For Your Attention stat. Few. if anv. knowledeeahle teachers and scientists would question t h a t t h e 15-year declme of pre-cdege science and mathematics education bodes i l l for the future. The rwurts of the recent National Academy of Sciences convocation on this suhiect give additional cause for reflection. The magnitude of the problem is truly staggering and the implications are ominous. Elements of the problem are contained in key enrollment statistics from the area of secondary education. Only about one-third of US. high school graduates complete 3 years of mathematics. Less than 8%complete a calculus course. Less than one-third of US. high schools offer calculus. Sixty percent of all students enroll in general and vocational programs, but only 20%graduatewith 3 yearsof mathematics. Only one-third of the nation's school districts require more than one year of mathematics for graduation. There are perceptual and attitudinal components to the prohlem. Nearly 50%of the students would prefer not to take more science by the end of the third grade. Only one-fifth of the students in the eighth grade have a positive attitude toward science. By grade 12, only 18%consider mathematics a favorite subject, down from 48% for third grade students. It is not surprising that the paucity of pre-college scienre and mathematics instruction and the poor student attitudes toward these subjects have been ieflected in student achievement. The mean mathematics scores on the SAT have declined from 502 in 1963 to 466 in 1980. Enrollment in remedial mathematics courses in public four-year colleges increased 70%between 1975 and 1980, ten times faster than total college enrollment increased. Science achievement scores of 17-year-oldshave declined steadily since 1969. Although the proportion of students scoring 700 on the SAT has remained the same for the last decade, the proportion scoring at low levels (-300) has risen sharply. The decline has been fueled by a steady loss in the number of qualified science teachers. From 1970 to 1980 the number of science teachers being trained declined 65% while the number of trained mathematics teachers decreased 75%. In 1981,38states reported a shortage of secondary school chemistry teachers and 9 of them described the shortage as critical. In 1981,half of the teachers newly appointed t i teach science and mathematics in US. high schools were temporarily certified to teach those subjects. The implications of this rather dismal situation are heginning to be felt in colleges and universities a c n m the country
accordine to the National Research Council (NRC). After analyzing science requirements for non-srirncr mi~jorslit 215 tour-vear cdleees and universities. the NHC rrcenrlv reourted that colleges "have lowered their science requiremenis over recent vears to the alarming point where the average nonspecial&t student devotes o&y about 7 percent of acollege course load to work in the sciences." Authors of the NRC report observed that students are allowed to choose "willy nilly" from an "ever growing cafeteria" offering "topics courses" that rarely fit into a well-conceived pattern of education. Further, the NRC observed that post-secondary science courses are often inadequately taught using dull lecture methods rather than attempting to stress interesting phenomena which can be experienced as demonstrations or as laboratory experiments. Annarentlv we can still train the eifted who wish to he scienti& and engineers, hut we have yost the capacity to teach eeneral students who reauire an education to nartici~atefully k a technological age. l i i s ohvious from the NRC report t h i t the nation's future leaders are not being provided with an understanding of science and technology sufficient to enable them to function effectively. Apparently, colleges and universities are not doing their joh in this regard. T h e basis for some of the solutions to parts of these problems lies in local action. Thus, the deploiahle state of sicond a y school science and mathematics education can be solved hy the resolve of curriculum planners, as can the decrease in science reauirements in colleees and universities. A first sten. it would appear, might he to re-establish the necessary cours& in the respective curricula. The qti;litv of instruction at all levels of education can he improved by local initiatives. For example. Caliiornia and Florida. which led the nation in relaxing high schuul graduation requirements in the 1960's ha\,e recentlv reverstd these policies. It appears that California intends to require a minimum of three years of mathematics and two of science for college-hound students. Local action could also he instrumental in increasing the quality and quantity of teachers. Colleges and universities could reward superior teaching of science courses for nonspecialists. Local school districts can attract teachers into mathematics and science disciplines where they are in short supply by providingdifferential pay scales. For example, the Houston school district, with corporate help, is providing a $2000 annual salary supplement for teachers certified in sciences and mathematics. The content of the science courses where orohlems exist is. perhaps, the one area which cannot he addressed on the local level. There are persuasive arguments that solutions to such problems are uniquely federal. The long slide to our resent situation in science education can he reversed, hut the process will he slow, probably expensive, and require the coordinated efforts a t the local, state, and federal level. JJL
success full^
Volume 59
Number 8
August 1982
625
