Dismal results for US science education « Gas station without pumps

I doubt that the NAEP included computing education in its report, but my guess is that such inclusion would only draw the average down further.  I suppose that this post isn’t saying more than what Alan Kay has been telling us all along, but it bears repeating, and is always worth revisiting when more data become available.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress recently released a report on the science achievement levels of 8th graders in the US: The Nation’s Report Card: Science 2011: Executive Summary.

The results are pretty dismal, with only 2% of students scoring at an “advanced” level (which is pretty much where they need to be if they are going to go into a science or engineering program in college) and only 31% scoring proficient or better (which is where we as a society need our politicians and voters to be in order to make reasonable decisions about issues like pollution, climate change, and funding of medical programs).  With fewer than a third of our students having the science understanding that they should have entering high school, our high school science teachers are reduced to doing remedial education, teaching middle school science, and our college teachers then having to teach high school science.

via Dismal results for US science education « Gas station without pumps.

EdTech Magazine’s Dean’s List: 50 Must-Read Higher Education Technology Blogs

Quite cool to be picked for this!  (I think I’d go further than “is perhaps more important.”)

EdTech’s Must-Read Higher Ed IT Blogs