Errant Texts: Why problems plague most schools
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Janet Raloff, Science News202-785-2255, [email protected]
Note to editors: The web links for the March 17 story goes live around 6 p.m. ET on March 16. The web link for the March 24 story will go live around the same time on March 23.
WASHINGTON, D.C. Science texts in most U.S. middle-school classrooms are nothing short of an embarrassment, several recent studies have found. In the first article of a two-part series, SCIENCE NEWS magazine explores the extent of the problem, its impacts, and factors that contributed to error-ridden books. In part two, SCIENCE NEWS highlights alternatives that show promise of reforming the situation. A few of those alternatives eschew textbooks entirely.
Last December, the U.S. Department of Education unveiled disquieting comparisons of student performance in 38 surveyed nations. The assessment, essentially a repeat of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), showed that U.S. eighth graders ranked no better than the middle of the pack -- on a par with students their age in Bulgaria, Latvia, and New Zealand. More importantly, the performance of the newly tested U.S. eighth graders was lower than it had been for fourth graders 4 years earlier. In other words, "although U.S. students learned a lot of math and science from the fourth to eighth grade, the other nations learned more," explains the National Center for Education Statistics' acting commissioner.
Middle school is when many students develop a deep and lasting ambivalence, if not outright distaste, for science. The new TIMSS data suggest that those attitudes are having a large functional impact on knowledge and skills acquisition. "As such, these years of early adolescence are a critical juncture in science education -- and should be when students are offered engaging programs specifically designed to play into their hunger for social interactions," notes SCIENCE NEWS senior editor Janet Raloff, who authored the new series.
In fact, she found, most schools use textbooks that are riddled with errors and an approach to teaching that undermines the acquisition of science concepts. For instance, John Hubisz of North Carolina State University headed a new review of the most widely used physical science books in U.S. middle schools. "We were asked to evaluate whether the information in the books was valid," he notes. "And the answer is, No!"
Another survey "found no good middle-school science books or good high-school biology books," Raloff notes. In fact, "we will claim that these books offer very little potential for having students learn, even if they're used as they were intended," according to the head of the science-education division of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. It sponsored that particular review.
In "Errant Texts" (http://www.sciencenews.org/20010317/bob1.asp) the first part in the series, Raloff talks to people who have first hand experience with some of the factors that contributed to the problem.
"Where's the Book?" the second part of the series, will be available online March 23 (http://www.sciencenews.org/20010324/bob1.asp). In it, Raloff surveys a host of mostly brand new curricula that have been developed differently. Though all use readings in some fashion, many no longer have what would qualify as textbooks. "Others offer texts that play a new role," Raloff notes, "as something that fosters science education instead of dispensing it."
That's not to say all textbooks are wanting. SCIENCE NEWS highlights one -- first published in 1967 -- that continues to win high marks from educators. Published by a tiny company, it still has a small but devoted following.
"Because finding many of these niche players in the middle-school science market can be difficult, new centers have sprung up to broker marriages between schools and these new curricula," Raloff notes. "The alternative materials that they promote are intended to do nothing less than reform science teaching," she explains. "And when it works, magic happens: Kids connect to the idea that science is important and fun."
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