Two recent events brought my views on instruction and curriculum into focus. The first was the passing of Neil Armstrong, the remarkable astronaut who walked on the moon. The second was the landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars. These pivotal events made me reflect on another space launch of long ago. On October 4, 1957 the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the world’s first orbiting satellite.
The successful launch had stunning effects in the U.S. First, Americans were incredulous that the Soviets were in the lead in the space race. They could not believe they were lagging behind after coming in first in so many areas. Second, feelings of paranoia about Russians increased. Americans were fearful of the Russian government and thought Russian spies were peering into their lives. In short, the United States perceived itself as scientifically, technologically, militarily, and economically weak.
“The launching of Sputnik was a trumpet call to the U.S. educational system. Even if the public did not know much about rocketry, satellites, or space, they did understand a perceived blow to national pride. Until that time, the U.S. stood at the forefront of medical research, automobile design and manufacture, and electronics” (L.Barrow, 2010).
I was a toddler at the time, but by the time I reached elementary school the effects of that launch were incredible. After Sputnik, the Federal government took several remarkable actions: President Eisenhower established the position of a Presidential Science Advisor; The House and the Senate reorganized their committee structures to focus on science policy; Congress created the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA). Congress tripled funding for the National Science Foundation to support basic research, and on September 2, 1958, Congress passed the National Defense Education Act. This act provided funding to United States education institutions at all levels. The act authorized funding for four years, increasing funding per year: for example, funding increased on eight program titles from 183 million dollars in 1959 to 222 million in 1960. That was a lot of money for that time. Educational reformers enjoyed financial support from both public and private sources for their curriculum projects. Federal agencies, particularly the National Science Foundation (NSF), and major philanthropic foundations, particularly Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, provided ample support for the development of new programs. These efforts were strategically aimed at increasing interest in science and math and attracting students to choose a career path in those fields. Lucky for me, 1960 is also the year I officially began my education at P.S. 194 in Brooklyn.
Schools were different then. I had over 35 students in my class. Students were grouped by ability. If you were lucky enough to test into one of the Intellectually Gifted Classes or IGC as it was more commonly referred to, then you were in for a treat. I worked with a math consultant in third grade, and we were given French lessons to help round us out. In fifth grade, we examined the base systems of our numeration system and constructed a personal abacus. In the summer of my sixth grade year, I was invited, along with a host of others, to study at City University to work with mentors and professors. Materials and supplies were new. Science and math curricula were being rewritten and the emphasis shifted from teaching facts and definitions to a focus on fundamental principles.
Culturally, there were lots of changes going on in the country. The year Sputnik was launched, Martin Luther King Jr. founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Two years before, Rosa Parks had refused to give up her seat to a white rider. Elvis Presley was popular and promoting his movie and record Jailhouse Rock, released one month after the Sputnik launch. ( Presleys’s recordings were illegal in the Soviet Union.) Television was claiming the nation’s evenings and becoming the media of the century. The day Sputnik launched, ‘Leave it to Beaver’ aired for the first time. Jack Kerouac named the generation the Beat Generation. Herb Caen, a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, coined the term ‘beatnik’ adding the Russian suffix –nik after Sputnik was launched.
Fast forward to 2012. Today, I am a school administrator working under the constraints of a heavily burdened school system. Our high school lab is outdated. Textbooks are obsolete before the ink in them is dry. Today, research involves computers and technology. Science programs need electronic whiteboards, probes, PCs, laptops, and electronic data bases. We need teachers who understand the teaching of research as well as the doing of research. What happened to all the innovation and reform?
As the world became flat America began its dive into a deep recession. We began to worry about our fuel. We kept hearing about the burgeoning power of Brazil, India, and China. Our national debt reached epic proportions. Once again, we looked to our schools for answers. This time the focus was literacy and a back to basics movement was instigated. The No Child Left behind Act was passed in 2001. However, unlike the vision of the Sputnik education reforms, this legislation focused on discrete skills that could be easily assessed. An obsession with accountability and assessment spawned an entire industry. Absolute test scores mattered, rather than growth and progress, and the emphasis was to sanction low scoring schools rather than to reward success.
When President Obama gave his State of the Union address on January 25, 2012 he once again put science, technology, engineering and math in the forefront. I became hopeful. The subjects of science, technology, engineering, and math have been bundled into a neat little acronym called STEM. We were reminded that our international test scores ranked us seventeenth in math, ninth in reading, and twelfth in science. The test that was used was the Program for International Student Achievement or PISA. The test was given to 15 year old students in 65 countries and administered by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). People were surprised and upset by the performance of the American students. President Obama proposed some new measures. He reached out to Teach for America to train 11,000 STEM corps members by 2015 and he will prepare 4,000 new STEM teachers from 31 UTEACH sites by 2015.
Unfortunately, Teach for America has an abysmal track record. Recruits get 5 weeks of training and then teach for one hour a day for 12 days. The classes they teach during training only have 10-12 students in them. Many new recruits leave after 2 years. This program cannot possibly replace a university four year teacher preparation program that mandates 40 weeks of student teaching, and often leads to a Master’s Degree. You can keep the Teach for America recruits. UTeach, on the other hand, is a much better initiative. It was created in 1997 to address the shortage of qualified secondary mathematics, science, and computer science teachers. The program has been well-received, cited by the National Academy of Sciences as a model program and addresses the need for more highly qualified mathematics and science teachers. I look forward to having these teachers come to our schools, but we need more help than this. Much more.
In the years since Sputnik, we have learned quite a bit about what works in education. Rather than put forth more political rhetoric, the President needs to take action and start reforms that we know work. William Mathis, a former Superintendent of Vermont, and occasional writer for the Washington Post, reminded us of what worked in his article “What international test scores really tell us: Lessons buried in the PISA report.”
· Students from low socio-economic backgrounds score a year behind their more affluent classmates. However, poorer students who are integrated with their more affluent classmates score strikingly higher.
The difference is worth more than a year’s education.
The difference is worth more than a year’s education.
· Tracking students in ability groups results in the gap becoming wider. Poor children are more frequently shunted into the lower tracks.
· Schools that compete for students (using vouchers, charters) show no achievement score advantages
· Students who attended pre-school score higher, even after more than 10 years.
· In schools where students are required to repeat grades the test scores are down and the achievement gap is larger.
· Schools that have autonomy over their curriculum, finances, and assessments score higher.
· The best performing school systems manage to provide high quality education to all children, despite socioeconomic differences.
I help prepare the budget for my district each year. For the past five years, our New York State and Federal aid have gone down. Funding for schools is inequitable and inadequate. Many of our schools were built during the baby boom of the fifties and are crumbling. Districts cannot afford both capital projects and daily operations. Infrastructures cannot support the technology that is so badly needed. Although the Federal government has become more prescriptive, it has failed to build on the vast research on what works in education. Instead, it has begun a systematic dismantling of public education by promoting vouchers, and privatization. The need for real reform is now. We must end the obsession with high stakes, poor quality tests by developing assessment systems that provide multiple ways to show what students have learned. We need to outfit our schools with the latest technology. We need to overhaul our curriculum so it focuses not on facts and figures, but on problem solving, creativity and imagination. As Einstein said, “Not everything that counts can be counted.”
Perhaps we need another Sputnik.
