NCLB and Science Education

Portage Parents for Quality Education ^ | 5-Mar-2004 | PPQE

[Kzoo Knight]

Who knows of any high schools that require all students to take semester courses of chemistry, physics, biology, and earth science in 9th and 10th grades? I've heard of schools that cover all four disciplines in 9th grade, which still allows three years for the more serious student to take more in-depth courses in the three core sciences. But I've not been able to find schools teaching a semester-only curriculum for two full years.

Public schools in Portage Michigan are abandoning their college preparatory curriculum in favor of mandatory semesters for everyone, and many parents are upset, not just because the 9th and 10th grade curriculum appears to be "dumbed down", but also because the only courses available to honors students in 11th and 12th grade are 2-year IB-HL courses, which means those students will graduate with five semesters of one type of science but only one semester of the others (unless they double up and forfeit other classes). Not exactly the broad background I'd want for my kid, and not even enough to be accepted to most engineering schools. Sounds like an educational experiment that may later turn out to be a "fad", yet the Portage Schools are using NCLB to justify this change even though they present no data to justify it.

More information is posted on the PPQE web site at www.portagescience.org (check out the summary of the January 26 Board of Education meeting), but what I'm interested in is "where else are they doing this?" Please post if you know of any other schools doing this.

Thank you.

[Pontiac]

You need to fill in a couple gaps in my education.

What is NCLB and 2-year IB-HL courses.

[skinkinthegrass]

That's strange..Using NCLB to "dumbing down" the students...looks like its' to be the Hallmark of the Kennedy (RE-)Education Bill..."that was really dumb, GWB." :/

[skinkinthegrass]

What is NCLB..."No Child Left Behind" program.."swimmer" Ted Kennedy wrote it, for GWB. JMO...DUMB MOVE.

[Pontiac]

Thanks. I should have known that.

Had not seen it called NCLB before.

And I haven't had my second cup of coffee yet.

Good point. Never let a un-indicted alcoholic murderer write your legislation for you.

[netmilsmom]

Our schools are 43rd in the country. How well do you think the children are learning at all?

[Kzoo Knight]

No Child Left Behind has enough problems but one thing in it's favor is it specifically instructs schools to use curriculum that has been demonstrated to work through scientific research. Then Portage decides without any evidence other than the educators' intuition that they're going to make a change to semesters. Our group suggested implementing semesters only for those who only take two years of core science in high school so they can be exposed to all disciplines (and bring up the bottom quartile per NCLB) while still offering the full-year courses for the upper quartile and many in the middle who need the added depth to prepare for college. The Schools refused to track kids this way, and it almost looks like they don't care if this curriculum experiment fails (they blame NCLB entirely on GWB).

IB is the International Baccalaureate curriculum has has a distinctive European flavor, and it's not clear whether it's really that good, or is just a feather in the hat the schools can wear to make them look interested in the upper quartile. It requires half of the IB courses taken to be "HL" or high level, which are two-year courses. Thus the honors-level students who take it will graduate with 5 semesters in that discipline (which is great) but only one short semester in the others. Those poor kids will be in for a rude shock when the try to survive the sophomore flunk-out courses sitting next to others who have all had decent preparation.

[MainFrame65]

High schools can impart a significant grounding in biology or chemistry, but earth science has become politically correct industry bashing, and physics without calculus is like learning to cook by reading recipes - devoid of comprehension.

Physics without calculus is in Flatland - one of its co-equal dimensions is absent, leaving the rest as caricature. Calculus was Newton's revolution that filled it out and brought it into the real world.

Other countries introduce calculus much earlier than we do for their college-bound students, and we need to do the same. Back before my son's divorce, I found that my chinese daughter in law had taken the equivalent of MIT's level of Calc 1 and 2 in high school - and she was studying journalism!

[EEDUDE]

"I found that my chinese daughter in law had taken the equivalent of MIT's level of Calc 1 and 2 in high school - and she was studying journalism!"

I had several Iranian classmates while I was studying engineering at Auburn University. They did not bother studying much during the pre-engineering (first 2 years) and ALWAYS made A's.

I asked one guy about this and he said "Oh, we all had that stuff in High School in Iran".

I was stunned!

I asked what they thought the differences were between our respective societies. Their responses were unanimous.

"In Iran, education is highly prized, and our teachers have the same social status as Doctors. Only the BEST can become teachers in Iran."

I'm sorry, but what's happening here in the name of "equality of outcomes" is nothing short of criminal!

Americans should be crying for the heads of the NEA feel gooders!

[MainFrame65]

Rod paige was exactly right - the NEA (accompanied by its fellow traveler organizations) is a terrorist organization!

I graduated (1957) from Fairfax, one of the best public high schools in Los Angeles, without ever hearing about the existence of calculus. That did not happen until my freshman year at MIT, and I really struggled with it. If I had been exposed earlier, perhaps I would have been able to incorporate it into my worldview, and use that insight to better understand the ocean of information that makes up the MIT cirriculum.

[Kzoo Knight]

Physics without calculus is in Flatland - one of its co-equal dimensions is absent, leaving the rest as caricature. Calculus was Newton's revolution that filled it out and brought it into the real world.

Right on. We told the schools they wouldn't be able to teach real physics until students had enough math, and were told they were going to be teaching "conceptual physics". When you look at the new textbook, it looks like middle school physics. If moving middle school science into high school isn't "dumbing down", what is?