"Before It's Too Late:
A Report to the Nation from the National Commission on Math and Science Teaching"
In 1999, Secretary of Education Richard Riley assembled a panel of 25 distinguished educators, politicians, and corporate officers (including Senator Edward Kennedy, the CEO of Intel, and a Professor of Math Education at U of M), chaired by former Astronaut John Glenn. This commission was charged with investigating the quality of math and science education in the nation, and identifying areas for improvement. To see the full report, click here. Below are some interesting excerpts.
Page 4. "From mathematics and the sciences will come the products, services, standard of living, and economic and military security that will sustain us at home and around the world. From them will come the technological creativity American companies need to compete effectively in the global marketplace. 'Globalization' has occurred. Economic theories of a few years ago are now a reality. Goods, services, ideas, communication, businesses, industries, finance, investment, and jobs- the good jobs- are increasingly the competitive currency of the international marketplace"
Page 13. "'Knowledge work' is replacing low-end low-wage jobs. In 1950, 80% of jobs were classified as 'unskilled'; now, and estimated 85% of all jobs are classified as 'skilled.' A telling example is found in machine tooling. The operators of today's computer-numerically-controlled technology now need sophisticated skills, commonly including computer programming and knowledge of calculus."
Page 38. Recommendations for School Board and Superintendent Team-
Nowhere in this report does it recommend semester science courses in 9th and 10th grades. Indeed, the findings call for developing policies based on accurate data rather than intuition about what might work. This report urges raising the level of what's taught and teaching more, not less. Moving from full-year courses to semester courses means some students will only learn 60% as much of that subject matter as they learned before. Moving Earth Science benchmarks from 8th grade to high school is not going to promote a higher level of student achievement.
Some have argued that semester courses will be less efficient than full years due to the time it takes to become oriented in each subject at the beginning of each term and ramp up to full speed. This report points out that students need to be well prepared for life after high school, and in today's world, that requires a more in-depth knowledge of science than ever before. Now is not the time to water down the curriculum by teaching semester survey courses instead of full-year courses in each of the core sciences.
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