NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND
Subjugating science to rigors of NCLB a formula for disaster
The learning that takes place in labs and field work cannot be measured by multiple choice.
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In 2009 - unless the Obama-Biden education team radically alters No Child Left Behind - the sciences will join math and reading as required subjects for federally mandated testing.
Not that science has been exempt from high-stakes testing. Arizona includes science in our statewide assessment of pupils' achievement.
But the use of a series of science tests to judge pupils, teachers, administrators and whole schools - the way those bubble tests have been used under NCLB for reading and math proficiency - will be new.
Science teachers are nervous - and not just because their standing, their value to their schools, maybe even their salaries and tenure will be on the line (as already is the case in some states).
They're wary because science is not like math and reading. It is more than a set of skills; it is a content subject. And it is a process subject.
The problems an able science teacher presents to students are not like math problems yielding to a single right answer; but more like puzzles inviting discussion and dissent. And the learning that takes place in labs and field work cannot be measured by multiple choice.
Since NCLB took effect in 2002, 4,500 schools serving more than 2 million children have failed to bring enough students to grade level. Their pupils have not shown the "achievement gains" in math and reading required under the bill.
The impact on teachers has been devastating, as they are forced to administer paper-and-pencil machine-scored tests as a substitute for their own judgments on matters of student progress.
Worse, when pupils fail to progress according to some federal standards, teachers' very livelihood and job security are at risk.
After six years of "failure," a school faces "restructuring" - being handed over to "turn-around specialists" or closed.
Its teachers are reassigned or - as has been attempted in New York City and may succeed in Washington, D.C. - simply fired.
In a wide-ranging survey of secondary science teachers, the local authors of a soon-to-be-published book asked how No Child Left Behind was affecting the teaching of high school science.
Some states, i.e. Delaware, have fewer science teachers than before because the schools need math and reading taught.
Here in Tucson, a science chair laments: "Even though the full student body is not involved in the testing, the school day is so thoroughly disrupted that many students simply take testing days off, missing still more science."
In a book appropriately named "Collateral Damage," Arizona State University's David Berliner describes the impact of high-stakes testing on teachers as "demoralizing."
"Most teachers," writes colleague Nel Noddings in an introduction to Berliner's book, "will do a good job without threats, penalties, and rigid controls."
It's possible the Obama-Biden team thinks this way, too.
In their "Plan for Lifetime Success through Education" released one week before the Barack Obama's inauguration, the president and vice president call for (in addition to intensive early childhood education):
• Reform of NCLB.
• Commitment to provide "high-quality teachers in every classroom" and to support and pay them (appropriately).
• To not have teachers "spend the academic year preparing students to fill in bubbles on standardized tests," but rather "to improve assessments used to track student progress."
• To "create an accountability system that supports schools to improve rather than focuses on punishments."
• And above all, to "make science and math education a national priority!"
If all this takes place, then instead of falling under the NCLB regime in 2009, secondary science, its teachers and its learners, will have been "saved by the bell."
Subjugating science to rigors of NCLB a formula for disaster
Tucsonans Sheila Tobias and Anne Baffert are the authors of "Science Teaching as a Profession. Why it isn't. How it could be," due out this spring. Tobias writes on science and mathematics education. Baffert is a chemistry teacher and science chair at Salpointe Catholic High School.
Sorry, it does not work that way.
You could say the same thing about doctors, lawyers, plumbers and short order cooks, but accountability is demanded in all those positions. Why not teachers too? No one is saying all teachers are incompetent, but one incompetent teacher is enough to retard the education of a whole lot of kids. Those who cannot do what they're being paid for should be weeded out or retrained and those who excel in their jobs should be rewarded accordingly.