Lack of Well-Trained Teachers and Effective Textbooks Stall Science Education
November 20, 2001
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The results are in from the 2000 National Assessment
of Educational Progress, and once again students are lagging in science education.
There has been no significant improvement in average scores or achievement
levels over the last four years.
George D. Nelson, director of Project 2061—a long-term education reform
initiative of the American Association for the Advancement of Science—believes
that prospects for the NAEP Science Assessment scores improving in the next
four years are small.
He offered a number of reasons why during a press conference today at the U.S.
Department of Education.
"It takes at least five years to produce tests and implement new curriculum
materials," Nelson said. "There continues to be deep-seated resistance
to change in the institutions that prepare our teachers, and states and local
communities have yet to commit to coherent long-term reform programs."
Unlike reading and mathematics, science education is still lacking some key
research components including well-crafted learning goals at the state level
and curriculum materials that are in line with those goals. Mostly, the lessons
and labs in each grade are created without consideration of what has come
before, what comes next, or what is happening in related classes.
"Unless immediate actions are taken to remedy all of these shortcomings
in science education, the prospects for improved science learning…will
remain grim for the foreseeable future," Nelson said.
Read Project 2061 Director George Nelson's remarks
at the Nov. 20 NAEP press conference
Contact
Information:
Mary
Koppal
(202) 326-6643
