For my last blog, I chose a current article from September 2010. Find the article here
This article is about the changes white house advisers want to see happen in science education. The article says the government wants to allocate another $1 billion towards STEM education. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The first question that popped into my mind is, where is this money going to come from? This funding increase is to meet President Obama's goal of raising our international testing scores in science and math. This money would open more elementary, middle and high school STEM schools. STEM schools are just another model of education; like a charter, magnet, parochial, private, public or montessori schools. These schools put a stronger emphasis on science and math education, with highly qualified teachers.
The problem I see with this idea, is there is not a long term plan set in place for pre-service or current teacher education. In order for our students to improve test scores, our instruction needs to improve. Without ongoing professional development, teaching methods will not change. Teachers have to believe their old way of instruction is incorrect or be dissatisfied with it before they will change. We have talked about this idea in class as well. If teachers are satisfied with their way of instruction, they will not see a reason or need to change. I think it is a fine line of control, because education is mostly controlled at the state level. If the government started to gain more control, what would that mean in the long run?
I think it is positive that the government is becoming aware that our education system needs improvement. How they go about doing this, and what their desired results will be key. I don't believe raising test scores to be an international competitor should be the reason behind the change. The change should come because we, as a country and society, are dissatisfied with the education our students are currently receiving. This goes back to the same idea I mentioned in my past blogs. Do we want our education to be student centered or adult centered? I sincerely hope the answer is student centered.
I find this quite interesting. I definitely agree that I am very happy to see the government taking an interest in improving our education system. However, I am not sure if I think creating new schools is the answer. We have a lot of struggling schools and this money could go to helping them improve. Many of these schools are in low socioeconomic areas and these students may not be able to attend the new STEM schools. So while we may be creating schools to help improve test scores in math and science, the struggling schools with low test scores will stay struggling. I agree with your point of view that we need to pay attention to current educators and their professional development. If we give funding and professional development to these teachers we can hopefully raise test scores in our current schools as well.
ReplyDeleteI am also happy to see them putting more money and funds into education. Is it only going toward Math and Science because of scoring? Shouldn't some of that money go toward other subjects? I appreciate math considering I am a math minor but I still beleive that all subjects deserve to be treated equally. Funding will help improve the education but I think we need to use it towards all aspects of education.
ReplyDeleteI also found this article :) and I loved reading your post about it. The STEM schools I have found are free to attend and they base their acceptance on chance. My question is why are these schools getting this money and not the public schools if they are both accepting students in the same areas? It comes to your point on the struggling schools stay struggling and now will struggle even more competing with the STEM schools. Not fair if you think about it. Great Post :)
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