It seems like a simple and beneficial act. Colorado Senate Bill 131 – Josh Penry’s “grad-standards” act – would require four years of passing grades in math and science courses to graduate from high school.
The bill passed on second reading in the Senate Monday and could receive final Senate approval today before heading to the House.
Academics and educators across America are bemoaning the possibility that we are “falling behind” in science and engineering. They’re right. And they’re urging politicians to do something about it.
The remedy, they think, is to teach more science and mathematics. But that’s a remedy with unintended consequences that may be a bit worse than the “illness” it’s meant to cure.
Unfortunately, given the paucity of “extra” dollars in the state education budget, teaching more high school science and math would likely mean cutting back on something else. And it certainly won’t be athletics.
That’s topsy-turvy. We need the arts at least as much as we need athletics. More, I think.
I love sports (college football and March Madness, mostly). But I also love the arts. I started young, with music, then evolved into poetry, the visual arts and, finally, an appreciation of dance.
And in the past 20 years, I’ve come to truly appreciate the concepts of science and the honesty of scientific results. We need more of that. The question is, how do we get it? If Sen. Penry would have his way, it’d be SB 131.
However, a 2005 comprehensive study of 12 industrialized nations found that, in math assessment tests of fourth- and eighth-graders and 15-year- olds (mostly 10th-graders), the United States ranked below average in all three grades tested, coming in eighth, ninth and ninth again, respectively, out of 12 countries.
That means the problem isn’t just in high school. It starts before that, in grade school.
In 2004, the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) found that, compared with other industrialized nations, American 10th-graders scored very poorly in tests of “practical” applications of math (coming in 24th out of 29 industrialized nations).
St. Paul (Minn.) Schools Superintendent Pat Harvey says that “the results show that many students aren’t taking enough rigorous math courses by the time they’re sophomores.”
In other words, we need better math and science instruction in middle school. SB 131 covers only high school. By that time, it may be too late to catch up with Hong Kong (No. 1), Japan (No. 2), or even Hungary (No. 8).
But if Penry’s bill is stretched to include middle school, that would mean even more balloon-squeezing to provide for more mathematics and science.
While I’m all for improving math and science education, it shouldn’t come at the expense of the arts. They’re one of the bedrocks of civilization. We minimize their value at the risk of civilized life.
How, then, to proceed?
First, if there are “passing grade” requirements for math and science to graduate high school, everyone (except special-ed students) should be held to that standard. That includes athletes. And don’t dumb down the required exams.
Then plan on a panic attack from parents, a call for extra mentoring – and extra expense.
Instead of last-minute tutoring, the solution to our math/science disparities lies in early intervention, in elementary and especially middle school – before high school athletics and the distractions of adolescence. And beyond improving instruction and curriculum, we should search for other underlying reasons for students’ under- achievement (poverty, poor parenting, or whatever).
Middle school should be a time of discovery, of identifying academic and artistic proclivities. Given more intensive training in all areas of the middle school curriculum, by the time students are ready for high school, those with exceptional talents can be steered to magnet high schools. Denver is planning a new high school for “highly gifted and talented” students in east Denver. Presumably, prospective students will have been identified in middle school. That’s a good start on a better plan.
Before Penry’s grad-standards bill forces Colorado high schools to play perpetual catch-up in science and math education, it should be re-examined. Let’s first focus our special attention on middle school, where it belongs.
Stephen Terence Gould (stgould@peoplepc.com) is an independent scholar and a member of the 2005 Colorado Voices panel.
