of basic skills areas - and over the past four decades, there
has been a dramatic rise in the number of students who describe
themselves as being "above average" for academic ability, drive to
achieve, mathematical ability and self-confidence.
American Students Self-Assessments
BBC News January 3, 2013
Does confidence really breed success?
By William Kremer BBC World Service (Analyses by Psychologist Twenge & Associates)
• A 2006 study led by John Reynolds of Florida State University
found that students are increasingly ambitious, but also
increasingly unrealistic in their expectations, creating what
he calls "ambition inflation".
American Students Self-Assessments
While the Freshman Survey shows that
students are increasingly likely to label
themselves as gifted in writing ability,
objective test scores indicate that
actual writing ability has gone down
since the 1960s. (Twenge)
American Students Self-Assessments
And while in the late 1980s, almost half of
students said they studied for six or more
hours a week, the figure was little over a
third by 2009 - a fact that sits rather oddly,
given there has been a rise in students'
self-proclaimed drive to succeed during
the same period. (Twenge)
Dr. Pascal Forgione
“We currently base our high school policies on
two contradictory assumptions: (1) adolescents
are responsible enough to choose their own
curriculum from the shopping mall of choices
available, and (2) adolescents should not be held
responsible for their performance. Testing
expectations should be minimal, and graduation
requirements should be easily achievable. No
wonder the United States is desperately searching
for ways to import talent from abroad.”
From Bondage . . . To Bondage
From bondage to spiritual faith,
From spiritual faith to great courage,
From courage to liberty,
From liberty to abundance,
From abundance to selfishness,
From selfishness to complacency,
From complacency to apathy,
From apathy to dependency,
From dependency back again to bondage.