District Administration - March 2007 - (Page 80)

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Direct involvement with materials is essential in teaching and learning science, and those competencies cannot be measured with paper and pencil tests. Furthermore, “If one district teaches students about electrical circuits in fourth grade, and another tackles the subject in ﬁfth, the latter school’s students could stumble on a test given to fourth graders,” which could lead to “teaching to the test” rather than assessing student strength and understanding in science, Young says. The development of appropriate tests to assess science competence presents prodigious challenges for states that will have to evolve, and according to Young, “What’s important now is to develop tests that guide instruction.” Educators fear that in revising the curriculum, the crucial emphasis on experimentation could fade. ba sed instruction, but it’s likely that it will take time for lab mastery to become part of state assessments. Another reason that lab work may not be part of tests is that it’s difﬁcult to assess students one on one, but a more signiﬁcant issue is that not all districts are equal when it comes to equipment. “Not all students have access to labs,” says Moon. “Kids in urban locations have less exposure to quality labs than those in afﬂuent, suburban districts. That’s a challenge for assessment,” Moon says. materials, such as Science and Technology for Children kits from the Carolina Biological Supply Company. Other districts have chosen to bring in outside assistance to create a curriculum that matches up with a state model. At Clayton County Public Schools in Georgia, the district engaged the services of the Kaplan testing ﬁ rm to create lesson plans to meet state performance standards that could easily be replicated across multiple schools. The content is linked directly to Georgia’s end-of-course testing, says superintendent Dr. Barbara Pulliam. It can take years for teachers to catch hold of differences compared to how they used to teach the lessons,” Pulliam says. “It's still a work in process, but we believe it will increase student mastery.” Si m i la rly, at the Lynwood Uniﬁed School District in California, which also brought in Kaplan for lesson planning, the schools are making an additional effort toward mastery by going beyond NCLB and state guidelines, particularly at the elementary level. “We’d put so much emphasis on math and language arts that our science education had fallen apart,” says Dr. Dhyan Lal, Lynwood superintendent. “With the new NCLB mandate, we saw it as a chance to put a more managed curriculum in place,” he says. To achieve that goal, the district invested in science kits, supplementary teaching materials and coaches, and recently implemented a Saturday science class for students, teachers and parents to promote family literacy in science. “Putting aside all the NCLB requirements, what we all want is for our kids to be better educated in science.” Lal says. Enhancing the District Curriculum Ma ny districts will have to do considerable work to enhance their science curriculum, but in many cases, state education frameworks are in place to provide guidelines and direction. For example, the Danbury Public Schools in Connecticut aligned their science curriculum to the State of Connecticut Science Frameworks revised in 2005, said Helga JensenRuopp, the K12 Science Program coordinator. To keep abreast of changing requirements, the district created common lesson plans and templates for lab experiences, and secured funding to purchase science Assessing Lab Proﬁciency O ne aspect of state assessments that will vary widely among states is lab work proﬁciency, and science educators fear that in revising the curriculum, the crucial emphasis on experimentation could fade in the effort to measure factual acquisition. “ Trad it iona l ly, science instruction and lab work in high school are fairly separate experiences, and that has implications for assessment, says Dr. Jean Moon, director of the Board on Science Education at the National Academies, part of the task force on lab work in schools. The group’s recommendation is that there should be an integrated instructional model that brings together lab work with classroom80 March 2007 Resources National Science Teachers Association www.nsta.org Charlo t t e-Mecklenbur g Schools www.cms.k12.nc.us Clay t on County Public Schools www.clayton.k12.ga.us Danbur y Public Schools www.danbury.k12.ct.us Lynwood Uniﬁed School District www.lynwood.k12.ca.us Tex as Education Agency www.tea.state.tx.us District Administration Sci.indd Sci.indd 3 2/13/07 11:30:12 AM Warning : Unknown : The session id contains invalid characters, valid characters are only a-z, A-Z and 0-9 in Unknown on line 0 Warning : Unknown : Failed to write session data files . Please verify that the current setting of session.save_path is correct /var/lib/php/session in Unknown on line 0 http://www.nsta.org http://www.cms.k12.nc.us http://www.clayton.k12.ga.us http://www.danbury.k12.ct.us http://www.lynwood.k12.ca.us http://www.tea.state.tx.us

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - March 2007

Contents
Editor's Letter
Update
Inside the Law
Curriculum Update
District Profile
Administrator Profile
Friday Night Fever
Creating an Effective Virtual School Program
Hunting for Talent
Multimedia Man
Do These Web Sites Work?
Finding Funds for Student Laptops
Curriculum Crassifieds
Gearing Up for Science Assessments
New Products
Computer Literature
Speaking Out
Principal Opinion
The Online Edge
Calendar of Events
Problem/Solution
Research Corner

District Administration - March 2007