Natl Science Brd. Action Plan

University of Massachusetts > STEM > National Science Board Proposes Action Plan

National Science Board Proposes 'Action Plan' on Science Education

By JEFFREY BRAINARD

The National Science Board proposed on Wednesday a "national action plan" intended to spur major improvements in the teaching of science and mathematics at all educational levels but especially elementary and secondary schools.

The goal is to enhance the quantitative skills and scientific literacy of workers generally, because jobs increasingly will require technical knowledge, the plan says. Universities and colleges would play an important role by producing schoolteachers better trained in the content of science and in effective ways to teach it.

The plan recommends creating a new national council to coordinate improvement activities among the federal, state, and local governments. This body, the plan says, is necessary to provide follow-through on the report's recommendations -- a step that was missing after previous national reports about improving education, which in turn prevented those reports from having a wide effect.

The National Science Board, the governing body of the National Science Foundation, requested comments on the proposal, which it expects to post on its Web site today. The report is titled "A National Action Plan for Addressing the Critical Needs of the U.S. Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education System."

The board's timing appears to be good, because high-level attention to science education has steadily grown. Congress passed a bill last week authorizing new spending on science education (The Chronicle, August 10), which President Bush is expected to sign today. The National Governors Association recently issued a report that endorsed some of the
same ideas offered by the science board.

The draft plan released on Wednesday incorporates the major recommendations of an advisory commission set up by the board last year (The Chronicle, February 2).

To promote greater consistency in science teaching, the science board's plan calls for national guidelines for school curricula and for the voluntary certification of schoolteachers in science and math. Control of course content would remain with local school districts, though, and some educational experts have questioned whether that recommendation on
curricula would have any greater effect than did projects to carry out similar recommendations -- by the National Academies, for example -- that are regarded as having had little influence.

The science board's report also suggests expanding "P-16" state councils that work to ensure that science curricula in schools adequately prepare students for college-level courses.

The plan suggests calling the new coordinating body the National Council for STEM Education -- STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The panel's 25 seats could include two reserved for representatives from higher education, one of whom would represent community colleges, the report says. Other members could include governors, state school officers, and business leaders.

The science board, most of whose members are academics, also suggested that the National Science Foundation, the major sponsor of research on science education, better coordinate its own efforts to improve science teaching. Over all, those efforts lack "priorities," and some are "scattered" across the NSF's education and research divisions, the report said.

The report repeats the alarm, sounded by Congress and the National Academies, that strengthening science teaching is essential to preserving the American economy: If STEM-education reform is not considered seriously now, the nation is in danger of failing current and future generations.

The National Science Board last issued a major report on science education in 1983. It began work on the new one in 2005 at the request of members of Congress. Perhaps fittingly, the science board is scheduled to vote to finalize its draft report in early October, one day before the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik, the world's first satellite, by the Soviet Union -- an event that prompted the first major push in the United States to improve science teaching.

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