NGA Announces STEM Advisory Committee

“The increasingly globalized economy requires workers with strong science, technology, engineering and math skills,” said John Thomasian, director of the NGA Center. “This Committee is intended to provide the perspectives of a variety of stakeholders to governors and states as they work to establish and grow STEM education programs that can contribute to economic competitiveness.”

 

Now seriously, when "variety of stakeholders" is used to describe a committee, you can bet it's stacked with educrats. 

(IMO) Just 2 out of the 19 (Stephens and Quinn) are really equipped to contribute and possibly improve our ability to compete in the globalized economy. 

Feel free to check the committee's credentials and content specific experience yourself!  Happy hunting!!

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BEAUTIFULLY ARTICULATED!!

Improving math and science education is the single greatest challenge to our continued economic and national security leadership. Without a profound improvement in math and science learning, America will simply not be able to sustain its national security nor compete for high value jobs in the world market.

 

(And Yes!! Let's get REAL!!) 

 There has been a steady growth in the amount of money spent on red tape, bureaucracy, and supervision. We now have curriculum specialists who consult with curriculum consultants, who work with curriculum supervisors, who manage curriculum department heads, who occasionally meet with teachers. [and, for the most part, the curriculum they develop is extremely WEAK!]

The more we seem to spend on education, the smaller the share we spend on inspiring and rewarding those actually doing the educating.

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SOOOOO glad to stumble upon this!

Association of American Educators

AAE is America's fastest growing national, nonprofit, nonunion teachers' association with members in all 50 states.

AAE offers professional member benefits such as liability insurance and legal protection, professional development, newsletters, scholarships, classroom grants, and a voice on educational issues—but at a fraction of the cost of most other associations' dues.

AAE does not spend any of our members' dues on partisan politics, nor do we support or oppose controversial agendas unrelated to education.

(special thanks to Kyle Olson)

 

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Education and National Security

The NSA: Security in Numbers

The success of the NSA hinges on the health of American math education. "If the U.S. mathematics community isn't healthy," Schatz says, "the NSA isn't healthy."

Unlike the tech companies it must compete with, the NSA can hire only U.S. citizens. This is a severe constraint. About half of the estimated 20,000 math graduate students at U.S. universities are foreigners. They're off bounds, as are the bountiful math brains in India, China, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere.

China dominates NSA-backed coding contest

Whether the outcome of this competition is another sign that math and science education in the U.S. needs improvement may spur debate. But the fact remains: Of 70 finalists, 20 were from China, 10 from Russia and two from the U.S.

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Love the Dunce Cap! :)

Race to the Top's Hidden Price Tag

When the Obama administration dangled $4.35 billion in Race to the Top (RTTT) funds before money-hungry public school systems around the country, educators and politicians in most states reacted as if it were free money for simply singing the school-change tunes the feds wanted to hear.

Of course, the money isn't free at all. It was carved out of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the "stimulus"), meaning it is borrowed money for which our grandchildren will be on the hook. It is highly doubtful that those future taxpayers will see benefits anywhere close to equaling a price tag that will soar with added interest.

In addition, local and state bureaucrats who competed for RTTT grants like a pack of wolves snapping at juicy pork chops are finding the grants may cost more than they bring in.

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He's spent alot of time in America's classrooms!

K-12 Budget Picture - Lean Years Ahead

Boosting productivity, though, requires grappling with the cost of teaching. Teacher salaries and benefits amount to half or more of district spending. The most promising way to control costs without slashing services is to get more value out of each employee. While American schools have been in a multidecade push for class-size reduction--cutting student-teacher ratios from 23:1 in the early 1970s to about 15:1 today--this massive increase in staffing has shown no evidence of academic benefits. While smaller classes are attractive in the abstract, the need to hire more bodies dilutes teacher quality. Indeed, some high-performing countries, like South Korea and Singapore, have some middle school and high school classes with forty or more students per classroom. Increasing aggregate student-teacher ratios by about two students, from 15:1 to 17:1, could cut district spending on salary and benefits by nearly 10 percent.

 

I suggest that, in the future, he considers class-size for academic subjects only when making a conclusion about the"academic benefits" of class-size reduction. 

Please let us know of ANY schools in the US that have a 15:1 ratio in their high school math, science or English courses.  It is typical for a US core subject teacher to have 150 students daily.

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Suggestion - Focus on Content

School Budgets

School budgets should also be focused on content.  When school boards (local and state) analyze their budgets, they need to start considering how much of the overall budget supports the actual teaching and learning of real subject content.  For example, the largest department in my school is not English, math or science.  Is that the case in your area too?  How many people does your district employ that do not have direct interaction with students on a daily basis in a teaching capacity? 

Local Control

Tax-payers have a right to know remediation rates of their district's students in English, math and science when they enter colleges or universities.  This is the best indicator or K-12 success in my opinion.   It could shed some light on the effectiveness of certain K-12 curricula used in local districts if that information was included in the information provided. 

Is the content taught in your school district college preparatory or not?  Do student's grades in your district accurately reflect their understanding of the content knowledge expected at the next level?  

Teacher Evaluations

There's alot of talk these days about teacher evaluations with little focus on who is conducting the evaluations.  My evaluations are conducted by an administrator who has no familiarity with the subect I'm teaching.  I imagine this is the case throughout the country.  I wouldn't mind having my salary tied to my evaluation - if it was done by someone who knew mathematics.  Otherwise, the evaluator is looking for things that might be beneficial in other areas, but not necessarily in mathematics.  (See post on cognitive research) 

How much time is spent during an administrator's ed school training on content area cognitive research?

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