NationStates Jolt Archive

http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_development/issue/articles/2005_12_09/what_s_wrong_with_american_science/(parent)/158

While I'm not a big "US vs THEM" type, I find it disconcerting that the U.S., with more resources available than any other country, is falling behind. I find that to be an unforgivable failure in the powers that be.

http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_development/issue/articles/2005_12_09/what_s_wrong_with_american_science/(parent)/158

While I'm not a big "US vs THEM" type, I find it disconcerting that the U.S., with more resources available than any other country, is falling behind. I find that to be an unforgivable failure in the powers that be.
I think this is a hell of a scandal. But we de-motivate kids in public schools from pursuing science by having a large number of mediocre teachers do a lousy job of teaching science. Sure, I'm a little biased, but science is fun.(and so is math) But when science is all book-taught and experiments don't get done, how can anyone else ever learn that?

I think this is a hell of a scandal. But we de-motivate kids in public schools from pursuing science by having a large number of mediocre teachers do a lousy job of teaching science. Sure, I'm a little biased, but science is fun.(and so is math) But when science is all book-taught and experiments don't get done, how can anyone else ever learn that?

Instead of paying money for more testing (No Child Left Behind,) we should be investing that money in teacher training and inproving the salary of teachers so that there is more competition.

Instead of paying money for more testing (No Child Left Behind,) we should be investing that money in teacher training and inproving the salary of teachers so that there is more competition.
I don't think NCLB is doing a damned thing for education, but I don't think that more money for teachers is going to do the trick by itself. Teachers have a paranoid fear of evaluation. Sometimes, it's justified, other times it's reactionary. But, they will put up a fight to the death if you suggest that they should be evaluated. That's the only way that I can see more money making the difference, if you tie it to merit raises.

The other problem is in the supply sources. Teaching colleges are not all that critical with grades. Some of my wife's friends have "Dr" degrees that aren't worth the paper they're printed on, certainly not the money spent. But they do work at the BoE for raises. So, I guess my statement about worthlessness is wrong. They don't represent knowledge gained, though. A school may be heavy with Master's and Doctorates, but light on skills because that's they way things go. Maybe raising beginning pay would help here. It would draw a few of those marginal engineers and physicists into teaching instead of industry, where they would make darned good teachers.

Another problem I can think of, though, is parental ignorance. If parents won't 'push' their kids into doing more science, the kids aren't going to have the same interest. Too many parents are worried about the kids extra-curricular athletics, but not about visiting the teachers. I went to an open house one time and instantly became unpopular when I asked why kids needed a calculator in a calculus class. More parents should do that sort of thing.

I don't think NCLB is doing a damned thing for education, but I don't think that more money for teachers is going to do the trick by itself. Teachers have a paranoid fear of evaluation. Sometimes, it's justified, other times it's reactionary. But, they will put up a fight to the death if you suggest that they should be evaluated. That's the only way that I can see more money making the difference, if you tie it to merit raises.

The other problem is in the supply sources. Teaching colleges are not all that critical with grades. Some of my wife's friends have "Dr" degrees that aren't worth the paper they're printed on, certainly not the money spent. But they do work at the BoE for raises. So, I guess my statement about worthlessness is wrong. They don't represent knowledge gained, though. A school may be heavy with Master's and Doctorates, but light on skills because that's they way things go. Maybe raising beginning pay would help here. It would draw a few of those marginal engineers and physicists into teaching instead of industry, where they would make darned good teachers.

Another problem I can think of, though, is parental ignorance. If parents won't 'push' their kids into doing more science, the kids aren't going to have the same interest. Too many parents are worried about the kids extra-curricular athletics, but not about visiting the teachers. I went to an open house one time and instantly became unpopular when I asked why kids needed a calculator in a calculus class. More parents should do that sort of thing.

The problem with NCLB is that it takes away from class time for a test that doesn't affect a child's grades or impact on said student directly. My brother, a teacher, HATED it, not because he feared evaluation, but because teaching for the test took away from valuable class time and because the children simply didn't care. It does nothing to lift up schools ALREADY doing poorly. A metaphor I heard was that it was akin to trying to improve beef production by weighing the cattle. By the time you weigh it/test the children, it's too late. To use another metaphore, it's like treating a fever by taking someone's temperature...and if the temperature is high, taking away medicine and giving more medication to those whose fever is already dropping.

Instead of identifying the specific problems or finding solutions, it merely shows that there is a problem...which we already knew.

NCLB does nothing to improve critical thinking skills. It does nothing to make education more interesting.

Also, NCLB is an incentive to not achieve too much. If a school scores unprecidently high, they are penalized if they don't improve that high level of achievement the next year. It's an encouragement for mediocrity.

Teaching colleges are not all that critical with grades. Some of my wife's friends have "Dr" degrees that aren't worth the paper they're printed on,
I spy with my little eye.. opinion asserted as fact!

I went to an open house one time and instantly became unpopular when I asked why kids needed a calculator in a calculus class. More parents should do that sort of thing.
Because it prevents me from fucking up numbers. You do some bullshit calculus on paper using numbers with multiple decimal places, or in the hundreds or bigger. More parents shouldn't do that kind of thing because it makes them look like stupid dicks. I may not be working in the field, but I bet if you see a person working shit out on paper that a computer/calculator could compute for them, you are more than likely looking at a dumbass.

I spy with my little eye.. opinion asserted as fact!


Because it prevents me from fucking up numbers. You do some bullshit calculus on paper using numbers with multiple decimal places, or in the hundreds or bigger. More parents shouldn't do that kind of thing because it makes them look like stupid dicks. I may not be working in the field, but I bet if you see a person working shit out on paper that a computer/calculator could compute for them, you are more than likely looking at a dumbass.

Preventing a math student who has already progressed beyond simple arithmetic from using a calculator is like preventing a carpenter from using a hammer. If a kid doesn't know how to do the work, a calculator isn't going to help.

"I went to an open house one time and instantly became unpopular when I asked why kids needed a calculator in a calculus class."

Good job for being interested in your child's education


But Calc kids really need calculators.


really really really need calculators

The other problem is in the supply sources. Teaching colleges are not all that critical with grades. Some of my wife's friends have "Dr" degrees that aren't worth the paper they're printed on, certainly not the money spent. But they do work at the BoE for raises. So, I guess my statement about worthlessness is wrong. They don't represent knowledge gained, though. A school may be heavy with Master's and Doctorates, but light on skills because that's they way things go. Maybe raising beginning pay would help here. It would draw a few of those marginal engineers and physicists into teaching instead of industry, where they would make darned good teachers.
I'm willing to bet that if you came to my school, you would not think that.

"I went to an open house one time and instantly became unpopular when I asked why kids needed a calculator in a calculus class."

Good job for being interested in your child's education


But Calc kids really need calculators.


really really really need calculators
I hope you're a little sarcastic. A lot of people have learned calculus, ODEs, and PDEs without the crutch of a calculator.

Pantsman, you're right, if I saw an engineer at work with log and trig tables, I'd wonder about his sanity. But I work matrix problems on my white board all the time. Then I put them into MathCad to get the numbers.

I'm willing to bet that if you came to my school, you would not think that.
I'm willing to bet that if you came to my school, you would not think that.
Probably so, we have some good magnet schools around here, too. But they are the exception in Georgia public education.

Preventing a math student who has already progressed beyond simple arithmetic from using a calculator is like preventing a carpenter from using a hammer. If a kid doesn't know how to do the work, a calculator isn't going to help.
I don't care how badass a calculator you have, it's not going to make me able to do calculus.

Hell, I tried to do statistics without a calculator and was just spinning my wheels (yay for my friend who would buy things he didn't need who bailed me out). It wasn't helping my understanding of statistics to add 40 numbers together on paper, it was just slowing me down.

You've already established at that point you can do everything a calculator can do. Further, using calculator to do those advanced maths is a skill you have to be able to learn.

So, seconded.

Probably so, we have some good magnet schools around here, too. But they are the exception in Georgia public education.

Same in certain parts of california.

We have one brilliant district that is trying to kill a science magnet and spread the "smart" kids around to the schools with bad scores. Problem was the fact that the people in the school had money to either go private or homeschool.

They delayed their decession when they found out how many kids would join the other schools......

Scary times ahead.....

The problem with NCLB is that it takes away from class time for a test that doesn't affect a child's grades or impact on said student directly.

Instead of identifying the specific problems or finding solutions, it merely shows that there is a problem...which we already knew.

NCLB does nothing to improve critical thinking skills. It does nothing to make education more interesting.

Also, NCLB is an incentive to not achieve too much. If a school scores unprecidently high, they are penalized if they don't improve that high level of achievement the next year. It's an encouragement for mediocrity.
Okay, we can slam the NCLB from here to eternity, but it doesn't change the fact that identifying problem areas is going to take some evaluation. It might be that NCLB does the wrong kind of evaluation at the wrong time, but for the last 23 years, the easiest way for me to earn a spot on the couch has been to suggest that teachers be evaluated. Okay, not the easiest, but pretty darned close.

My wife has always had a good question about evaluating teaching and I guess it could be applied to schools and curricula, as well. How do you do it? How do you make it objective? My answer has always been --- You can't do it. Every evaluation is subject to some bias or omission or some other prejudice. My evals at work are subjective, yours probably are, too. Not many of us work in a field where things can be measured objectively.

So do we look at passing rates for students and say the classes where the highest failure rates exist have the biggest problems? Common sense would say 'yes', but that's not what you'll hear from the schools. Their complaint is that it's the students that are failing, not the schools that are under-performing. There's some truth to that, right? There's some backpedalling, too.

Let's try another measure, say SAT scores. Those are too late to do much good for the elementary kids, so throw another standardized acronym test in for those years. Well, now we're getting back to where we are now. How do you target weak areas, if you can't evaluate the system to find them?

A higher base salary and a vain hope that it will 'make things better' hasn't worked in the past. I'm all for giving teachers more money, especially if it's a zero-sum gain by reducing testing costs. But the money needs to go to the right teachers for the right reasons.

<snip>


Another problem I can think of, though, is parental ignorance. If parents won't 'push' their kids into doing more science, the kids aren't going to have the same interest. Too many parents are worried about the kids extra-curricular athletics, but not about visiting the teachers. I went to an open house one time and instantly became unpopular when I asked why kids needed a calculator in a calculus class. More parents should do that sort of thing.
Out of interest, was there an answer to your question? If so, what? Wtf has calculus got to do with a calculator? Are we talking the difference between UK and USA terminology here or what?

Out of interest, was there an answer to your question? If so, what? Wtf has calculus got to do with a calculator? Are we talking the difference between UK and USA terminology here or what?
It was pretty wishy-washy. It was also five years ago. I don't remember the exact answer. I think they wanted to confirm definite integral solutions with numerical integrations. You can do that with Simpson's or trapezoidal rules and make the point without the need of any computing device. Stupid reasoning, but that's part of the problem. Not enough teachers that are excited about how math works.

http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_development/issue/articles/2005_12_09/what_s_wrong_with_american_science/(parent)/158

While I'm not a big "US vs THEM" type, I find it disconcerting that the U.S., with more resources available than any other country, is falling behind. I find that to be an unforgivable failure in the powers that be.
Going back to the beginning, another problem is that we are content to demagogue the 'outsourcing' issues and lack the will to commit ourselves to a solution that will reduce the dependency on foreign brains.

It was pretty wishy-washy. It was also five years ago. I don't remember the exact answer. I think they wanted to confirm definite integral solutions with numerical integrations. You can do that with Simpson's or trapezoidal rules and make the point without the need of any computing device. Stupid reasoning, but that's part of the problem. Not enough teachers that are excited about how math works.
Damn. Off and on, I've done maybe six years or so of learning about calculus or so, and not once in that period did I have any reason to even think about a calculator. Since then, sure, calculating a specific solution to a particular model. But not while learning the method. Do these people not know the difference between maths and arithmetic?

snip

But see, identifying that kids at a school are doing poorly at math doesn't tell you why they're doing poorly at math. Is it the teacher? The curriculum? Parental apathy or unavailability in economically depressed neighborhoods?

When you have an inner-city situation filled with single-parent families or with parents that have to work more than 40 hours a week to get by, those parents are less and less likely to be able to help their children with schoolwork or take an active interest.

So, if low test scores are the result of social problems, lowering funding and firing teachers (and replacing them with teachers who may or may not be better,) is counter-productive, more than anything. It's the most poorly funded schools that do worst, academically, so how does reducing funding help them?

NCLB is HORRIBLE in concept and application. Plus it's never been fully funded. Underfunding a program results in a faulty program, and the money spent is wasted. It's better to not have the program at all. It's not a case of a half a loaf being better than none.

Solutions? I have a few. Tax credits to parents who volunteer their time. Increase teacher salary, resulting in increased competition for teaching jobs. How do you make it more likely that you're paying the right teachers? Well, when you get a larger pool of applicants, you have a greater chance of finding a great teacher (plus, for those who cry about the liberal/left bias of teachers, making teaching a more profitable profession should attract more right-leaning applicants.)

Finally, I would publically flog politicians who use terms similar to "over educated elite," or "intellectual elite," or any other terms that disparage education.

There is a strong anti-academic sentiment in this country that simply has to stop.

I think this is a hell of a scandal. But we de-motivate kids in public schools from pursuing science by having a large number of mediocre teachers do a lousy job of teaching science. Sure, I'm a little biased, but science is fun.(and so is math) But when science is all book-taught and experiments don't get done, how can anyone else ever learn that?
Yeah everything in my school is all technology oriented and note-taking. No hands-on fun and blowing stuff up...although I hear chemistry has some good stuff and biology is ok so far.

Get the science haters to shut up :) That might help a little.

Would the religious nuts please shut up and let stem cell research progress! I also would not mind someone "playing god" and cloning limbs for our poor soldiers who are losing appendages in the middle east (and me if I am unlucky enough to lose one). I respect the fact that they have their own point of view but stop slowing down our progress.

::snip::
Maybe raising beginning pay would help here. It would draw a few of those marginal engineers and physicists into teaching instead of industry, where they would make darned good teachers.

::snip::

Raising the beginning pay of teachers is one of the most important steps in raising the bar in American public schools. Although your reasoning for it is pretty foolish. The best teachers are just that, teachers. Granted they need to be knowledgable in their field but just because you a mathmatician doesn't mean you could teach it.

Now lets talk about reality in my state, Massachusetts, so I can back up some of my statements. We have instituted extremely difficult (in many cases ridiculously difficult) tests for teachers coming out of college that they must pass to become certified. When I say ridiculously difficult I am citing that a 4th grade english teacher has to have an extremely good knowledge of history, science, and mathematics. Now don't get me wrong this isn't really a bad thing but I'll tell you what happens in reality. You train highly qualified teachers that must spend exorbant amounts of money on their own education for jobs that make as much or less than the local trash collectors. If they aren't in it strictly "for the kids" you often lose the brightest ones to other sectors of business that pay more.

I come from nice town with a good public education system. But while I was in high school there was a male teacher that was hired from the absolute bottom of the barrel (the salary budget was so low they couldn't even match other local towns). I think he came from a time where the tests I mention were not yet required (but who knows his story) the point was they took a big risk due to lack of funds. They had to just pass all the kids in his class because he gave up part way in and just sat in his desk doing nothing all day (there was a contractual reason he had to at least finish the one term).

If we are to stay competitive as a country we should value our public education and realize the public teachers who are so easy to bash and turn into scapegoats are often products of their salaries (as is how all business often works).

I think we all agree on this.

Good teachers deserve more money. And probably a lot more money.

What happens to bad teachers? Tenure in public schools is misguided and virtually prevents firing bad teachers. Hell, it's hard enough to fire incompetents at my company and we aren't union or civil service.

So how do we target good teachers for more money and bad teacher for layoffs? Or do we just raise salaries, sit back for a generation and watch the inevitable progress? Who has that much patience in American public policy?

Yeah everything in my school is all technology oriented and note-taking. No hands-on fun and blowing stuff up...although I hear chemistry has some good stuff and biology is ok so far.
And what's the general opinion of science classes? My high school physics teacher would have each class build a water balloon launcher, then compute the trajectory and predict the landing points for each balloon. That's just a sample. We always had good labs, hard not to in physics.

Punching a couple buttons on a computer to see a mass-spring-damper system isn't nearly as interesting as rigging it, predicting the behavior, and measuring it.

The problem I've seen is not "how much money do we spend on science education?" or "how many students do we have in science education?" but "how are we teaching science?"

There are many schools in the US and in other countries - the majority - that seem to "teach" largely rote memorization of facts combined with an unquestioning acceptance of everything that is handed to them. Many of the students are unable to think for themselves - a critical skill that must be taught if they are to become effective scientists.

Some schools, regardless of money, enrollment, or size, are better than others at teaching this critical skill.

As an example, most computer science students who graduate have widely varying abilities in their ability to think through a problem. Most can't think their way out of a wet paper bag - the company I work for has trouble interviewing and hiring people precisely because of this problem.

It's as though degrees and certifications are meaningless - sure, the person has memorized a lot of facts and passed tests - but they are unable to think.

I'm on my 4th science class (only 3 are required) and I love it. However, most people think I'm crazy for taking more than what's required. I think we should be given less electives (with the exception of arts and music classes) and more academic stuff. Yeah, it'll be hard, and yeah everyone will bitch because its soooo much workkkkkkkkkk but how the hell do they expect to do college where you can't fuck around in weightlifting all day?

Here in Florida, where we have the stupid FCAT and you have to pass it to graduate (and it's not hard either, hello low standards) people still fail it all the time. Seniors are taking it and failing, and have to take it again over the summer. We're supposed to be able to pass it in 10th grade.

I think it's the growing problem of laziness in America. Every day new products are invented to make life a little bit easier. Pretty soon we won't have to leave our computers to get a degree, grocery shop, and talk to people, all simultaneously.

People forget what it's like to be challenged (or they've never been challenged and freak out when the situation presents itself.) Also, when people fail classes in college, people threaten to sue or have their mommies call and bitch the teacher out.

America is a very sad place.

On a side note, how can you be over-educated?

How about opening your borders for good, and making technology and scientific progress an international issue?

How about opening your borders for good, and making technology and scientific progress an international issue?
It already is an international issue. Unless it's top secret stuff being done at Los Alamos or Lawrence Livermore.

A tremendous number of science and engineering students in the US are foreign-born.

Surely this is all part of the intelligent designers great plan.

I think it's the growing problem of laziness in America. Every day new products are invented to make life a little bit easier. Pretty soon we won't have to leave our computers to get a degree, grocery shop, and talk to people, all simultaneously.

People forget what it's like to be challenged (or they've never been challenged and freak out when the situation presents itself.) Also, when people fail classes in college, people threaten to sue or have their mommies call and bitch the teacher out.

America is a very sad place.

On a side note, how can you be over-educated?
Your mention of laziness brings out a good point. There are stories from time to time about schools that don't have failing grades, or don't rank students, or do other things to keep the worse-than-average students from having a lack of self-esteem. In fact, my wife's principal won't let any student carry less than a 60%. That's failing, but they can always bring it up to passing.

I claim that schools are encouraging this laziness by failing to rank students and failing to give achievers the recognition that they deserve. And achievers like recognition. Bring back the honor roll and the days when McDonalds gave out free food for A's on report cards.

How about opening your borders for good, and making technology and scientific progress an international issue?
Can you say H1-B visa? How about Green Card?