Comparison of Science Viewpoints

Portage Schools Administration says:

• There are gaps in our current program and it would be unethical not to correct those gaps.

Parents say:

• It is hard to understand how more material to cover gaps could be covered when the proposal recommends shortening the courses- OK, add missing material to existing full-year courses, without significantly watering down the rest of the content in those courses.
• Change the current science requirement from "2 years of science" to "at least one semester of each core science, biology, chemistry and physics.
• It is unethical to teach experimental courses to all students that have not yet been written, let alone implemented and evaluated somewhere for quality and effectiveness.

Portage Schools Administration says:

• We looked at schools with block scheduling who teach semester science courses.

Parents say:

• Block scheduling classes are longer class hours, designed to represent a full-year equivalent course.

Portage School Administration says:

• We looked at Port Moody Schools in Canada, an IB school

Parents say:

• Why look in Canada where there is not data showing performance and effectiveness of the program?
• Port Moody's program is integrated science, which is different
• Why not look at the IB Academy in Bloomfield Hills, MI, which has standardized test scores published, including MEAP, which no other state or country uses? And which has been selected the BEST school in all the US by Newsweek just June 2003.

Portage School Administration says:

• It is impossible to run a pilot to get good data unless you include the entire population.

Parents say:

• There are models in medicine and even in education where pilots are run and results assessed with a high level of credibility.
• If you don't want to pilot the program first, then only teach it to 2-year science students where there is a stronger case for improvement, rather than risking the current very good performance of the full-year courses as measured for students who take three or more years of science. Adding the missing benchmarks to these full-year classes is a more reasonable way to promote performance increases for the 3- and 4-year science students.

Portage School Administration says:

• It would be too costly or difficult in scheduling to offer both alternatives (semesters and years).

Parents say:

• Run the semester option and shore-up the yearlong version to make it honors. This retains the two-option strategy.
• What other things is Portage spending money on that are more important than improving overall science proficiency for all students? Are our priorities ordered properly?

Portage School Administration says:

• We must trust our teachers, they are the professionals.

Parents say:

• We do trust the teachers, especially to teach, which they are very professional at. However, the curriculum process used is new this year and has flaws in it. The teachers were given unreasonable guidelines, limited time and no access to outside information or scientific consultants (uch as what other schools are doing or what background is needed to practice science in the outside world), and limited access to data (like MEAP, SAT, ACT and other measurements) for our students. The weaknesses in the recommendation are not a reflection on the teachers involved.
• We also trust the many scientists who live and work in our community, and we hear what they say too (many are parents).

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