"Minnesota's education commissioner is calling the results of a federal test known as the Nation's Report Card a wake-up call for the state."
"The scores barely put Minnesota among the top third of states nationally. Commissioner Brenda Cassellius is calling the results "disappointing and troubling.""
I find these to be very puzzling quotes, when for some reason Science has not seriously been in the local Elementary curriculum until just the past few years when these tests started driving their addition. We had people worried about Spanish, Art, Orchestra, Cursive Writing, etc, however Science was just not that important...
So THANK GOD for Standardized Testing that is focusing the priorities of Public Schools on English, Math and Science, where they should be if the USA wants to compete globally...
I once interviewed with a company that would only hire Engineers for their Plant Mgr positions. When I asked why this was? He said they had found that it was much easier to teach Engrs the soft skills of dealing with people and a managing a plant, than it was to train non-Engrs regarding the science, math and plant mechanics... I thought that made sense.
So why the disappoint and surprise? We did not educate them, so they did not know the information.... Let's update the curriculum... Thoughts?
NAEP Science Report Card Pg
NAEP Science State Snapshots Pg
Star Trib Minn Science Test Scores Disappointing
Star Trib Minn Science Test Scores 2009
2 comments:
There were several problems with the news coverage of the Science NAEP scores. One of them is that the article didn't make clear, what I believe to be the case, and that is that this is the first time NAEP has tested science. That means there is nothing to compare these numbers to, and numbers without context are meaningless.
Minnesota's NAEP scores in reading and math, two areas that have been tested for a while, are generally improving, not at as fast a pace we would like but not at a pace that suggests fraud either.
Minnesota's scores are generally improving? Not on any chart or graph I've seen, just the usual fluctuations.
Scores go up a little in one year and the district takes a bow. They drop back the next year and the Board is somehow now puzzled, thinking last years scores were statistically significant. And too often this becomes a call for more money.
I shook my head last year when arguably my smartest Board member publicly couldn't understand why a certain program had fallen short on results. It made so much sense! I thought we really had it this time! All that extra touchy-feeling focused directly on those who needed the most help. And yet the results went down.
The evidence was plain and undeniable. But that Board member has apparently settled for remaining puzzled rather than learning from it.
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