March ERR # 7

AMERICAN ADULTS FLUNK BASIC SCIENCE

NATIONAL SURVEY SHOWS ONLY ONE-IN-FIVE ADULTS CAN ANSWER THREE SCIENCE QUESTIONS CORRECTLY

California Academy of Sciences conducted omnibus survey

Are Americans flunking science? A new national survey commissioned by the California Academy of Sciences and conducted by Harris Interactive® reveals that the U.S. public is unable to pass even a basic scientific literacy test.

Over the past few months, the American government has allocated hundreds of billions of dollars for economic bailout plans. While this spending may provide a short-term solution to the country's economic woes, most analysts agree that the long-term solution must include a transition to a more knowledge-based economy, including a focus on science, which is now widely recognized as a major driver of innovation and industry. Despite its importance to economic growth, environmental protection, and global health and energy issues, scientific literacy is currently low among American adults. According to the national survey commissioned by the California Academy of Sciences:



∑ Only 53% of adults know how long it takes for the Earth to revolve around the Sun.
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∑ Only 59% of adults know that the earliest humans and dinosaurs did not live at the same time.
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∑ Only 47% of adults can roughly approximate the percent of the Earth's surface that is covered with water.*
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∑ Only 21% of adults answered all three questions correctly.
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Knowledge about some key scientific issues is also low. Despite the fact that access to fresh water is likely to be one of the most pressing environmental issues over the coming years, less than 1% of U.S. adults know what percent of the planet's water is fresh (the correct answer is 3%). Nearly half didn't even hazard a guess. Additionally, 40% of U.S. adults say they are "not at all knowledgeable" about sustainability.



Despite this lack of knowledge, U.S. adults do believe that scientific research and education are important. About 4 in 5 adults think science education is "absolutely essential" or "very important" to the U.S. healthcare system (86%), the U.S. global reputation (79%), and the U.S. economy (77%).



"There has never been a greater need for investment in scientific research and education," said Academy Executive Director Dr. Gregory Farrington. "Many of the most pressing issues of our time—from global climate change to resource management and disease—can only be addressed with the help of science."



To test your own scientific knowledge, please visit the California Academy of Sciences' website at www.calacademy.org.





Performance pay is a good lesson for education, MU expert finds

K-12 merit-pay system usually found to benefit students

On Tuesday, President Barack Obama announced a new education reform, calling for a merit-pay system for teachers in hopes of improving student performance. As the nation's public schools spend $187 billion in salaries, based on the latest Department of Education data, University of Missouri researcher Michael Podgursky has found a link between teacher pay and student achievement.

"The evidence certainly suggests when you offer appropriate pay incentives to teachers, you're likely to get better results," said Podgursky, professor of economics in the MU College of Arts and Science. "In addition, the single-salary pay schedule is particularly inefficient because the factors it rewards, teacher experience and level of education, are not strong predictors of teacher productivity. Without consideration of the logic or unintended consequences of current teacher compensation policies, school systems will continue to face financial and performance efficiency challenges."

Podgursky has conducted many studies on the effect of teacher pay and has surveyed all research studies of merit-pay systems in the United States, as well as programs in Israel, Africa and the United Kingdom. He has found that single-salary pay schedules can cause a shortage of teachers in specific subject areas like science and math, an inequitable distribution of novice teachers and makes it harder to recruit and retain effective teachers.

"Because single-salary pay schedules does not adapt to teaching field demands, the teacher market adjusts in terms of quality," Podgursky said. "The pay schedule also allows teachers with more seniority to exercise the option to move to better working conditions, migrating away from high-poverty schools. Novice teachers frequently fill the subsequent openings in these high-poverty schools. Economic theory also suggests that if more effective teachers are rewarded on the basis of performance, incumbent teachers would have an incentive to work more effectively to raise their performance."

Traditionally, teacher pay is based on a salary schedule – years of experience and education level. Nationwide, there are roughly 3.1 million public school teachers. Podgursky said the current salary system increases expenditures without directly impacting student achievement. He advocates school districts to emulate private sector employers, who understand that strategic pay policies are a very important lever in raising firm performance.





Music tuition can help children improve reading skills



Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC (16 March 2009) -- Children exposed to a multi-year programme of music tuition involving training in increasingly complex rhythmic, tonal, and practical skills display superior cognitive performance in reading skills compared with their non-musically trained peers, according to a study published today in the journal Psychology of Music, published by SAGE.

According to authors Joseph M Piro and Camilo Ortiz from Long Island University, USA, data from this study will help to clarify the role of music study on cognition and shed light on the question of the potential of music to enhance school performance in language and literacy.

Studying children the two US elementary schools, one of which routinely trained children in music and one that did not, Piro and Ortiz aimed to investigate the hypothesis that children who have received keyboard instruction as part of a music curriculum increasing in difficulty over successive years would demonstrate significantly better performance on measures of vocabulary and verbal sequencing than students who did not receive keyboard instruction.

Several studies have reported positive associations between music education and increased abilities in non-musical (eg, linguistic, mathematical, and spatial) domains in children. The authors say there are similarities in the way that individuals interpret music and language and "because neural response to music is a widely distributed system within the brain…. it would not be unreasonable to expect that some processing networks for music and language behaviors, namely reading, located in both hemispheres of the brain would overlap."

The aim of this study was to look at two specific reading subskills – vocabulary and verbal sequencing – which, according to the authors, are "are cornerstone components in the continuum of literacy development and a window into the subsequent successful acquisition of proficient reading and language skills such as decoding and reading comprehension."

Using a quasi-experimental design, the investigators selected second-grade children from two school sites located in the same geographic vicinity and with similar demographic characteristics, to ensure the two groups of children were as similar as possible apart from their music experience.

Children in the intervention school (n=46) studied piano formally for a period of three consecutive years as part of a comprehensive instructional intervention program. Children attending the control school (n=57) received no formal musical training on any musical instrument and had never taken music lessons as part of their general school curriculum or in private study. Both schools followed comprehensive balanced literacy programmes that integrate skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening.

All participants were individually tested to assess their reading skills at the start and close of a standard 10-month school year using the Structure of Intellect (SOI) measure.

Results analysed at the end of the year showed that the music-learning group had significantly better vocabulary and verbal sequencing scores than did the non-music-learning control group. This finding, conclude the authors, provides evidence to support the increasingly common practice of "educators incorporating a variety of approaches, including music, in their teaching practice in continuing efforts to improve reading achievement in children".

However, further interpretation of the results revealed some complexity within the overall outcomes. An interesting observation was that when the study began, the music-learning group had already experienced two years of piano lessons yet their reading scores were nearly identical to the control group at the start of the experiment.

So, ask the authors, "If the children receiving piano instruction already had two years of music involvement, why did they not significantly outscore the musically naïve students on both measures at the outset?" Addressing previous findings showing that music instruction has been demonstrated to exert cortical changes in certain cognitive areas such as spatial-temporal performance fairly quickly, Piro and Ortiz propose three factors to explain the lack of evidence of early benefit for music in the present study.

First, children were tested for their baseline reading skills at the beginning of the school year, after an extended holiday period. Perhaps the absence of any music instruction during a lengthy summer recess may have reversed any earlier temporary cortical reorganization experienced by students in the music group, a finding reported in other related research. Another explanation could be that the duration of music study required to improve reading and associated skills is fairly long, so the initial two years were not sufficient.

A third explanation involves the specific developmental time period during which children were receiving the tuition. During the course of their third year of music lessons, the music-learning group was in second grade and approaching the age of seven. There is evidence that there are significant spurts of brain growth and gray matter distribution around this developmental period and, coupled with the increased complexity of the study matter in this year, brain changes that promote reading skills may have been more likely to accrue at this time than in the earlier two years.

"All of this adds a compelling layer of meaning to the experimental outcomes, perhaps signalling that decisions on 'when' to teach are at least as important as 'what' to teach when probing differential neural pathways and investigating their associative cognitive substrates," note the authors.

"Study of how music may also assist cognitive development will help education practitioners go beyond the sometimes hazy and ill-defined 'music makes you smarter' claims and provide careful and credible instructional approaches that use the rich and complex conceptual structure of music and its transfer to other cognitive areas," they conclude.

Complete article:

http://pom.sagepub.com/cgi/rapidpdf/0305735608097248v1



Researchers Find Sustained Improvement in Health in Experience Corps Tutors Over 55



Tutors over 55 who help young students on a regular basis experience positive physical and mental health outcomes, according to studies released by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The tutors studied were members of Experience Corps, an award-winning organization that trains thousands of people over 55 to tutor children in urban public schools across the country.

Researchers at Washington University's Center for Social Development assessed the impact of the Experience Corps program on the lives of its members and found that, compared with adults of similar age, demographics and volunteer history, Experience Corps tutors reported improvements in mental health and physical functioning (including mobility, stamina and flexibility) and maintained overall health longer. In addition, Experience Corps members reported more physical activity, larger social networks and higher self-esteem as a result of their participation.

Other key findings:

• The comparison group's levels of depression and functional limitations increased over a two-year period, while Experience Corps members experienced a significant decrease in both of those categories.

• Both the comparison group and the Experience Corps group reported a decline in health over the two-year study period, but the Experience Corps members reported significantly less decline, suggesting that the program postpones age-related loss of health.

• After a year with Experience Corps, about two-thirds of the least active members reported that they became significantly more physically active and more engaged in social and community events.

• 84% of Experience Corps members report that their circle of friends — a key measure of social well-being, particularly for aging adults — increased as a result of their involvement in the program.

• 86% of Experience Corps members say their lives have improved because of their involvement with the program.

A separate study released in the March issue of the Journal of Gerontology by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine also found lasting, positive health impacts from participation in the program. The findings built on previous studies by the Hopkins researchers that have shown older adults who were physically inactive when they joined Experience Corps nearly doubled their activity level after just four to eight months of volunteering. The new Hopkins study found that for Experience Corps tutors in Baltimore — primarily African-American women over 60 — the women continued their increased level of activity for at least three years.

An earlier study, published by Johns Hopkins researchers in the Journal of Gerontology in January 2008, also found improvements in memory and executive function among Experience Corps tutors.

Lester Strong, CEO of Experience Corps, says the new research underscores the value of doing meaningful work in the second half of life. "Our members know that they are making a difference in the lives of students who desperately need academic help and encouragement. That keeps them going — and healthy."

Experience Corps members are diverse in many ways.

• Age: The average age of Experience Corps members is 65, but the age range of members in this study extends from 50 to 87.

• Race: About half (53%) of Experience Corps members are African American; 39% are white.

• Background: One-third of Experience Corps members have some higher education, and one in five is a retired educator (teacher, professor, administrator or classroom assistant).

• Income: 20% of Experience Corps members earn less than $15,000 per year, while 15% earn more than $75,000 per year.

Washington University researchers also studied the impact of Experience Corps tutoring on students' reading ability. The results, which demonstrate significant, positive gains in student learning, will be made available in April.

About Experience Corps

Experience Corps (www.experiencecorps.org), an award-winning program, engages people over 55 in meeting their communities' greatest challenges. Today, in 23 cities across the country, 2,000 Experience Corps members tutor and mentor elementary school students struggling to learn to read. Independent research shows that Experience Corps boosts student academic performance, helps schools and youth-serving organizations become more successful, and enhances the well-being of the older adults in the process.

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