Nations Report Card For Science

quakeaddict writes: "The US Dept of Education released the Nations Report Card for Science. Compared to 1996, it seems as if we as a nation are doing worse.The site also has cool tools to see how various states performed in other subjects.. There is also a very cool interactive tool that provides a wealth of information about how well kids did in all the subjects crossed with all sorts of questions (e.g. What was Johnnys score if he says he watched 1, 2 or 3 hours of TV a day etc...)."

Comments

Don't *even* tell us about English then...

[btlzu2]

I know most people don't care about grammar anymore, but come on folks, English is simple compared to the brainwork required for technical, scientific, and mathematical subjects. Look at this submittal and its title. There are 3 apostrophes missing--maybe this is sounding anal to a lot of you, but apostrophes are simple to remember and denote possession.

Nation's report card. Johnny's score.

If we can't teach English properly so we can communicate consistently, then what's the use of worrying about science?

Re:Don't *even* tell us about English then...

[Man of E]

If you look at the page, you'll see they also gave a writing test. What's odd about it is that they don't give nearly as much information about the results as, say, in mathematics. Whereas for maths they give detailed information about how well (or badly) students scored in specific fields, compared to other grades, national averages and so forth, the results from the writing test are not very interesting. Here are the major findings (right off the site):

• Female students had higher average scores than their male peers.
• Students eligible for the free/reduced price lunch program had lower average scores than students not eligible for this program.
• Generally, the higher the level of parental education reported by students, the higher the average writing scores.
• Students who reported saving, or whose teachers saved, their writing work in folders or portfolios had higher average scores than students whose work was not saved.
• Students at grades 8 and 12 who were always asked to write more than one draft of a paper had higher average scale scores than did their peers who were sometimes or never asked to do so.

Now, when I was in school, my report card never said "he writes much better when he's had chocolate frosted sugar bombs for breakfast," or "he writes like a girl." Grades are grades, and the above clearly are not. After looking through the report on English, I know just as little as before about whether kids can write. Something interesting to do might be to conduct a writing test on an international level, much along the lines of what was done for maths a year or two ago (in which, by the way, the US failed miserably). This could be used to compare writing levels in different English-speaking countries and actually give us a more objective idea about where we stand compared to the UK or Singapore or South Africa, and so forth.
Not that, were I in charge of education, I'd know what to change based on those results...

It might still be interesting to see the long-term trend assessment that's planned for next year.

America's future

[Mad Quacker]

Overvaluation of .com's is what killed most of them, here you see a microcosm of the american economy. Do something, or be perpared.

America will not be able to sustain its present level of wealth or technological growth in the long term. Technology is the only reason we still have growth and wealth at all. It is the reason we decide to pay $7 an hour to flip burgers, while in many other countries you would get the equivalent of 2 cents an hour. The same goes for many other menial jobs that somehow people make careers out of, very little education, skill, or talent is required. This is why there are illegal immigrants en masse.

We can only support a limited number of these type of people, dependant of the creative output of the scientists and engineers. If we are in short supply of these producers, we have a definite problem.

This state has existed for a few decades, this is why you see so many asians that are scientists, engineers, and doctors. 2+ billion poor but educated and hard-working people, the few that can afford to come to america do. This trend cannot last forever, China and India are on the verge of becoming powerhouses, they have the same talent we have, X 100 for the same cost we pay for it!

This is all ignoring the fact that government won't work properly with these mal-educated people, shown by local governing bodies banning evolution. It is only a matter of time until this spreads to higher government, at which time we will filter out all important but secular information out of the internet. All scientific books will be banned because they can enable a person to question god, create explosives, toxic gases, or drugs. That is of course if current trends continue. ;(

TV makes you smarter?

[pdqlamb]

Did you notice the part about TV watching? Looks like there's a peak in the test scores for kids watching around 2-3 hours per school day.

As a parent, I wasn't surprised to see the dip with 5-6 hours (or more) - how are they supposed to homework? But, given what my children watch, I'm surprised it has any positive influence. Or is this a side effect of the socio-economic factors - kids whose families can afford a TV score better than those who can't? (How many families don't own a TV any more? I'd have thought that was vanishingly small!)

Re:Theory of evolution critical to this

[OmegaDan]

The evolution debacle is just a hash mark on the thermometer of ignorance ...

The real truth is, theres an uneducated underclass in the US. Its the *underclass* thats getting larger and dragging down test scores.

Ignorance breeds ignorace, and ignorance breeds quickly. There is alot of things wrong with our educational system -- but one thing people don't want to admit is the old addage is true for education *garbage in, garbage out.* In america we have the freedom to be ignorant, and people are excercising that option en masse (sp?). Teachers are not miracle workers, they can't make up for bad parents, and a bad socio-economic condition. Plus, we've handicaped teachers in every way, they're not allowed to discipline students, teach science like evolution, or in some cases in a langauge that students understand! In california it is now *illegal* to teach classes in anything but english ...

One of my family members (we have 5 teachers in my immediate family) assigned a report to his class, a particular black girl drew the subject "apples." When it was due the girl had nothing to turn in, he called her mother, and she came down to the school and screamed her head off about the assignment being racist because "black people don't eat apples." she also said, "she'd be happy to do a report on sweet potatos because black people eat those." *TRUE STORY*

Teachers have to deal with the *shit* of society, and someones is going to reply to me and ask why private schools can give consistent good educations -- its because private schools can *kick students out*, they don't have to take the crack babies, the ADD kids, the kid who my mother taught who had a habit of sitting under the lunch benches asking girls to touch his penis (in the second grade!).