National Research Council Presents Draft Standards for Science Education
“Science education standards allow everyone to move in the same direction, with the assurance that the risks they take in the name of improving science education will be supported by policies and practices throughout the system.” --Draft National Science Education Standards
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As part of a larger movement to improve the nation’s education system by developing voluntary national education standards in a number of subjects, the National Research Council (NRC) has unveiled the draft version of its National Science Education Standards. The effort is being funded by the National Science Foundation, the Department of Education, NASA, and the National Institutes of Health. The 390-page volume sets forth a series of standards for science teaching, learning, and testing for K-12 education. According to Richard Klausner, chair of the project, “Our aim is to use the draft to build national consensus about what is important in science education.”
The primary goal of the effort is to achieve “scientific literacy for all students.” The standards are described as “an integrated set of policies that can be used to improve science education...and develop higher levels of scientific literacy.” The document advocates hands-on participation by students in their education and empowerment of teachers to make decisions about what the students will learn and what resources will be used. It specifies student achievement goals for the end of fourth, eighth, and twelfth grade. The standards are intended to “help chart the course into the future” and “provide assistance in making decisions and policies that will bring coordination, consistency, and coherence to the improvement of science literacy.” The target audience includes science teachers and supervisors, curriculum developers and publishers, school administrators and board members, parents, community and industry members, scientists and engineers, legislators, and policymakers.
The draft contains sections on standards for science teaching, professional development of teachers, assessment of students, and science content of the curriculum. The standards for curriculum content “define what the scientifically literate person should understand and be able to do after 13 years of schooling.... The standards for assessment, teaching, program, and system describe the conditions necessary to achieve the goal of scientific literacy for all students.” Underlying principles include the belief that all students should have the opportunity to achieve science literacy and learn all the science content defined in the standards, and that learning science is an active process, requiring more resources and less emphasis on content. The content standards stress more overarching concepts and less memorization of facts and vocabulary. They eschew teaching one discipline each year in favor of making connections between the different disciplines and revisiting each, in increasing detail, throughout the grades.
FYI #171 will describe the standards in more detail. The draft, accompanied by a review and comment form for public input, can be obtained without charge from the NRC’s National Committee on Science Education Standards and Assessment. Please leave a message at (202)334-1399, or fax your request to (202)334-1294. All comments must be received by February 25, 1995.
