Emboldened Capacity: Science Education and the Infrastructure of Science-Rich Cultural Institutions

American Museum of Natural History
May 2009
Prepared for the Carnegie-IAS Commission on Mathematics and Science Education

Introduction

The United States is actively rethinking its public school systems, especially its urban school districts, where a majority of American students are educated. Under evaluation are the basics of how the system is structured, including how we use time, where education takes place, how we define effective teaching, and what must be taught. Although still nascent, the current wave of reform has already produced important models of success. Its activities are also widely distributed, invented and implemented by diverse “players,” from community-based organizations, to for-profit corporations, to civic institutions, to philanthropic foundations.

The drive toward systemic, long-term change in the education arena is especially relevant to the current crisis in science education. As detailed in the Carnegie-IAS Commission on Mathematics and Science Education report, too many American students fail to receive rigorous, relevant, motivating science and mathematics education or to achieve high levels of learning. The call to produce a metamorphosis in STEM education (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) is not simply a game of international competition; it is the recognition that the challenges of the 21st century will require a commitment to scientific literacy in order to yield both a sufficient number of scientists and science professionals, and to ensure that all of our diverse citizenry is educated to meet those challenges.

Cross-sector partnerships are prominent elements in many current reform efforts. Successful partnerships are beginning to “de-isolate” schools and school districts and draw a broader set of civic resources into a shared commitment to educate and support students. The community of science-rich cultural institutions has a growing and critical role to play in improving how science is taught, changing the perception of science as “for experts only,” illuminating the role that science plays in the lives of scientists and nonscientists, and creating innovative programs. The challenge is to envision how this community will transcend its historic role as an “invisible infrastructure” (St. John, 1996) to become an emboldened partner in K-12 public education—a partner that provides consistent leadership, deep understanding, and innovative resources toward educating American students for the 21st century.

The AMNH-Carnegie-IAS Commission Meeting of Museum and School District Leaders December 1-2, 2008

In 2008, the American Museum of Natural History joined the Carnegie-IAS Commission’s work in researching and designing a new role for science cultural institutions in the formal science education of public school children, and in the professional learning opportunities for teachers. With support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Goldman Sachs Foundation, and the GE Foundation, AMNH held a national summit on science education: Science Generation, A National Imperative, in April 2008.

The Summit was attended by 230 leaders from museums, business, philanthropy, education, and government from 28 states, as well as middle and high school students from New York City public schools, parents, and Museum scientists and educators. Together, they pinpointed six national priorities to improve science teaching and learning.

• The global economy requires international benchmarking of student learning and achievement.
• There is a leadership gap that must be addressed.
• A national demand for high quality science education is needed.
• Federal investment in science education of the scope and depth of the post-Sputnik years is essential.
• Radical, broad reform in K-12 science education is needed.
• Formalization of the relationship between science institutions and schools, and indeed a leadership role for science-rich institutions in reforming science education is critically important.

Out of the productive conversations at the Summit, and the follow-up meetings with policymakers, corporations, philanthropic institutions, museums, and education leaders, it became clear that museums and science institutions could and should have a much greater profile and level of activity in the national call to improve science education.

A follow up meeting to the Summit was held with the Carnegie-IAS Commission in December of 2008, inviting several leaders of museums and science centers and their counterparts in urban public school districts from around the country, to further explore what designs and efforts can best support a metamorphosis in the “delivery” of science education in our public schools. Members of the Carnegie-IAS Commission on Mathematics and Science Education, and AMNH education directors and scientists also participated in the meeting, which was co-chaired by Carnegie-IAS Commission co-chairs Phillip Griffiths and Michele Cahill, and AMNH President Ellen Futter.

The purpose and objectives of the meeting were ambitious:

• To envision dramatically different approaches to the teaching and learning of K-12 science that meet 21st century knowledge and skill requirements, with specific attention to the distinct challenges of improving the science and general education of low achieving students.

• To identify where district and school needs for science education improvements intersect with the assets of science cultural institutions;

• To generate new partnership designs with the potential to accelerate student achievement in science in sustainable and scalable ways.

• To identify the leadership strategies necessary to build partnership designs that can last and get stronger over time.

The following will summarize the findings of the discussions:

I. The Priority Needs of School Districts in Science Education

From the content of the curriculum, to the architecture of the delivery of science education, the following were articulated as priorities to be addressed in pursuing new models of partnership to improve the teaching and learning of science in K-12 public schools:

1. Science Curriculum. The content of the science curriculum suffers from a profusion and confusion of standards and a lack of context. There is a need for clear, concise sets of science standards that are national and that supersede most/all other standards. A lack of “coherence” was continually cited, meaning that “what students should know and know how to do” is too varied and does not meet the test of relevance, nor anticipate 21st century workforce, societal or intellectual needs.

2. Pedagogy. The current teaching workforce need deeper and more targeted professional learning opportunities. Current programs are sporadic and lack the depth necessary for science. For new recruiting, there is a need to attract higher achieving undergraduate students with special interests in science and teaching.

3. Alignment. There is a need for alignment between assessments, content, and curriculum. School districts need better resources and understanding to map standards to assessments and therefore accountabilities. A significant barrier to building alignment is the turnover among district superintendents, which prevents implementation and analysis of long-term strategies that continue to guide and refine the alignment among assessments, content and curriculum.

4. Assessment. Assessments haven’t adequately addressed the adoption of inquiry and scientific investigation as a key principle of science learning. Particularly in large urban districts, many times tests are chosen that are the most cost-efficient to grade, which leads to “vocabulary test” content of most science assessments.

5. Architecture. In a variety of ways, the architecture of the system inhibits sustained, exemplary science instruction. The current architecture of the urban school system does not allow for the depth necessary or the level of instructional excellence necessary for continuous improvement in science education. And resources are not evenly distributed, especially in terms of teaching excellence. The structure of the school day does not allow students access to an “integrated” world. The middle and high school pathways are too narrow, meaning that students and teachers are asked to conform to a rigid learning progression; if they cannot, there are few if any alternatives to gaining secondary science mastery. The typical “departments” structure is a barrier to understanding cross-functions between disciplines. Replication of successful ideas across a district is rarely realized.

II. The Role of Museums in successful partnership, and barriers to address to model such partnership.

There was general agreement that museums have a certain agility—can adapt more quickly to change, and can accelerate action—in a way that school districts cannot, and that this capacity is underutilized in meeting school district needs. In addition, museums and science centers enjoy a “neutral” stance in the civic landscape that allows them to engage across stakeholders—parents, education and civic leaders, business and philanthropy—and take leadership roles on the city, state and national level to bring together and sustain partnerships. Most importantly, science rich cultural institutions are places of authentic scientific collections and practice, which keep pace with the rapidity of scientific and societal change, and have expertise in interpreting science to the general public.

1. Promising models:

The leaders of the science cultural institutions attending submitted a summary of a representative partnership programs between their institution and their public school district which they would characterize as a best practice that could be replicated to greater impact nationally.

The work spans the balance of, as Dr. Alan Friedman, former CEO of the New York Hall of Science and a international consultant on science education, contextualized it, meeting specific school-defined needs, to deepening the alternative pathways that allow students to enjoy science precisely in a non-school modality. The goals of these programs targeted many areas of “inputs” that affect school performance and students’ learning. Examples included:

The American Museum of Natural History’s Urban Advantage program, a collaboration among eight science-rich cultural institutions in New York City and the New York City Department of Education, that improves middle school students’ understanding of scientific inquiry as defined by the New York State Core Curriculum, and therefore impacts on student achievement and engagement in science.

The Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Brooklyn Academy of Science and the Environment High School (BASE), a public high school designed in collaboration with the New York City Department of Education, the Prospect Park Alliance and other non-profit organizations to create a learning community that embraces the natural environment as a body of knowledge for understanding the world and addressing the needs of students. In addition to a full high school curriculum, students attend “field study” that is built into their regular school schedules at either Prospect Park or the Garden, and use a wide range of equipment and learn scientific research skills.

The California Academy of Sciences’ Teacher Institute on Science and Sustainability a two-year, immersive professional development experience that will challenge, prepare and inspire an annual cohort of 30 teachers to be leading science and sustainability educators for their students and life-long students of science and sustainability themselves.

COSI’s (Columbus Center of Science and Industry) role in leading and collaborating in the Ohio STEM Learning Network, a powerful alliance of corporations, universities, school districts and COSI to replicate and proliferate STEM school models that support STEM programs of excellence.

MOS’s (Museum of Science Boston) “Engineering is Elementary,” an elementary-level engineering curriculum and professional development program that introduces elementary engineering into regional and local classrooms in a sustained and supported way.

The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences is partnering with MCNC (Microelectronics Center of North Carolina), a world-wide and state-wide high capacity internet network that will deliver the Museum’s major science news feature program, the Daily Planet, into classrooms throughout North Carolina.

The Pacific Science Center’s LASER, (Leadership and Assistance for Science Education Reform) program, a ten-year cross sector initiative to implement and sustain ongoing, standards, based, inquiry centered science programs in all 295 school districts in the state of Washington.

2. Barriers exist:

The critical question confronting the meeting participants was: with so many good programs and unparalleled resources in science that schools will never come close to matching, how can we create more of an impact, and what are the barriers to designing sustained partnerships with real outcomes? Barriers identified included:

a. The larger question of how we educate children and adults in science, and the subset of what roles schools play and what role society plays, is not being looked at as a whole. The distinct roles, and the points of collaboration and governance among schools and museums is the “partnership architecture” that needs to be addressed.

b. Museum professional development programs as they currently exist do not have the depth and longevity of relationship that would provide continuous, measurable improvement, and help understand the impact.

c. Museum/science center professional development needs to take into account that there is differentiated learning among students within a classroom.

d. The different funding structures of the formal and informal systems underscore the fragmentation of efforts, especially the inconsistency of the private and public grants that drive most informal/formal partnerships, and the resource priorities of the publicly-funded formal systems. The school system needs to legitimize the role that science institutions need to play. “Can’t be field trips this year but not next year because of gas prices.”

III. Recommendations for Partnership Design that will sustain and increase improved science education:

The meeting participants attempted to synthesize the conversation with several recommendations specific to the stated priorities of the school districts, taking into account the capacities of the science institutions.

1. Standards:

The federal government could identify 6-10 regions throughout the country and provide incentives for districts through RFPs and federal funds to adhere to specific standards and assessments. Alternatively, build a STEM consortium around the country (need at least 10 major cities) that supports the “demand” model for science education, linking exemplary STEM education to a pipeline of opportunity through higher education and business. Existing cross-sector partnerships can form the core of such an effort.

• Governors, groups of states should come together on standards. In looking at standards and to streamlining the scope of what is taught, there needs to be a clean slate, with a more rigorous look toward what students will need to know 15 years from now and beyond, providing a new principle of relevance.

• As with the example of universities driving high school curricula, universities should partner with industry and science cultural institutions to drive K-12 standards, providing a new level of coherence.

• In the creation and governance of standards, and in the delivery system, a new design should articulate a multi-layer architecture that is responsive to differentiated learning and differentiated teaching practice. One basic layer is an expression of core content—a coherent standard of what students should know and know how to do; another layer defines deeper approaches, such as incorporating technologies into scientific investigations. Different partnership structures and models, with specific accountabilities, will shift in accordance with the focus of each layer.

2. School-and district-based practices:

• The partnership structures must be built to sustain changes in leadership.

• Teacher professional development should provide teachers with a universal set of teaching strategies, a “playbook.”

• Expand the day to add time for students to spend in field study.

• Have science institutions take a greater stake in constructing the science curriculum and the professional development for the school district. (a model of that is the health curriculum in North Carolina).

3. Student-focus:

• Museums should broaden their role in Pre-K and early childhood education and in family involvement as essential to long-term student support and success in science.

4. Technology Intervention:

• Technology is seen as a critical tool to individualize education. The challenge is to create the platforms that allow students to move at the pace that they can move to, enabling students to work in a differentiated way. Many pieces are already there, but are not adapted by school systems, such as the ability to take an AP Physics course on-line. This kind of resource allows those students capable of advanced placement work to pursue such work, even if they are in a school where there are not enough such students to warrant a class.

5. Human Capital:

• Undertake a broad experiment in implementing certified training for teachers in science museums, as well as restructuring the traditional university-based certification requirements. Supporting ideas included structuring this work as a network of science institutions, under a new enterprise of professional development.

• Investment in higher quality teaching as opposed to more teachers was proposed. Supporting ideas include pay differentiation, specifically to attract science teachers.

• For scaling up professional development, and for richness of scientific content and scientific ways of thinking, on-line professional development co-created by museums and science centers has broad promise. The challenge is to focus on this new tool “relentlessly and doggedly.”

• Incentives beyond professional development requirements should be invented and tested to encourage continued participation in professional development programs.

• Engage superintendents and principals as key leaders in broad reform efforts.

6. Advocacy/Thought leadership:

• Advocacy should include securing waivers from state governance for teacher education regulations that get in the way of innovative pathways. “We haven’t done a grand experiment in teacher education policy.” Science institutions should apply for waivers from the state/city.

• People in science can lead the charge for new assessments.

• Scientists and informal institutions can provide thought leadership and promote new content and deliveries of science education that are responsive to the science of how people learn.

• Science rich cultural institutions have an opportunity to be thought leaders in the field of standards or provide guidance on how to implement the standards. The addition of leaders from the science community should not lead to an additional layer of standards but should reflect leadership in focusing the standards.

• Challenge scientists to partner on innovation incubation—if you only had a week to teach kids physics, how would you do it?

7. Accountability and Assessments:

• Museums/science centers need to explore appropriate accountabilities so that partnerships can develop joint risk.

• Science cultural institutions should undertake their own research to consider accountability about how students learn science and how teachers learn to teach science.

• Partnerships should push for a marriage between the cognitive and affective assessments and accountabilities, and co-construct with schools the kind of alternative assessments that will measure important science mastery beyond traditional “vocabulary” assessment of science content. Only when important learning such as inquiry is built into assessments will the system reform. The upcoming NAEP shows promise.

• New models of partnership should include informal and formal arenas sharing data, jointly “confronting” and responding together to data on students individually, and as a group. Share data as a way to understand and thus uniformly approach students and what needs to change.

8. Resources:

• Science rich cultural institutions and school districts need to look at where there may be more power in reallocating what is already spent toward the more powerful design elements.

• Science education can look to national economic stimulus imperatives and where targeted monies could impact national needs, problem-solve, i.e., scientific solutions to environment, human intellectual capital. For example, if national service is part of the stimulus package, it could be integrated into science learning and “doing,” through youth science workforce programs.

• Integrate science cultural institutions into the appropriate procurement structures in school districts to sustain important partnership efforts such as professional development for science teachers.

• Philanthropic sources should be involved with the partnerships on a long-term, result-oriented track. Funders should consider sustained partnerships for a decade or more so that impact can be refined and advanced and more effectively evaluated.

• Create a federal/philanthropic innovation fund for science institutions to work with schools to construct new design and implementation plans for K-12 science education.

Taking Place from December 1-2, 2008, the meeting participants included:

Museum and Science Centers and School Districts: Dr. Betsy M Bennett, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences; David E. Chesebrough, Ed. D., COSI;; Ms. Marilyn Decker, Boston Public School System; Dr. Gregory Farrington, California Academy of Sciences; Dr. Alan Friedman; Ellen Futter, AMNH; Allegra “Happy” Haynes; Denver Public Schools;; Dr. Margaret Honey, New York Hall of Science; Joel I. Klein, New York City Department of Education; Phyllis Lockett, Renaissance 2010 Schools Fund; Ioannis N. Miaoulis, Ph D, Museum of Science; Sharon Myrie, Brooklyn Botanical Gardens;; Bryce Seidl, Pacific Science Center; Dr. Dottie Whitlow, Atlanta Public Schools; Dr. Suzanne Wilson, Michigan State University.

Carnegie Commission members; Carnegie Corporration of New York; Institute for Advanced Study: Dr. Rudolph F. Crew; Rudy Crew & Associates; Ms. Janet Durfee-Hidalgo, Office of Governor Donald Carcieri;; Larry Berger, Wireless Foundation; Michelle Cahill, Carnegie Corporation of New York; Tamara Carpenter, Carnegie Corporation of New York; Dr. Vartan Gregorian, Carnegie Corporation of New York; Dr. Phillip Griffiths, Carnegie-IAS Commission; Andres Henriquez, Carnegie Corporation of New York; Anne Mackinnon, Carnegie Corporation of New York; David Mandel, Carnegie-IAS Commission on Mathematics and Science Education; Dr. Thomas Payzant, Harvard Graduate School of Education Dr. Warren Simmons, Annenberg Institute for School Reform; Eoghan Stafford, Carnegie-IAS Commission; Senator Tom Taft, Taft Family Offices

AMNH: Lisa Gugenheim, Senior Vice President of Education; Ruth Cohen; Dr. Meghan Groome; Dr. John Flynn; Annalisa Kelly, Dr. Michael Novacek; Dr. Christopher Raxworthy; Dr. Rosamund Kinzler; Dr. Maritza Macdonald; Merrily Sterns, Dr. Jim Short; Dr. Dr. Mary Elizabeth Wilson.