Calculus does not have to be made easy—it is easy already. That banner used to grace the Los Angeles classroom of someone once called the best teacher in America. Jaime Escalante, the unconventional calculus teacher who was depicted by Edward James Olmos in the 1988 film Stand and Deliver, died last year of cancer at the age of 79. The year before the film, more students from Garfield High School took the AP calculus exam than at all but three other public schools in the country, with two thirds passing.
Half a year after his death the Obama administration weighed in on the state of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education in this country. The report, “Prepare and Inspire,” reviewed the sobering statistics about how our K–12 schools suffer by comparison to their counterparts in other developed nations. It called for recruiting and training 100,000 STEM teachers. President Barack Obama mentioned STEM as a priority in his State of the Union address this year, and advocates for science education have been pressing to get student science performance incorporated into the No Child Left Behind law.
But achieving these goals is not going to be easy. The report noted that 25,000 STEM teachers leave the workforce every year, mostly because of disgruntlement with their jobs and lack of professional support. To attract and retain enough science and math teachers will require an elevation in their status and a thorough revamping of attitudes toward the entire profession.
Escalante’s career illustrates why. From a job mopping floors after he arrived in the 1960s from his native Bolivia, Escalante procured much better paying work as a technician at an electronics company. From there he went on to get a teaching credential to pursue a passion that dated back to his early years in Bolivia. In 1974, at the age of 43, Escalante decided to take a lower salary as a math teacher at Garfield. He made academic successes of many of his poor Hispanic charges, but first, he had to overcome the system’s built-in inertia. Garfield initially assigned him to teach what would have been the equivalent of fifth-grade math in Bolivia, and he had to convince school administrators that students there were capable of learning math at a higher level.
Few teachers are willing to run a similar professional gauntlet—nor should they. The onus to improve schools should be on federal, state and local educational strategists. The first step should be to tap the strengths of the existing teaching pool. We must identify today’s Escalantes—the top 5 percent of the nation’s STEM teachers—and, as recommended in the administration report, induct them into a STEM master teachers corps that would receive salary supplements and federal funding to support their activities.
Second, we need to give all teachers the tools they need. Escalante brought toys to class: a plastic monkey climbing up and down a pole illustrated the inverse function. Teachers shouldn’t have to rely on homemade props. We should form the equivalent of an Advanced Research Projects Agency to help develop educational technologies, including “deeply digital” instructional materials that encourage active participation. At the same time, we should recognize that new technology isn’t a solution in itself and shouldn’t come at the expense of other needs. Many schools get grants and donations for the latest computers and software yet can’t buy books for their libraries or beakers for their science labs.
Finally, we should shift our emphasis from standards to implementation. Developing new standards does have a role, but the problem for most schools is not a lack of good curriculum options. It is the difficulty of putting them into practice, given the day-to-day pressures that teachers are under. If anything, new standards and tests often get in the way by forcing educators to teach to the test, rather than encouraging critical thinking.
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Add CommentClearly initiatives like “Prepare and Inspire” are the need of the hour if the US is to bring forth a work force that is globally competitive and can survive the onslaught of a fast growing Chinese economy with tentacles spread out over every continent. Public education in the US has to gear itself up not just in Science and Math, but also in Language Arts. We need a workforce that is predominantly bilingual like it is in China and India, or else we start off disadvantaged. Putting in state of the art technology in all US high schools is not “a solution in itself”. We need a teacher to use that technology to enhance learning and critical thinking among our students, and the learning has to be at a level that would match up with what’s being learned in other developing countries. We cannot dumb down our academics to produce the ‘right numbers’ in order to get state and federal funding for our schools. We cannot afford to teach to a test which is antiquated to begin with and does not meet the standards of a global learning environment. Academic rigour should be the mantra in our public schools, and this mantra has to be designed and pushed by the Stem Force of Jaime Escalantes; Jaime Escalantes who can ‘overcome the system’s built-in inertia’. The question is how do we identify these 100,000 Jaime Escalantes and also find sufficient funding to support them. Furthermore, how do we ensure that the selection of this Stem Force is kosher and not dependent upon and/or embroiled in bureaucratic and administrative politicking. Finally, how do we distribute this Stem Force, such that it reaches the remotest parts of our country?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a veteran teacher who has taught in high schools over several continents, I strongly support President Obama’s “Prepare and Inspire” initiative, and I would gladly volunteer time and effort to make this initiative a working reality.
While I agree with almost everything in your essay "Stand and Deliver", I must take exception to the subtitle. Reenergizing science and math education in the U.S. will need great teachers to succeed. But it has to begin with parents.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStudy after study has shown that the best predictor of a child's success in school is an involved parent. Parents who care about science and math, who use "teachable moments" to use math and science, are more likely to have kids who care about learning.
The concept of "relevance" in education had some unfortunate side effects. The "relevance" test was used to push higher math and science courses to the side of the plate for many students. The argument went, "When will I ever use this sort of math again?" This contributed to a generation of Americans whose math and science literacy is declining, and who don't even know what they don't know. Their lack of interest rubs off on their kids. You won't get kids who read from a household where the adults don't read, and you aren't likely to get children with a passion for science and math from a household where the adults don't care.
I suspect also that one unfortunate side effect of technology and the high standard of living we enjoy is that we are insulated from the actions and reactions of science. It is a cliche that children today think that vegetables come from the store, in cans or plastic bags. My brother was a flight instructor for years, and constantly lamented the inability of his students to do basic mental math. (No matter how simple the problem, out came the calculator!) And these budding aviators were all college graduates.
Of course, a blog on the Scientific American website is preaching to the choir. But even the most scientifically literate parents perhaps need a reminder now and again to be aware of opportunities to nurture curiosity and use mathematics around their kids.
Mobbed,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou started out nicely, with your first paragraph. I would have continued by saying that a more urgent need is to train teenagers to become good parents. Knowing how to raise children does more for tomorrow's child and for the collective welfare than knowing how to find the simplest form of a square root.
To your second paragraph, adults have lousy math skills because they weren't ready to learn when schools were ready to teach them. A good investment would be in informal "night schools", where parents could learn problem-solving, statistics, etc., when THEY are ready.
Relevance is part of readiness. I believe that society would be well served if ten percent of the population learned algebra well (to be used as a bridge to other things). To the other ninety percent it simply won't be relevant. It should be part of our educational system to provoke curiosity, by going out in the world and seeing real things, rather than sitting in a classroom. Then you can offer math and science when teens are begging adults to teach it to them.
All the ideas presented in the article are good, however there is one problem. The federal government is restricted by the Constitution to seventeen enumerated powers; education is not one of them. In order to do these things legally, we need a Constitutional amendment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a former high school chemistry teacher, I can certainly agree with much in this editorial. The article correctly emphasizes that implementation is the problem. We don't need more studies, we need more teachers who know and love their subject and have the support of the larger community.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScience teachers cannot teach science to students who have trouble with long division, let alone algebra. Science students also need to be able to read and be encouraged to practice critical thinking skills. Several responders have pointed to the role of parents, but I know beyond doubt that there are potential scientists growing up in homes in which parental support is slim or missing for any number of reasons. Effectively configured public schools provide a potential safe haven for all children allowing them to step into a world of ideas and learning.
Science teachers need to be in an environment where their only responsibilities are to teach science and convey their enthusiasm for the beauty and utility of scientific thought. That environment exists in precious few public schools. In many or even most schools, instruction in all subjects needs to be disentangled from the myriad of other functions our schools and our teachers currently provide. Community Networks of cooperative but separately defined instructional, social service and recreational organizations need to replace the current architecture of most school districts. Each organization would be managed and staffed by specialists. Teachers wouldn't have to be psychologists or disciplinarians and psychologists would have the support of their peers and an administration skilled in providing social services. This structure, if implemented from pre-school through 12th grade, will provide science teachers with students who can read and do math, whose non-instructional needs are being provided by those best qualified to so.
More than half of our high school graduates are not proficient in math, English language or science. Just throwing money at the problem will not yield dramatic improvements. We need to change the way we structure our educational institutions so that instruction is their sole focus. The change to a Community Network structure would not require massive infrastructure changes and many of the people currently employed in schools and social service organizations would make the transition well.
Do Your Homework Part I
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEscalante was no model of good teaching. He verbally abused his students and couldn’t even replicate his own educational “experiment” after moving to Sacramento.1 Contrary to the myth, he did not convert random low income, math challenged students into calculus stars overnight. Students were recruited and had to spend years and summers taking special classes to prepare for it.2 Even with this additional support, students still needed considerable time outside the school day to succeed, with Escalante holding unpaid clinics on weekends and after school.
Also, the Escalante model is not sustainable. Teachers are not paid well for the hours they are contracted to work and most already put in considerable extra unpaid hours preparing lessons, and tutoring. Expecting them to give up evenings and weekends is unreasonable.
U.S. students do perform poorly compared with peers in many developed nations. However, the reason is that we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any industrialized nation. Over 20% of U.S. children are poor, compared with less than 4% in Finland. Our middle class students outscore students in nearly every other country.3
Poor children are more likely to suffer low birth weights and malnutrition, which lead to cognitive impairment and learning disabilities. Iron-deficiency anemia is twice as common among poor children.4 10% of poor students have dangerous levels of lead in their blood, which can impair intelligence.5 Lack of healthcare causes poor children to be absent 40% more often than affluent kids.6 In one study, high school drop-outs averaged 27.6 absences per year, while graduates averaged only 11.8.7 Likewise, 41% of students who changed schools frequently were below grade level in reading and 33% were below grade level in math, compared to 26% and 17% for those who remained at the same schools.8
1Pyle, Amy. 1998. “Escalante’s Formula Not Always the Answer.” Los Angeles Times, May 4.
2Jesness, Jerry. 2002. “Stand and Deliver.” Reason, July.
3Krashen, Stephen, Ph.D. 2011. “USA Today Gets It Wrong.” Schools Matter, July 18.
4Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne, and Duncan, Greg J. 1997. “The Effects of Poverty on Children.” Children and Poverty, Vol. 7, Number 2, Summer/Fall
5CDC Lead Prevention
6 Rothstein, R. (2002) Out of Balance: Our Understanding of How Schools Affect Society and How Society Affects Schools, the Spencer Foundation.
7Alexander, K.L., Entwisle, D. R., and Kabbani, N. 2001. “The Dropout Process in Life Course Perspective: Early Risk Factors at Home and School.” Teachers College Record.
8Barton, P. E. 2003. “Parsing the Achievement Gap.” Educational Testing Service.
Do Your Homework Part II
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe achievement gap is already in place well before children have even started school. Cognitive scores of children entering kindergarten were 60% higher for affluent kids than for those in the lowest income group.9 Similar results have been observed among children as young as three.10
Better tools, higher pay and greater support are necessary to attract and retain the best teachers. However, as long as we ignore the socioeconomic factors that contribute to academic success, we will continue to see poor educational outcomes compared with other developed nations. Indeed, even conservative researcher Eric Hanushek believes that only 10% of student achievement is attributable to their teachers, while Dana Goldhaber attributes 60% of student achievement to factors outside of school, like family and income.11
9Burkham, D. and Lee, V. 2002. “Inequality at the Starting Gate: Social Background Differences in Achievement as Children Begin School.” Economic Policy Institute, September 1.
10Hart, B., and Risely, T.R. 1995. “Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children.” Strategies for Children.org.
11Ravitch, Diane. 2011. “The Myth of Charter Schools.” The New York Review of Books, January 13.
You describe a monkey on a ladder toy that Mr. Escalante used to demonstrate inverse functions, then comment, "Teachers shouldn't have to rely on homemade props." Maybe not, but the "homemade" props always seem to be more effective. Teachers are energized by their idea or invention, and students appreciate the extra effort that went into creating it. Teachers should be encouraged create all their own materials, not only props, but lessons, question sets, and tests.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a current middle school science teacher I would like to make a few points. My first point is that the top 5% of STEM teachers are the last ones who need more federal funding to support their activities. The top 5% of teachers in the US are doing just fine and are competitive with most of the top nations in the world. It is the other 95% you need to worry about. Secondly, you say we should give all teachers the tools they need yet your magazine wont even give a discount rate to educators. Who is this we you speak of? Finally, standards shouldnt be an either/or decision. Inventive and genuine instruction comes from solid standards. Teaching the important ideas of science is the building block of competent instruction. Putting it together in an engaging way is the art. It is the scientifically literate student that performs well on the tests that are used to compare nations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou state in your article that to retain new STEM teachers will require an elevation in their status and a thorough revamping of attitudes toward the entire profession and I couldnt agree more wholeheartedly. Someone would have to be mad to be a science teacher in this current political climate with the vilification of the teaching profession. Threats to retirement programs, exploding healthcare costs, low wages, and layoffs make the idea of becoming a teacher a huge gamble. Jaime Escalante was successful not because of some government program, it came from him changing the community he worked in, and that is the only way eduation works.
I agree on most points here but as a teacher I wanted to comment on two specific items with regard to the equipment available to us.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe comment that "Teachers shouldn’t have to rely on homemade props" is off base in its implications. There are many situations where professionally produced equipment is critical -- we aren't going to use homemade safety goggles, or manufacture our own beakers or stopwatches -- but using simple, homemade equipment (or no equipment at all) can demonstrate the simplicity of and everyday connections to scientific principles. Example: We demonstrate acceleration as change in direction to 8th-graders by swinging a small stuffed animal in a circle using a string. We can use this also to talk about centripetal force, and can show one aspect of Newton's First Law andalso discuss velocity vectors by letting go and letting the animal fly across the room. I'm sure we could get fancy equipment to do the same thing, but why? This approach shows the principles nciely and engages the students. Teachers should have access to the equipment they need, of course. But "homemade" equipment is often the best way to do things, not a compromise.
As for tools that are "deeply digital", some of those are helpful and some are harmful. If I can get microscope images onto a laptop and manipulate them, that can be a great tool. When measuring temperature change in a fast reaction, a digital temperature probe gives a better picture of what's going on than a thermometer because the response time is better. But digital measurement and observation tools can also add a layer of black-box technology between students and the observation and explanation of natural phenomena that are the essence of science. Is a digital temperature probe better than a thermometer? How about a pH probe vs. pH paper? Calculating acceleration of an object by hand vs. having a pre-made spreadsheet tool to do it from your data? Is that digitized microscope image better than seeing the visual image directly through the lens? Is a digital timer better than a stopwatch? There are good arguments on both sides of each of these questions. Digital technology can be a huge help or it can get in the way. It should be available, but it should be far from our only focus in developing tools for the classsroom.
First, scientists need to be honest about the scope of science. Science just provides behavioral models for prediction and control of the natural world. Your decision to use any particular model is a value judgment. There is no good reason why someone should have to choose between science and religion. Science is useful, regardless of your religion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSecond, scientists need to provide clarity on how formal science works. For example, the Scientific Method is a process just for creating models for cause or classification. It doesn't apply in many scientific inquiries, such as test for optimal value, test for effect, or test for existence.
Third, scientists need to engage more interns. It is very difficult to contrive authentic scientific experiences in classrooms in the absense of scientists. I think that students would learn more about science as a process doing menial tasks for scientists than they would doing contrived labs in a classroom. Formal science is about making models portable, exstensible, reliable, and useful. It's hard to do that in a rote setting.
Finally, scientists need to engage the world. How can it be that most Republicans in the US deny anthropogenic climate change? The upper layers of the atmosphere are cooling, and the lower layers are heating. How can that be, other than due to the insulating properties of greenhouse gases? The problem isn't that the arguments are complex; it is the passivity of climate scientists.
More fluff. Don't forget 'don't run with scissors'.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEducation is a reflection of society. One can't engineer society through some generic 'improving the education system'.
In the next decades education wil continue to take place 'outside' the classroom. Schools will become more and more irrelevent. We will all be hooked into the latest technology while classrooms will gather dust.
I agree with nobbsey and others about homemade props. They are often the best and show creativity, a piece that is often lost in teaching science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have a friend who used to teach at a STEM school in Columbus. No text books!!! Re-inventing the wheel each time a course is taught is nuts.
I am a PhD Physicist and have been at home raising my kids, the youngest of whom is going into first grade. I want to teach at the high school level. Ohio has an Alternative Teaching License for people with knowledge in a certain area but no background in education. But even with this I have had to shell out a lot of $$ and am jumping through a lot of bureaucratic hoops. Maybe releasing school districts from the licensing requirements would help principals who want to recruit science and math teachers.
Also tax payers can't possibly compete with the pay levels at research labs, so we shouldn't try. Maybe we should focus on the reason for teacher burnout.
If teachers would join professional organizations specific to their content area, they will receive lots of support. I choose to maintain memberships in NSTA, NESTA, ACS, AAAS, GSA, NCTM and the state organizations related to the national organizations. From these organizations and my active involvement in science conferences, workshops, policy forums, etc. I receive the best support ever. In turn I behave professional in my district and classroom and have gained more support and respect from administrators, colleagues, parents, students and community. Sure there are those who are not professional in the teaching profession and being tenured does not prevent the districts from releasing them from their contracts.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe first step to enhanced and improved education is for teachers themselves to take it upon themselves to behave professionally.
So long as significant parts of the media portray teachers as fat cats earning luxuriant salaries, it's going to stay harder to recruit noble individuals towards the cause. How about some respect for teachers?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt shouldn't be about this, but for too much of the country the political climate is too hostile for education. Although recent polling hint that most Republican voters have finally figured out that certain concepts of extremist conservatism are not the answer to our problems, the party doesn't appear ready to catch up. And with the conservative minority dictating what goes on in Washington, the status quo as laid down by current education spending and No Child Left Behind will stand for at least another decade.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is of course a travesty because the extremists have such a hostility towards authentic education that depressingly resembles fascism, and they've successfully instilled their attitudes on such a broad percentage of the population. Noone even blinks anymore when Big Oil attempts to offer " donations" to textbook publishers in exchange for the right to re-edit science textbooks for their purposes. This is the sort of filth that should be front page news, but hardly anyone knows it's even happening.
I really miss the days when the general public valued and respected what being a scientist really meant. Nowadays any idiot who's figures out how to do a Google search suddenly thinks he's qualified to argue highly sophisticated scientific concepts at a refined level, and no matter how obvious it is to us that they have no concept of how things even work, you can never convince them of how completely unqualified they are to even attempt such analyses. It's sad.
As an Engineer, it's interesting to point out that the big companies put considerable stress on communications skills from their Engineers. Clearly, language arts should have a bigger bit in Engineering schools.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere's one sure way of getting good at language arts. That's reading. Want to learn how to craft a good story arc? Read alot. Want a huge vocabulary? Read alot. What's the secret to getting a student to read? Get them to the point where they read for enjoyment. Then, make sure they have stuff to read. When my son got to reading for enjoyment, we were making trips to the library every few days. It's only less frequent now because the books are bigger. What would i have done without JKR? No idea.
Want kids to become good at math? Get them to the stage of math for enjoyment. Then give them math resources to dig into. How do you get them there? We should try a bunch of things. But the first thing i'd do is get them over 4 function arithmetic quicker and with better reliability. One tool to do that is the Japanese abacus. It's optimized for decimal. Four beads worth one, and one worth five - gives zero through nine. You can start out with the fingers on your hand - the thumb is worth five. Addition and subtraction from 0 to 99 on your hands.
Don't stop there. Chemistry for enjoyment. Biology for enjoyment. Physics for enjoyment. Astronomy for enjoyment. We've got astronomy clubs. Why not physics, biology and chemistry?
What if you're a parent without the skills? You could try to learn them ahead of your kids. But don't be too put out if you fall behind. My kids have raced by me in piano. They've got brains like sponges, and more time. Then you need help. Why not parents-as-teachers clubs?
What do i do to keep my skills up? I read alot. I look for challenging problems, for example, projecteuler.net. There's tons of stuff out there. Why do i do it? I like it.
Exceptional cases make for poor policy. You are not going to create a generation of Escalantes. Exceptional teachers arise in a particular set of circumstances and the circumstances are just as important as the teacher. The missing ingredients in most schools are effective educational leadership and, as identified in the article, access to high quality programs and aids. Teachers find themselves very often reinventing the wheel and our hastily assembled wheels do not always run as smoothly as we would like.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1: Pay teachers a decent wage. About 2x what they make currently. It will help them gain respect.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this2: Make as big a deal for non-sport teams (Chess team, Debate team, Science Fair ...) as the sports teams.
3:Do something about bullying....fine the parents $1000 for the fist time and increase from there...garnish wages if you must.
Change the social attitude so that being a "nerd" or a "geek" is in.
I attribute the majority of our education problem to our decadent culture, dysfunctional at home, on the job and all around. Many kids go to school only because they must, not because they are motivated to learn or develop useful skills. Many businesses find recent college graduates unqualified to do useful work.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy should American education be inherently futile? Could it be that students disrespect teachers, employers and parents because they have so few role models to inspire respect. With few exceptions, role models in the public eye seem to succeed more by political cunning, physical strength and personal appearance than by anything they might have learned in school. When education and training are occasionally evident in a character's behavior, it appears like magic, unrelated to that prior education and training in ways that might cause impressionable kids to follow suite.
Teachers are partly to blame for this: they follow established curricula and do little to inform students of their untapped cognitive potential along the way. They do little to alert students to the fact that life can progress from one situation to another in increments that required serious effort and commitment.
If our dysfunctional culture is so much at fault, it will not suffice to double teachers' salaries, provide more digital content and do other gentrified things. When teachers and students are more at odds than cooperative, when performance standards are high and time is short, it's little wonder that teachers are more inclined to follow their texts and tend to their academic knitting than inspire excellence and give motivational speeches.
Where is this criticism in previous posts? It is missing entirely. Are we afraid to confront another inconvenient truth? If our culture is so much to blame, what is our remedy?
As a grandmother, I have watched my granddaughter suffer from the schools moving away "from merit-based ability-grouping toward heterogeneous grouping and lowest-common-denominator education."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this(partial quote from "Class Warfare", J. Martin Rochester) In plain English, this means children who have higher capabilities sit in a classroom with children of lower capabilities and the teacher teaches to the level of those with lower capabilities. This completely bores the children with higher capabilities, again in plain English, the children with higher capabilities are not being challenged and are being dumbed down. If the U.S. wants to improve STEM education, it has to admit that heterogeneous grouping is a DUMB idea. Unfortunately, in professional education circles, who control teaching methods in public schools, this would be admitting the methods they advance aren't working.
I shouldn't have to have the principal standing inside of my room to be allowed to deliver my lesson. This is just ridiculous.
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