ATTENTION
(STEM) Education
CAUCUS STAFFERS:
April 2008 News
Briefs on STEM Education
In this Issue:
6.
Newly introduced STEM Education Legislation
An influential software-industry
group has unrolled a project to help education and business better define the role
of technology in 21st-century education.
The goals address
student engagement and achievement, equity and technology access, accountability
for student performance, collaborative learning, teaching and administrative effectiveness,
and 21st-century skills for students.
2.
Bill Gates Testifies Before Congress on Competitiveness
(Forbes 3/13)
5. Study Finds Sharp Math, Science Skills Help Expand Economy
(Wall Street Journal 3/3)
The study, released in this spring's issue of Education Next, an education-policy
journal, concluded that if the
6. Recently Introduced
STEM Legislation
This is a record of recently introduced legislation
related to STEM Ed. but does not represent Caucus endorsement of any legislation
Title: To improve
education in the United States by providing $300,000,000 for the Teacher Incentive
Fund to support State and local school district efforts to reward outstanding teaching
and school leadership by improving compensation programs for teachers who have a
demonstrated record of improving student academic achievement, teachers who teach
in high need subjects such as mathematics and science, and teachers who teach in
high need, low income schools.
Sponsor:
Sen Alexander, Lamar [R-TN] (introduced 3/13/2008) Cosponsors: (none)
Latest Major Action: 3/13/2008 Senate amendment agreed
to. Status: Amendment SA 4311 agreed to in Senate by Unanimous Consent.
H.R.5630 Title: Innovation
Employment Act
Sponsor:
Rep Giffords, Gabrielle [D-AZ-8] (introduced 3/13/2008) Cosponsors: (none)
Committees: House Judiciary
Latest Major Action: 3/13/2008 Referred to House committee.
Status: Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.
The Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Education Caucus’ primary mission
is to promote all areas of STEM Education including K-12, higher education and workforce
issues in Congress. At its core, the caucus functions to increase the visibility
and importance of STEM Education and educate Members of Congress and their staffs
on the technical issues and public-policy options surrounding STEM education.
The Caucus serves as an information source and a catalyst for improving STEM education.
If you would like
to join the Caucus, please contact Julia Jester (x53831) in Mr. Ehlers’ office or
Wendy Adams (x52161) in Mr. Mark Udall’s office.
Published
Online: March 21, 2008
Published in Print:
March 26, 2008
An
influential software-industry group has unrolled a project to help education and
business better define the role of technology in 21st-century education.
The
Vision K-20 Initiative is offering school districts an online survey to measure
their progress toward goals that the Software & Information Industry Association
has established with feedback from several national education organizations.
The
goals address student engagement and achievement, equity and technology access,
accountability for student performance, collaborative learning, teaching and administrative
effectiveness, and 21st-century skills for students.
First
outlined in an association report last spring, the goals provide the framework for
the online benchmarking survey and a growing collection of research information
and best practices offered on a new Web site, www.siia.net/visionk20.
A
major thrust of the initiative is to persuade schools to incorporate the goals into
their institutional missions.
The
project is also meant to assist the roughly 160 companies in the organization’s
education division that sell technology to education customers, said Karen Billings,
the Washington-based trade group’s vice president in charge of its education division,
at a March 12 event held here to launch the project.
‘Vision K-20’ for
Education
The
Software & Information Industry Association has proposed a set of benchmarks
for the
•
Widely utilize 21st-century tools for teaching and learning
•
Provide all members of the education community with anytime/anywhere educational
access
•
Use technology to enable the education enterprise
•
Offer differentiated learning options and resources to close achievement gaps
•
Employ technology-based assessment tools
SOURCE: Software
& Information Industry Association
The
origin of the venture, in fact, was those companies’ desire for a common educational
vision that they could share with schools and communities across the
“There
is some self-interest here,” he acknowledged.
He
said the trade association knows that educational improvement “is not about technology,
but that a lot of our educational goals can be greatly enhanced through the use
of technology.”
A
case in point, Mr. Schneiderman said, is found in the widely recognized need for
student assessment and school accountability, even among students who have very
diverse educational needs. “Technology is a very efficient way of collecting student
data, managing that data, and sharing that data with the community, policymakers,
and educators,” he said.
Mr.
Schneiderman said the project would include outreach to sectors beyond schools and
educational technology companies, for example to the Business Roundtable and the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce, both based in
Several
educators at the launch of the initiative endorsed the project.
Claudia
Mansfield Sutton, the associate executive director of the American Association of
School Administrators, based in
“We
in public education need to work with others; that will build toward a tipping point,”
said Ms. Sutton, who in previous jobs has been both an educator and an executive
at educational technology companies.
Keith
R. Krueger, the executive director of the Consortium for School Networking, which
has a membership principally of school technology officials, said the project will
help move the policy discussion about educational improvement beyond the provisions
of the federal No Child Left Behind law.
“We
need to have a broader perspective,” he said in an interview. “For the last seven
years, we’ve had national debate where everything we do is strictly about accountability
and standardized testing in math, writing, and reading.”
Mr.
Krueger said that, thus far, technology has played a very limited role in education.
“Other industries use technology for a range of purposes—one of them is innovation,”
he said. “We haven’t had discussion about how do we use it for improving the enterprise
of education.”
The
Software & Information Industry Association effort is not the first word in
this discussion. For example, the goals echo parts of the
National Education Technology Plan, now in its third version, published
by the U.S. Department of Education in 2005. ("Ed. Tech.
Plan Is Focused on Broad Themes," Jan. 12, 2005.)
The
association’s project will not be the last word either, noted Mr. Krueger, adding
that the Washington-based CoSN will soon present recommendations on the role of
technology in education, based on a national survey of school administrators.
The
software industry’s foray into setting a common agenda could help “start a conversation”
in local communities, as well as nationally, Mr. Krueger said.
Vol. 27, Issue 29, Page 10
Before
they begin to study the atom, a topic of inquiry that dates as far back as ancient
The
answer to that question is part of what is traditionally defined as “scientific
literacy,” or the ability to understand science, its role in society, and make informed
decisions as citizens, based on scientific evidence and knowledge.
Scientists
and educators have long recognized the importance of that skill. Today, many of
them are pressing to make sure that science literacy occupies a more central place
in standards and curricula, as well as in textbooks and teaching materials.
That
renewed interest has arisen partly out of scientists’ and teachers’ frustration
at what they see as a lack of public understanding about the nature and purpose
of science during state and local debates over evolution and other controversial
topics.
Their
commitment could be seen in new science standards approved in
Yet
another “big idea” listed at every grade level from kindergarten through 12th grade
is “the practice of science,” which describes the processes scientists follow in
setting up investigations, collecting data, and evaluating information scientifically.
While
the previous
“Being
able to think scientifically in our modern world is tantamount to success,” said
Bonnie P. Mizell, the science coach at
Ms.
Mizell says she encourages teachers to promote science literacy, even at early grades,
by asking students to justify their answers in scientific terms. “How do you know?”
they should ask.
Scientists
have voiced disappointment in recent years over what they see as the public’s poor
grasp of the rules of science, in light of public furors over how to teach evolution.
In particular, they object to attempts to weaken evolution though suggestions that
it is only a “theory” rather than a “fact.”
In
everyday parlance, a theory is a hunch or an educated guess. But in science, a theory
is an explanation that has been broadly tested and substantiated.
Debates
over scientific literacy and the nature of science emerged in
Over
the objections of scientists, the board voted to remove language from the document’s
introduction that defined science as seeking “natural explanations” for the world,
and instead called it a discipline that promotes “continuing investigation” that
seeks “more adequate explanations of natural phenomena.”
Scientists
saw the change as potentially opening the door to what they regard as nonscientific
phenomena such as “intelligent design,” the idea that humans and other living things
show signs of having been designed by an unnamed master architect, as opposed to
having evolved.
Steven
B. Case, a research assistant professor at the University of Kansas, co-chaired
a committee of scientists and educators that drafted science standards that supported
describing science as the study of natural explanations—a stance that was rejected
by the state school board back then.
The
committee’s explanation was meant partly to provide “a clear and coherent definition”
of science for teachers, particularly at the elementary and middle school levels,Mr.
Case said. Those educators are often at a disadvantage, he said, because they have
little experience with research projects or extended experiments that forge a strong
understanding of the goals and processes of science.
But
board member Kathy Martin said confining science to the study of natural explanations
amounted to “limiting science.” She voted in favor of the controversial 2005 standards
with their “continuing investigation” language.
Scientists
should “take data and go wherever it leads,” Ms. Martin said this week in an interview,
on evolution and other issues, even if it upends established scientific thought.
Last
year, a newly reconstituted
U.S.
policymakers have a longstanding interest in promoting scientific literacy, which
spiked after the Soviet Union’s successful launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957
and resultant calls to raise mathematics and science achievement, recalled Jo Ellen
Roseman, the director of
Project 2061, an undertaking at the American Association for the Advancement
of Science, in Washington, to promote science literacy.
15-Year-Olds’
Source: Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2006
The
AAAS later sought to define those skills through the publication of Science for
All Americans, in 1989, which sought to define adult science literacy, and, four
years later,
Benchmarks for Science Literacy, a set of voluntary national science standards
for what students should know in science. The National Research Council published
its own
student standards in 1996. The latter two documents have been widely used
by many states in defining what students should know in science—and about the study
of the subject overall.
By
one measure,
In
contrast to
Adult 'Civic Science'
Scores
Source: Jon D. Miller,
2005
Mr.
Miller measured “civic science literacy,” as having the basic vocabulary and knowledge
necessary to function as a citizen in a modern, industrialized society. A scientifically
literate person, by this measure, would be able to understand stories about science
in a mainstream newspaper or magazine.
Adult
Americans’ science literacy, unlike that of students, has improved steadily over
the past two decades, Mr. Miller’s research shows. Adults in the
Mr.
Miller sees a number of factors at work. American colleges and universities tend
to require more science coursework, even of nonscience majors, than European or
Asian institutions do. And over the past 50 years, opportunities for informal science
learning for
Even
so, the middling science literacy of high school students is troubling, Mr. Miller
said. Science’s role in medicine and other areas of society will grow in the coming
years, and students will need stronger skills to make sense of those issues, he
said.
“It’s
clear that we will be a more scientific and technical society than we are right
now,” Mr. Miller said. “Because we can’t teach people what the science is going
to be 20 years from now, we can teach them the building blocks.”
Vol. 27, Issue 26, Page 12