First-ever report by Battelle, BIO and Biotechnology Institute find wide disparities in achievement and uneven program efforts
States across America are failing to prepare students for pursuing biosciences in higher education—a key pipeline for developing the bioscience workforce of the future. A new report funded and researched by BIO, Battelle, and the Biotechnology Institute provides the first ever comprehensive study of middle and high school bioscience education in the 50 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia. The report also finds a wide disparity across measures of student achievement in overall science and biosciences, an uneven record across states in incorporating the biosciences in state science standards, supporting focused bioscience education programs and higher level bioscience courses, and ensuring science and bioscience teachers are well qualified.
The findings, which came to light at BIO’s annual convention, indicate a clear need for improved science education that incorporates the biosciences at the middle and high school levels if the United States bioscience industry sector is to remain globally competitive.
“The biosciences are a dynamic economic driver with a sizable footprint in nearly every state,” explains James Greenwood, President of BIO and member of the Board of the Biotechnology Institute. “The bioscience industry is a knowledge-based sector dependent upon the skills of its workers. Bioscience workers are needed to conduct research, translate innovation into product development and improved health care techniques, and ultimately to manufacture biomedical and other bioscience-related products. The prospect of the United States losing its competitive edge in student achievement and the subsequent skills of our future workforce is a matter of significant concern.”
This is not to say that bioscience education is non-existent in the United States because there are many examples of programs that work. However, the report does say that these programs should be replicated across the country and that states need to commit resources to them.
“The biosciences are the great adventure of our time, and states that aspire to play a part, either as supporters or leaders, must nurture their life science education programs," says Paul A. Hanle, president of the Biotechnology Institute. "This report rates the states' performance in life science education according to certain indicators of achievement. It also identifies best practices and programs throughout the nation. Both will be vital tools to help states wanting to strengthen their life-science education efforts."
This review of state activities in bioscience education suggests a number of actions that should be taken. For example, individual states:
• Should incorporate biotechnology as they revise their science standards and should involve research scientists with expertise in the biosciences in their development.
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• Must commit to improving student achievement in biology and the life sciences and ensuring that their high school graduates are ready to pursue college-level bioscience courses.
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• Should improve the collection and dissemination of data, tracking student participation and performance in the biosciences and the broader sciences and if they do not participate in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) science exam should be encouraged to do so.
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• Should take a more systematic approach to teacher professional development, experiential learning, and career awareness.
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“The study recognizes the important link that high schools and middle schools have as the primary feeders to post-secondary institutions and in shaping career preparation,” explains Mitch Horowitz, Vice President and Managing Director of the Battelle Technology Partnership Practice. “The vast majority of bioscience jobs require some level of post-secondary education to ensure quality control and good manufacturing practices, conduct clinical research, design and engineer new products, or conduct research and development.”
The report provides the following evidence that states are not measuring up:
• On average, only 28% of the high school students taking the ACT , which is a national standardized test for college admission, reached a score indicating college readiness for biology and no state reached even 50%.
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• Only 52% of 12th graders are at or above a basic level of achievement in the sciences, and for 8th graders only 57% are at a basic level of achievement.
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• Average scores for 12th graders in the sciences have actually declined from 1996 to 2005 and shown no improvement for 8th graders both overall and on the life science component.
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• A significant gap exists in science achievement for low-income middle-school students, although the gap is slowly narrowing.
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Some states fared much better than others with respect to student achievement in the biosciences. While it is difficult to give a single grade across states because of the limited quality and comparability of the student achievement data, the patterns of student performance suggest the states fall into several broad categories.
Leaders of the Pack: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Vermont, Wisconsin
Second Tier: Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington
Middling Performance: Alabama, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Montana, South Carolina, Wyoming
Lagging Performance: Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, West Virginia
Not Rated: States that do not participate in the NAEP science assessment were not rated.
The report also finds an uneven record across states in incorporating the biosciences in state science standards, supporting focused bioscience education programs and advanced bioscience courses, and ensuring well-qualified science and bioscience teachers.
Only thirty-one states reported that their science standards explicitly mention or define standards or applied laboratory or other instruction tools specifically for biotechnology or the biosciences.
At least half the states have at least one school with a bioscience focus, and all of the states have schools with a focus on broader STEM education. But states do not seem to be succeeding in encouraging high school students to take upper-level science courses. Although data on this subject are very limited, the share of students taking the AP biology exam averages 4.6% of high school graduates.
The report also notes that nearly one in eight U.S. high-school biology teachers was not certified to teach biology. The average share of biology teachers who are certified in a given state ranged from 50% to 100% in data collected by the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), although 88% of biology teachers are certified nationally on average.
The study and individual state profiles are available at: http://bio.org/battelle2009
University success rates: How do graduates of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools compare with their counterparts in other North Carolina school districts?
High school graduation ceremonies are just around the corner, and this year, more than 6,700 seniors will receive their diplomas from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. Getting a degree should mean that those young men and women are prepared to successfully enter post-secondary education or the job market. But are they?__
If past trends continue, nearly 2,350 of those seniors will enroll in one of the schools within the University of North Carolina system. However, only about 1,300 will actually graduate by the spring of 2014._
_The Public Education Research Institute - a component of the Wayland H. Cato, Jr. School of Education at Queens University of Charlotte - just completed a two-part study looking at the performance of freshmen enrolled in the UNC system in the 2006-07 academic year. Researchers sought to answer questions like:
• Are our students adequately prepared for the rigors of higher education, or do they have to enroll in remedial classes before they can take college-level courses?
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• How does the CMS student success rate in the universities compare to that of students from other urban districts in North Carolina and to that of students throughout the UNC system?
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• Do these college students graduate within five years?
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Their conclusions:
• A lower percentage of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) high school seniors,
when compared to other NC urban districts, indicated intention of enrolling in one of
NC’s public 4-year institutions.
It appears, as a whole, the expectation for students in Wake County to pursue a 4-
year degree is higher than it is for CMS students.
In fact, the percentage of CMS students indicating they intended to pursue a degree at any
4-year institution was lower than that of all urban districts except Guilford County. Of the
urban districts, Wake County had the highest percentage of seniors indicating their intention
to attend a 4-year institution of higher education.
• A higher percentage of Wake County students actually enrolled in one of the UNC
schools than did students from CMS, Durham, Guilford, and Forsyth Counties.
Out of those who applied, the percentage of those accepted is approximately equal among
these urban districts (between 80% and 85%). The percentage of those accepted who
enrolled was quite high for all districts (between 70% and 80%). However, because a larger
percentage of students from Wake County applied for admissions, the number of all their
high school graduates who enrolled was considerably higher than that of the other urban
districts.
• In addition to the differences among the urban districts, there were wide variations
among CMS high schools in the percentage of students enrolling in one of the UNC
schools. It appears this variation was more related to the lack of students in some of
our high schools applying to the schools rather than in their failure to be accepted or
their just not enrolling once accepted. The CMS high school where the students
attended appears to be a factor in whether they apply to one of the 15 UNC schools.
• Once enrolled, many CMS students entering the UNC system appear not to be as prepared for the rigors of college level work as they should be. CMS students tend to lag behind their peers from some of the other NC urban districts in many indicators of college readiness. There are also wide variations among CMS high schools in how prepared their graduates are when they enter a UNC school.
]These indicators include SAT scores, remediation, advanced classes, freshmen grade point averages, and persistence to graduation. While the percentages of students being recommended for remedial math classes and actually enrolling in remedial classes have decreased over the past years, too many students still need remediation before they can begin college level courses. In addition, too few are recommended for calculus or higher math and too few enroll in Honor Programs.
• Even though the gap may be closing somewhat, CMS students continue to lag behind Wake County students in performance in the UNC system.
• Too few students graduate in five years or fewer.
For the complete study, “To a Culture of No Excuses,” :
http://www.queens.edu/education/peri1.asp
Online educational empowerment
The sage on the stage makes way for the guide on the side
Binshan Lin and John Vassar at the College of Business Administration, Louisiana State University in Shreveport, suggest that online learning communities have many benefits because they offer learners social networks to effectively and easily acquire and share knowledge among themselves. However, key to success, they have found is individual self-governance.
Self-governance, or personal empowerment, can be measured in terms of self-efficacy, perceived behavioral control and personal outcome expectations regarding the interactions between learners and the online technology.
Online communities, and the internet more broadly speaking, extend the notion of personal empowerment that has emerged in health, welfare and now education. "The internet enables everyone to communicate with others and have immediate access to information," the researchers explain.
This paradigm shift in access to information means that today learners can, for example, educate themselves with minimal interaction from a higher power or traditional teacher. "In accepting this philosophy, an instructor may become the 'guide on the side' rather than the 'sage on the stage'," the researchers say.
However, in designing courses, educators must recognize that although self-governance is an individual, internal factor, not all learners will respond well to the online or community-led approach to education. Factors, such as personal goals, communication skills, information technology skills, and study environment, will also affect success.
The team offers ideas for testing the various approaches possible that should reveal any significant differences that will be invaluable in determining how well individuals will respond to education when they become a member of a dynamic learning community. The research will answer two crucial questions. First, in the learning process, is it better to design courses that are learner centered or community centered? Second, how can the development of critical thinking skills be most effectively developed in an online learning community?
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