New Approach Proposed for Science Curriculums

“That is the failing of U.S. education today, that kids are expected to learn a lot of things but not expected to be able to use them,” said Helen Quinn, a retired physicist from the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, Calif., who led an 18-member committee that spent more than a year devising the framework.

One of the big goals, the committee said in a 282-page report, is “to ensure that by the end of 12th grade, all students have some appreciation of the beauty and wonder of science.”

The report, released Tuesday by the National Research Council, also pushes for incorporating engineering into what is taught to students in elementary school through high school.

It is the latest in decades of efforts to improve the science knowledge of American students, who have typically ranked in the middle of the pack on international comparison tests. The research council, which is the operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering, last weighed in on science education standards in 1996.

Now that the council has finished a framework, a nonprofit education group, Achieve Inc., will expand it into a set of standards. Similar efforts produced standards for math and language arts that have been adopted by 44 states.

Achieve is aiming to finish work by the end of next year, with drafts available publicly before then. Putting the standards into the classroom would take several more years as textbooks and lesson plans are rewritten.

While Achieve is working with states to come up with standards, the core science — including evolution — is not up for debate.

“What we’re not going to do is compromise the science just to get states comfortable,” said Michael Cohen, the president of Achieve. States will have the final say on whether to adopt the new approach.

The Carnegie Corporation of New York financed most of the $2.26 million effort, and the National Science Teachers Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science also participated.

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