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EDITORIAL: Steady on Science: Indiana Schools Are Aiming High With Tough Standards, and They Should Continue.

Posted on: Thursday, 1 June 2006, 06:00 CDT

By The News-Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Ind.

May 26--Faced with science test scores that one news account described as "sagging," Indiana schools must immediately not hit the panic button.

Principals, parents and teachers could all be forgiven if they do, though. State Superintendent of Education Suellen Reed set that example for them Wednesday when she said "clearly these results are cause for concern. This should send a clear signal to Indiana schools that there is a need to re-examine and refocus our efforts in the classroom with respect to science."

Learning science is hard work for kids, and teaching it well is difficult. No one would tell students or teachers to give up or ease off, but they don't need to reinvent science education.

The news just isn't that awful. Here it is, boiled down:

Every five years, the National Assessment of Educational Progress measures a large sample of fourth- and eighth-grade students from across the country -- more than 300,000 in 2005 -- to determine how well-versed they are in science facts. Only about 5,400 Hoosier students were included in the study.

On a scale of 0-300, Indiana fourth-graders scored an average 152 in 2005, down less than 1 percent of that scale from their 154 score in 2000. Last year's fourth-graders were a scant 3 points higher than the national average.

On the same scale, state eighth-graders' average score fell to 150 from 154 in 2000. The eighth-graders also were three points higher than the national average in 2005.

Reed's interpretation? "Unfortunately, the trend in performance is moving in the opposite direction of what we would expect to see," she said.

A trend? A small dip in scores on tests taken five years apart doesn't amount to a trend. It's a plateau, surely, but the raw materials needed to help students learn are in place. High among those prerequisites for success are broad, demanding academic standards for what students should learn about science before graduation.

But there's a paradox in aiming for those academic standards: Being too singlemindedly focused on prepping kids to supply the right answers on science tests could get in the way of their learning science.

David P. Maloney, professor of physics at IPFW, has done research and teaching in the area of science in elementary school, and he said that being pressed to teach extensive standards actually impedes learning about science.

The best science teaching -- and this is a view Maloney shares with the National Science Teachers Association, among other groups -- emphasizes the hands-on, experimental investigation of natural laws and physical phenomena. You might call it the scientific method vs. memorization.

"I really want students to do hands-on science, but if they do, that's where the practicalities kick in big time," Maloney said.

Teachers need special training. They and their students need more time to set up and take down equipment. They need more supplies, and they have to be well-versed in how to use those supplies. And because they're helping to guide students instead of lecturing to them along a framework established by a textbook, class sizes may need to be smaller.

And once schools invest in teaching science, parents and other taxpayers naturally want to get a better idea of how well students are learning. That means testing, which usually means quizzing students on science facts, not assessing how well they employ the scientific method, Maloney said.

Walter Smith, a professor of biology at Ball State University, reiterates many of Maloney's criticisms. He sees more value in tests such as the national assessment of science education, because they make parents, schools and community leaders everywhere consider how many children aren't learning the basics of science.

However, Smith also would like to see students do more of that independent, hands-on learning that leads them to understanding the scientific methods in addition to science facts.

It probably would be best if students learned through the more meticulous, self-directed approach Maloney advocates; schools already incorporate a lot of hands-on science education. But there's a tension between trying to convey a broad range of information to students and giving them time to eke out facts themselves, laboriously, through activities that would teach them more thoroughly.

Teachers will keep struggling to strike a reasonable balance between teaching a lot of facts quickly and helping students discover the scientific method through more painstaking experimentation. Of course they should keep trying to improve. Schools should particularly concentrate on how to help teachers cultivate the observation, reasoning and construction of hypotheses that are the heart of science.

But overstating the importance of a trifling change in test scores of two groups of students five years apart won't help anyone learn.

By Bob Caylor for the editorial board

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Copyright (c) 2006, The News-Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Ind.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

Source: The News-Sentinel (Fort Wayne, Ind.)

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