Delaware
Education News
June
2009
Copyright
© 2009 Queue, Inc.
IN
THIS ISSUE:
Bioscience Education Study Evaluates
Delaware
State of the DelawareÕs Pre-K Programs
Delaware
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States across America are failing to prepare students for
pursuing biosciences in higher educationÑa key pipeline for developing the
bioscience workforce of the future. A new report funded and researched by BIO,
Battelle, and the Biotechnology Institute provides the first ever comprehensive
study of middle and high school bioscience education in the 50 states, Puerto
Rico, and the District of Columbia. The report also finds a wide disparity
across measures of student achievement in overall science and biosciences, an
uneven record across states in incorporating the biosciences in state science
standards, supporting focused bioscience education programs and higher level
bioscience courses, and ensuring science and bioscience teachers are well
qualified.
This
review of state activities in bioscience education suggests a number of actions
that should be taken. For example, individual states:
á Should incorporate
biotechnology as they revise their science standards and should involve
research scientists with expertise in the biosciences in their development.
á Must commit to improving
student achievement in biology and the life sciences and ensuring that their
high school graduates are ready to pursue college-level bioscience courses.
á Should improve the
collection and dissemination of data, tracking student participation and
performance in the biosciences and the broader sciences and if they do not
participate in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) science
exam should be encouraged to do so.
á Should take a more
systematic approach to teacher professional development, experiential learning,
and career awareness.
The
report provides the following evidence that states are not measuring up:
á On average, only 28% of
the high school students taking the ACT , which is a national standardized test
for college admission, reached a score indicating college readiness for biology
and no state reached even 50%.
á Only 52% of 12th graders
are at or above a basic level of achievement in the sciences, and for 8th
graders only 57% are at a basic level of achievement.
á Average scores for 12th
graders in the sciences have actually declined from 1996 to 2005 and shown no
improvement for 8th graders both overall and on the life science component.
á A significant gap exists
in science achievement for low-income middle-school students, although the gap
is slowly narrowing.
Some
states fared much better than others with respect to student achievement in the
biosciences. While it is difficult to give a single grade across states because
of the limited quality and comparability of the student achievement data, the
patterns of student performance suggest the states fall into several broad
categories.
Leaders
of the Pack:
Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio,
Vermont, Wisconsin
Second
Tier:
Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, North Dakota,
Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington
Middling
Performance:
Alabama, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan,
Montana, South Carolina, Wyoming
Lagging
Performance:
Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico,
Oklahoma, Texas, West Virginia
Not
Rated:
States that do not participate in the NAEP science assessment were not rated.
The
report also finds an uneven record across states in incorporating the
biosciences in state science standards, supporting focused bioscience education
programs and advanced bioscience courses, and ensuring well-qualified science
and bioscience teachers.
Only
thirty-one states reported that their science standards explicitly mention or
define standards or applied laboratory or other instruction tools specifically
for biotechnology or the biosciences.
At
least half the states have at least one school with a bioscience focus, and all
of the states have schools with a focus on broader STEM education. But states
do not seem to be succeeding in encouraging high school students to take
upper-level science courses. Although data on this subject are very limited,
the share of students taking the AP biology exam averages 4.6% of high school
graduates.
The
report also notes that nearly one in eight U.S. high-school biology teachers
was not certified to teach biology. The average share of biology teachers who
are certified in a given state ranged from 50% to 100% in data collected by the
Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), although 88% of biology
teachers are certified nationally on average.
Delaware
report:
http://www.bio.org/local/battelle2009/DE_bio_09.pdf
The annual survey of state-funded preschool
programs shows impressive expansion in enrollment and spending. However, the
recession may reverse the trend, curtailing early education opportunities for
children in lower and middle-income families.
The National Institute for Early Education
Research (NIEER) has released The State of Preschool 2008. Key findings included:
¥ Enrollment increased by more than 108,000
children. More than 1.1 million children attended state-funded preschool
education, 973,178 at age 4 alone.
¥ Thirty-three of the 38 states with
state-funded programs increased enrollment.
¥ Based on NIEER's Quality Standards
Checklist, 11 states improved the quality of their preschool programs. Only one
fell back.
¥ State funding for pre-K rose to almost
$4.6 billion. Funding for state pre-K from all reported sources exceeded $5.2
billion, an increase of nearly $1 billion (23 percent) over the previous year.
On a less positive note, whether or not a
child receives high-quality preschool education depends on where his or her
family lives. Twelve states provided no state-funded preschool in 2008.
Of the 38 states with state-funded
preschool, cuts are likely in at least nine including some of the biggest
states Ð California, Florida, New York, and North Carolina.
Currently, Oklahoma remains the only state
where virtually every child can start school at age 4. In at least eight other
states, more than half of 4-year-olds attend a public preschool program of some
kind.
At the other end of the spectrum, are the
12 states that have no regular state preschool education program: Alaska,
Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota,
Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming. In eight states, less than 20
percent of children are enrolled in a public preschool program at age 4 even
taking into account preschool special education and Head Start.
Most states meet a majority of the NIEER's
10 benchmarks for program quality standards, but five states meet fewer than
half. These states include three of the four states with the largest
populations and numbers of children in pre-K-- California, Texas and Florida.
Texas is the only state that fails to limit
both maximum class size and staff-child ratio. California and Maine have limits
on staff-child ratio but no class size limit. Most other states limit classes
to 20 or fewer children with a teacher and an assistant.
In 2008, enrollment of 3-year-olds
continued to rise, though less rapidly than at age 4. The leader in serving 3-year-olds
in state pre-K is Illinois, which is the only state committed to serving all
3-year-olds, but it is closely followed by Arkansas. Four states, Illinois,
Arkansas, Vermont and New Jersey serve at least 20 percent of children at age 3
in general and special education programs.
Research
shows that high-quality pre-K can help improve the educational success of all
children and by doing so, decrease school failure and dropout rates, and crime
and delinquency. In addition, high-quality preschool education has been found
to improve economic productivity and health.
Delaware
Report:
http://nieer.org/yearbook/pdf/DE.pdf