Science Ability Down in U.S. High Schools

An anonymous reader writes "According to the International Herald Tribune, a nationwide test has shown that the ability to reason scientifically is less well developed across the board for high schoolers. Fourth graders, ironically, are actually better at reasoning in the sciences now than they were ten years ago." From the article: "The drop in science proficiency appeared to reflect a broader trend in which some academic gains made in elementary grades and middle school have been seen to fade during the high school years. The science results come from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a comprehensive examination administered in early 2005 by the Department of Education to more than 300,000 students in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and on U.S. military bases around the world."

Comments

That's what happens

[0racle]

That's what happens when the most important part of your 'academic' life is the Football team.

Re:That's what happens

[mctk]

Well, football has always been (and will always be?) the most important part of some students' academic life for years. But I don't think that's the main issue. To me, it's a question of two things: student work ethic and curriculum.

We Americans are very good at pointing at others and coming up with excuses. But I'll tell you, the Asian students I have aren't good at math because they're Asian, they're good because they (gasp!) actually do homework. That's an investment most students don't care to make.

And why should they? Our curriculum presents science as a static, lifeless adventure. It's a collection of worksheets and vocab lists. The teacher has all of the answers; it's simply a question of memorizing the correct response.

We need a curriculum that supports inquiry and thought. We need to give students the responsibility of choice and experimentation. We need to get them generating real results and using those in real world situations. Reasoning and problem solving skills do not come without authentic practice.

Re:That's what happens

[gardyloo]

Partially agreed with this. *HOWEVER*...

      At my high school (ten years ago, admittedly), the people most into the drugs and alcohol (openly to their fellow students, anyway) were among the smartest people in the school. That's not to disparage the other students, but it seemed to me that among the stoners and drinkers were some very smart (and very bored) kids. Very many of these students are now remarkably successful (by any metric) and happy, several with Ph.D.s.
      It seems that, at least *sometimes*, students into the drugs and alcohol are simply doing that because they're bored with the curriculum (which is, oftentimes, not challenging enough). There are exceptions to this and every human situation, but to blame drugs and alcohol might be misdirected.

Re:That's what happens

[Senjutsu]

We Americans are very good at pointing at others and coming up with excuses. But I'll tell you, the Asian students I have aren't good at math because they're Asian, they're good because they (gasp!) actually do homework. That's an investment most students don't care to make.

And why should they? Our curriculum presents science as a static, lifeless adventure. It's a collection of worksheets and vocab lists. The teacher has all of the answers; it's simply a question of memorizing the correct response.

A better question might be: why do Asian students make that investment, given that their education systems generally focuses on rote memorization and the ability to lifelessly regurgitate solutions on command? If you want to create a curriculum that supports inquiry and free though, don't look to East Asia for inspiration.

Re:That's what happens

[sinclair44]

We need a curriculum that supports inquiry and thought. We need to give students the responsibility of choice and experimentation. We need to get them generating real results and using those in real world situations. Reasoning and problem solving skills do not come without authentic practice.

That is why my AP Physics class is so awesome. We have a great teacher who actually understands that. Calculators are allowed on nearly every test, and he realizes that we will put all the formulae for the chapter into our calculators' memories (and he will even show you how to do it if you ask). But that's really very little help if you don't have the problem solving skills to apply what you know, and often make a small leap of intuition -- that's what the class is mainly about: not memorizing a bunch of physics formlae, but learning how to apply what you know and put it together in new and sometimes strange ways to solve a problem.

Re:That's what happens

[Potor]

No, that's what happens when your gov't realises it must decide between having an intelligent, capable population, and a population that is easily lead.

I am not sure that there is an actual correlation between decreasing scientific ability and the unquestioning surrender of civil rights, but since both are occuring simultaneously in the USA, well, perhaps this needs to be studied.

Re:That's what happens

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

Our education system is designed to produce slaves, not scientists.

Our educational system is actually designed to produce reliable, highly-paid assembly line workers.

The problem is, there are no highly-paid assembly line jobs any more. But at the dawn of the 20th century, when this system was congealing into what it has become, it was actually fairly well-suited to the goals of society... and it did a decent job getting kids in shape for what people thought they would be doing.

The world is different and our conception of education hasn't caught up to it. Read "Fast Times at Fairmont High" for Vernor Vinge's take on what's going to be needed. It seems pretty likely, at least in broad outline.

I went to a US high school...

[St. Arbirix]

but I'm not sure what this article is talking about. :-(

From the article

[Wellington Grey]

The falling average science test scores among high school students, announced Wednesday, appeared certain to increase anxiety about American academic competitiveness and to add new urgency to calls from President George W. Bush

Yes, if anyone can save science education in the US it's going to be Dubya.

-Grey

Re:From the article

[Wellington Grey]

Why was my comment modded troll? Is it at all suprising that people are less interested in science and teaching when a man like Bush is in charge? This administration expresses active hatred for scientific knowledge. You may be interested to know that I'm an American and a physics teacher, but I work abroad and have no intentions of ever trying to teach in America after I had a friend fired in New York for mentioning the existence of evolution in a class.

-Grey

Re:From the article

[phantomlord]

Is it at all suprising that people are less interested in science and teaching when a man like Bush is in charge?

I graduated 11 years ago and Bill Clinton didn't inspire me to do anything with science either. The reason why you got modded down, I'm sure, is simply because you just had to throw a Bush attack into something he isn't remotely responsible for. Science and math education have been sliding for years before he even thought about running for President.

The way science and math are taught these days aren't conducive to learning science and math, much less making kids inspired enough to seriously considering a future with them. More cool stuff in science class, make sure the kids get the basics at an early age in math and then do fun stuff as they get older with it.

In 6th grade, we spent the whole year working on the biology of whales, learning how an ecosystem worked, etc and that culminated in a weekend fieldtrip for anyone who got a passing grade to the Atlantic Ocean three states away to go on a whale watch. THAT was fun and we all learned a lot that year. The same year, we took a few days and built our own model rockets, launched them and used a protractor with plumb string from a fixed distance to measure how high they went (we didn't even know what trig was yet but we were already having a blast using it to see who's rocket went the highest). We also learned how to develop (black and white) film, made our own prints and did all kinds of great stuff that year without even knowing that we were learning about math and science until we look back on it.

I guess I'll have to thank Reagan and Bush41 for their inspiring leadership in 1988 instead of the very talented teachers who creatively taught us by making it interesting.

Remeber

[Kortec]

Despite the fact that our universities are filled with foreign nationals, as there simply aren't enough smart Americans to fill them, and as the rest of the world laughs at us for stupid things we do academically (like not adapting to the metric system, or teaching people interesting math or science), we can all take comfort in the fact that No Child Is Left Behind.

Except for all those poor kids, I guess, but who's counting?

Lazy

[Hiro2k]

Most high school seniors are lazy and blow off thier senior year. Add to that the fact that most of them don't care about tests that don't affect your grade, and you get those results. In my HS when we were given "extra" tests, a lot of my classmates would skip class or just fill in bubbles.

As a high school senior...

[Anonymous Coward]

...I think there's a big problem with apathy. Most students just don't care about learning. There's a few of us that take honors/ap classes and go to good universities, but the majority are just going through the motions to get out of high school. I also blame a lack of competitive spirit--it gets beaten out of us so nobody can be made to feel bad, the same reason my school no longer does anything to honor academic excellence like it does for sports.

The blame really belongs with the parents, of course. My parents are why I worked to get into the computer science program at UCI.

Re:As a high school senior...

[Kortec]

Yeah, I'd have to agree. In some respects, our cultural trend towards political correctness has really come back to bit us. There's a trend towards mediocrity, as we leave the door open for the unmotivated or unable as long as possible. The result of this is that the students that really could be doing interesting things (weither that happens to be linear algebra, or Chaucer) in their early years are kept in pretty repetative classes, or meaningless requirements, and end up joining the unmotivated masses.

That's not to say that public schooling need not be regulated -- the recent debacle over intelligent design should be suffiicent evidence of that. It's a difficult problem to administer such a large system as the public schooling of a state -- let alone 50 -- with out administering the very life out of it. The only hope is that most schools end up with a small crew of truely gifted educators, the sort of folks who know when to ignore the rules and when not to, and are actually passionate about their topics, and that makes the experiance slightly bearable.

Interesting

[Wellington Grey]

Michael Padilla, a professor at the University of Georgia who is president of the National Science Teachers Association, said that the problem is not that universities are failing to train sufficient numbers of science majors or that too few opt for classroom careers, but that about a third of those who accept teaching jobs abandon the profession within five years.

Wow! I've just finished my first year as a teacher. Only four more to go before I'm filled with apathy and burned out on my chosen profession. I can't wait.

-Grey

If your heroes don't have it, you don't need it...

[Distinguished Hero]

Makes sense. After all, science plays no prominent role in hip-hop "culture," sports "culture," or Hollywood "culture." When you have a whole generation which idolizes only members of those three groups, what else should one expect?

The Cause

[Crussy]

The cause is no child left behind and like action. As someone who is a senior in high school, I've watched as literally half of my science classmates had no business in my level of courses. Parents believe that their children should be able to do the top level no matter what and many times this is not the case. Worse, schools believe if a child accels at one subject then they should be in equal level classes for the rest.

The effect of this is that students potentials are limited. There are a few people in my classes who know absolutely nothing about the material at hand, and no matter how many times it is presented to them cannot grasp it. This is an honors (we don't have AP) level physics class. They slow the progression of the class, and in doing so limit people like me who grasp the concepts easily. People don't realize how it only takes a few lower people to ruin the atmosphere in a classroom. When parents strive to place their kids in classes above their abilities, they are not just jeopardizing their own child's learning, but the learning of everyone who is brought down by them. No teacher wants to fail a student, and many won't. They instead slow the class to the pace of the slowest kid. This is clearly acceptable in remedial classes, but in an accelerated class it should not happen. There should be a curriculum to follow and if someone is holding back the class, they should be let go.

Sadly the present state of education in America is to help the remedial students while squashing the advanced students' potentials. No child left behind and naive parents who believe their child is better than everyone else are two of the most detrimental things to the education system today. Schools need to stand up and say no to both of these if they want students to reach their potentials today. Fail a girl who cannot grasp a physics class she doesn't belong in if she cannot handle it. There is no other way to show that some people do not belong in advanced classes, and when they're placed in them ruin the environment.

Science education scarcity concept is overblown.

[Bamafan77]

Philip Greenspun says it best and I've seen this firsthand. ---

Why does anyone think science is a good job?
The average trajectory for a successful scientist is the following:
1. age 18-22: paying high tuition fees at an undergraduate college
2. age 22-30: graduate school, possibly with a bit of work, living on a stipend of $1800 per month
3. age 30-35: working as a post-doc for $30,000 to $35,000 per year
4. age 36-43: professor at a good, but not great, university for $65,000 per year
5. age 44: with young children at home (if lucky), fired by the university ("denied tenure" is the
more polite term for the folks that universities discard), begins searching for a job in a market
where employers primarily wish to hire folks in their early 30s

This is how things are likely to go for the smartest kid you sat next to in college. He got into Stanford for graduate school. He got a postdoc at MIT. His experiment worked out and he was therefore fortunate to land a job at University of California, Irvine. But at the end of the day, his research wasn't quite interesting or topical enough that the university wanted to commit to paying him a salary for the rest of his life. He is now 44 years old, with a family to feed, and looking for job with a "second rate has-been" label on his forehead.

---

What does this tell us? If you believe in supply and demand, this tells us that there are MORE than enough top quality scientists being produced and that science education is not lagging in the least and that science knowledge is a commodity. This article is a bunch of hand-wringing over nothing.

Why Encourage Kids to go Science?

[LionKimbro]

Philip Greenspun had some interesting things to say about careers in science:

In short, some young people think that science is a good career for the same reason that they think being a musician or actor is a good career: "I can't decide if I want to be a scientist like James Watson, a musician like Britney Spears, or an actor like Harrison Ford."

Philip's argument makes good sense to me.

The article was noting that teaching Science isn't very rewarding, either:

"What happens is that the system tends to beat them down," Padilla said. "Working conditions are poor, it's a difficult job, and the pay isn't that great."

So, I would say that, on the face of it, Science just doesn't pay, and a lot of us are really interested in getting paid.

What does pay? Perhaps research, (which Vernor Vinge called "Search & Analysis," and noted was at "the heart of the economy,") perhaps technology, perhaps being a system administrator, or being a mechanic, or something like that. Perhaps being a business person or a manager. I wouldn't really know; I've not asked the question "How do I make more money?" deeply enough.

But answering the question "How does the natural world work?" doesn't seem to be where the money is at. "How do I make this better?" seems to be only a little bit closer.

I would prefer that we asked the question: "How do we make the world a more satisfying place for all people in it, and ensure that nature grows healthier and healthier?" Unfortunately, the pay isn't so good. Perhaps the questions necessary child is: "How do we make this pay?"

A Comparison

[clragon]

I am a Canadian citizen, immigrated to Canada when I was 10.

Now, even thou the article is focusing on American education, I just thought I bring Canadian and Chinese education into the mix.

First 10 years of my life, I went to school in China. In kindergarden, addition and subtraction were briefly introduced to us. We were easily able to do one digit addition/subtraction, however some parents like mine pushed us to do more, so as a result, on the first day of school in grade 1, I was able to do two digit addition and subtraction already.

School in China was hard, since the starting of grade one I had to do homework constantly from after school (around 5pm) to 8, or 9 PM. On the weekends most kids were sent to private lessons for various kinds of things like piano, English (you dont start learning English in school until grade 5, but parents send grade 1 kids to English lessons so that they can have a head start), or just for core classes like Math or Chinese.

In elementary school, there are two exams, one is midterm and the other is final. These were basicly your report cards, everything you do in the year basicly prepares you for these tests. Much is dependant on the result of your final exam each grade. I remember my teacher saying "if you got below a 90 on the final exam, it would be the equivilant of failing." She wasn't exatrating either, middle school in China accepts students based on their final exam mark in grade 6. If you did not get a good mark on that exam, too bad, you will have to go to a crappy middle school. To people living in Canada or the US, they would probably say "so what, it's just middle school." It's much more than that, if you were in a bad middle school, high school wont even take a look at your application despite your mark. Universities will do the same to bad high schools. So it was made very clear to us when we were in grade 1, that if you were to do bad on the final exam in grade 6, your whole life is ruined.

Then I moved to Canada.

Everything changed. I was living in Vancouver at the time. (I had to take a 45 min bus to my school, because all the schools near my house were "over populated", but thats another issue)I walked in a Canadian classroom for the first time and found out these kids were doing two digit addition and subtraction, the same ones I knew how to do when I started elementary school in China. All of the sudden, I became a "genius". But soon I discovered that being a genius in a Canadian school isn't all that great. you see, in China your popularity depends a lot on your marks, just like in Canada and the US, but in an opposite way. If you had the best marks in the class, everyone will want to be your friend. If you were failing, you would be that "failure", or loner that everybody stays away from. In Canada however, I found out the hard way that if you were getting good marks for classes like Math, the chances are you will be pretty unpopular.

I had another thing to discover in Canada, when I went into high school I found myself hang around people who are "gifted". I found out that kids in Canada take a test in grade 3 and 6 to see if they have a high than averge IQ. They are put into the same class and were taught harder things than the normal kids.

Now, why did I write all that? It is to give you a bit of info before I present my opinion about why the quality of education here is not as good as it could be.

First, a lot of kids in Canada and the US have this weird ideology that if they arn't born smart, there is no way in the world for them to become smarter. I was considered a genius by kids in my class when I came to Canada, but they didn't say that because they knew about all the homework I did in grade 1 in China, they said it because they thought I was born smart since I was Asian or something. They refuse to work harder to achieve things because they believe that there is no point because they are not smart to start with.

On the other side, you had many of these gif

culture of stupidity

[Edmund Blackadder]

Lets face it the last several years the country has been clouded by a culture of stupidity. And it is no wonder that children's ability to understand sciance is good at young age but drops off sharply at high school because high school is where children are exposed to the 'adult' culture and politics.

Lets face it everyone knows how stupidity penetrated politics, I dont have to spell it out. But from there it spread out and went everywhere. All of a sudden anyone remotely intelligent on TV was deemed to be part of the "old liberal media" even if they were not liberal at all.

Every one on television and in popular culture was pressured to show and give credit to the point of view of stupidity and complete idiocy or they risked being labeled part of the old liberal media. Half wits that specialized in entertaining complete uneducated idiots (like the various radio talk show hosts) were elevated to respected status. Don't get me started on bill oreilly.

And the most offensive thing is that stupidity invaded popular culture under the disguise of religion. Every complete moron that went on TV perpetuating some lowest common denominator 'theory' awlays said that he was taking directions from jesus himself and therefore one could not use logical arguments against him because that made one a godless liberal elitist that disrespects ordinary americans. As if believing in God gave everyone the right ... no, the duty and repsonsibility of being as stupid as possible.

One wonders how we never saw an intelligent promoter of Christianity on TV. I know they exist, because I have read their writings, but for some reason when you turn on your television set all you see is some half wit foaming at the mouth bible thumping neo fascist.

And dont get me started about popular culture. We worship dumb bimbos that act like sluts but assure everyone that they are good christians. Oh and where we once had comics that made us think now we have ... larry the cable guy.

Its not even only stupidity ... it is mediocrity at every level of culture ... just like the comedians are not very funny, the younger actors are not especially good at acting, the movie directors suck at directing, the newscasters do no serious journalism, the popular writers cant write very well, the policy makers make terrible foreign policy etc. Mediocrity is being worshipped and talent, intelligence, etc. are being punished.

Meanwhile university professors are eyed with a lot of suspicion, there are organizations being started for the purpose of spying on proffessors and reporting the "dangerous ones", think-tanks have sprung up so that no journalist ever has to ask the opinion of a university proffessor if they need an "expert".

Some kids are born smarter and some arent. But in order to learn one need not only be smart one need to want to learn. When stupidity is being worshipped and intelligent or otherwise talented people are simply embarassed of their talent, then fewer and fewer kids will want to learn.

From the been around the block many times dept.

[Spock the Baptist]

I'm a middle-aged nerd from Texas with a Master of Science in Physics.

I substitute taught a couple of years in several local ISDs while writing my thesis.

Here's the scoop. Few folk with that majored, or minored in Natural Sciences, or Mathematics, or who have earned advanced degrees said disciplines, are interested in the low pay and benefits that go with teaching in public high schools in Texas. They are still less interested in jumping through the bureaucratic hoops of the Texas Education Agency (TEA), and other red tape gauchos that currently inundate the public school systems of Texas.

There are jobs that are very much less frustrating, and are an infinitely better deal on both personal, and professional levels than teaching in public high schools. With a major, minor, or advanced degree in math, and the physical sciences a person has put forth a great deal of effort, and spent much time on his/her degree. Persons that have earned such degrees have little tolerance for the intellectual laziness, and a slacker attitude. The bottom line is that 'teaching' is not an attractive career for such a person.

This being the case the persons that end up teaching the hard sciences, and mathematics in H.S. are not the brights candles on the tree, or are making, well some times, a valiant effort to teach a subject outside their mastery.

I can recall at least a half-dozen times that I went into a Jr. High math class and went through a cold turkey, non-rehearsed lecture on some aspect of intro. to algebra turned around to see students with looks of amazement on their faces. The reason for the looks was that that 'got' what I was lecturing on. Their regular teacher had gone over the material the day before to their utter confusion. In each case their teacher did not have even a reasonable math background, but had taken the job because of pay incentives for teaching math. They were regurgitating the material from the textbook. They didn't understand the material themselves.

This is why there is such problems with math and science education at the H.S. level in the U.S.

STB

Asians

[Mark_MF-WN]

Probably because the teachers and parents don't encourage wide-spread abuse of anyone who demonstrates a shred of intellect or individuality.

Americans put sports first, and guess what? America produces some of the world's best atheletes, while having to recruit its scientists from countries where the intellectually-gifted weren't pummeled half death on a daily basis.

It's all about who you encourage and who you disparage. When take an illiterate coke-snorting fuck-up who has had everything in life handed to him on a silver platter, and make him the leader of the entire country, it sends a clear message that trying hard in school is a waste of time.

Re:Big Bang

[Mark_MF-WN]

Reproducability isn't a necessary criteria of science. The ability to make verifiable predictions is. The big-bang theory makes predictions that you can verify for yourself with the right equipment. It's consistent with past observations, and makes consistently accurate predictions about future observations. That makes it a good scientific theory.

Now, let's pretend that you actually know something about science: what predictions does creationism make? Oh, that's right, none. None at all. Unless you count the predictions that the world will end soon, which keeps not happening. In fact, nearly every predictiont that creationists and ID-advocates make FAILS to realize. That makes it an interesting philosophical idea at best, or a huge load of bullshit at worst.

But prove me wrong: make a prediction about the distribution of the cosmic background radiation using the bible, and have the WMAP satellite test it. Then we'll compare your predictions with the big-bang+inflation theory predictions, and see who actually knows something about science.

Hardly

[Mark_MF-WN]

Hardly. If you flip a coin a thousand times, I can make a verifiable prediction that the results will be about within 50 heads/tails of 500 heads and 500 tails 95% of the time. You can test that, and see that it's true (actually, those particular numbers may not be accurate; I don't remember the details of the binomial distribution off the top of my head). Yet the process is clearly quite random and involves nothing even resembling intelligence. And yet there is some process "selecting" either heads or tails each time -- it's just not an intelligent process.

Face it -- whether or not god exists, every single piece of measurable evidence implies that the universe proceeds in a manner that does not require godly intervention. I would ultimately say that such a universe is far more impressive than the broken crap-shack universe that you obviously believe in, one that breaks down constantly and requires continual divine intervention. If the universe needed constant tinkering, wouldn't that make god an enormous fuck-up? Why couldn't he get it right the first time?