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

Creationism

[VA Software]

What do you expect in a country where many states outlaw the teaching of science in favour of mythology?

Re:Creationism

[NonSequor]

This is a very good point.

Everyone needs to stop for a moment and reevaluate their thoughts on the issue. I do not "believe" in evolution. Instead, I consider it to be the most plausible explanation, which I have heard, of how humans and other creatures came about.

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.

Theory of evolution critical to this

[PD]

The theory of evolution is critical to the teaching of science, especially biology. Besides being arguably the most amazing scientific theory ever, it forms the backbone of biology. Biology is simply impossible to teach unless it is tightly integrated with evolution.

The religious right has failed at the national political level, but has had great success at the local level. It is CRITICAL that we stop this trend. Their plan to remove evolution from school curriculums, or if that fails, to force the teaching of creation science (which is a ridiculous idea, to say the least) would cause unbelievable harm to science education.

Teaching people to think is the best goal of a basic science education. The theory of evolution is so important to our lives now, and if it is properly taught, biology/evolution can form the nucleus of a healthy skeptical and scientific thinking process.

Re:Theory of evolution critical to this

[NonSequor]

This was also a little sarcasm and frustration on my part because it is a reference that has been overused so much in the last two months.

It's been overused for a lot longer than the last two months.

Re:Theory of evolution critical to this

[PD]

You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Don't like the tone of my argument? My complete disrespect for creation science is hardly anything compared to the morally repugnant act of lying to people and twisting facts.

Evolution is a science, that's why it is taught. No other theory of life's origins are accepted by science, not because of political reasons, but because the other theories fall flat on their ass.

Science class is not a place where the lie of creation science should be given an iota of respect. It does not deserve it.

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!).

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. ;(

Re:America's future

[gnovos]

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. ;(


But then, after we have banned all the "dangerous" books (Harry Potter included), melted all the guns, GPS tagged all the citizens, filtered all the email, had the bible be the only officially allowed carry-on, and surrounded ourselves with missle defence shields, FINALLY we will be 100% safe from ALL the Bad Things...

The numbers look pretty constant to me

[hubie]

I have great concern regarding the emphasis and quality of science and mathematics teaching in the primary and secondary schools in the US. I believe much more can and should be done to improve the teaching, retention, and understanding for these subjects from K-12. Having said that, I looked at the stats on the science test results and things basically have not changed, so I think that, based on the test results, it is a bit misleading to say that we are doing worse as a nation.

The score changes from the 1996 test show only a statistical difference in the 12th grade results, and these differences are marginal at best. Even within the statistically different 12th grade results, the only statistical change was in the group that scored in the 50-percentile (a promising stat from that figure is that there was a statictically significant increase in the top performing 8th graders).

One graph that I found troubling was the one showing the numbers above and below basic proficiency levels for the 12th graders, where the numbers falling below understanding the basics increased. We can hope that this is a statistical fluctuation and not the start of a trend.

By the way, the web site is very impressive in how much information is presented from the test question to the error on the test results. My biggest beef with statistics reported in the media is that they either never give error bars, or they'll ignore the errors; they'll report political poll results as one candidate ahead in the polls even if that person is ahead by less than the margin of error (this leads to the whole topic of basic ignorance of relative risk and you don't want to get me going on that rant!).

French Education

[tsarina]

My French teacher was ranting on this a few weeks ago. French students have it so tough... They have this gigantic test at the end of their senior year (and it's not a joke at all like our standardized tests) and if they fail, they don't graduate. Without a diploma, there's almost no way you can get employed but as a waitress, etc. So people end up in high school for ages, trying again and again. It's really tough, perhaps cruel, but it keeps les français at a very high standard of education.

Compared with other countries, American education is a joke. I attend a public school ranked 33rd in the nation, and I take the AP/Enriched courses whenever possible... and I still am able to slack off. French foreign exchange students soon become drunkards and party animals here - because it's such a letdown from their previous education. They no longer have to work for their grades. This cannot be sustained. We've become used to being on top of the world, but comparing the sad state of our education to that of other countries, eventually the power balance has got to shift.

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:Conjecture and Refutation.

[PD]

I was the original poster.

You won't find disagreement here that Popper needs to have serious coverage. That should form the basis of a course, DEFINITELY included into the teaching of evolution and biology in high school.

And I would also add that in college, it should be a requirement that all students take an in-depth course covering scientific philosophy. The deliverable should be more than one term paper examining specific topics in depth, and only essay tests should be allowed. That course should be really hard so that people understand the most important thing about an education - learning to think.