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CORRECTING THE CURRICULUM
What should be done to improve our students' education? March 24, 1998 |
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Questions asked
in this forum:
Why are students going downhill as they enter high school? What are the pros and cons of a national curriculum? What can or what should we do to make education more relevant to our students? How important are math and science scores? Wouldn't reducing class size and teacher workloads improve the situation? Is it a question of not holding students to high enough standards or a lack of parental involvement? Are there better teaching techniques, such as Montessori? David Gilstrap asks: The test scores of American children seem to do worse as the children enter Junior high school and particularly high school. Do you believe this is due to socialization pressure that children receive as they get older which takes their focus away from educational concerns and toward more social activities or is it the quality of the system and the curriculum?
Marc S. Tucker, president of the National Center of Education and Economy, responds:
You are right. Test scores show that, on average, American students learn all the way through elementary school. In middle school, their learning gains either flatten out or actually reverse, and then start to rise again, but more slowly than in elementary school, through high school. It seems that the middle school combines the worst of elementary school and high school. It lacks the warmth and social support of elementary school, as well as whatever academic rigor the high school offers. That is why we have recommended abolishing middle schools and creating K-8 schools in their place. But that will not work unless the academic standards for eighth grade are set to match the standards for students of the same age in nations where performance is high. While our students are in middle school, for example, they spend their time in mathematics classes doing drills and practicing arithmetic. In other nations where math performance is high, students in the fifth grade are expected to have mastered arithmetic and are going on to algebra, geometry and trigonometry in the sixth through the eighth grades. And, at the same time, they are shifting from an emphasis on drill and practice in the use of algorithms to the a focus on understanding the underlying concepts in mathematics and the application of what they are learning to real-world, complex problems. Little wonder that, by the time students in other nations get to high school, a much higher proportion are ready to do serious mathematics. Much the same story can be told about the other core subjects in the curriculum.
Gerry Wheeler, the executive director of the National Science Teachers Association, responds:
The issue of socialization factors is very interesting and very complex. The TIMSS study collected data on homework, TV watching, and jobs. But much more analysis must be done before we can draw any valid conclusions.
In the TIMSS study, U.S. fourth-graders did very well in science, outperforming students in all countries but Korea. But by eighth grade, our students were losing some ground. And by grade 12, the results, as you suggest, were disappointingly far lower.
There is no one single factor to account for these differences. But we have learned some very important lessons from TIMSS.
First, we need to streamline the science curriculum. We continue to try to teach too many topics with little depth, thus short-circuiting student learning. This is especially true in the higher grades. While the typical fourth grade curriculum focuses on a few key, relevant topics, by eighth grade and then again at the high school level, the number of topics has exploded, so that the curriculum is, indeed, "a mile wide and an inch deep."
We at NSTA have long promoted that teaching less content at greater depth (the principle of "less can be more") enhances student learning. It seems only logical to expect that in countries where students study fewer topics, achievement will be higher.
The foundation of science understanding must begin in the early grades. Early experiences in science help children develop problem-solving skills and motivate them toward a lifelong interest in the natural world. Elementary science readily captures student interest because youngsters are so curious about the world around them.
We must continue to capture students' curiosity throughout all grade levels by making science relevant to everyday life and by having students become actively engaged in learning, instead of passively listening to someone lecture.
Jeanne Allen, president of the Center for Education Reform, responds:
Certainly there are "anti-education" pressures that affect children's attitudes toward school as they get older - witness the so-called "geek factor" that has students shunning the technological fields. But this may have more to do with the declining expectations of schools than adolescent peer pressure. American students start out with the best of their international peers in academic achievement and aptitude, but as they progress through the system, they quickly slip to the middle or the back of the pack. Consider that the number of children scoring in the top percentile in the SATs has declined precipitously. In addition, those who are in the top 10% of their class have demonstrated significantly declining scores over the last ten years. Thus even the best and brightest we have are not what they were, nor could one argue, do we expect them to be. They are still getting the same As and Bs they've always gotten, and feeling quite sure about the superiority of their academic achievement.
There are a myriad of surveys by the Public Agenda foundation and others that point to the frustration of most college professors and employees with regard to the lack of superior candidates they are getting for jobs and in higher education, let alone the lack of basic skills of those going right into the workforce. How can it be that we are educating our kids well when nearly 75% of all colleges and universities report that they have an average of a third of all freshmen taking remedial courses?
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