[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
A SYSTEMS APPROACH TO
IMPROVING K-12 STEM EDUCATION
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND
SCIENCE EDUCATION
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JULY 30, 2009
__________
Serial No. 111-47
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science and Technology
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.science.house.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
51-162 PDF WASHINGTON: 2010
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20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. BART GORDON, Tennessee, Chair
JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois RALPH M. HALL, Texas
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER JR.,
LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California Wisconsin
DAVID WU, Oregon LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
BRIAN BAIRD, Washington DANA ROHRABACHER, California
BRAD MILLER, North Carolina ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma
DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois
MARCIA L. FUDGE, Ohio W. TODD AKIN, Missouri
BEN R. LUJAN, New Mexico RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas
PAUL D. TONKO, New York BOB INGLIS, South Carolina
PARKER GRIFFITH, Alabama MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas
STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
JIM MATHESON, Utah BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee ADRIAN SMITH, Nebraska
BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri PETE OLSON, Texas
BARON P. HILL, Indiana
HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona
CHARLES A. WILSON, Ohio
KATHLEEN DAHLKEMPER, Pennsylvania
ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
SUZANNE M. KOSMAS, Florida
GARY C. PETERS, Michigan
VACANCY
------
Subcommittee on Research and Science Education
HON. DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois, Chair
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
BRIAN BAIRD, Washington RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas
MARCIA L. FUDGE, Ohio BOB INGLIS, South Carolina
PAUL D. TONKO, New York BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
PARKER GRIFFITH, Alabama
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
BART GORDON, Tennessee RALPH M. HALL, Texas
DAHLIA SOKOLOV Subcommittee Staff Director
MELE WILLIAMS Republican Professional Staff Member
MARCY GALLO Democratic Professional Staff Member
BESS CAUGHRAN Research Assistant
C O N T E N T S
July 30, 2009
Page
Witness List..................................................... 2
Hearing Charter.................................................. 3
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Daniel Lipinski, Chairman,
Subcommittee on Research and Science Education, Committee on
Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives.......... 8
Written Statement............................................ 9
Statement by Representative Vernon J. Ehlers, Ranking Minority
Member, Subcommittee on Research and Science Education,
Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 10
Written Statement............................................ 10
Prepared Statement by Representative Russ Carnahan, Member,
Subcommittee on Research and Science Education, Committee on
Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives.......... 11
Witnesses:
Dr. Wanda E. Ward, Acting Assistant Director, Directorate for
Education and Resources, National Science Foundation (NSF)
Oral Statement............................................... 12
Written Statement............................................ 14
Biography.................................................... 20
Ms. Maggie Daley, Chair, After School Matters, Chicago, Illinois
Oral Statement............................................... 20
Written Statement............................................ 23
Biography.................................................... 33
Mr. Michael C. Lach, Officer of Teaching and Learning, Chicago
Public Schools
Oral Statement............................................... 33
Written Statement............................................ 35
Biography.................................................... 41
Dr. Donald J. Wink, Professor of Chemistry; Director of
Undergraduate Studies, Department of Chemistry; Director of
Graduate Studies, Learning Sciences Research Institute,
University of Illinois at Chicago
Oral Statement............................................... 42
Written Statement............................................ 43
Biography.................................................... 62
Ms. Katherine F. Pickus, Divisional Vice President, Global
Citizenship and Policy, Abbott; Vice President, Abbott Fund
Oral Statement............................................... 64
Written Statement............................................ 65
Biography.................................................... 69
Discussion....................................................... 69
A SYSTEMS APPROACH TO IMPROVING K-12 STEM EDUCATION
----------
THURSDAY, JULY 30, 2009
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Research and Science Education,
Committee on Science and Technology,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:06 a.m., in
Room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Daniel
Lipinski [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
hearing charter
SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND SCIENCE EDUCATION
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
A Systems Approach to
Improving K-12 STEM Education
thursday, july 30, 2009
10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
2318 rayburn house office building
I. Purpose
On July 30, 2009 the Subcommittee on Research and Science Education
of the House Committee on Science and Technology will hold a hearing to
examine how the many public and private stakeholders in an urban K-12
system can work together to improve science, technology, engineering
and mathematics (STEM) education inside and outside of the classroom.
2. Witnesses
Dr. Wanda Ward, Acting Assistant Director,
Directorate for Education and Human Resources, National Science
Foundation (NSF)
Ms. Maggie Daley, Chair, After School Matters
Mr. Michael Lach, Officer of Teaching and Learning,
Chicago Public Schools
Dr. Donald Wink, Director of Undergraduate Studies,
Department of Chemistry, and Director of Graduate Studies,
Learning Sciences Research Institute, University of Illinois at
Chicago
Ms. Katherine Pickus, Divisional Vice President,
Global Citizenship and Policy, Abbott
3. Overarching Questions
Who are the many public and private stakeholders in
the K-12 STEM education system? What are, or should be, their
respective roles and responsibilities? What kinds of
partnerships across the system are most effective at leveraging
resources and intellectual capital? How do these partnerships
ensure continuity in teaching and learning between the
classroom and informal environments such as after-school
programs?
What are the major barriers to improving the interest
and performance of K-12 students and teachers in STEM? Are
there model programs or approaches to curriculum and
instruction that have demonstrated how to increase student
achievement and/or teacher performance? What are the most
important and effective components of these programs? How are
these programs evaluated for effectiveness? How can
partnerships between various stakeholders in the STEM education
system facilitate the identification and implementation of
successful models?
How do NSF programs support the improvement of the
teaching and learning of STEM disciplines in the pre-K through
12 years? What instructional tools, resources, materials, and
technologies has NSF supported to enable STEM learning? Under
what conditions, and for whom, are such resources for learning
most effective? How can NSF help to disseminate successful
tools and resources and facilitate effective partnerships
between other stakeholder groups in the STEM education system?
4. Background
A Systems Approach
A consensus now exists that improving STEM education throughout the
Nation is a necessary, if not sufficient, condition for preserving our
capacity for innovation and discovery and for ensuring U.S. economic
strength and competitiveness in the international marketplace of the
21st century. The National Academies Rising Above the Gathering Storm
report placed a major emphasis on the need to improve STEM education
and made its top priority increasing the number of highly qualified
STEM teachers. This recommendation was embraced by the 2007 America
COMPETES Act.
Two more recent STEM education reports that have generated a lot of
attention have emphasized, as part of their priority recommendations,
the need for greater coordination between the many public and private
stakeholders in the Nation's K-12 STEM education system. The reports
are: ``A National Action Plan for Addressing the Critical Needs of the
U.S. STEM Education System,'' from the National Science Board (NSB),\1\
and ``The Opportunity Equation,'' from the Carnegie Corporation's
Institute for Advanced Study.\2\ The stakeholders cited in these
reports include the Federal and State governments, colleges and
universities, businesses, a variety of nonprofit organizations,
philanthropic organizations, and of course, school districts
themselves.
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\1\ http://www.nsf.gov/nsb/documents/2007/
stem-action.pdf
\2\ http://www.opportunityequation.org/
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In a related effort, the Business Higher Education Forum just
launched a new education system predictive modeling tool to ``provide
an organized and comprehensive approach to viewing and understanding
the complex, multi-level nature of the U.S. and STEM education
system.'' The STEM Research and Modeling Network (SRMN),\3\ which
provided input to the development of and now oversees the model, is
composed of representatives from all of the aforementioned stakeholder
groups.
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\3\ http://www.bhef.com/solutions/stem/srmn.asp
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The Science and Technology Committee held a hearing on the NSB
report in October 2007 to review the recommendations in the report,
which addressed both federal interagency coordination and coordination
across all of the stakeholder groups. In response to the recommendation
for greater interagency coordination, the Committee introduced H.R.
1709, the STEM Education Coordination Bill of 2009, which passed the
House last month and has a companion bill in the Senate, S. 1210. The
Committee is continuing to explore possible roles for the Federal
Government in facilitating greater coordination among the full range of
stakeholder groups.
K-12 STEM Education at the National Science Foundation
Science and math education is a cornerstone of the historic mission
of the National Science Foundation. The National Science Foundation Act
of 1950, which established NSF, directed NSF to support and strengthen
science and math education programs at all levels. NSF carries out its
K-12 mission by supporting a variety of STEM education activities,
including teacher training (both in-service and pre-service),
curriculum development, education research, and informal education at
museums, science centers and other after school settings.
Examples of NSF programs designed to improve K-12 teacher
performance include the Math and Science Partnership (MSP) Program and
the Robert Noyce Scholarship (Noyce) Program, both reauthorized in 2007
as part of the America COMPETES Act. The MSP Program funds partnerships
between universities and local school districts to strengthen the
science and math content knowledge of K-12 school teachers. The grants
are awarded to support the creation of innovative reform programs that
could be expanded to the State level if successful. The Robert Noyce
Scholarship Program is designed to help recruit highly-qualified
science and math teachers through grants to college and universities to
give scholarships to science and math majors in return for their
commitment to teach at the elementary or secondary school level.
Additional NSF programs targeted to K-12 education include
Discovery Research K-12, which funds everything from basic research on
learning and teaching to the development and implementation of tools,
resources, curricula, models and technologies based on the research
findings; Informal Science Education, which funds projects that advance
informal STEM education; and Research and Evaluation on Education in
Science and Engineering, which seeks to improve the methodology of
education research and evaluation of education tools and models to
ensure high-quality research results and effective program development.
The Graduate STEM Fellows in K-12 Education (GK-12) Program puts
science and engineering graduate students into K-12 classrooms on a
part-time basis during their graduate studies. Primarily this is
considered a professional development program for graduate students--in
particular to strengthen their communication skills and instill a
deeper appreciation for the societal context for their research;
however, when effectively integrated with broader university
partnerships with local schools and school districts, GK-12 fellows can
also contribute in a meaningful and lasting way to student and teacher
performance in the classroom.
Chicago: A Large Urban School District
Last year the Committee held a hearing to learn about STEM
education in Texarkana, Texas, a small town of 35,000 in northeast
Texas.\4\ Similarly, in today's hearing, the Committee is examining a
systems approach to STEM education using Chicago as a case study for a
large urban school district. Chicago Public Schools (CPS), the third
largest school district in the Nation, currently operates 666 schools,
including 483 elementary and middle schools, 116 high schools and 67
charter schools. Total student enrollment is nearly 408,000--nearly 20
percent of all Illinois public school students. The CPS student
population is 46.2 percent African American, 41.2 percent Latino, 8.9
percent White and 3.5 percent Asian/Pacific Islander. CPS students have
made some notable gains in achievement in recent years. The composite
percentage of students meeting or exceeding State standards on the
Illinois Student Achievement Test has risen from 47 percent in 2004 to
69.8 percent in preliminary 2009 data. The number of high school
students taking at least one Advanced Placement course has doubled from
less than 6,000 in 2004 to 12,464 a year ago. The district's drop-out
rate has decreased by about seven percentage points since 2003 and the
graduation rate has risen by almost the same amount during the same
period. However, the most recent Prairie State Achievement Examination
showed that more than 70 percent of high school juniors failed to meet
State standards in math and science. Average math and science scores on
the national ACT exam also indicate a lack of college readiness among a
high percentage of CPS high school students. Improving the achievement
of CPS students in math and science will require an all hands on deck,
coordinated effort by local universities, businesses, and nonprofit
organizations in partnership with CPS. Witnesses today will discuss
several of those partnerships and the gains already demonstrated.
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\4\ http://science.house.gov/publications/
hearings-markups-details.aspx?NewsID=2181
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5. Questions for Witnesses
Wanda Ward
1. What evidence is available from NSF-funded projects to help us
better understand how students develop interests in STEM fields in the
pre-K through 12 years, and how can those interests be sustained across
the high school to post-secondary education transition? Are there model
programs or approaches to curriculum and instruction that have
demonstrated how to engage students successfully in STEM areas and that
lead to choice of STEM degrees and careers? What is the role of out-of-
school learning in encouraging STEM interest and achievement?
2. How do NSF programs support the improvement of the teaching and
learning of the STEM disciplines in the pre-K through 12 years? What
programs are available to improve teachers' knowledge and abilities,
and what does research tell us about the best ways to enable teachers'
effectiveness in promoting learning? What types of programs and models
for STEM teacher preparation, induction, and professional development
show the most promise for supporting STEM teachers' learning, and what
can be learned from the implementation of such programs and models?
3. What instructional tools, resources, materials, and technologies
has NSF supported to enable STEM learning? Under what conditions, and
for whom, are such resources for learning most effective? Does research
provide insight into what kinds of instructional materials and tools
are most useful in supporting learning at various levels, and for
various groups of learners? How much do regional differences across the
United States account for the efficacy of any given set of tools or
materials?
Maggie Daley
1. What is After School Matters (ASM)? What kind of science,
technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programming does ASM
offer? What partnerships have you built in support of your
programming--in terms of both financial support and intellectual
resources?
2. How does ASM's informal learning complement the formal education
students receive in the classroom? How do you work with the local
school districts to develop your STEM programming and to ensure a
seamless transition from the formal education of the classroom,
including adherence to State or local standards, and the informal
education provided by ASM? How do you assess the impact of your
programs on student interest and/or achievement in STEM?
3. What are the major challenges that inhibit the interest or
performance of youth in your after school STEM programs? What steps has
ASM taken to address these challenges? Do you have any recommendations
to the private sector or to State and federal stakeholders on how they
can take better advantage of not-for-profit organizations such as ASM
in their own efforts to improve STEM education?
Michael Lach
1. What is the overall state of science, technology, engineering and
mathematics (STEM) education in Chicago Public Schools (CPS)? Why is it
important for all students to achieve proficiency in these subjects?
2. How do you work with the local private sector, not-for-profit
organizations, and colleges and universities to improve STEM education
in CPS? Please describe these partnerships and activities. How do you
develop such partnerships and activities, and how do you assess them in
terms of impact on student achievement?
3. What are the major problems that limit the performance of students
and teachers, and what do you feel is the single, most important step
that the Federal Government should take to improve K-12 STEM education?
What involvement have you had with math and science education programs
at the National Science Foundation or other federal agencies as well as
those in the State of Illinois? What are the most important and
effective components of these programs?
4. What role should parents play in improving K-12 STEM education? Do
you have outreach programs intended to engage parents in their
children's K-12 STEM education?
Donald Wink
1. Please describe briefly the University of Illinois at Chicago's
(UIC) K-12 science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)
education programs and initiatives, including those that involve
education and professional development for math and science teachers.
How have you and your colleagues worked with Chicago Public Schools in
developing or revising these programs over time? What other partners--
public or private--have provided funding or have otherwise been
involved in the development or implementation of these programs? How do
you evaluate the effectiveness of these programs and partnerships?
2. What are the major problems that limit the performance of students
and teachers in STEM? What are the most important and effective
components of the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded programs
(including the Math and Science Partnership Program, the Robert Noyce
Teacher Scholarship Program, and the Graduate STEM Fellows in K-12
Education Program) that UIC has implemented in partnership with Chicago
Public Schools? Are there common lessons learned or replicable elements
across UIC's various science and math programs, including those funded
by NSF? How do you or can you help to disseminate these findings to
other cities and regions of the country?
3. What is the most important role a university such as your own can
play in improving K-12 STEM education in your own community and/or
nationally? How can universities help facilitate and build partnerships
with other stakeholders, including the private sector and informal
education providers? What is the single, most important step that the
Federal Government should take to improve K-12 STEM education?
Katherine Pickus
1. Please describe what Abbott does. What percentage of your U.S.
workforce has a science, technology, engineering and/or mathematics
(STEM) background? Are you able to recruit locally for these positions
and if not, why not? How does investing in K-12 STEM education in the
U.S. communities in which you are located benefit your own future
workforce needs? Why else is it important for Abbott to be interested
in K-12 STEM education?
2. How do you work with the local school districts and with colleges
and universities to help build a talented STEM talent pool from which
to recruit? How do you work with other companies and organizations in
the private and not-for-profit sectors to improve STEM education both
nationally and within your community? Please describe these activities,
the kind of partnerships involved, the level of investment in such
activities, and how you go about developing and assessing such
activities. How do you prepare your own scientists to work with youth
in or out of the schools?
3. What do you see as the biggest challenges to improving STEM
education in this country? Can you provide specific examples of
barriers that you have faced in your own efforts to build partnerships
and invest in STEM education in your own communities? Do you have any
recommendations to State or federal stakeholders on how they can take
better advantage of the private sector in their own efforts to improve
STEM education?
Chairman Lipinski. This hearing will come to order.
Good morning and welcome to this Research and Science
Education Subcommittee hearing on a systems approach to
improving science, technology, engineering and math education,
commonly called STEM education. This is the third STEM-related
hearing that this subcommittee has held this year, a fact that
reflects both the national importance of the STEM fields and
the complexity of STEM education reform.
The Science and Technology Committee, and our subcommittee
in particular, have made STEM education a top priority. In
hearings and reports we have repeatedly heard that innovation
is key to maintaining a high standard of living for all
Americans, and that we need more teachers and more graduates in
the STEM fields if we want our country to continue to lead in
the global economy. Unfortunately, American students have been
lagging their international peers, while American businesses
are warning about a wave of retirements without adequately
trained young people to fill these vacated positions,
especially in engineering fields. But we know that there is no
panacea and no one entity that can solve this alone, as recent
reports from the National Science Board and the Institute for
Advanced Study have made clear.
Reform of our STEM education system will require
coordination on multiple fronts across many diverse
stakeholders. In addition to several federal agencies, there
are State and local governments, school districts,
universities, non-profits, businesses, community organizations,
teachers, students, and--if a child is fortunate--their
parents. I don't doubt that some high-level planning and
coordination will be helpful, including in the movement toward
common core standards in which almost all states are now
engaged. The Science and Technology Committee has begun
addressing coordination issues at the federal level, notably
through the STEM Education Coordination Bill of 2009. But
federal issues and even standards are only the tip of the
iceberg. Implementation of any reform has to happen in the 50
states and, even more so, the 15,000 school districts across
the country.
Today we focus on one school district, Chicago, which is
the third largest district in the country. The witnesses
represent a range of key stakeholder groups in the city of
Chicago, including the school district, a large company
dependent on a highly trained STEM workforce, a local
university that has been a leader in K-12 reform efforts, a
city-wide informal education provider, and a federal agency
that has funded many of the innovative programs we will learn
about today. Chicago's diverse population of over 400,000
public school students, its top-notch universities, and the
commitment of local industry, the school system, and city
leaders such as Ms. Daley, make it an ideal case study for
understanding what works in improving STEM education, how
various stakeholders in the system can work together, and what
can be done at the federal level to encourage best practices
across the country.
This hearing will consider the entirety of the STEM
education system, with all of its partners and key leverage
points. I look forward to hearing our witnesses shed some light
on how we can approach systemic reform more methodically,
including through strong partnerships, innovative approaches to
in-school and out-of-school teaching, and rigorous assessment
of old and new programs alike.
America needs to be successful in improving STEM education.
Without it, we will lose our capacity for innovation and
diminish our country's economic strength and competitiveness in
the international marketplace. I am confident that Americans
can do it, and we can maintain our world leadership. We see
some pockets of success across the country. It is our job here
in Washington as national leaders to make sure that we all
learn from these successes and that the best possible
information and tools are available to all STEM educators, and
that is why you are here today. I want to hear from all of our
witnesses about their insights about what has worked in
Chicago, and I want to thank you for appearing before the
Subcommittee today, taking the time and I am very hopeful that
this will be a great opportunity for people across the country
to learn about what you have done, what has worked, what has
not worked, but the best way that we can all move forward for
the sake of our country and our future.
With that, I will recognize Ranking Member Dr. Ehlers for
an opening statement.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Lipinski follows:]
Prepared Statement of Chairman Daniel Lipinski
Good morning and welcome to this Research and Science Education
Subcommittee hearing on science, technology, engineering, and math
education, commonly called STEM education. This is the third STEM-
related hearing that this subcommittee has held this year, a fact that
reflects both the national importance of the STEM fields and the
complexity of STEM education reform.
The Science and Technology Committee, and our subcommittee in
particular, have made STEM education a top priority. In hearings and
reports we have repeatedly heard that innovation is key to maintaining
a high standard of living for all Americans, and that we need more
teachers and more graduates in the STEM fields if we want our country
to continue to lead in the global economy. Unfortunately, American
students have been lagging their international peers, while American
businesses are warning about a wave of retirements without adequately
trained young people to fill these vacated positions, especially in
engineering fields. But we know that there is no panacea and no one
entity that can solve this alone, as recent reports from the National
Science Board and the Institute for Advanced Study have made clear.
Reform of our STEM education system will require coordination on
multiple fronts across many diverse stakeholders. In addition to
several federal agencies, there are State and local governments, school
districts, universities, non-profits, businesses, community
organizations, teachers, students, and--if a child is fortunate--their
parents. I don't doubt that some high-level planning and coordination
will be helpful--including in the movement toward common core standards
in which almost all states are now engaged. The Science and Technology
Committee has begun addressing coordination issues at the federal
level, notably through the STEM Education Coordination Bill of 2009.
But federal issues and even standards are only the tip of the iceberg.
Implementation of any reform has to happen in the 50 states and, even
more so, the 15,000 school districts across the country.
Today we focus on one school district, Chicago, which is the third
largest district in the country. The witnesses represent a range of key
stakeholder groups in the City of Chicago, including the school
district, a large company dependent on a highly trained STEM workforce,
a local university that has been a leader in K-12 reform efforts, a
city-wide informal education provider, and a federal agency that has
funded many of the innovative programs we will learn about today.
Chicago's diverse population of over four hundred thousand public
school students, its top-notch universities, and the commitment of
local industry, the school system, and city leaders such as Ms. Daley,
make it an ideal case study for understanding what works in improving
STEM education, how various stakeholders in the system can work
together, and what can be done at the federal level to encourage best
practices across the country.
This hearing will consider the entirety of the STEM education
system, with all of its partners and key leverage points. I look
forward to hearing our witnesses shed some light on how we can approach
systemic reform more methodically, including through strong
partnerships, innovative approaches to in-school and out-of-school
teaching, and rigorous assessment of old and new programs alike.
America needs to be successful in improving STEM education. Without
it, we will lose our capacity for innovation and diminish our country's
economic strength and competitiveness in the international marketplace.
I am confident that Americans can do it, and we can maintain our world
leadership. We see some pockets of success across the country. It is
our job as national leaders to make sure that we all learn from these
successes and that the best possible information and tools are
available to State officials and local school districts. I want to
thank all of the witnesses for taking the time to appear before the
Subcommittee this morning to share your insights and I look forward to
your testimony.
Mr. Ehlers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to
participate in this. As you know, STEM education has a strong
place in my heart, and I have spent many hours on it both as my
professional career before coming here and also since I have
come here. Today's hearing will examine how the various public
and private stakeholders in an urban K-12 system can work in
concert to improve science, technology, engineering and
mathematics education, better known as STEM education. In
particular, I am pleased that we will hear testimony from key
players in the Chicago public schools, our nation's third
largest school system, on the successes and challenges of
implementing STEM education programs in an urban district.
As we take a closer look at the Chicago public schools, I
expect we will gain a greater appreciation for the difficulties
involved in encouraging our urban youth to pursue STEM-related
fields. At the same time, I look forward to hearing about the
role of outside groups in facilitating this type of learning.
During the 110th Congress, this committee held a field hearing
in Texarkana, Texas, to witness firsthand a suburban
community's efforts to engage students in math and science. I
expect today's case study of the Chicago public school system
will offer the Committee fresh insights while building upon the
observations collected in last year's hearing.
I would like to acknowledge the work of Chairman Gordon and
Subcommittee Chairman Lipinski and their staff on the series of
STEM-related hearings in the 111th Congress. These hearings
have educated Members and the public about the problems and the
necessity of improving STEM education, a topic which I am
always willing to discuss. I would also like to thank our panel
of experts for joining us today, and I look forward to hearing
their testimony.
I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ehlers follows:]
Prepared Statement of Representative Vernon J. Ehlers
Today's hearing will examine how the various public and private
stakeholders in an urban K-12 system can work in concert to improve
science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. In
particular, I am pleased that we will hear testimony from key players
in the Chicago Public Schools, our nation's third largest school
district, on the successes and challenges of implementing STEM
education programs.
As we take a closer look at the Chicago Public Schools, I expect we
will gain a greater appreciation for the difficulties involved in
encouraging our urban youth to pursue STEM-related fields. At the same
time, I look forward to hearing about the role of outside groups in
facilitating this type of learning. During the 110th Congress, this
committee held a field hearing in Texarkana, Texas, to witness
firsthand a suburban community's efforts to engage students in math and
science. I expect today's case study of the Chicago Public Schools
system will offer the Committee fresh insights, while building upon the
observations collected at last year's hearing.
I would like to acknowledge the work of Chairman Gordon and
Subcommittee Chairman Lipinski and their staff on this series of STEM-
related hearings in the 111th Congress. These hearings have educated
Members and the public about the problems and the necessity of
improving STEM education, a topic which I am always willing to discuss.
I would also like to thank our panel of experts for joining us today,
and I look forward to hearing their testimonies.
Chairman Lipinski. Thank you, Dr. Ehlers, and having an
engineer up here and a physicist, certainly we have a little
bit of experience, though mine pales in comparison to Dr.
Ehlers in STEM education.
At this point, if there are Members who wish to submit
additional opening statements, your statement will be added to
the record at this point.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Carnahan follows:]
Prepared Statement of Representative Russ Carnahan
Mr. Chairman, thank you for hosting this hearing regarding
improvements to K-12 STEM Education. I appreciate the attention that is
being given to advancing education in the fields of Science,
Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.
Approaches to improving STEM education should be multi-faceted and
include a variety of interests. Not only should we enhance students'
experiences inside of the classroom, but we should also ensure that
their extracurricular activities are conducive to the pursuit of
knowledge. By increasing the number of teachers who are capable and
skilled in the STEM fields, students will benefit from a more enriching
classroom environment. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses
about specific programs that are available to improve the skills of
STEM teachers and best practices.
Another element of STEM education improvements involves informal
learning opportunities. Education should not stop at the classroom
door. It should be incorporated into different aspects of students'
lives so that they are not just achieving mediocrity, but rather, they
are excelling. I am curious about the role that private institutions
can play in partnering with school systems to develop robust informal
STEM education opportunities and I would like the witnesses to
contribute their expertise in these areas.
In closing, I'd like to thank the members of the panel for their
participation in today's hearing. I hope that we can continue our
efforts to improve STEM education and by doing so, promote innovation
and ensure U.S. economic competitiveness in the future.
Chairman Lipinski. Right now I want to introduce our
witnesses. First we have Dr. Wanda Ward, who is Acting
Assistant Director for Education and Human Resources at the
National Science Foundation. We have Mrs. Maggie Daley, who is
the Chair of After School Matters, which is a unique
partnership between Chicago public schools, civic leaders and
industries that have created a network of programs including
STEM education mentorships for teens in Chicago's under-served
communities. I will now recognize Dr. Ehlers to introduce our
third witness. Actually now that I look at this, I am a little
mixed up because I don't have in my--is that the correct one?
Okay.
Mr. Ehlers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to
introduce Mr. Michael Lach. He worked in my office for a year
as an Einstein fellow, which gives you some idea of his mental
capacity. As you know, the Einstein fellowships are from the
Department of Energy and they do an excellent job for us. But
Michael ended up in my office and I still recall asking him,
you know, after we had agreed to take him on board and I was
chatting with him, I said, you know, I have only met one person
before in my life who was named Lach and he was a physicist at
Berkeley when I was there, we actually shared an office
together. It turned out to be Michael's father. But Mike did a
great job in my office, one of the few interns or assistants I
have ever had who instinctly understood politics, and I suspect
that accounts for his success in Chicago because in Chicago it
is very hard to do anything without understanding the politics
of Chicago. But Mike did a great job there and did a great job
in our office too and he has steadily advanced up the ranks in
Chicago.
I think it is especially appropriate to look at the Chicago
public school system not just because of the work that Michael
has done but also because our current Secretary of Education
was the leader of the Chicago schools for a few years and he
has already made his mark on the Department of Education and
showing great innovation and leadership in that department. So
we are looking forward to good things from him there and we are
looking forward to good things from Mike today.
Thank you, and with that, I yield back.
Chairman Lipinski. Dr. Ehlers, you are a professor for how
many years?
Mr. Ehlers. Twenty-two years.
Chairman Lipinski. In my short time, my four years as an
Assistant Professor, I know the politics in higher education
might be worse than anything--more difficult than anything I
have seen anywhere. We could probably go on for a long time but
we will get back to introducing the witnesses here.
Dr. Donald Wink is the Director of Undergraduate Studies in
the Department of Chemistry and the Director of Graduate
Studies in the Learning Sciences Research Institute at the
University of Illinois at Chicago, and finally Ms. Katherine
Pickus is the Divisional Vice President for Global Citizenship
and Policy at Abbott Labs.
As our witnesses know, you will each have five minutes for
your spoken testimony. Your written testimony will be included
in the record for the hearing. When you all have completed your
spoken testimony, we will begin with questions and each Member
will have five minutes to ask questions, and we will start with
Dr. Ward. Dr. Ward, you are recognized for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF DR. WANDA E. WARD, ACTING ASSISTANT DIRECTOR,
DIRECTORATE FOR EDUCATION AND RESOURCES, NATIONAL SCIENCE
FOUNDATION (NSF)
Dr. Ward. Chairman Lipinski, Ranking Member Ehlers and
distinguished Members of the Subcommittee on Research and
Science Education, thank you for inviting me to participate in
this hearing on systemic change for science, technology,
engineering and mathematics education.
The National Science Foundation recognizes that STEM
education is at a crossroad, in need of increased attention
from a broad array of stakeholders who have a common goal of
promoting excellence for all learners.
Over many decades, we have seen improvements in science
attainment through our systemic approach to education reform.
The lessons learned and the research findings on K-12 education
in formal and informal settings have been synthesized in two
recent publications by the National Academy of Sciences, Taking
Science to School and Learning Science in Informal
Environments. NSF programs are built around many of the
conclusions reached in these research publications such as,
children entering school already have substantial knowledge of
the natural world. What children are capable of at a particular
age is the result of a complex interplay among maturation,
experience and instruction. Students learn science by actively
engaging in the practices of science. A range of instructional
approaches is necessary as part of a full development of
science proficiency, ask and answer questions and evaluate
evidence when doing science and have learners develop a
positive use of themselves with respect to science.
Partnering with other external stakeholders, NSF believes
that the field is ready to advance current understanding of
STEM education by linking novel approaches and best effective
practices to STEM-specific challenges for the 21st century. Our
vision will be aligned with the STEM priorities in the America
COMPETES Act as well as the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act. With multi-purpose strategic thinking, we will sharpen our
support on four foci: innovation in learning ecosystems of
emerging areas like clean alternative energy and climate change
education with an emphasis on blending formal and informal
education; broadening participation to improve workforce
development; enrichment of teacher education for the 21st
century; and fostering cyber learning to enhance STEM
education.
Recognizing that innovation plays a key role in the U.S.
economic competitiveness, the role of diverse intellectual
capital in spurring innovation is a great topic of interest to
us at the NSF. Key issues within this ecosystem include
research and understanding of the culture of innovation and the
interplay between innovation and education.
Technology has the potential to transform education
throughout a lifetime, enabling customized interaction with
diverse learning materials on any topic and supporting
continuous education at any age. In the last decade, the design
of technologies and our understanding of how people learn had
evolved together. NSF has played a key role in these advances.
NSF can continue to lead this revolution by leveraging its
investments in the productive intersections between technology
and the learning sciences. Creative thinking and an integrated
approach about STEM education and learning for the future will
offer new challenges and new opportunities for transformative
research on educational practices and learning tools.
In summary, our STEM education and workforce development
vision will attend to a rich tapestry of excellence and
diversity in STEM attainment, access, availability and reach
across STEM lines of inquiry and geographical borders,
innovation and transformation for stimulating STEM creativity
for discovery and learning, depth and breadth of domains to
promote STEM interdisciplinarity and seamlessness and coherence
to ensure a high level of continuity across the learning
continuum. STEM education and workforce for the 21st century is
key to promoting and sustaining an innovative society.
Thank you very much, and I would be pleased to answer any
questions that you may have.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Ward follows:]
Prepared Statement of Wanda E. Ward
Chairman Lipinski, Ranking Member Ehlers, and distinguished Members
of the Subcommittee on Research and Science Education, thank you for
inviting me to participate in this hearing on ``Systemic Change for
Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Education.''
Today, I will address your concerns that focus on: (1) student
interest in and pursuit of careers in science and engineering; (2)
enrichment of teacher education for the improvement of teaching and
learning in STEM; (3) instructional resources linked to effective STEM
teaching and learning; and (4) role of out-of-school learning in STEM
education. I would also like to take this opportunity to share our
vision for continuing our commitment to promoting excellence in STEM
education for the 21st Century.
The National Science Foundation recognizes that STEM education is
at a crossroad, in need of increased attention from a broad array of
stakeholders who have the common goal of promoting STEM excellence for
all learners. Over many decades, we have seen improvements in science
attainment through our systemic approach to education reform. The
lessons learned and the research findings on K-12 education in formal
and informal settings have been synthesized in two recent publications
by the National Academy of Science: Taking Science to School\1\ and
Learning Science in Informal Environments.\2\ For example, the six
conclusions reached in Taking Science to School (page 2) \3\ about what
students know and how they learn are:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ National Research Council. (2007). Taking Science to School:
Learning and Teaching Science in Grades K-8. Committee on Science
Learning, Kindergarten Through Eighth Grade. Richard A. Duschl, Heidi
A. Schweingruber, and Andrew W. Shouse, Editors. Board on Science
Education, Center for Education. Division of Behavioral and Social
Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
\2\ National Research Council. (2009). Learning Science in Informal
Environments: People, Places, and Pursuits. Committee on Learning
Science in Informal Environments. Philip Bell, Bruce Lewenstein, Andrew
W. Shouse, and Michael A. Feder, Editors. Board on Science Education,
Center for Education. Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and
Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
\3\ National Research Council. (2007). Taking Science to School:
Learning and Teaching Science in Grades K-8. Page 2. Committee on
Science Learning, Kindergarten Through Eighth Grade. Richard A. Duschl,
Heidi A. Schweingruber, and Andrew W. Shouse, Editors. Board on Science
Education, Center for Education. Division of Behavioral and Social
Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Children entering school already have substantial
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
knowledge of the natural world, much of which is implicit.
Children's intuitive concepts of the natural world
can be both resources and barriers to emerging
understanding. These concepts can be enriched and
transformed by appropriate classroom experiences.
What children are capable of at a particular age is
the result of a complex interplay among maturation, experience,
and instruction. What is developmentally appropriate is not a
simple function of age or grade, but rather is largely
contingent on their prior opportunities to learn.
Students' knowledge and experience play a critical
role in their science learning, influencing all four strands of
science understanding.
know, use, and interpret scientific explanations of
the natural world;
generate and evaluate scientific evidence and
explanations;
understand the nature and development of scientific
knowledge; and
participate productively in scientific practices and
discourse.
Race and ethnicity, language, culture, gender, and
socioeconomic status are among the factors that influence the
knowledge and experience children bring to the classroom.
Children's experiences vary with their cultural,
linguistic, and economic background. Such differences
mean that students arrive in the classroom with varying
levels of experience with science and varying degrees
of comfort with the norms of scientific practice.
Students learn science by actively engaging in the
practices of science.
Motivation and attitudes toward science play a
critical role in science learning, fostering students'
use of effective learning strategies that result in
deeper understanding of science. Classroom instruction
and the classroom context can be designed in ways that
enhance motivation and support productive participation
in science.
A range of instructional approaches is necessary as
part of a full development of science proficiency.
Children's understanding of science appears to be
amenable to instruction. However, more research is
needed that provides insight into the experiences and
conditions that facilitate their understanding of
science as a way of knowing.
Experts also documented the many and valued roles of the teacher in
the pre-college years. Taking Science to School, (page 180) provides an
example of the influence of teachers in helping elementary and middle
school students to gain an understanding of how scientific knowledge
develops, including more sophisticated understanding of nature and
scientific models. A teacher can create such learning environments in
the following progression of promoting metaconceptual skills in grade
1-6.\4\
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\4\ National Research Council. (2007). Taking Science to School:
Learning and Teaching Science in Grades K-8. Page 180. Smith, C.L.,
Maclin, D., Houghton, C., and Hennessey, M.G. (2000). Sixth-grade
students' epistemologies of science: The impact of school science
experiences on epistemological development. Cognition and Instruction,
18(3), 285-316.
Learning Science in Informal Environments points out that ``a great
deal of science learning, often unacknowledged, takes place outside
school in informal environments--including everyday activity, designed
spaces, and programs--as individuals navigate across a range of social
settings; rich with educationally framed real-world phenomena,
[informal science settings] are places where people can pursue and
develop science interests, engage in science inquiry, and reflect on
their experiences through conversations'' (page 293).\5\ Furthermore,
the following principles are offered to promote interest in Science:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ National Research Council. (2009). Learning Science in Informal
Environments: People, Places, and Pursuits. Page 293.
address motivation to learn science, emotional
engagement with it, and willingness to persevere over time
despite encountering challenging scientific ideas and
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
procedures
An expressed interest in science during early
adolescence is a strong predictor of science degree
attainment (page 44) \6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ National Research Council. (2009). Learning Science in Informal
Environments: People, Places, and Pursuits. Page 44. Tai, R.H., Liu,
C.Q., Maltese, A.V., and Fan, X. (2006). Planning early for careers in
science. Science, 312, 1143-1144.
learn about main scientific theories and models
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
framing the understanding of the natural world
ask and answer questions and evaluate evidence when
doing science
allow for dynamic refinement of scientific
understanding of the natural world
have learners develop [positive] views of themselves
with respect to science.
Relatedly, findings from research materials on motivation from
Taking Science to School (page 200) indicate that interest is tied to
the quality of learning. Research on the development of interest
indicates that children tend to have general or universal interests at
first, which become more specific relatively quickly. The development
of career interests is thus a process of continuous elimination of
interests that do not fit the individual's emerging sense of self,
which includes gender, social group affiliation, ability, and then
personal identity.\7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ National Research Council. (2007). Taking Science to School:
Learning and Teaching Science in Grades K-8. Page 200. Hidi, S. (2001).
Interest, reading, and learning: Theoretical and practical
considerations. Educational Psychology Review, 13(3), 191-209.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Additionally, members of cultural groups develop systematic
knowledge of the natural world through participation in informal
learning experiences and forms of exploration that are shaped by their
cultural-historical backgrounds and the demands of particular
environments and settings (page 199).\8\ Such knowledge and ways of
approaching nature reflect a diversity of perspectives that should be
recognized in designing science learning experiences and instructional
materials.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ National Research Council. (2007). Taking Science to School:
Learning and Teaching Science in Grades K-8. Page 199. Ryan, R.M.,
Connell, J.P., and Plant, R.W. (1990). Emotions in non-directed text
learning. Learning and Individual Differences, 2, 1-17.
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Across the areas of informal education, teacher education,
instructional materials, and career development since the late 80's,
EHR has supported over 50 completed projects involving higher education
institutions, Chicago Public Schools and/or informal institutions,
addressing all education levels. In addition, 20 of 50 active EHR
research and development efforts focus on learning how to enhance K-12
education. Let me draw your attention to several past and current
projects.
Chicago EHR Story/Project Examples
In 1996, the Columbia College of Chicago was funded
to teach teachers in grades seven, eight, and nine in 50 of
Chicago's public schools the basics of physical science using
up-to-date pedagogical techniques with exemplary materials.
Each year, 40 teachers, selected from 10 of the 50
participating schools, took an intensive three-week summer
program, followed by 16 after school sessions and two Saturday
sessions during the school year. In-class and in-school
assistance were provided in subsequent years to aid in the
classroom implementation of the materials.
For teachers
There has been a consistent trend in the increase of
participants' content knowledge following the summer
intensive workshops. Analysis of the differences
between the pre-test and the post-test among the eight
years of the project shows a 22 percent gain in
knowledge after participation in the summer workshops.
There was a significant increase in the number of
teachers who encouraged their students to independently
design and conduct science projects (from five percent
of the teachers before participating in the project to
23 percent after their participation).
The percentage of teachers placing a heavy emphasis
on developing problem solving strategies and inquiry
skills increased from 26 percent prior to the workshops
to 47 percent after the workshops.
Students of the participating teachers also demonstrated gains in
knowledge that, in many cases, exceeded the national urban average of
3.5 on the same tests. Overall, the fifth grade students moved from a
pre-test score of 28.7 to a post test score of 33, for an average gain
of 4.3. Seventh grade students also had an average gain of 4.3, moving
from a fall score of 36.2 to a spring score of 40.5. English grade
students had a slightly lower average gain of 3.9, moving from a fall
score of 39.2 to spring score of 43.1.
In 2000, the North Central Regional Educational
Laboratory Partnership for Mathematics Improvement project
implemented the reform curricula in all the schools in the
Harvey School District. Grades K-5 used MathTrailblazers and
Grades six through eight used Connected Mathematics, and the
curricula were use as tools for developing professional
communities of teachers, administrators and parents committed
to improving mathematics instruction in the district. All
teachers in the district who taught mathematics in Grades K-8
participated fully in the project.
It was found that after the implementation of the project,
the percentage of third, fifth and eighth grade students who
did not meet State standards in mathematics decreased markedly
from 56 percent, 71 percent and 96 percent in 1999 to 36
percent, 38 percent and 78 percent respectively in 2005. And
the number of students exceeding the State standards increased
during the same period, from five percent to 17 percent for
third grade students, and from none to 4.5 percent and two
percent for fifth and eighth grade students, respectively.
In 2001, the study team of Elementary, Secondary, and
Informal Education: Forging Partnerships with Libraries used
the library setting as a strong niche for informal space
science learning. Eight topics were investigated through video
presentations, hands-on activities, and other supporting
resources. The Lunar and Planetary Institute Education and
Public Outreach staff trained public and school librarians so
that they could include space science in their out-of-school-
time children's programs and family/community based programs.
More than 700 librarians have been trained in the use of
Explore! Materials. A follow-up discussion with the principal
investigator revealed that 30 Children's Librarians developed
programs that used Explore! Materials, and each of them have
continued three after-school programs that are serving 20
students per program (with the support from NASA). The results
of a summative evaluation will be forthcoming.
The Nature Museum's Teens Exploring and Explaining
Nature and Science (TEENS), funded in 2001, is an example of an
out-of-school program for building skills and educational
aspirations among under-served urban students. TEENS was
developed to provide students the opportunity to fulfill their
service learning requirement while developing real-world job
skills and learning about careers in science and technology, as
well as providing the students with the necessary preparation
for post-secondary study in the sciences. TEENS offered more
than just science education; it provided participants with
encouragement, academic assistance, and confidence-building
activities. Over the duration of the project, more than 100
teenagers were reached and indicated that they would strongly
encourage other youth to participate in the program for both
its educational and career advantages.
All of the students participating in the program graduated
high school and 80 percent are in college. Plans are under
discussion for a follow-up study regarding field of study and
degree attainment. The TEENS program has now become one of the
core education programs at the museum.
In 2003, the Induction and Mentoring in Middle Grade
Science and Mathematics Accelerated Teacher Preparation Program
developed a three-year induction model for urban education,
integrating university course work with full-time classroom
teaching. The first year included certification course work and
student teaching in their classrooms. Classroom support was
twofold: mentors visited each teacher interns once a week and
student-teaching supervisors visited each intern every other
week.
The second year course work focused on remaining
requirements for the graduate degree. The highlight was a year-
long action research project focused on improving classroom
teaching. The action research projects shared a focus on
integrating content-rich curriculum with inquiry-guided
instruction, while increasing attention to the importance of
literacy-based practices aimed at engaging a diverse student
population. Regarding classroom support, mentors visited each
teacher every other week to assist with their action research
projects and other instruction, as needed.
The third year curriculum focused on school leadership, and
the need to foster a school culture that highlights the
importance of science and mathematics education. A leadership
project required that each teacher work within his or her
school in collaboration with colleagues to improve school
curriculum and professional development activities focused on
science and mathematics education. Leadership projects included
developing community-based science and mathematics units (e.g.,
Chicago River, bird migration, urban gardening), and leading
school-wide professional development workshops. Classroom
support included mentor visits to each teacher once a month to
assist with leadership projects and other instruction, as
needed.
This project surpassed its targeted recruitment goal by
seven percent and at the end, recruited a total of 107
teachers. Its success provided the basis for the subsequent
NOYCE Stipend Program started in 2004, which further addressed
critical shortage of qualified science and mathematics teachers
in the Chicago Public Schools, particularly in urban arrears of
high need.
With the support from Robert Noyce Teacher
Scholarship program, NOYCE Stipend Program was built on the
successful partnership between Chicago Public Schools and the
University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). It recruited 91
qualified career-changers with a strong background in math or
science to become teachers in high-need schools.
All of the 91 Noyce scholars received Noyce
stipends, completed their graduate degree programs and
earned teaching credentials in their fields through
UIC's teacher certification programs. Ninety scholars
completed their teaching commitment, and 73 Noyce
scholars have continued to teach beyond their two-year
commitment. Of those, 17 have completed their third
year of teaching and 56 have completed their fourth
year.
Moreover, eight of the Noyce scholars have gone on
to become regional or district-wide curriculum and
professional development leaders in math and science in
CPS. Of the 13 regional science and math instructional
specialists in CPS, seven specialists were supported
through NOYCE program at UIC. In addition, the CPS
district-wide curriculum supervisor of middle grades
science is a former NOYCE Scholar.
In 2009, UIC started NOYCE Phase II project, which
continues the work begun in the previous NOYCE grant and
expands its potential impact with the addition of an enhanced
mentor program for new Noyce recipients. This new mentor
program involves previous Noyce awardees and inducts new ones
into a Noyce mentoring network. Second, the project extends the
Noyce applicant pool by adding three new science certifications
and introducing a one-year M.Ed. program option for secondary
science education, with is available for secondary science
teacher candidates in biology, earth and space science,
environmental science, chemistry and physics. Over a three-year
period, NOYCE Phase II project will offer 40 recruitment
stipends to students in UIC secondary STEM teacher preparation
programs.
In 2004 and 2005, researchers at the University of
Chicago and the University of Illinois at Chicago were funded
to study how teachers and students construct shared knowledge
about science topics in integrated units in primary and middle
grades. This research is focusing on how students at various
ages perceive concepts and how teachers communicate them. NSF
is awaiting the final report of these research projects that
may offer new insights for how we develop curricula and move
students through the learning process.
With a longstanding history in urban systemic reform,
the University of Illinois at Chicago received an award in 2007
to conduct a multi-dimensional study of the reform efforts
within the Chicago Public Schools for effective planning,
implementation, scale-up, adaptation, documentation and
evaluation of ongoing systemic reform in mathematics and
science education in one of the Nation's largest urban public
school system.
These examples demonstrate NSF's support of meritorious STEM
education activities that build on our current knowledge about
learning. The Foundation supports projects that create high quality
learning environments (as well as developing innovative models for
utilizing cyber-learning activities) that provide the opportunity for
students to think in sophisticated ways and for teachers to stimulate
students' basic reasoning skills, personal knowledge of the natural
world, and curiosity--all in order to increase proficiency and interest
in science. Moreover, the value of these early investments in science
interest and proficiency can be seen in the readiness of diverse
precollege populations to pursue STEM careers in higher education with
the support of programs like the Advanced Technological Education; STEM
Talent Expansion Program; Scholarships in Science, Technology,
Engineering and Mathematics; Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority
Participation; Integrative Graduate Education and Research
Traineeships; Graduate Teaching Fellows in K-12 Education; and Graduate
Research Fellowships--all of which are active NSF higher education STEM
programs in the State of Illinois.
It is with much commitment from the Foundation, with the focal
point for STEM learning housed in the Directorate of Education and
Human Resources, that we find ourselves uniquely positioned to
transition from strengthening or building on our knowledge base
regarding education reform to being responsive to a call of
transforming STEM education and workforce development for the 21st
century. EHR will collaborate increasingly NSF-wide to help meet
national goals in STEM education. This future cross-directorate
partnering on the learning portfolio will ensure that NSF:
Develops a responsive and potentially transformative
research and development continuum for education and workforce
development, with rigorous evaluation
Promotes openness and adaptability for new fields
through support for public engagement and lifelong learning
Leverages support for innovation in STEM education
through strategic partnerships and coordination
Links funding for a foundation for scale-up and
sustainability
Stays on the cutting edge in promoting excellence in
STEM education to ensure the health, competitiveness and
prosperity of the Nation.
Partnering with other external stakeholders, NSF believes that the
field is ready to pursue innovative ideas to advance current
understanding of STEM education by linking novel approaches and best/
effective practices to STEM-specific challenges for the 21st century.
Our vision will be aligned with the STEM priorities in America COMPETES
Act (ACA) and/or American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). With
multi-purpose strategic thinking we will sharpen our support on four
foci:
innovation in learning ecosystems of emerging areas
like clean/alternative energy and climate change education with
an emphasis on blending formal and informal education
broadening participation to improve workforce
development
enrichment of teacher education for the 21st century,
and
fostering cyber-learning to enhance STEM education.
One of the areas in which the U.S. is a recognized leader, but
increasingly is challenged globally, is that of innovation. Recognizing
that innovation plays a key role in U.S. economic competitiveness, the
role of diverse intellectual capital in spurring innovation is a topic
of great interest to us at the National Science Foundation. Key issues
within this ecosystem, include research and understanding of the
culture of innovation and the interplay between innovation and
education.
STEM teacher education is an EHR-wide activity, building on NSF's
50-plus years of experience in this domain. Through collaborations we
must discover research-based advances that enable the U.S. to produce
21st century, ``cyber-prepared'' STEM teachers for the 21st century,
``cyber-savvy'' students. Hence, four areas of teacher education
emphasis must inform future directions:
Teacher education to support equity and excellence
The undergraduate teacher preparation experience for
professors
Teacher education and mid-career entry at the
graduate level
The K-12 and policy interfaces with teacher
education.
Technology has the potential to transform education throughout a
lifetime, enabling customized interaction with diverse learning
materials on any topic, and supporting continuous education at any age.
In the last decade, the design of technologies and our understanding of
how people learn have evolved together. NSF has played a key role in
these advances, funding interdisciplinary programs specifically to
support research and activities in the area of cyber-learning. NSF can
continue to lead this revolution by leveraging its investments in the
productive intersections between technology and the learning sciences.
Creative thinking about STEM education and learning for the future
will offer new challenges and new opportunities for transformative
research on educational practices and learning tools. In summary, our
STEM education and workforce development vision for the future will
attend to a rich tapestry of:
excellence and diversity in STEM attainment;
access, availability, and ``reach'' across STEM lines
of inquiry and geographical borders;
innovation and transformation for stimulating STEM
creativity for discovery and learning;
depth and breadth of domains to promote STEM
interdisciplinarity; and
seamlessness and coherence to ensure a high level of
continuity across the learning continuum.
STEM education and workforce for the 21 century is key to promoting
and sustaining an innovative society.
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before the
Subcommittee to speak to you on this important topic. I would be
pleased to answer any questions that you may have.
Biolography for Wanda E. Ward
Dr. Wanda E. Ward is the Acting Assistant Director for Education
and Human Resources, National Science Foundation (NSF). Throughout her
tenure at NSF, Ward has served in a number of science and engineering
policy, planning, and program capacities in the Directorate for
Education and Human Resources (1992-1997; 2006-present), Office of the
NSF Director (1997-1999); and Directorate for Social, Behavioral and
Economic Sciences (1999-2006). From 2001-2002 she was on assignment at
the Council on Competitiveness as Chief Advisor to the initiative, BEST
(Building Engineering and Science Talent), where she provided
leadership in the launch and development of this public-private
partnership, established to carry out the implementation of a national
diversity initiative called for by the Congressional Commission on the
Advancement of Women and Minorities in Science, Engineering and
Technology Development.
Since joining the Foundation, Dr. Ward has also led or served on
several NSF and interagency task forces, working groups, commissions
and committees. These include: Co-Chair, Subcommittee on Social,
Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBES), the President's National
Science and Technology Council (NSTC) Committee on Science (COS , 2004-
2005); NSF representative to the Interagency Working Group on the U.S.
Science and Technology Workforce of the Future, NSTC COS (1997-1999);
Executive Liaison to the Co-Vice-Chair of the NSTC former Committee on
Education and Training (CET) and Executive Secretary of the NSTC CET
Subcommittee on Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering
Education (1994-1996). She has forged international research and
workforce development collaborations in both developed and developing
nations, including in China, Europe and Africa. Since 2007, she has
served as a member of the International Social Science Council (ISSC)
Committee for Developing and Transition Economies (CoDATE).
Prior to joining NSF, Dr. Ward served as tenured Associate
Professor of Psychology and Founding Director of the Center for
Research on Multi-Ethnic Education at the University of Oklahoma,
Norman. She took the B.A. in Psychology and the Afro-American Studies
Certificate from Princeton University and the Ph.D. in Psychology from
Stanford University. She was awarded the Ford Foundation Fellowship,
the 2005 American Psychological Association Presidential Citation, the
2006 Presidential Rank Award for Distinguished Executive and the 2006
Richard T. Louttit Award.
Chairman Lipinski. Thank you, Dr. Ward.
The Chair now recognizes Ms. Maggie Daley.
STATEMENT OF MS. MAGGIE DALEY, CHAIR, AFTER SCHOOL MATTERS,
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
Ms. Daley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Dr. Ehlers for this
opportunity to before you this morning. I am Maggie Daley,
Chair of After School Matters, a non-profit organization that
is dedicated to providing informal educational opportunities
including STEM learning to Chicago teens. I would also like to
introduce David Sisky, our Executive Director of After School
Matters, and I may consult with him from time to time during my
testimony.
As you may already know, Education Week has reported that
75 percent of the Nobel Prize winners in the sciences report
that their passion for science was first sparked in informal
environments. The National Research Council stated in a recent
report there is mounting evidence that structured, non-school
science programs can feed or stimulate the science-specific
interests of adults and children. They positively influence
academic achievement for students and may expand participants'
sense of future science career options.
After School Matters is one of the largest organizations
serving teens during the out-of-school hours in the United
States and last year we provided 30,000 program slots to
Chicago teens. Today, I would like to speak about our
organization's efforts and how, with the appropriate support
and resources, we can realize our ambitious vision for STEM
programming in the future.
Allow me to tell you more about who we are and what we do.
In 1991, Gallery 37 was established, an art-based summer
apprenticeship program for high school teens, on an undeveloped
parcel of land named Block 37 in downtown Chicago. In the year
2000, key funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation,
aimed at promoting healthy development of our youth by scaling
up quality programs, allowed the successful apprenticeship
structure of Gallery 37 to be applied to programs in other
disciplines and the creation of After School Matters.
After School Matters is an intermediary organization that
engages hundreds of paid instructors from informal education
communities to work with thousands of teens in our programs.
These instructors create and submit their curricula through a
request for proposals process that promotes creativity and
diversity in the programs we offer and it allows us to be
intentional when addressing workforce trends. Teens in Tech 37,
our technology programs, work with industry professionals on
authentic projects and areas such as web design, manufacturing,
engineering, media production and computers. Our programs
enable skill building through hands-on activities that spark
teens' interest in technology.
Our robotics program, funded by the Motorola Foundation, is
an example of the success of Tech 37. In each program of
robotics, teens design and build robots to compete in two
unique sporting events. Additionally, Motorola helped us to
secure engineering mentors to support these teens.
Recognizing that more teens must be exposed to informal
science opportunities if we are to maintain global
competitiveness, Abbott partnered with us in 2006 to create
Science 37. These programs provide connections with the city's
growing science sectors and teens develop a new appreciation
for science and an awareness of potential science careers. Lab
101 is a Science 37 program created in partnership with Abbott
and Dr. Don Wink of the University of Illinois in Chicago. It
introduces teens to laboratory procedures and techniques and
teens visit Abbott's facilities to learn about the science and
business of global health care.
After School Matters broke into partnership between Abbott
and the Chicago Public Schools to renovate a laboratory at
Foreman High School, site of the Lab 101 programs. When it
opens this fall, the lab will be used for Lab 101 after school
and normal classes during the school day. Such collaboration
demonstrates the strength of our partnership with the Chicago
Public Schools. We want to complement and reinforce the STEM
concepts and the State standards that are delivered in the high
school classroom.
One illustration of the relationship between After School
Matters and the school day learning is found in the following
statistics from the Chicago Public School Department of Career
and College Preparation. After School Matters participants with
a GPA of 3.0 to 3.4 enrolled in college at a higher rate than
non-participants and 71 percent versus 63 percent for the
district in 2006. Additionally, research from the Chapin Hall
Center for Children at the University of Chicago found that
teens who participate in After School Matters programs have
higher graduation rates, lower dropout rates and fewer course
failures than teens who do not participate.
Of course, we also face challenges but we must meet them
head on with innovative thinking and creative solutions. For
example, teens who join our core program model, the
apprenticeship, receive stipends and financial incentives to
participate and as a reinforcement of the structure of the
workplace. Since apprenticeships take place in job-like
settings, this investment in our youth makes it possible for
the most economically disadvantaged teens to experience the
working world that awaits them after graduation.
We know we must do more. Our vision for the next three
years includes doubling our current number of Tech 37 program
slots to 7,000 while tripling our Science 37 program slots to
3,500. However, this ambitious vision is weighed down by fiscal
realities. Due to the substantial reductions in government
funding and the anticipated reductions in corporate and
foundation giving for this fiscal year, our directors were
forced to decrease our budget by a third, which is $7.2
million. We have taken significant measures to manage costs and
maximize our program offerings but these measures were unable
to prevent the elimination of one-third of our total program
slots in the coming year. Restoring these 10,000 slots, let
alone building additional STEM programming, is impossible
without additional support.
I would like to make a few recommendations on how the
private sector and State and federal stakeholders can take
better advantage of nonprofit organizations like After School
Matters to improve STEM education. The government must increase
the support of informal education including out-of-school time
programming such as After School Matters, given the increasing
evidence of the important role in reaching America's youth.
Understanding that evaluation and reporting is priority, the
government needs to provide additional resources to non-profits
to be able to engage evaluators to assess outcomes of programs.
If government grant application and reporting processes were
simplified and streamlined, we could add more internal
resources to ensure program quality and effectiveness.
I encourage the private sector to broaden partnerships to
maximize investments with non-profits, focusing on long-term
sustainability and a vision that supports existing successful
programs. With this kind of support, informal educators could
move the cause of STEM learning forward, and no one is better
poised to make a difference than us. We have a 20-year history
of success with proven program models. We are integrated into
the communities we serve, and most importantly, we have access
to a diverse, curious and eager audience who with the right
spark of inspiration will change not only the course of their
own lives but also the future of our country.
On behalf of After School Matters, I am grateful for your
time and attention and I would be pleased to answer any
questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Daley follows:]
Prepared Statement of Maggie Daley
Mr. Chairman and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank
you for this opportunity to appear before you this morning. I am Maggie
Daley, Chair of After School Matters, a non-profit organization
dedicated to providing informal educational opportunities, including
STEM learning, to high school teens in Chicago.
As you may already know, Education Week reported in 2006 that 75
percent of Nobel Prize winners in the sciences said that their passion
for science was first sparked in informal environments.\1\ The
Institute for Advanced Study recently recommended ``increas[ing] the
science and math content in out-of-school time programming through
project-based, real-world activities'' in order to mobilize the Nation
for math and science learning.\2\ And the National Research Council
stated in a recent report that, ``There is mounting evidence that
structured, non-school science programs can feed or stimulate the
science-specific interests of adults and children, may positively
influence academic achievement for students, and may expand
participants' sense of future science career options.'' \3\
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\1\ Friedman, Lucy N. and Jane Quinn. ``Science by Stealth.''
Education Week, 22 Feb. 2006: 45,48,49.
\2\ Institute for Advanced Study (2009). The opportunity equation:
Transforming mathematics and science education for citizenship and the
global economy. Commission on Mathematics and Science Education.
\3\ National Research Council (2009). Learning science in informal
environments: People, places, and pursuits. Committee on Learning
Science in Informal Environments. Philip Bell, Bruce Lewenstein, Andrew
W. Shouse, and Michael A. Feder, editors. Board on Science Education,
Center for Education, Division of Behavioral and Social Science and
Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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It is clear that any plan for expanding the reach and effectiveness
of science and technology education in our country must give informal
educators a prominent role. As one of the largest organizations serving
teens during the out-of-school hours in the United States, After School
Matters can offer a unique perspective on how that role can be
implemented. Today, I would like to speak about our organization's
efforts to broaden participation and promote diversity in STEM
learning, and how, with the appropriate support and resources, we can
realize our ambitious vision for STEM programming in the future.
Who We Are
First, allow me to tell you more about who we are and what we do.
The mission of After School Matters is to create a network of out-of-
school time opportunities, including apprenticeship and drop-in
programs, for teens in under-served communities. Our leadership role
among schools, neighborhoods, government agencies, and community and
teaching organizations is unique. We leverage key public partnerships
with the City of Chicago, Chicago Public Schools, the Chicago Park
District, the Chicago Department of Family and Support Services, the
Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Chicago Public Library.
Chicago Public School principals and liaisons, Chicago Park District
specialists, Chicago Public Library staff, and community leaders work
together to support an expansive array of programming for teenagers.
And by anchoring out-of-school time opportunities around community
organizations and ``campuses''--each consisting of a public high school
and a nearby park and library--After School Matters maximizes the use
of existing public infrastructure and invigorates neighborhoods.
In 1991, I collaborated with Lois Weisberg, Commissioner of
Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs, to establish gallery37, an
arts-based summer apprenticeship program for high school teens, on an
undeveloped parcel of land named Block 37 in downtown Chicago. In 2000,
key funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation aimed at promoting
healthy development of our youth by scaling up quality programs allowed
the successful apprenticeship structure of gallery37 to be applied to
technology, communications, and sports programming. These programs
became known as After School Matters, an umbrella organization for all
areas of out-of-school time opportunities (including science, which was
added in 2006). Last year, nearly two decades after those first
programs on Block 37, After School Matters provided 30,000 out-of-
school program slots at 63 high schools and more than 100 community-
based organizations throughout the city.\4\
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\4\ See attachment: After School Matters Campus Map.
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African Americans comprise 68 percent of our program participants,
while 23 percent are Latino. Of the remaining population, three percent
are Caucasian, two percent are Asian/Asian-American & Pacific Islander,
one percent are Native American, and another three percent identified
themselves as ``other.'' As you can see, making STEM a priority at
After School Matters automatically promotes diversity within STEM
fields. Our community programs also expose STEM learning to those who
are either outside of the public school system or require additional
support, such as the physically and cognitively disabled, teen parents,
dropouts, limited English speakers, ex-offenders, Chicago Housing
Authority residents, students attending alternative schools, and
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) teens.
In creating out-of-school opportunities, After School Matters
employs three primary program models: clubs, ``drop-in'' programs
without attendance requirements in which teens socialize with their
peers and explore new interests in a safe, structured environment;
apprenticeships, our core model in which teens learn marketable skills
in a professional atmosphere from an industry expert or artistic
master; and internships, supervised positions that appropriately
utilize teens' skills while allowing them the opportunity to train in a
real work environment. Collectively, this structure is known as the
``Ladder of Opportunity.'' Teens can start on any ``rung'' as long as
they have the requisite skills, commitment, and maturity.
After School Matters is distinctive in that we operate as an
intermediary organization. We engage community and teaching
organizations, as well as independent instructors, to create and teach
curricula through a Request for Proposals (RFP) process. This method
promotes diversity and creativity in the programs we offer, provides
the organization with the flexibility necessary to meet teens' ever-
changing interests, allows us to be more intentional when addressing
workforce trends, and results in an extraordinarily wide range of out-
of-school time opportunities for teens.
This structure also allows us to engage hundreds of paid
instructors from the informal education community to work with the tens
of thousands of teens in our programs. In this way, we integrate After
School Matters directly into the communities that we serve. Our
instructors treat teens with respect, listen to what they say,
recognize their abilities and talents, have high expectations for their
work, and provide them with opportunities for leadership. Caring
instructors with real-world expertise are central to keeping teens
engaged and invested in our programs.
We also work with formal educators like Columbia College, Harold
Washington College, and the University of Illinois, Chicago. Past
collaborations have included programs in chemistry, physics, media and
technology, economics, and financial literacy.
tech37
In 2000, we expanded from the arts programs of gallery37 into
communications and athletics via words37 and sports37. We also took
note of the dramatic growth of the technology sector during the late
1990s and anticipated the increasing demand for skilled workers in the
coming years. In response, After School Matters partnered with Internet
companies and technology entrepreneurs to establish tech37.
Teens in tech37 programs work with industry professionals on
authentic projects in areas such as Web design, manufacturing,
engineering, media production, and computer technology. Our programs
enable skill-building through hands-on activities and spark teens'
interest in technology for personal and professional development. They
also afford teens the opportunity to refine their critical workplace
skills, including problem solving, teamwork, and communication. With
practice, teens become more adept at using these skills, which they
will take with them to the job market and their future academic
endeavors.
Here are just a few examples of the exciting experiences that we
provide for our tech37 teens:
ROBOTICS
The Motorola Foundation partners with After School Matters to
implement robotics programming based on the guidelines of the
US FIRST organization.\5\ During the program, robotics teams
design and build robots to compete in two unique sporting
events, the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) and the FIRST Robotics
Competition (FRC). The robot for the FTC event is compact,
roughly the size of small suitcase, and is built from a
standard kit of parts. The robot for the FRC event is larger,
averaging six feet tall by three feet across, and each team
must determine not only the design but also the construction
materials. In addition to providing us with a generous grant,
Motorola helped After School Matters secure engineering mentors
to support our newer teams.
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\5\ For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology
(FIRST). More information is available at www.usfirst.com.
Over the last three years, three of our robotics teams have
qualified for the annual FIRST Championships in Atlanta, GA,
which brings together thousands of teen engineers from across
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the country and around the world.
WEB FOR THE FUTURE
The Web for the Future program tasks teens with building
professional, multi-page Web sites in order to promote
fictitious companies. They master digital media tools as they
design logos, graphics, and branding. At the end of the
program, teens have created fully functional Web sites that can
be used in their portfolios and viewed on the Internet.
HI-TECH MANUFACTURING
Hi-Tech Manufacturing introduces students to Computer-Aided
Design (CAD) and computerized machining. Teens design simple
mechanical parts and then write computer programs to construct
the parts on an industrial lathe or mill. Teens also learn math
skills related to manufacturing (including basic Trigonometry),
print reading, and precision measuring. Additionally,
manufacturing careers are explained, promoted, and demonstrated
through field trips and guest speakers.
science37
While tech37 is a valuable part of our strategy to build STEM
education, exposing teens to informal science opportunities must be a
priority if we are to maintain and increase the Nation's economic
strength, scientific innovation, and global competitiveness.
Recognizing this fact, Abbott approached us in 2006 to discuss how we
might work together to achieve this goal. With generous support and
valuable input from Abbott, science37 was born.
Our science37 programs strengthen teens' scientific aptitude while
piquing their intellectual curiosity by directly connecting them with
the city's growing science and biotechnology sectors. Teens in these
programs develop a new appreciation for science, an understanding of
its relevance in their lives, and an awareness of potential science
careers.
To help us build science37, the Abbott Fund has also provided the
services of an educational consulting firm with substantial experience
in the science arena. This firm is helping us coordinate roundtable
discussions with Chicago's leading informal science educators,
including all of the major museums, to find new ways to collaborate and
extend the reach of STEM learning across the city.
The following programs highlight the success we have had with
science37 in a relatively short period of time:
LAB 101
Abbott and Don Wink of the University of Illinois, Chicago,
partner with us to provide Lab 101, a program that introduces
teens to basic and intermediary laboratory procedures and
techniques. Abbott scientists have made several trips to this
and other science37 programs to share their perspectives on
STEM careers. The Lab 101 teens have also visited Abbott
Molecular in Des Plaines, Illinois and Abbott's corporate
headquarters in Abbott Park, Illinois to learn about the
science and business of global health care and medical
research.
SUMMER SCIENCE EXPERIENCE
Funded by Abbott and the National Science Foundation, teens in
the Summer Science Experience at Harold Washington College
conduct experiments based around air quality, water purity, and
the use of plants to remove soil contaminants. The teens' work
on density with sugar solutions was crafted into a Classroom
Activity and published in the August 2008 issue of the peer-
reviewed Journal of Chemical Education.
T-POINT: BUILDING DEMAND FOR MATH AMONG CHICAGO YOUTH
The T-Point (or ``turning point'') program trains teens to
become Math Literacy Workers and teaches them Lesson Planning,
Creating and Delivering Workshops, Math Instruction and
Critical College Preparatory Math Skills. Teens then create and
deliver math literacy workshops to middle school students.
Being mentored by teens in an informal setting can make the
content of programs more engaging for younger students because
they often admire and emulate teens. When teen mentors provide
guidance through respectful communication and positive
attention, youth become more invested in learning.
Both tech37 and science37 have made significant strides towards
broadening teen participation in STEM learning, but we know that we
must do more to make certain that science and technology are viable
career paths for the next generation.
Collaboration with Chicago Public Schools
While After School Matters strives to make its programs more than
just an extension of the school day for under-served teens, we want to
complement and reinforce the STEM concepts and State standards that are
delivered in high school classrooms. Our strategy to meet this goal
revolves around our partnership with Chicago Public Schools.
Chief Executive Officer of Chicago Public Schools, Ron Huberman,
has been pivotal to the strength of this partnership, continuing on in
the tradition of the previous Chief Executive Officer, now U.S.
Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan. Mr. Huberman has made it clear
that he intends to build on the success we have achieved in the past
and to support our long-term goal of offering After School Matters
programs in every public high school in the city.\6\ In turn, we
support Chicago Public Schools initiatives like Freshman Connections,
in which we provide special summer programming to middle school teens
who are transitioning to high school in the fall.
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\6\ See attachment: Ron Huberman letter.
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In order to more closely align the two organizations, we have
created a regional system similar to the one used by Chicago Public
Schools. Each region is assigned a director and each high school or
community site is assigned a program specialist. Before the beginning
of a program cycle, the director and specialist meet with the
principals and liaisons of our partner high schools to discuss their
programming needs and how After School Matters can support their
existing priorities. These discussions directly affect the selection of
After School Matters programming for each school.
One illustration of the relationship between After School Matters
and school day learning is found in the following statistics from the
Chicago Public School Department of Career and College Preparation:
In 2006, After School Matters participants with a GPA
of 3.0-3.4 enrolled in college at a higher rate: 71.9 percent
compared to 63.5 percent for the district. These participants
were also more likely to attend a four-year college and to
attend school full time than their district counterparts.
Graduating Latino students who participated in After
School Matters programs in 2006 had higher college enrollment
rates compared to their district counterparts: 50 percent
versus 38.9 percent for the district.
In terms of STEM programming, we offer another way for schools to
break through teens' preconceptions. Our hands-on, project-based
programs get teens excited about scientific and technological ideas
that might once have seemed dull or mystifying. That enthusiasm is then
carried over to their formal education and energizes their STEM
learning during the school day.
After School Matters also assisted in brokering a partnership
between the Abbott Fund and Chicago Public Schools to renovate a
laboratory at Foreman High School. When it opens this fall, the lab
space will be used for the Lab 101 program after school and science
classes during the school day.
Assessment
Quality assurance is important to After School Matters, because
consistent quality in our programs increases their impact on each teen
participant. In turn, this impact on teens increases the impact that
teens have on their communities.
After School Matters program specialists are a critical part of the
quality assurance process. They support quality by linking with
schools, community organizations, instructors, and teens to make the
connections necessary to successfully facilitate programs. Program
specialists visit programs regularly to collect feedback from teens and
instructors. They also use teen participation as a key indicator of
quality, since young people quickly choose to leave programs that are
not engaging.
As part of our ongoing commitment to excellence, After School
Matters also participates in independent research that evaluates the
effectiveness of our programs and services. Several top researchers
have evaluated After School Matters programs and the findings have been
used to continuously enhance and strengthen the organization's work.
One of the most compelling studies was conducted in 2006 by the
Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago.
Researchers examined the relationship between student participation in
After School Matters programs and high school graduation. They followed
a group of 3,411 students in 12 Chicago high schools for four years and
came to these important conclusions:\7\
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\7\ Goerge, Robert, Gretchen R. Cusick, Miriam Wasserman, and
Robert Matthew Gladden. (2007). ``After-School Programs and Academic
Impact: A Study of Chicago's After School Matters.'' Chapin Hall Center
for Children: Issue Brief #112.
Teens who participate in After School Matters
[programs] have higher graduation rates and lower drop-out
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
rates than teens who do not participate.
Teens in After School Matters [programs] have higher
school attendance than those who do not participate.
Teens in After School Matters programs have fewer
course failures than teens who do not participate.
After School Matters programs have also been evaluated by Dr.
Robert Halpern, a nationally-recognized authority on youth development
at the Erikson Institute. For two years, Dr. Halpern documented the
activities of teens and instructors in After School Matters
apprenticeship programs. The findings concluded that After School
Matters programs:\8\
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\8\ Halpern, Robert. ``After-School Matters in Chicago:
Apprenticeship as a Model for Youth Programming.'' Youth & Society.
38.2 (2006): 203-235.
Produce positive effects in several areas such as
improving teens' abilities to work in groups, communicate
effectively, plan and meet deadlines, and cooperate with
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flexibility;
Give teens a sense of what it means to be an adult,
in both thought and responsibility, and illustrate what it
takes to become skilled at a task;
Teach students not only about the specific discipline
that was the focus of their apprenticeship (e.g., arts,
technology), but also about how to approach tasks related to
the discipline, such as conducting research or envisioning the
end product; and
Enhance students' knowledge of various vocational
skills such as how to apply and interview for a position, the
importance of regular and prompt attendance, and guidelines for
appropriate behavior.
While we understand the need to evaluate our programs in more
specific detail, such as the direct effect of STEM learning, our
limited resources preclude that kind of critical work at this time.
However, Abbott has provided direction towards such in-depth
examination by helping us acquire pre- and post-program surveys for
science37 teens that will gauge our impact on their understanding,
interest, and appreciation of science. Once these surveys have been
reviewed, we will have a glimpse into the lasting effect we are having
on the Nation's future workforce.
However, the results of these surveys will provide only a glimpse
of that impact. In order to engage in the kind of thoughtful and
detailed analysis that is necessary to create compelling STEM
programming, After School Matters and other non-profits across the
country will need more financial resources to engage experts who can
devise, implement, and interpret such studies.
Challenges
Evaluation is not the only challenge that After School Matters must
face when it comes to broadening teen participation in STEM learning.
As mentioned throughout my testimony, we focus on the most under-served
high school teens in the city. In Chicago's public schools, 84.9
percent of teens are considered to be ``low-income'' and qualify for
the federal free and reduced lunch program.
The communities these teens live in are also struggling in terms of
public support and infrastructure. The facilities and equipment needed
for programming in their neighborhoods are often either outdated or
unavailable. As a result, the availability of high-quality, affordable,
out-of-school time programs can be very limited. This can be especially
problematic for STEM learning, since teens in these communities often
believe that science and technology are boring or irrelevant to their
lives.
After School Matters has met these challenges with innovative
thinking and beneficial partnerships. All of our programs are free to
Chicago residents. Teens who join our core program model--the
apprenticeship--receive stipends as financial incentive to participate
and as reinforcement of the structure of the workplace. Since
apprenticeships take place in job-like settings, this investment in our
youth makes it possible for the most economically disadvantaged teens
to experience the working world that awaits them after graduation.
We also work hard to guarantee that our programming is meaningful
to these teens. We strive to focus on areas that directly affect them,
such as health care, teen pregnancy prevention, and financial literacy.
One advanced program in biotechnology illustrated how advances in that
field might one day end the scourge of diseases that plague their
communities, like AIDS and lupus.
We are also piloting ``hybrid'' programs, which combine STEM
learning with other, seemingly unrelated disciplines. One example is
``The Science of Art'' program that just concluded at Harold Washington
College. The program reconnected teens to the Renaissance spirit, a
time when art was intertwined with science, as in the works of Leonardo
da Vinci. An example of teens discovering this association was when
they created cyanotype prints: the prints required the mixture of two
chemicals to make a solution that was reactive to ultraviolet light and
then ``developing'' paper painted with the solution in the sun. One of
the teens in the program said she had always found science difficult,
but that the program ``created a bridge between art and science'' and
made the STEM learning easier to understand.
We have made a great deal of progress in bolstering STEM among our
city's youth. But there is so much more that needs to be done. Our
vision for the next three years includes doubling our current number of
tech37 program slots to 7000 while tripling our science37 program slots
to 3500.
However, this ambitious vision is currently weighed down by fiscal
realities. Due to substantial reductions in government funding and the
anticipated reductions in corporate and foundation giving for this
fiscal year, our Board of Directors was forced to decrease our budget
by $7.3M. We have taken significant measures to manage costs and
maximize our program offerings, including laying off staff, freezing
staff salaries and vacant positions, consolidating staff functions,
instituting unpaid furlough days, and increasing employee contributions
to benefits. Additionally, teen stipends and instructor fees were
reduced by ten percent.
But none of these measures were able to prevent the elimination of
one-third of our total program slots in the coming year. Restoring
these 10,000 slots, let alone building additional STEM programming, is
impossible without additional support.
Furthermore, the largest roadblock in the growth of science37 is
finding qualified field professionals to serve as instructors. Again,
we are an intermediary organization; we have no curricula or
instructors of our own. We need to realize additional connections to
the science community, to retired professionals, to graduate students,
and to others whose schedules would enable them to run programs in the
afternoon and early evening hours. We also need to further develop
informal educators to deepen their knowledge of science concepts, to
gain cultural competence with our diverse population, and, as stated by
the Taking Science to School report by the National Research Council,
to learn ``to teach for science proficiency.'' \9\
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\9\ National Research Council (2007). Taking science to school:
Learning and teaching science in grades K-8. Committee on Science
Learning, Kindergarten through Eighth Grade. Richard A. Duschl, Heid A.
Scheingruber, and Andrew W. Shouse, editors. Washington, DC: The
National Academies Press.
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In order to be a leader in out-of-school time STEM education in
Chicago, we need funding to hire a full-time position that would focus
solely on the cultivation of STEM programming and instructors. We have
the will, the desire, and the proven ability to take these steps to
make STEM a priority in our city. All we lack are the means.
Recommendations
The challenges of After School Matters are similar to those felt by
non-profit informal educators across the Nation. Therefore, there needs
to be a national response. I would like to make a few recommendations
on how the private sector and State and federal stakeholders can take
better advantage of non-profit organizations like After School Matters
to improve STEM education.
Government support
Federal and State governments should provide clear direction
on STEM learning, such as those outlined in The Opportunity
Equation by the Institute for Advanced Study, including the
call for increased science and math content in out-of-school
time programming through project-based, real world
activities.\10\
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\10\ Institute for Advanced Study (2009). The opportunity equation:
Transforming mathematics and science education for citizenship and the
global economy. Commission on Mathematics and Science Education.
The government should increase its support of informal
education--including out-of-school time programming such as
After School Matters--given the increasing evidence of its
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important role in teaching America's youth.
Government funding
Corporations have only so many resources that they can offer
their home cities, let alone informal educators across the
country. Increased government funding is vital to the continued
efforts of informal STEM educators and is the only way to
ensure continued expansion of our efforts. We cannot do it
alone.
Furthermore, the government should relax its more demanding
assessment requirements for non-profits, since organizations
are often mandated to apply all funding to programming. If
assessment is a priority, then resources above and beyond
programming dollars should be made available for non-profits to
engage assessment experts.
Private sector and foundation awareness
The private sector and foundations could ease the burden on
non-profits by allowing more of their gifts to be unrestricted,
so that organizations can apply funding in the most effective
way possible to serve their missions. Long-term investments are
also pivotal to ensuring program sustainability. And by funding
existing models and proven practices, this support will build
upon each organization's programmatic momentum.
Private sector participation
The private sector should follow the example of companies such
as Abbott and Motorola and become full participants in the
informal STEM education community by providing human resources
as well as funding. They should foster a corporate culture that
allows their employees to give their time to informal
education. Encouraging current or retired staff to contribute
to out-of-school time initiatives by visiting or instructing
programs during the work week could quickly increase the
quantity and refine the quality of our STEM programs.
With this kind of support, informal educators across the country
could move the cause of STEM learning forward. And no one is better
poised to lead the charge than After School Matters. We have a twenty-
year history of successful and swift growth with proven program models.
We have unique relationships with city partners that allow us to work
on an unparalleled scope with tens of thousands of teens. We are
integrated into the communities we serve through the local informal
educators that we hire to provide programs. And, most importantly, we
have access to a diverse, curious, and eager audience who, with the
right spark of inspiration, could change, not only the course of their
own lives, but also the future of their community, their city, and
their country.
On behalf of After School Matters, I thank you for your time and
attention. I would be pleased to answer any questions that you may
have.
Biography for Maggie Daley
Maggie Daley is First Lady of the City of Chicago and one of the
city's leading advocates for children and youth. She is Chair of After
School Matters, whose goal is to engage Chicago's teens in purposeful
and meaningful activities after school and in the summer. Starting in
1991 with 220 teens in the gallery37 summer program, it has grown to
include over 28,000 high school students this academic year. This
increase is a result of an active and resourceful board of civic and
corporate leaders; partnering with community-based organizations, non-
profit groups, and the Chicago Public Schools, Parks and Libraries.
Maggie also chairs the Chicago Cultural Center Foundation Board,
which develops citizen, corporate and foundation support for the
center, where the public is exposed, free of charge, to a rich multi-
cultural experience in the arts. Its goal is to inspire the public, and
at the same time help young people become immersed in cultural arts
education.
Maggie was President of Pathways Awareness Foundation from 1991
until 2004. Pathways Awareness Foundation is dedicated to increasing
knowledge about the benefit of early detection and early therapy for
infants and children with physical challenges. It aims to support
parents by providing knowledge, information, and a sense of community.
A Medical Round Table of prominent professionals partners with the
foundation to heighten awareness as to the utmost importance of early
intervention.
In 1992, President Clinton appointed Maggie to the President's
Committee for the Arts & Humanities (PCAH). The PCAH serves as a bridge
between the public and private sector in supporting arts and
humanities. Maggie currently serves on the Board of Directors for
several Chicago non-profit organizations and foundations, including
Children at the Crossroads Foundation and The Chapin Hall Center for
Children at University of Chicago.
Chairman Lipinski. Thank you, Ms. Daley.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Michael Lach.
STATEMENT OF MR. MICHAEL C. LACH, OFFICER OF TEACHING AND
LEARNING, CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Mr. Lach. Mr. Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee, thank
you for inviting me here today to speak to you about this
issue. It is an honor to sit before you alongside colleagues
who I have worked with and learned much from. I am the Officer
for Teaching and Learning for the Chicago Public Schools. Our
school system consists of over 600 schools, nearly 25,000
teachers and more than 400,000 students. I began my career as a
high school science teacher and have played a leadership role
in the design and execution of CPS's science, technology,
engineering and mathematics programs for the past five years.
We have made great progress with math and science
instruction in Chicago. Student performance has risen
considerably over the past five years, and the rate of
improvement is faster than that of the rest of the state. To do
this, we developed a comprehensive plan to coordinate all
aspects of math and science improvement. This includes creating
a vision for high-quality instruction, building a support
infrastructure to provide high-quality, content-rich
professional development to thousands of teachers over the
course of an academic year, forced partnerships with local
businesses, museums, laboratories and universities to increase
content knowledge of our teachers and enhanced our after-school
offerings to include mathematics and science enrichment.
We have done this in a challenging context. 85 percent of
our students come from low-income families. Our resources are
low. Illinois ranks 47th in the Nation in the level of State
support for education. Our capacity is limited. Less than five
percent of our K-8 teachers possess a State endorsement in
mathematics. The Chicago Public Schools is extremely
decentralized. By State code, decisions about local school
budgets, curriculum and principal contracts are made by an
elected body called the Local School Council, not the chief
executive officer or the school board.
While I feel proud of the accomplishments to date, there is
still much work to do. An achievement gap remains in many of
our schools. The number of students meeting and exceeding
standards remains far too low. Our high schools in particular
still have graduation rates that are unacceptable. Improving
schools at scale is complicated, time-intensive work and I am
reminded again and again of the need to approach these
challenges with real humility.
The gaps we face in the resources and capacity limitations
have been built on five key strategies we have used to drive
things ahead. The first is teacher quality. We know that
teachers need to know the subjects they teach. Part of our
systems approach involves using our university colleagues to
help us increase the content knowledge of teachers. Much of
this work originated with National Science Foundation Resources
including the CUSP grant which enabled us to provide tuition
stipends for teachers to go back to school and learn the
mathematics and science they needed to.
A second key strategy is to provide core support for
classroom instruction. Again, we used our neighbors and our
partners. For instance, the University of Chicago on the south
side of the city is the center for instruction in K-5
mathematics, again thanks to pioneering NSF work around
curriculum development. At the high school level, we partner
with many local and national institutions including UIC, the
Illinois Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University,
and the Field Museum to provide coaching, professional
development, training and curriculum support for our teachers.
We know that extended learning opportunities are essential.
As Ms. Daley mentioned, enhancing after-school experiences for
kids is tremendously important. There is no better astronomy
lesson in Chicago than going to the Adler Planetarium and
seeing the sky show. There is no better horticulture lesson
than going to the Chicago Botanic Gardens and learning to
cultivate and grow a garden.
We have also been pretty aggressive about creating new
schools. Our Renaissance 2010 program involves the painful
process of closing down schools and creating new ones. We are
proud to have created several math- and science-focused schools
over the course of that time period.
We have done this with extensive partnerships throughout
all aspects of the city. I will highlight a few principles that
underscore the kinds of partnerships that I think are
important. We have been able to do this because of coherence.
We have had a comprehensive vision and system of support for
several years, and that coherence enables us to help partners
organize themselves so their work aligns with ours. Having so
many high-quality partners is really, really helpful. It gives
us a sort of buyer's advantage when we talk about other work.
For instance, there was a local university that wanted to do
wonderful collaboration with arts and science content. We were
able to go to them and say, you know, you really need to
explicitly connect this to our curriculum, and they were able
to make those kind of changes.
Having catalysts from the Federal Government has been
incredibly powerful. Funding sources and grants enable us to
leverage new resources and create the kind of innovations that
we need to move things ahead.
Lastly, we have made a lot of progress by centralizing our
supports. We find the general population does not understand
science and mathematics very well or its practice. Sadly, many
of our school administrators share that same lack of
understanding. By really providing a coordinated central
support, we can drive that kind of work.
Too often, children in Chicago are considered disadvantaged
because of the many social issues that confront them. Without
taking anything away from the situation in which our children
grow up, the word `disadvantaged' has always troubled me. Where
STEM education is concerned, I believe that growing up in
Chicago can and should be considered an advantage. Our students
grow up right next door to world-class universities,
businesses, museums and laboratories. These institutions can
and should be considered part of the overall system of
mathematics and science improvement, and our collective work to
date has shown that when such a system is aligned and pointing
in the same direction, that system works to serve the students
of Chicago. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lach follows:]
Prepared Statement of Michael C. Lach
Mr. Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting
me here today to speak to you about this issue. It is an honor to sit
before you alongside colleagues whom I've worked with and learned much
from.
Introduction
I am the Officer of Teaching and Learning for the Chicago Public
Schools. The Chicago Public School system consists of over 600 schools,
nearly 25,000 teachers, and more than 400,000 students. I began my
career as a high school science teacher, and have played a leadership
role in the design and execution of CPS's science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics education programs for the past five
years.
We have made great progress with mathematics and science
instruction in Chicago. Student performance has risen considerably over
the past five years, and the rate of improvement is faster than that of
the state. (See Figure 1 and Figure 2.) To do this, we developed a
comprehensive plan to coordinate all aspects of mathematics and science
improvement, which we call the Chicago Math & Science Initiative. As
part of this work, we created a vision for high quality instruction;
built the support infrastructure to provide high quality, content-rich
professional development to thousands of teachers over the course of an
academic year; forged partnerships with local businesses, museums,
laboratories, and universities to increase the content knowledge of our
teachers; and enhanced our after-school offerings to include
mathematics and science enrichment.
We've done this in a challenging context. Eighty-five percent of
our students come from low-income families. Our resources are low;
Illinois ranks 47th in the Nation in the level of State support for
education. Our capacity is limited--less than five percent of our K-8
teachers possess a State endorsement in mathematics. The Chicago Public
Schools is an extremely decentralized school district. By State law,
decisions about local school budgets, principal contracts, and
curriculum are made by an elected body called the ``Local School
Council,'' not the Chief Executive Officer.
While I feel proud of the accomplishments to date, there still is
much work to do. An achievement gap remains in many of our schools. The
number of students meeting and exceeding standards remains far too low.
Our high schools, in particular, still have graduation rates that are
not acceptable. Improving schools at scale is a complicated, time-
intensive work, and I'm reminded again and again at the need to
approach these challenges with true humility.
Working Together
The gaps we face, and the resource and capacity limitations that we
operate under, make it unconscionable for us to turn down assistance.
So my most important point today is that we really depend on the
assistance and partnership of others--the local community groups,
colleges and universities, museums and laboratories as well as the
Federal Government to advance our work. I'll talk now about the major
components of our strategy and the mechanisms by which we intend to
continue the progress we've shown.
Teacher Quality
Teachers need to know the subjects they teach. That's a pretty
fundamental tenant of teaching and learning. In Chicago and Illinois,
we've struggled to both attract and hire teachers with appropriate
content-level backgrounds. Building on an earlier National Science
Foundation grant called the Chicago Urban Systemic Partnership, we
helped local universities create content-rich courses that enabled
teachers to earn State endorsements in mathematics and science. Now,
most local colleges and universities offer courses that help teachers
supplement their teaching certificates with content-based credentials,
and we've changed our internal staffing procedures to place an emphasis
on teachers with strong content background. That said, there's still a
considerable way to go: in the Fall of 2008, we opened 82 K-8
elementary schools without a single adult with a State mathematics
endorsement on their faculty.
The district's role in working with our university partners was to
convene and organize the conversations with them. With the CUSP grant
and with the bully pulpit of the Chicago Public Schools, we've created
a community of interested university faculty members and academic deans
with whom we work on a regular basis to design and manage these
courses. The district has offered financial support to teachers to earn
content-based endorsements, and this ``carrot'' has certainly helped us
encourage local universities to change the curriculum and structure of
their teacher credentialing programs.
Core Support for Classroom Instruction
A major part of our strategy has been to provide a complete suite
of instructional supports to schools--textbooks, assessments, in-school
instructional coaching, and workshop professional development--to help
improve the quality of instruction within classrooms. Again, here we
have relied on public and private stakeholders to help develop this
work.
We relied heavily on instructional materials developed locally--
such as Everyday Mathematics from the University of Chicago--both
because they were high quality but also because we had an
implementation center in our backyard. Where we didn't have a strong
center of expertise, we helped create one: The Center for Mathematics
and Science Education at Loyola University is now the headquarters for
middle grades science education in the city of Chicago. On State
assessments to date, schools that implement these programs consistently
outperform schools that do not.
At the high school level, we've created a market system around
instructional supports using both public and private entities. Each
year, we contract with partners--including the Illinois Institute of
Technology, the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), Loyola
University, and Northwestern University, as well as for-profit entities
associated with the University of Texas at Austin and Carnegie Mellon
University--to provide a similar suite of instructional materials, in-
school instructional coaching, and teacher training. Through a
combination of carrots and sticks, high schools utilize these services
to improve their instructional performance.
The district itself plays a major role in this work: most of the
funding for these supports comes from district or foundation funds, and
we work extensively to develop the partnership arrangements to ensure
sufficient capacity both internally and externally to move the work
ahead.
Extended Learning Opportunities
We also know that there are some aspects of mathematics and science
that are hard to learn in the classroom. There's no better astronomy
lesson than watching the star show at the Adler Planetarium. There's no
better botany lesson than spending a few hours at the Chicago Botanical
Gardens. We work with local museums and community groups to create
after-school clubs focused on science and mathematics; these programs
often provide the spark that ignites a student's interest in STEM
disciplines. And ``Science 37,'' a component of After School Matters,
provides science experiences for students after school time.
We've also created summer internship programs and student and
teacher research opportunities, sometimes using the GK-12 programs of
the NSF, and other times using business funding. These programs enable
both teachers and students to experience the real-life work of
scientists and engineers, providing a learning experience that is
modern and directly connected to the real work.
For the past three years, the City of Chicago has held a ``Science
In The City'' celebration, a week-long carnival that demonstrates that
Chicago is a city of science to children of all ages. This event
originated with the public schools, and we continue to play a
leadership role in the design and execution of this event.
The district's role in this area is much more limited, primarily
due to funding constraints. Centrally, we help develop a few after-
school programs and partnerships, such as the annual science fair
competition in cooperation with the Museum of Science and Industry, and
the You Be A Chemist! competition with Harold Washington Community
College. We're currently exploring mechanisms that will make the myriad
of after-school and extended learning experiences more accessible to
schools and communities, with the goal of increasing participation and
coherence throughout the city.
New Schools
New school creation has been a hallmark of the Chicago Public
Schools. We're pleased to have created several new schools with an
emphasis on mathematics and science. For instance UIC College Prep high
school, run by the Noble Street Charter Management Organization,
provides a rigorous high school experience coupled with extensive
health science learning thanks to the partnership with UIC's Medical
School. Several business partners have helped fund and develop our
networks of charter schools, connecting their technical resources with
our school children right at their school.
Undergirding Systems and Structures
It's important to highlight the fact that the above strategies are
grounded in a context of strong school accountability, a mechanism to
work with external partners on program evaluation, and a new focus on
performance management for all aspects of the educational enterprise.
This systems approach has enabled much of the improved student
achievement that the Chicago schools have enabled over the past half-
decade.
Implications
What does it take to sustain and build such partnerships?
Coherence
A comprehensive system of supports for students within Chicago
would not be possible without a coherent strategy for STEM education.
In Chicago, we've maintained a consistent strategy for several years,
with sustained leadership. A coherent direction enables relationships
to deepen and work to improve.
Quality and Capacity
In Chicago, we're fortunate to have a wealth of capacity around
STEM education work. This is important, as it enables us to exert sort
of ``buyer's leverage'' in our partnerships. For instance, when one
local university wanted to run summer programs focused on the
integration of arts and science, but didn't have much direct curricular
connection, we were able to convince them to change the direction of
their work. When a local museum wanted to focus on teacher professional
development and ``edutainment'' but didn't have a strong cadre of
scientists or science educators, we had a strong position from which to
promote coherence and the importance of content knowledge.
Catalysts
Federal resources often are catalysts to make partnerships and
connections even stronger. The Chicago Transformative Teacher Institute
grant that Dr. Wink and I are co-PIs of is an example of this; as a
result of National Science Foundation funding, we've created an even
deeper partnership thanks to this work. Much of the groundwork for our
progress in Chicago was set by a series of NSF grants over the years;
it's important for the Federal Government to realize the importance of
this role as strategic and financial decisions are made.
Centralization
There's currently considerable debate in the education world about
the degree and nature of centralization within school systems. Systems
that foster innovation and entrepreneurship push decisions and
resources closest to schools and classrooms, and when they are coupled
with strong accountability systems, local communities can easily gauge
success. Yet the general public doesn't understand science or its
practice; a 2006 Education Week poll showed that 66 percent of
principals do not feel that upgrading math and science education is a
priority.\1\ Moreover, without strong content knowledge and
considerable instructional capacity, it's difficult to design strong
mathematics and science programs. Ultimately, this is a question about
the best way to scale up improvements, and it remains a particularly
vexing question for State and district administrators and policy-makers
alike. The mathematics and science education experience in CPS, where
centrally designed and managed high-quality supports are available to
schools via market-like systems, and where improvements can be
demonstrated when those supports are effectively implemented, offers a
viable model to consider.
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\1\ From Public Agenda's Quality Counts survey 2006.
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Too often, the children in Chicago are considered
``disadvantaged,'' because of the many social issues that confront
them. Without taking anything from the situation in which our children
grow up, the word disadvantaged has always troubled me. Where STEM
education is concerned, I believe that growing up in Chicago can and
should be considered an advantage. Our students grow up right next door
to world-class universities, businesses, museums, and laboratories.
These institutions can and should be considered part of the overall
system of mathematics and science improvement, and our collective work
to date has shown that when such a system is aligned and pointing in
the same direction, the system works to serve the students of Chicago.
Biography for Michael C. Lach
Michael C. Lach is currently Officer of Teaching and Learning for
the Chicago Public Schools, overseeing curriculum and instruction in
the 600 schools comprise the Nation's third largest school district.
Mr. Lach began teaching high school biology and general science at
Alcee Fortier Senior High School in New Orleans in 1990 as a charter
member of Teach For America, the national teacher corps. After three
years in Louisiana, he joined the national office of Teach For America
as Director of Program Design, developing a portfolio based
alternative-certification system that was adopted by several states.
Returning to the science classroom in 1994 in New York City Public
Schools, and then back to Chicago in 1995 to Lake View High School, he
was named one of Radio Shack's Top 100 Technology Teachers, earned
National Board Certification, and was named Illinois Physics Teacher of
the Year. He has served as an Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator
Fellow, advising Congressman Vernon Ehlers (R-MI) on science,
technology and education issues. He was lead curriculum developer for
the Investigations in Environmental Science curriculum developed at the
Center for Learning Technologies in Urban Schools at Northwestern
University and published by It's About Time, Inc. As an administrator,
he has led the district's efforts in science and mathematics
instruction in a variety of roles between 2003 and 2007. He has written
extensively about science teaching and learning for publications such
as The Science Teacher, The American Biology Teacher, and Scientific
American. He earned a Bachelor's degree in physics from Carleton
College, and Master's degrees from Columbia University and Northeastern
Illinois University.
Chairman Lipinski. Thank you, Mr. Lach.
I now recognize Dr. Donald Wink.
STATEMENT OF DR. DONALD J. WINK, PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY;
DIRECTOR OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES, DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY;
DIRECTOR OF GRADUATE STUDIES, LEARNING SCIENCES RESEARCH
INSTITUTE, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO
Dr. Wink. Chairman Lipinski, Ranking Member Ehlers and
distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, please accept my
thanks for the opportunity to testify today on the subject of
how universities can engage in partnership efforts to address
important questions about the systems that will improve K-12
STEM education.
I think it is particularly meaningful to testify in the
context of the work at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
UIC is proud of the work of its faculty, staff and students as
they pursue the same goals of excellence in research, service,
teaching and patient care that are found at other research-run
universities with significant health science programs. But at
UIC, we also have the ability, the opportunity and the duty as
one of the Nation's few urban land grant institutions to focus
important parts of our work on the opportunities and challenges
of one of the world's great cities. In this, we acknowledge the
importance of the support we receive from foundations, the
private sector, the city, the state and of course the Federal
Government. Are important in establishing priorities for our
work but NSF is especially strong in requiring that our work
draw from and often contribute to the research literature
itself.
Through all of this, we try to address the central need for
reforming STEM K-12 education: improving instruction. But
improving instruction requires many different parts of the K-12
system to work well and in tandem. This includes K-12
administrative systems that use distributed leadership to
support well-assessed learning by all students, school culture
including safety of course but also a sense of content rigor,
relevance and inquiry that must be shared by teachers, students
and parents. In addition, teachers need to be skilled in the
reflected practice that is a necessary part of the work of any
professional and they need to be given the time and the
training to do this. Finally, students must engage and be
supported in developing a growth mindset informed by deep
inquiry-based interest in science that develops over time. If
these are available, then the research literature is clear:
classroom instruction will change and student outcomes will
improve. In Chicago, I am proud to be part of a very large
number of individuals committed to making those components a
well-orchestrated system for our students in the roles that the
university can play.
There are several overlapping activities in which UIC
faculty, staff and students support improvement in K-12 STEM
education ranging from teacher education to the ways in which
we educate the undergraduates who come to our campus from K-12
systems. I note that within these there is one important gap:
how to translate STEM research into K-12 practice. That was why
it was so interesting for me to learn about and have the change
to work with Dr. Linda Marton and her colleagues at Foreman
High School on the avid support of the Science 37 program. This
environment will not just engage students, as Abbott has shown.
It is also a way to engage STEM experts.
We hope that all these different activities will be
included in our new NSF-funded math and science partnership
grant, the Chicago Transformation Teacher Institute program.
The CTTI, as it is known, will train 160 math or science
teachers in cohorts from 20 different schools in current
mathematics, physical science and life and environmental
science content. These teachers will also receive workshops on
leadership and on the design and implementation of curricula,
particularly at creating rigorous AP and capstone courses for
12th grade in schools where previously there were few examples
of such offerings. At the same time, these teachers will
continue to teach in earlier grades, providing further
development of all four years of a high school curriculum.
As we talk about systems, I think it is meaningful to note
that the CTTI, though unique, is also an outgrowth of previous
work by the district with support of NSF, especially the NSF-
funded Chicago Urban Systemic Program and the district's
comprehensive plan, the Chicago Math and Science Initiative.
One outcome of this was the Algebra Initiative, which put the
mathematics departments at UIC, DePaul and the University of
Chicago in close support of CPS teachers and led to many ideas
for the CTTI.
In addition, the CTTI is intimately connected to the work
of the Chicago High School Transformation Project, which was
funded by the Chicago Board of Education with a significant
assist from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The High
School Transformation Project further strengthened the
relationship of CPS with UIC, IIT, Loyola and Northwestern in
the area of science and gave us experiences in supporting
curricular change that are now brought to bear in the CTTI.
Finally, the CTTI is a deep research project addressing how
university-based training can affect the elements of school
capacity, teacher practice and students outcomes.
I thank you for listening to these remarks and I welcome
the opportunity to answer your questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Wink follows:]
Prepared Statement of Donald J. Wink
Chairman Lipinski, Ranking Member Ehlers, and distinguished Members
of the Subcommittee on Research and Science Education, I offer my
sincere gratitude for the opportunity to testify about the efforts of
my colleagues and I at the University of Illinois at Chicago in our
work with the Chicago Public Schools. UIC and other institutions of
higher education in the Chicago area are proud to part of a STEM
education system that extends from preschool to graduate school.\1\
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\1\ I have prepared this testimony and am responsible for its
content, but I do wish to acknowledge that many individuals contributed
material for this testimony. They are cited in different places. In
addition, three individuals who helped me with additional review and
comment are John Baldwin, Steve Tozer, and Carole Mitchener of UIC,
Stacy Wenzel of the Center for Science and Mathematics education at
Loyola University Chicago, and Dean Grosshandler of the Northwestern
University Office of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math
Education Partnerships.
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I would like to take a few moments, if I may, to describe the very
special situation of the University of Illinois at Chicago. The
University is part of the land grant institution for the State of
Illinois but, in contrast to many other land grant institutions, we are
located very much in the center of the city and at the intersection of
many transportation routes. This is by design, for we are a campus
that, from our start, has focused on integrating its research,
scholarship, service, and patient care on the needs of the city,
combining a research university's ability to create fundamental new
knowledge with the exciting opportunity to link that knowledge to the
needs of the city where possible. In addition, our diverse
undergraduate student population reflects the demographics of
northeastern Illinois; almost one third of our students are under-
represented minorities and no single group is in the majority. We are
also academically diverse, with strong programs in STEM and the health
sciences, associated with our large medical sciences campus.
Of course, today the focus will be on our work in association with
K-12 teaching. In this case, much has occurred in the last twenty years
that, as I will discuss, exemplifies how universities can benefit from
close partnerships with public school districts, often supported by
federal and private funding. I should also point out that, while I will
focus on UIC, it is fortunate that in Chicago there are several other
institutions of higher education that are involved with systemic change
in the district. In many cases they are working collaboratively with
each other and I will be citing their work, also.
I have been asked to comment in three areas, which I take in
sequence. But before I do so, I would like to present a logic model for
this work that provides a structure for our work and my further
remarks.
Our model of a STEM education system sees K-12 school systems and
universities as part of a cycle that includes students educated in K-12
who move on for more specific training in higher education. The
colleges and universities have the opportunity to educate these
students further, in specific disciplines, so those students are able
to participate in STEM and health science careers. In addition,
colleges and universities affect K-12 education by producing teachers,
who need deep disciplinary knowledge and the skills to be able to work
well with the diverse learners in K-12 settings. Further, colleges and
universities work with existing teachers, both to provide deeper
training in current topics in STEM and in STEM education and to receive
from those teachers a better understanding of the actual issues that
matter in K-12 STEM classrooms. The systematic study of these endeavors
produces educational research. Finally, districts and universities
together engage in work to bring this research into practice. This
logic model is affected by others who participate in the STEM
enterprise, including of course public and private employers, who both
employ STEM graduates and, in some cases, actively work with K-12
schools and institutions of higher education in preparing better
students. Also, the model is focused on the university as a partner.
Clearly, the vitality of Chicago's informal science programs, through
After School Matters, the museum community, and the media are all
essential parts of STEM education, though poorly represented in this
model itself.
This picture is all well and good on paper, but in practice it
requires three other elements that don't always fit on a traditional
organizational chart: strong, enduring, relationships among the
individuals and the institutions involved; leadership dedicated to this
interaction within and among institutions; and research-based knowledge
of effective ways to carry out instruction and to support change.
Relationships, leadership, and research are not just one-time events
but they depend on excellent communication over time. Conversely,
things that hamper relationships, undermine effective leadership, and
stymie the translation of research into practice are all dangers to
effective STEM education systems work. Also, a central part of the
translation of the model into effective practice is to note the context
of our work, and of the work done in our district. UIC and its partners
enthusiastically embrace the idea that urban education is an
opportunity for truly exciting work. The work is also very challenging
as we strive to bring educational excellence to all students. Hence,
understanding well how urban schools work is present into all of our
efforts, for example in our Noyce, GK-12, and MSP programs.
In the figures on the next page, I show two examples of how aspects
of this logic model have informed our work in Chicago. The first shows
the graphical description my colleagues and I used in organizing our
most recent NSF GK-12 project. For this, we identified specific
learning communities that would be essential to the success of the
project, and who would be affected by the project. In the second figure
I present the logic and research model that we are using in our current
NSF Math and Science Partnership project. In this case, there is a flow
of events, capturing more clearly both the cyclical nature of our plans
and the outcomes we have identified for our research and evaluation
program. In both cases, the interconnections--the way things happen--
depend on people working together, informed by research.
1. Brief description of the University of Illinois at Chicago's (UIC)
K-12 science, technology, engineering and
mathematics (STEM) education programs and
initiatives.
In the table below I list nine different ways UIC's STEM education
programs and initiatives for the last twenty years have impacted K-12
STEM. I will illustrate many with one or two specific examples. Note
that this also means that I am leaving out many other equally
interesting examples, so this is not a comprehensive description of all
activity, just of all types of activity. Also, the particular ways in
which our support from the NSF Noyce, GK-12, and MSP programs impact
STEM K-12 education are deferred until the next question for my
testimony.
(a) Teacher education
Current teachers are the most important part of the K-12 STEM
enterprise for the simple reason that they provide the vast majority of
the instruction to the students. As with any professional practice,
however, the education of a teacher should never cease. Teacher
learning occurs in many different forms, including the ways in which a
teacher learns about her own students and her own teaching and shifts
practice accordingly. For the University, teacher education activity
primarily consists of outreach through courses and workshops.
One particular example of such teacher education work is The
Algebra Initiative. This is a partnership of CPS, DePaul University,
the University of Chicago, and UIC with leadership provided by, among
others, John Baldwin at UIC, Lynn Narasimhan at DePaul, and Paul Sally
at Chicago. Each University offers a one-year course of study for
participating teachers. The funding for the program has come from the
district through tuition support and from the Chicago Community Trust.
Teachers who will teach algebra in an elementary or middle school are
required to complete this program by the CPS if their school is to meet
the district requirements for offering Algebra I in eighth grade, a key
requirement for rigorous work in high school and, ultimately, college.
As described by the CPS, ``Topics included in the course sequence are
the structure of algebra, linear equations and inequalities, graphing
linear equations, algebraic identities, arithmetic sequences,
introduction to quadratics, and using algebra to model problems.'' In
this case, then, the faculty at the university provide direct content
training to teachers, making use of the concept that a deep
understanding of content that is specific to a course, in this case
algebra, is essential for effective teaching (Monk 1994; Hill et al.,
2005). Thus, The Algebra Initiative has university faculty providing
their content expertise in the context of a much wider, district-
supported effort, backed up by mandates for teacher certification from
the Chicago Board of Education, which requires that teachers pass an
exam written by the university partners to teach algebra in 8th grade.
This program has increased the number of formally qualified 8th grade
algebra teachers in Chicago from 43 in 2004 to over 300. Through this
work, over half the elementary schools in the system now can have
qualified algebra instruction.
(b) Teacher preparation
Although the education of a teacher is an ongoing process it begins
with preparation and initial certification. Specific and creative work
to reform how this is done makes use of support from the NSF Noyce
Teacher Scholars program, described in much more detail later on. Here,
I want to bring in a different aspect of teacher preparation: the
``normal'' path pursued by students who enroll in a traditional
preparation programs as undergraduates. It is of course vital that STEM
teachers understand content deeply, and we are proud of the
disciplinary rigor associated with the degree programs in science and
mathematics teaching. But, especially for undergraduates, it is
important that students in teacher preparation tracks are taught
content at least in part with an eye to their future careers as
teachers. This is part of the reason why UIC, in partnership with
several area community colleges, received NSF support for the Chicago
Collaborative for Excellence in Teacher Preparation (NSF DUE 9852167).
That project built upon and expanded relationships between the UIC
College of Education and STEM departments teaching content courses.
That project resulted in several new courses for UIC, including
planning for what became a set of three content courses and one
capstone course in the natural sciences, which received further support
through an NSF CCLI grant (NSF DUE 0311624). The implementation of the
three content courses at UIC and its partner institutions (Varelas et
al., 2008) has been accompanied by research and dissemination work that
demonstrates the gains that occur for this population of students when
instruction is provided in a context rich inquiry environment. In this
case, we have research to back the claim that these courses do
positively impact student attitudes towards science (Wink et al., 2009)
and the learning of content itself (Plotnick et al., 2009). As of July,
2009 more than 240 students have participated in these courses at UIC
with a retention rate towards a teaching degree over 50 percent and an
overall retention rate of more than 80 percent that is well above the
norm.
(c) Classrooms
Thus far, the programs I have described are located at the
University. However, work in actual classrooms and schools is also
essential. For example, Maria Varelas and Chris Pappas in the UIC
College of Education have recently concluded the NSF-funded portion
(NSF, DRL-0411593) on ``Integrated Science-Literacy in Urban Early
Elementary Classrooms (ISLE). This was fundamentally a research project
that also engaged teachers in the collaborative work to:
Integrate children's literature and non-fiction books
with hands-on explorations and various other representational
tools, such as writing, drawing, and acting out, in order to
strengthen their teaching and their students' learning of
science;
Develop interactive teaching practices helping
students build on their own experiences and understandings and
both learn and enjoy science;
Conduct a teacher inquiry that will inform their
practice;
Develop more flexibility with scientific knowledge
and ways to engage their students with it;
Appreciate the funds of knowledge that young children
from sociocultural, ethnolinguistic, and socioeconomic groups
that are usually under-represented, under-served, and
underestimated bring to the classroom.
The ISLE project is an important example of how UIC research can be
interwoven with actual instructional work, advancing both learning and
classroom practice in a way that directly informs the research
community through conventional presentations and publications (for
example, Pappas et al., 2009; Varelas et al., 2008; Tucker-Raymond et
al., 2007). The new modes of instruction also become the basis of
materials for other teachers, and hence ISLE continues beyond the NSF
phase in the form of continuing professional development.
(d) Learning
Another way in which UIC faculty connect research with K-12
instruction and learning is to take a learning sciences approach, and I
am proud to be among the faculty who, led by Susan Goldman and James
Pellegrino, have initiated the UIC Learning Sciences Research Institute
(LSRI). Among its goals is to be a locus for studies that look at some
of the fundamental issues in learning and bring them to bear on
specific classroom questions. One of the ways this matters most is in
questions of how to teach using emergent technological tools. Josh
Radinsky, for example, studies the learning that can occur using the
tools of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). In collaboration with
other Learning Sciences researchers, he has designed and studied
classroom environments that incorporate GIS as a tool in social studies
classrooms, part of a larger project in how representations of data
are, or are not, made meaningful to students (Radinsky et al., 2005;
2008). This also was supported through NSF's educational research
programs (NSF, DRL 0337598) and has direct implications for science
teaching (Radinsky, 2008).
(e) School leadership
Teaching does not occur in a vacuum and there are too many examples
of excellent opportunities that are not sustained because of issues
within the school that are outside of the control of the teacher.
Hence, for effective STEM education to develop and continue, school
leadership must provide the environment and the resources needed by
teachers. At UIC, Steve Tozer and his colleagues in the College of
Education have for the past six years been implementing and documenting
an innovative program in Urban Education Leadership that focuses on
improving student learning through developing instructional leadership
at the school level. The program teaches aspiring and practicing
principals to work productively with leadership teams in the schools.
Specific course work and coaching occurs in the area of science and
mathematics: while it is not possible for all school administrators to
be trained in how to teach these areas, it is a core goal of the UEL
program to ensure that they are all well versed in how different
disciplines require different approaches to teaching, such as the use
of inquiry curricula. The program also emphasizes leadership by teams
(Mayrowetz, 2008), and for high schools, this places department chairs
in particularly central roles in building new school cultures for
student academic success. In the departmentalized high school, students
benefit from program coherence throughout the department, which
requires department-level systems, structures, and leadership to
achieve them. The program has received recognition in part because it
measures the success of its graduates by their impact on student
learning outcomes in schools, and its principals now lead 10 percent of
Chicago's 130 high schools. It has therefore generated over a million
dollars annually from such sources as the CPS, Eli Broad Foundation,
McCormick Foundation, the Chicago Community Trust, Fry Foundation,
McDougal Family Foundation, and the W. Clement Stone Foundation.
(f) K-12 systems
The logic model I presented at the outset and the areas of activity
for UIC work with K-12 STEM education derive, in part, from the work of
many researchers. In Chicago, the tradition of studying the K-12 system
(and beyond) is a rich one, especially in the last fifteen years. This
is perhaps best known in the work of the Consortium on Chicago School
Research, based at the University of Chicago (Roderick et al., 2009).
The CCSR has had many projects that overlap with UIC work, and much of
the work in STEM has included the contributions of Stacy Wenzel, now
Associate Research Professor at the Loyola Center for Science and Math
Education.
Several groups are responsible for the extensive data collection
that underpins this work, most importantly CPS itself through its
office of Research, Evaluation, and Accountability. Some of this was
spurred by NSF through the Chicago Urban Systemic Program grant, which
I discuss in more detail later on. Wenzel is now PI on Scale Up of Math
and Science K-12 Education Reform in a Large Urban District, an
exploratory capacity-building grant from the NSF (DRL 0733550). The
project studies the systemic reform of math and science education in
the Chicago Public Schools from 2002 to 2008. (Deiger et al., 2009;
Wenzel et al., 2009).
The task of finding out how students perform on K-12 assessments
begs the question: what will be assessed? In the era of NCLB and in the
face of 50 different sets of State standards, this is a daunting
question, especially at the national level. Recent moves to align or
even share standards among the states will help there, but so too it is
vital that K-12 STEM systems understand how assessment should drive,
not just follow, instruction. This is very much the them of the work of
my colleague Jim Pellegrino in learning sciences. He has served as head
of several National Research Council study committees, including the
committee that issued the NSF-funded report Knowing What Students Know:
The Science and Design of Educational Assessment (2001). He served on
the NSF-funded NRC Committee on Test Design for K-12 Science
Achievement. Dr. Pellegrino was currently a Co-PI on an NSF ROLE
project Making the Invisible Visible: Children and Teachers Learning
about Physical States and State Changes (DRL 0529648). He is also PI on
a recent project with the College Board (DRL 0525575) From Research to
Practice: Redesigning AP Science Courses to Advance Science Literacy
and Support Learning with Understanding. From these will come both
general concepts about assessment and also specific recommendations on
how assessment should be used in K-12 STEM education. One way this
occurs in partnership with CPS is through a grant (NSF, DRL-0732090) on
the assessments embedded in math curricula and their role in supporting
the teaching and learning process. This work specifically works with
CPS-adopted curricula (themselves NSF-developed) that are already being
implemented in schools.
(g) Instructional materials development
One of the least considered partners in K-12 teaching, and indeed
in all teaching, are those who develop and sustain materials for the
classroom. These materials include textbooks and technology. As I have
discussed, this is sometimes the outcome of research and teacher
education programs. But there are other projects that have materials
development as their major thrust. At UIC, this has occurred in the
context of the Teaching Integrated Math and Science program, initiated
in the 1980's with NSF support. The project was founded by two UIC
faculty members, physicist Howard Goldberg (retired) and mathematician
Philip Wagreich. It has received more than $20 million in external
funding since 1990 from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the
State of Illinois Scientific Literacy Project, and Eisenhower funds, as
well as direct support from school districts for professional
development activities. Commercialization has occurred through three
different products: Math Trailblazers, now its 3rd edition, TIMS
Laboratory Experiments, which are used in both math and science
instruction, and teacher education materials, the Teacher Enhancement
Resource Modules. The project is very much alive, providing the basis
for both professional development of current teachers, reform-based
materials for use in teacher preparation, and a basis of research work
on mathematics learning (Brown et al., 2009; Castro-Superfine et al.,
2009). In its most recent NSF-supported revision, the project conducted
three years of research in Math Trailblazers classrooms. Based on the
results of the research the curriculum was revised and field tested for
an additional three years, using overall more than 200 teachers in 40
schools in 16 districts in eight states in either the research or field
test. Thus, university-based materials development, fully connected to
professional development and the tools of university research, provide
an important venue to study and support multiple components of K-12
STEM education. More than 70 schools in CPS alone are using the
curriculum, representing close to 20 percent of the district's K-8
programs.
(h) Linking STEM research to K-12
The previous seven areas of activity are all ones that, in
principle and in practice, can be done separately from a university
like UIC. Indeed, important partners in K-12 STEM education reform are
private and government research agencies; alternative certification
programs; and publishers and independent curriculum developers. But,
besides granting degrees, UIC also has the potential to add much to K-
12 STEM teaching because it is a research university with extensive
work in all STEM and health research fields. As I discuss later, there
are too few examples of this kind of work to translate current research
into K-12 settings. There is good support for bringing teacher and
teacher candidates into teaching, including through Research Experience
for Teachers programs such as the UIC-based Chicago Science Teacher
Research Program (NSF-EEC 0502272 and 0743068), led by Andreas
Linninger, a Chemical Engineering Professor. In those cases, the
transfer of STEM research to K-12 depends on the future work of the
teacher. Direct curriculum impact is a different story. One very
effective example is the collaboration between Vera Pless, a
distinguished Mathematics Professor, and Janet Beissinger of the LSRI.
With NSF Instructional Materials Development support (DRL 0099220) they
developed a now commercialized textbook to teach middle school students
cryptography, The Cryptoclub. This drew upon Pless and Beissinger's own
expertise in the area of codes to bring important concepts in
mathematics, including number theory, to a classroom experience that
fully engages students. More recently, they have opened up this
community to others through a follow-on project to make The Cryptoclub
and its mathematics available for informal learning after school and
online (DRL 0840313). The Cryptoclub example points to the ways in
which university faculty can identify the fundamental content, in this
case mathematics, that underlies their work, then link it to an
important application that, properly managed, brings dramatic current
research areas into the experience of students.
Another possible way to link research and high school science, at
least, may arise as an outcome of the recent work of NSF Chemistry
Division through its Undergraduate Research Collaborative program. The
five URC's seek to develop methods to bring science research into the
early years of the undergraduate STEM curriculum. One, led by Gabriela
Weaver of Purdue and with myself as a co-PI, is the Center for
Authentic Science Practice in Education (CASPiE; NSF-CHE 0418902).
CASPiE is based on modules written by science and engineering faculty
to permit students to learn the skills needed to carry out actual
research in an area, such as anti-oxidants or bio-sensors, and then to
engage in the research itself (Weaver et al., 2006; 2008). Recently,
with support of an RET supplement to Nina Hike Teague of CPS's Curie
High School, we have shown that CASPiE modules can also be used in high
school settings, with in the informal setting of science fair projects
for CPS schools.
Finally, the informal science community has a particular role to
play here. As I mentioned, my discussion draws mostly from university
examples. But universities have much to learn about the translation of
research into forms accessible to the public from the informal science
community. That is why I was particularly enthusiastic last year when
Dr. Linda Marton of Foreman High School invited us to assist in their
After School Matters program, which is supported specifically by
Abbott. This linkage continues into next year and from this work we
expect to have a clearer picture of how a university STEM partner, UIC,
can use the ASM context as a means for bringing research into the
broader context within K-12 settings.
(i) Higher education policy and practices
The final area of activity where UIC should be active as a member
of the K-12 STEM system is with its own courses, curricula, and
programs. Earlier I mentioned that, at least in mathematics and in
natural sciences, the courses taken by pre-elementary education majors
have become an environment where content is taught using reformed
pedagogy. The institutionalization of some aspects of this by the
University is a direct result of the linkage that we have established
between our teacher preparation programs and our future students. After
all, every student who graduates from high school was taught for 13 or
more years by university-trained teachers, and at UIC NSF Course
Curriculum and Laboratory Improvement program has impacted some of
these future teachers.
While reforms have begun to occur in some teacher preparation
programs, a gap remains for the general student population that
finishes CPS intent on a STEM career. Data from the CCSR (Roderick,
2006) shows that fewer than 30 percent of graduating seniors in 1998,
1999, 2002 and 2003 enrolled in a four college within a year of
graduation, and only 35 percent of those from the 1998 and 1999 cohorts
had graduated within six years, meaning that a stunning 90 percent of
graduating seniors did not complete a four year degree in that time
span.
These numbers have spurred many changes within CPS, including
focused attempts to increase retention to graduation, to address
specific problems that prevent college-bound students from
matriculating (such as simply completing the FAFSA, which is hardly a
simple process), and economic challenges. UIC, for its part, has begun
to look at its own retention of students, which now hovers at about 50
percent of all entering first year students. Part of this comes from
learning more about the students themselves, an a recent NSF ``Science
Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Talent Expansion Program
(STEP)'' grant has begun to affect STEM students in general and STEM
teaching in particular. Much more needs to be done on the campus, and a
Provost-level working group has been established to be more systematic
in examining the critical supports needed for wider success in STEM
majors.
2 (a) What are the major problems that limit the performance of
students and teachers in STEM?
If we consider the logic model presented earlier, there are several
things that can occur that limit the performance of teachers and
students in STEM. These occur in the context of the systems itself,
within schools, within classrooms, and with students themselves. The
simplest answer to this question is ``quality of instruction.'' But it
is all too easy to hear that and think that this can be fixed by
providing better teachers, or better textbooks, or better buildings.
Instead, we need to consider how schools actually work and to recognize
that systematic issues must be addressed so that quality instruction
can be used by teachers.
Systematic barriers to reform are those that prevent the
identification, adoption, and sustenance of effectiveness in STEM
teaching. Some of these occur at the level of the K-12 administrative
units such as State boards or district management teams. Inconsistency,
including a sense that particular changes are only temporary, also
contribute to a reluctance on the part of teachers and students to
engage fully in changes. Also, the systems present in higher education
to teach STEM students and to prepare future teachers may be
antiquated, based more on a tradition of reproducing the professoriate
than in working with diverse learners. Faculty who take pride in
staying abreast of the latest research in their field will instead fall
back on personal empiricism when thinking about their own teaching,
dismissing the relevance of educational research to their own practice.
Within schools, a culture of rigor, relevance, and openness to
learning are all needed for effective STEM teaching. However, there are
many cases where the culture of the school may not value rigor for all
subjects and for all students. Similarly, engaging curricula are often
neglected, despite strong evidence that students will work much harder
and remain in school if they know why content is valuable for people's
lives, including those of themselves and their community. Safety for
students and for learning is needed, and when safety is compromised,
learning is sure to suffer. Finally, schools need to have the
equipment, including appropriate technology, needed for current
curricula.
It is important that we be honest that teachers are sometimes a
challenge for effective learning. Often this is because of gaps in
their training, not their own goals. For example, lack of content
knowledge, lack of pedagogical content knowledge, and a lack of
experience with contemporary STEM research trends can all lead to
instruction that is ineffective and stagnant. Many of the reasons for
these challenges come from both a shortage of time with students to
focus on math and science content and a shortage of time for
professional learning and preparation for their math and science
instruction. For example, researchers found that it was not uncommon
for CPS teachers and administrators to struggle and fail to set up
school schedules with required amounts of protected instructional time
for middle grade math and science lessons. Many of these same teachers
also were not able to debrief with a content expert in math or science
coach who visited their classrooms--there was not time in their
schedule to fit in a 15-minute reflective conversation with the coach
following the observed or co-taught lesson. On the other hand, teachers
that are given the time and support for ongoing professional
development, reflective practice involving strong school-based teams,
and deep engagement with trends in current STEM research can begin to
overcome these challenges quickly.
Finally, we need to understand better ways to motivate students.
Because of the emphasis on the economic necessity of increasing the
number of students in the STEM pipeline, students often are not given
the opportunity and encouragement to experience the wonder and joy of
doing STEM. These opportunities are necessary for continued and deeper
engagement that lead to a growth mindset (Dweck). Similarly, students
may be led to believe that discoveries/payoffs come easily and they are
not helped to see the relationship between hard work and satisfaction.
Another UIC project, led by Marty Gartzman, is developing materials for
double period algebra that melds solid mathematics with careful
attention to student motivation. An interesting perspective on this was
recently provided by a student-led project, Voices of Youth in Chicago
Education (http://www.voyceproject.org/). Using surveys, ethnography,
and review of statistics, students from several high schools and
community organizations examined multiple dimensions of teaching and
the challenges of retaining and supporting students. Four areas of
focus: rigor, relevance, effective teaching, and safety and security,
were highlighted. When these are compromised, the VOYCE findings
suggests student outcomes suffer.
2 (b) What are the most important and effective components of the
National Science Foundation (NSF) funded programs
(including the Math and Science Partnership
Program, the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship
Program, and the Graduate STEM Fellows in K-12
Education Program) that UIC has implemented in
partnership with Chicago Public Schools?
This question will be addressed in four parts. First, I will
recount some of the outcomes of the NSF-funded Chicago Urban Systemic
Program (NSF, DRL-0085115), a systemic change grant that has spawned
many different efforts in the district and with its partners. Then, I
will discuss the work that occurred in our GK-12 programs that impacted
how we understand partnerships through the agency of STEM graduate
fellows. Finally, I will present the plans that we have for a new Noyce
Teacher Scholarship program, building upon a previous effort, and the
ways in which our Chicago Transformation Teacher Institutes draw from
and expand upon the different activities we have established in the
past.
The Chicago Urban Systemic Program (NSF, DRL-0085115)
The CUSP design supported a comprehensive math and science district
reform effort focused on teacher professional development on content
knowledge and around the use of specific math and science standards-
based curricula. To strengthen content knowledge, elementary school
teachers enrolled in university programs that gave them the subject
matter content to apply for and receive State of Illinois endorsements
to teach math and science in middle grades classrooms. Evaluation of
this project resulted in extensive formative and summative research
reports and several national conference presentations. See http://
research.cps.k12.il.us/cps/accountweb/Evaluation for a partial list of
and access to these reports. The CUSP final report to NSF (Feranchak,
2006), documents the following outcomes of the program:
Developed district mathematics and science
infrastructure capacity. The CPS plan for mathematics and
science improvement--the Chicago Math and Science Initiative
(CMSI)--was formulated through CUSP. CMSI has continued in the
district after the cessation of CUSP funding. During the
project period, CPS significantly increased its support for
mathematics and science improvement from $5.2 million ($2.2
million from NSF) in 2002 to $15 million in 2006 ($2.8 million
from NSF). Since the cessation of CUSP the district has
continued its support, including a substantial part of the HSTP
(see below).
Improved professional development offerings and
greater numbers of teachers served. By the end of the grant
period, over 6,000 teachers per year were receiving direct
professional development in mathematics and science. This
represents a 106 percent increase in teachers served annually
over the initial year. During the 2005-06 school year 2,560
elementary teachers from 268 different schools attended 37,000
person-hours of CUSP mathematics professional development. In
the following year (after CUSP ended), 2,237 elementary
teachers from 290 different schools attended a total of 24,677
person-hours of grade-specific, curriculum-specific mathematics
professional development. In several hundred cases, this
allowed teachers to receive certification for middle school
math or science, significantly decreasing the number of
uncertified teachers in those classrooms. And recent data show
that the vast majority of individuals who have obtained a math
endorsement (>90 percent) have done so through this program, as
is also the case for the majority of those who got endorsements
in science.
Improved student achievement. The six-year change
from the beginning of CUSP in 2000 find higher gains in the
percentages of CPS elementary students, compared to percentages
of Illinois students statewide, who met or exceeded State
standards on Illinois State tests (ISAT) in mathematics and
science. More importantly, student achievement gains in schools
implementing one of the district-supported standards-based
curricula for the second year in 2004-05 were greater than in
other district schools (both those in their first year of
implementation and those not implementing at all).
UIC Graduate Fellows in K-12 Education (DUE-9997537) and Scientists,
Kids, and Teachers (SKIT): A GK-12 Partnership with
the Chicago Public Schools (DGE-0338328).
These two successive GK-12 fellows programs represent a very
important place wherein UIC STEM faculty were able to forge important
relationships with the CPS through the specific activities of STEM
graduate students working in middle and high school mathematics and
science. The initial grant enabled us to take existing outreach
programs and to add graduate fellow support to some of the schools that
were involved. This included, for example, a partnership between UIC
and Crane High School, part of the CPS Math Science Technology Academy
(MSTA) program that paired specific high schools with different support
systems within UIC. In this program graduate fellows brought their
content knowledge to questions of teaching high school chemistry,
environmental science, and physics, assisting teachers in new ways to
engage students (Wink et al., 2004) that drew on the graduate student's
expertise in studying ecosystem engineering. At the same time, a
research program for the program allowed us to characterize
systematically some of the ways in which STEM graduate students
encounter the environment of the urban classroom (Christodoulou et al.,
2009).
The second GK-12 project took a very different approach to the
placement of graduate students. Here, the different placements were
specifically targeted at schools that were participating in aspects of
the Chicago Math + Science Initiative, which was at that point emerging
from the work on CUSP and related programs. CMSI targets school-based
change in different ways. For example, fellows worked in bringing the
Beissinger/Pless cryptography program to the National Teachers Academy
(NTA), a district professional development school. In other cases,
support of specific high school science curricula identified for
district support within CMSI was aided by Fellows in schools and STEM
faculty participation in professional development sessions.
Thematically, then, the program focused on helping the district and its
schools make change in projects that the district was already
implementing, making SKIT into more of a responsive, not an intrusive,
influence on schools.
One of the best examples of a partnership that was furthered
through the SKIT program was in the work of computer scientist Tom
Moher and his graduate students. Moher is a learning sciences
researcher with a focus on the development ``embedded phenomena'' in
teaching. Within this approach, the classroom becomes the locus of a
technology-enabled science experience, including studies of
earthquakes, the solar system, and most recently an environment,
WallCology, that simulates the process of learning about animal
populations. In the SKIT program, his graduate students were able to
carry out an iterative process of implementation and research in
conjunction with two CMSI-associated schools, NTA and Dawes Elementary
School. Besides general information on the ways in which embedded
phenomenon can be implemented well (Malcolm et al., 2008), they also
developed materials to support the specific learning outcomes of
WallCology (Moher et al., 2008).
The second GK-12 project, by design, included a plan for
sustainability associated with funding support from CPS or other
external partners. Early in the program, funding for Fellows to work at
NTA was obtained as part of the district support for UIC's partnership
in that school. In this case, the specific benefit of Fellows for
teachers implementing reformed CMSI-designated curricula was
demonstrated. This became important shortly afterwards when the CPS
brought forth its plans for the High School Transformation project. In
their response to that project, Loyola University and UIC included a
plan, funded by the district, for graduate assistant support of the
reformed curricula in the first three years of high school science at
eleven CPS schools. Thus, a key outcome of the SKIT grant has been the
establishment of an ongoing, independent support and rationale for
graduate students within university/district partnerships.
Robert Noyce Scholarship Program (DUE-335748) and UIC-CPS Noyce II
Program (DUE-833089).
These two implementations of Noyce Scholarship programs are led by
Carole Mitchener of UIC's College of Education. The first program
targeted career changers who planned on teaching in middle school
mathematics or science (MGS/MGM students) or high school mathematics.
MGS/MGM offered career-changers a three-year induction and mentoring
experience while they earned teacher certification and a Master's
degree. During that time, they taught full-time for three years in a
high-need school in Chicago. MGS/MGM adopted the idea that it was
crucial that very early in their preparation, teachers experience the
relevance of the practice-based approach to professional development
discussed earlier, and to appreciate it as one that they could
continue, and build from, throughout their teaching careers. MGS/MGM
sought to achieve this largely by devoting much of the second year of
the curriculum to supporting each beginning teacher in an extended
action research inquiry into his/her own practice in his/her own
classroom. Ninety-one individuals received stipends and all completed
their degree and all but one completed the required teaching. What is
perhaps more important is that, as of 2008, 73 of them had completed
either three or four years of teaching, suggesting that the program is
successful at both preparing and inducting teachers. This success
reflects the lessons learned through the accompanying research effort
that examined how teacher identity is built around ``a vision for a
quality and inclusive science curriculum implicating science content,
teaching methods, and relationships with their students'' (Proweller
and Mitchener, 2004). Another important outcome of the program with
implications for future work is that eight of the original program's
scholars have now moved into CPS math and science leadership positions.
This significantly strengthens the relationship between UIC and CPS.
The Phase II Noyce project continues work begun in the previous
Noyce grant with secondary mathematics teacher candidates and expands
its potential impact with the addition of an enhanced mentor program
for new Noyce recipients. This new mentor program involves previous
Noyce awardees and inducts new ones into a Noyce mentoring network.
Second, the project extends the Noyce applicant pool by adding three
new science certifications and introducing a one-year M.Ed. program
option for secondary science, which is available for secondary science
teacher candidates in biology, Earth and space science, environmental
science, chemistry and physics. The project supports the recruitment
and retention of career-changers with strong STEM backgrounds and STEM
undergraduates who want to teach in high-need areas in CPS. These goals
will be attained by awarding stipends based on academic merit, with
attention to diversifying the teacher workforce and a commitment to
serving high-need schools. Over a three-year period the UIC-CPS Noyce
II project is offering 40 recruitment stipends to students in UIC STEM
secondary teacher preparation programs who commit to teaching in
Chicago Public Schools. New teachers have the opportunity to conduct
action research during their induction phase as they work to construct
a defensible and inclusive practice.
Both Noyce programs provide new teachers learning opportunities to
engage in extended action research projects (teacher inquiry) toward
improving their classroom practice (Mitchener & Jackson, 2006). New
teachers benefit when given an opportunity to examine their practice in
relation to student learning over an extended time period. New teachers
target an area for improvement and with support from a professional
learning community make needed changes. Using student learning data as
a guide, beginning teachers work at reducing discrepancies between what
they learned about good practice and what they implement in their
classrooms. Action research projects are then shared with the larger
school community.
The Chicago Transformation Teacher Institutes (NSF, DUE 0928669)
The Chicago Transformation Teacher Institutes (CTTI) is our new
Math Science Partnership teacher institute program, funded earlier this
month with support of funds allocated to NSF through the American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act. In this case, the CTTI is an additional
and essential part of existing system-wide reform efforts, not a new
effort in itself. Thus, I will describe the context of the CTTI within
the wider CPS High School Transformation project, since the two are
intimately linked.
The CPS HSTP project was started in 2005-6 by the Chicago Board of
Education with extensive support from the Board and the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation with its largest ever single grant to a school
district. One prominent strategy within the HSTP is a whole-school
support program focused on the work of Instructional Development
Systems (IDS). An IDS is a provider of comprehensive professional and
materials development spanning grades 9-11 with a coherent program in
mathematics, science, or English (e.g., Wink et al., 2008). Teachers
and administrators in the IDS schools then receive:
Rigorous curriculum options with innovative,
nationally recognized and research-based materials.
Supports for teachers using these curriculum options,
including intensive coaching, professional development,
networking, and in-school planning coordinated by a school lead
in the subject.
Direct leadership support for principals.
Formative and summative assessment systems responsive
to the specific curricula but also aligned carefully with the
state-wide Prairie State Academic Examination (PSAE), a two-day
exam in the 11th grade that comprises the ACT and subject-area
tests including in science and mathematics.
The IDS program began with 14 schools implementing the ninth-grade
curriculum in 2006-07; these schools are now implementing the tenth-
and eleventh-grade curricula. Another 11 schools formed a second cohort
that began in 2007-8 and a third cohort of 20 schools have joined in
2008-9. The science IDSs are all based at universities (IIT,
Northwestern, Loyola/UIC) that are part of the CTTI. The CTTI
mathematics participants (UIC and DePaul) are also involved in HSTP and
other district high school teacher support programs.
All of the math and science IDS programs focus on a strategy to
implement, not develop, reformed curricula. All six of the math and
science IDS partners are using curricula developed in part with NSF
support (Cognitive Tutor, Agile Mind, CME in math and curricula from
BSCS, the American Chemical Society, It's About Time, and Northwestern
University's environmental science curricula in science), or enhanced
under the specific direction of inquiry-based teacher education
programs (Glencoe biology and chemistry, in conjunction with IIT and
the Field Museum). Thus, they respond to the district's own initiative
to identify and support reform curricula.
The HSTP-IDS program has now established a full set of supports for
grade 9-10-11 science and math. This includes a set of assessments to
support teachers in formative assessment of students and also to be
used in a summative manner at the end of the course. In all cases, the
curricula and assessments are to point to increasing student success on
the Illinois Prairie State Achievement Exam, given in April of the
junior year. The first cohort of IDS-supported students have just taken
the PSAE in Spring, 2009, and the outcomes for those students and for
subsequent cohorts will be a key evaluation metric for the program
overall.
From CUSP and HSTP to CTTI.
The significant impact of the CUSP program on the district,
including its contribution to the formation of CMSI and the
conceptualization of HSTP, means that the district and its university
partners have much more experience in how to support school change. For
example, a key component of the HSTP IDS is the adaptation and
implementation of curricula identified by CPS. A similar approach will
be used within CTTI.
It is important to note that CTTI is not a replacement for CUSP or
HSTP. Rather, CTTI is an essential new initiative to carry through on
the work of CUSP and HSTP by completing the district's strategy for
high school science and mathematics (with 12th grade strategies) and
enhancing the work of teachers in grades 9-10-11. This new program,
though, is based on leaders who are on the staff of the schools
themselves, giving schools the capacity to carry out their own course
implementation strategies and in-school planning to address challenges
and to identify new opportunities.
During the program CTTI will have 160 teachers in four cohorts each
of 20 science and 20 math teachers. They will come from 20 different
schools, chosen through an application process with specific
commitments required from the school. CTTI teachers will implement
effective school-based changes in 12th grade curricula even as they
continue to participate in and impact the curricula in grades 9-10-11.
The CTTI teacher program will include two components in addition to
networking programs:
a. Course work in three areas essential to strong high school
instruction: mathematics, physical science, and life and
environmental science. The courses provide for increased
content knowledge by teachers, including how the content is
found in the contemporary issues and current research. It also
supports growth of deep knowledge required for strong cross-
curricula work.
b. Workshops on leadership and teaching that provide increased
skills in how to use content to understand classroom practices,
including in instructional design, selection of classroom
materials, pedagogy, and assessment of student knowledge.
Leadership workshops, developed from the Urban Education
Leadership program, enhance the ability of teacher-leaders to
support stronger teams within schools' departments and are
developed with a program that already works on a parallel
effort with CPS school principals, allowing for close alignment
of the development of teachers, teacher-leaders, and
administrators (Monk, 2008).
This work is embedded in research and institutional change
strategies that also drive the CTTI research. In particular, we have
adopted a logic model (Newmann et al., 2000) wherein deep content
knowledge + pedagogical skills + leadership training for teachers
changes school capacity to implement and support innovative math and
science curricula. In turn, this affects teacher practice and improves
student outcomes. Taken together, the teacher program and logic model
let us formulate a key research question for our work: What are the
effects of providing teacher content and content-specific pedagogical
training and leadership development on the elements of school capacity,
teacher practice, and student outcomes?
It is also expected that the CTTI will impact the ways in which
higher education institutions work with the CPS and, especially, with
the students who come from CPS high schools. University faculty, prior
to teaching CTTI courses, will themselves receive training on reformed
pedagogy, to align CTTI courses and their other college teaching with
the practices we know to best support student learning of science and
mathematics. The longer term impact on the Universities will occur as
part of the discussion of what it means to have students emerging from
high schools that, until now, have few graduates directly prepared for
University study. The CTTI faculty will be charged as change agents
that acquire enhanced understanding of the potential (and obstacles)
inherent in rigorous high school courses. This understanding will then
become the basis of advisory materials they will generate for campus
recruitment and retention programs. Thus, these faculty become the
means by which CTTI high schools re-envision outcomes for their
students to include Chicago four-year institutions and, conversely,
become the means by which Chicago universities re-envision what they
can do to provide more equitable access to CTTI high school students.
Finally, the CTTI program was conceived of as a research project
from its start. Thus, the key research question of our work is
articulated into multiple areas of inquiry. In association with the
logic model presented earlier (Figure 2), these areas of inquiry will
be:
1. Teachers' experiences in program. CTTI expects teachers to
attend courses (Outcome 1), gain content knowledge and
leadership skills (Outcome 2) and then apply what they learn
through team work at their school (Outcome 4) that will improve
instruction in grade 9-10-11 courses (Outcome 5) and will yield
revised and/or new challenging grade 12 courses (Outcome 6).
2. Student experience and performance. Students taught by CTTI
teachers are expected to achieve more at in grade 9-10-11
courses (Outcome 5) and enroll in and achieve in revised/new
grade 12 courses (Outcome 6). Their preparation in CTTI taught
courses should also support their college readiness shown
through test scores and success in courses at CTTI universities
(Outcome 7).
3. Institutional change. The CTTI university partners will
share knowledge of math, science and leadership with schools
through high quality courses (Outcome 1). The district and its
schools will create the policies and practices to allow
teachers to work together productively at school meetings
(Outcome 3), to improve instruction (Outcome 5), and to change
grade 12 courses (Outcome 6). The work of these teachers
(Outcomes 4-6) in turn, changes and sustains their schools.
Universities will learn from the CTTI project how to better
serve entering CPS students (Outcome 7) and may attract some of
the CTTI teachers into their regular graduate programs (Outcome
1).
2 (c) Are there common lessons learned or replicable elements across
UIC's various science and math programs, including
those funded by NSF?
Experiences with STEM education reform in Chicago over the past
decade suggest several lessons. Some of these have been summarized
before (Roderick et al., 2009; Wenzel et al., 2009). But key points
include:
Invest in people and relationships. Even when people
change roles and positions, the knowledge and skills that are
supported by programs and trusting relationships travel with
them.
Work with existing products. A key idea behind most
of the reform efforts is that the development of new materials
can take years and several iterations. Earlier work in STEM K-
12 education has, especially at the high school, provided many
materials that are sufficient for reform of STEM education. New
materials are needed, but much quicker change can be
accomplished by implementing those quality products that do
exist.
Work with existing research. In almost every case I
have discussed, the reform effort drew on extensive prior
research. This is absolutely essential in a complex system,
where prior research can identify those conditions that can
dramatically affect the outcomes. This can range from specific
questions of learning--how do students understand what is on a
computer screen?--to system-wide questions--what does
distributed leadership mean to change in a school?
Don't leave out the principal. The principal is a key
figure in setting up a school with adequate time for
instruction and for teachers' professional development and
reflection.
Incorporate as appropriate K-12 data on student
performance throughout the outreach and research work of the
university. Thanks to the outcomes of CUSP and the hard work of
Bret Feranchak and others in CPS's Office of Research,
Evaluation, and Accountability, data is now available on
student outcomes in many different areas. Improving the use of
this data in our programs is now the next step, with of course
appropriate privacy and confidentiality safeguards.
University-based systems must be developed for
program coordination. The history of reform at many of the
institutions relied necessarily on the efforts of small teams
or even single individuals. However, this is not sustainable
and partnerships now require coordination among different units
within the university. Many of these are already established:
the Center for Science and Math Education at Loyola; IIT's
Institute for Math and Science Education; Northwestern's Office
of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Education
Partnerships; and UIC's Learning Sciences Research Institute.
This should be the norm in the future.
2 (d) How do you or can you help to disseminate these findings to
other cities and regions of the country?
In this case, there are three levels to my answer. The first is
simple: to make use of existing scholarly channels, including peer-
review journals and conferences. It is easy to believe this will occur,
but only if it is the case that funding agencies, such as the NSF,
insist on full use of the existing literature as the basis of education
reform. But direct person-to-person communication is also necessary,
especially to support collaboration. In Chicago, a very early success
in the development of multi-institutional communication was done
through an Illinois Board of Higher Education grant to establish a
collaborative of institutions associated with teacher preparation and
undergraduate STEM teaching. This gave rise to an annual series of
conferences, entitled ``Excellence in Teaching Undergraduate Science
and Mathematics: National and Chicago Perspectives.'' These bring
national plenary speakers and local STEM education reform participants
together three times a year to discuss new ideas, report on progress of
ongoing projects, and to maintain connections that drive many other
STEM education reforms.
The second level of answer is something that the NSF has answered
well in many ways. That is by having large systemic change programs
such as the MSP's, the GK-12 Fellows programs, and the Noyce Teacher
Scholarship programs required to share information through annual
conferences and through NSF-associated web sites such as MSPNet. In
this case, the sharing of ideas and outcomes at this level--not quite
social networking, but close--permits rapid dissemination of
preliminary findings to those who need the information most quickly. It
is interesting to me that one of the features of MSPnet is that it is
intrusive, with reminders of information and activities now provided to
me weekly. Similar work occurs with GK-12 and I am pleased to learn
that the same is occurring for Noyce.
The third level of possible dissemination is one that I have
largely left out until now. It is through the actions of the states and
their individual boards of education. These organizations are each
independent, as befits our federal system. But their importance as
partners in STEM education reform cannot be underestimated. Improved
communication about efforts nationally and locally will, most
logically, require that State boards both be told what is going on and
that they listen and act accordingly. Federal mandates to do this in
association with block grants may be timely.
3 (a) What is the most important role a university such as your own
can play in improving K-12 STEM education in your
own community and/or nationally? How can
universities help facilitate and build partnerships
with other stakeholders, including the private
sector and informal education providers?
I will take this question in two steps. First, we need to remember
that whatever universities can do, it has to be in the context of a
reform system. Second, I will note particular examples of how
particular areas of strength for universities can be developed and
used.
The most important thing universities can do is demonstrate that
existing schools can move from low to high performance in math and
science by assisting in organizing the adult learning in the school
around what we know about effective STEM instruction. This requires
partnership between universities and school systems that ordinary
preparation programs do not require. Simply put, the principal and
teacher leadership of academic departments must work together with
universities to change instructional practices in each school, which
requires collaboration around such fundamental issues as curriculum,
instructional approaches, common formative assessments of students at
collaboratively-set checkpoints, and so on. This kind of approach
should be foregrounded in teacher preparation work so that new teachers
are ready for it, but teacher preparation is itself a weak lever for
improving school-wide performance since new teachers are novices who
should be ready to work in a reformed environment but not expected to
create it. If you put one of those novices into a school properly
organized for STEM success, that teacher will thrive and get the job
done. Thus, the same linkages that improve school practice also provide
a place for new teachers to work effectively, greatly improving the
likely outcomes of teacher preparation work.
As to what universities may do in specific ways, my opening review
shows nine different areas of work in which universities can work in
improving K-12 education. I hope I have provided part of an answer to
this in the examples I cited in those areas. But there are other
components of our work that are not captured well there, since they
represent the effect of systems or units within the university. I will
cite a few of those now, drawing on other institutions in the Chicago
area that, I believe, exemplify how universities can systematically
link their work to K-12 STEM education. Five specific ways in which
this can be done are:
The creation and use of a university coordinating
office for STEM education.
Close linkage of K-12 STEM education work to the
undergraduate mission of an institution.
Use of laboratory-based research on education in STEM
education reform work.
A consistent focus on addressing emergent
professional development opportunities in a flexible and
responsive way.
Development and sustenance of deep connections
between university STEM and education programs that bridge
colleges within universities.
Northwestern University provides an example of a how a university
coordinating office can facilitate the work of the university in K-12
STEM education, through its Office of Science, Technology, Engineering,
and Math Education Partnerships (OSEP). OSEP uses its expertise in
curriculum, technology, and program design math (STEM) research
projects with NU researchers. These partnerships provide several
benefits to the community that would not exist without this innovative
form of collaboration for better programs, increased competitiveness,
and especially leveraged resources through their ongoing connections of
Northwestern faculty and researchers with a network of schools and
informal educational institutions.
DePaul University shows how the undergraduate mission of a
university can be incorporated as a foundation for K-12 STEM outreach,
specifically by supporting strong community based relationships with
schools to support, enable, and sustain K-12 innovation. The
mathematics and science faculty there have a deep commitment to teacher
education, reflecting DePaul's recognition that strong school-campus
partnerships are vital to their success as a university. Hence, they
have an NSF STEP grant that partners with community colleges to address
transition issues, and they also provide their own incoming students
with strong bridge programs to enable college success. At the same
time, as we have seen, DePaul's activity as a leader of The Algebra
Initiative and, now, in the CTTI, enables them to bring their own
expertise in STEM and STEM education to support change in K-12
settings.
The Department for Math and Science Education of IIT points to the
role of ``big picture'' thinking about science as a foundation for STEM
education reform. The work of Norman Lederman and his colleagues in
studying the ways in which the nature of science does, or does not,
translate into classroom practice has fundamentally altered the
discussion of what to teach in science, and also how to teach it. This
is an excellent example of the role that laboratory-based research on
education can translate into practice, including specific attention to
the ways in which teachers shape and utilize their own concepts of the
nature of science. IIT's program includes a doctoral level program that
is just now graduating the first of a set of students trained in both
educational research and the deep philosophical underpinnings of
science, math, and education; this group is sure to have an impact on
the future of K-12 STEM education in Chicago.
Loyola University Chicago, with the Center for Science and Math
Education led by David Slavsky, is an example of how a university can
become a key provider of emergent professional development
opportunities in specific support of State and district policies and
needs. For example, as the HSTP was beginning the possibility of
teaching a ``physics first'' curriculum was set aside, at least for a
while, because of the lack of trained physics teachers in the district
schools. Loyola moved immediately to the task of creating a university
course-based program that would fill this gap, using State teacher
development funds. This built upon the many years of CSME work in
support of the Chicago CMSI middle school program, enabling Loyola to
be especially responsive to pressing needs. CSME also incorporates a
full research unit within its programs, giving it specific strength in
studying change in schools in a way that immediately affects practice.
Finally, I suggest that UIC provides specific examples of the gains
that can be had when there are deep connections between university STEM
and education programs. Within this testimony I have cited several
examples of NSF grants that have come to UIC to enable our work in K-12
STEM education. What may not be apparent is that, with no exception,
all of those grants have a PI, co-PI or senior personnel that is a STEM
faculty member, like John Baldwin, Tom Moher, or myself, and someone
from our College of Education, such as Maria Varelas, Carole Mitchener,
or Steve Tozer. These are not just collaborations of convenience;
rather, they reflect many years of work together, presenting a model
for the fluid and productive interaction of different units on a
research university campus. It is only natural, then, that a unit like
the Learning Sciences Research Institute has been created to provide an
interdisciplinary setting for further work by many of these
researchers.
What is the single, most important step that the Federal Government
should take to improve K-12 STEM education?
The most important single step is to ensure that funding mechanisms
are aware of the strengths of different partners so that new projects
draw on those strengths and, where necessary, address weakness. This
should be targeted at what we know are the critical issues in schools:
(a) demonstrating measurable increases in student learning by (b)
improving classroom instruction through (c) improving each school's
internal capacity (systems, procedures, and adult learning) through (d)
improved teacher and administrative leadership in each school. This is
the specific model of the CTTI (Figure 2), in reverse. It represents,
we feel, the most cost-effective and scalable lever for change over a
ten year period. Leadership issues are critical here, since virtually
all principals nationwide will turn over in that ten-year period. Thus,
developing leaders to carry forward reform in the short- and long-term
is vital, and the Federal Government, especially through the MSP and
Noyce programs, is already moving ahead on that task.
There are different ways federal support can impact the partners in
this effort. For example, for universities, the Federal Government
should support (ideally through NSF) university projects that develop
teacher knowledge and K-12 school improvement using new knowledge
developed by university researchers. This support draws upon what
universities can do well on their own and emphasizes that within K-12
STEM education. This includes teacher education, preparation, and
research both in classrooms and in laboratory settings. Ensuring that
more of what occurs in K-12 education makes use of those areas of
strength is essential, and clearly this is a central theme within the
NSF Math Science Partnership program.
Districts and schools, in contrast, possess strengths of policy,
instructional support, and teacher support. It is often difficult for
them to use these strengths productively and consistently over the
extended time required for systemic change. Thus, federal support for
longer-term projects that implement rigorous, research-based changes in
schools would be an important component of supporting change. Linking
this to what is known to enable change--leadership, reflective
teaching, use of reformed curricula--should also be expected.
The creativity and vision of informal science partners, including
museums, industry, and after school programs, give them strength in the
vital step of creating new environments to engage students, teachers,
and families in the excitement of cutting-edge science. The role of
informal science, including careful research on informal science
settings, is much-neglected as a means of translating research into
accessible forms.
Finally, as I have suggested at different points, the Federal
Government needs to support work over extended time periods, something
that is already done, for example, in the Long-Term Ecological Research
centers. We should collect data over 10-20 years to provide broad,
district level data on curriculum, and initiatives to give us the data
we need to make strong claims.
Coda
I would like to close with two items that have not yet been
discussed in this testimony but that I think are essential to our work
and to the reform of STEM K-12 education.
The first point is to return to the central role of relationships
over time to the reform of any program, especially within a large and
complex system such as an urban K-12 district. In this, individuals
matter, and I want to tip my hat in particular to the role of Dr. Marty
Gartzman in many of the efforts I have discussed. He is trained in
biology but also worked for many years as a project manager in the UIC
Institute for Math and Science Education, the group formed around the
TIMS effort that, later, became one of the foundations for the Learning
Sciences program. In this he developed deep connections with K-12
schools and many dozens of teachers. He helped design our first
systematic efforts to reform teacher education at UIC and to start our
GK-12 program. Then, he was tapped to lead the CPS' effort in its
Office of Math and Science, managing some of the most effective work in
CMSI and beyond. More recently, he has returned to UIC in a special
role to help coordinate our work in K-12 and, especially, in high
schools, having now helped to start our campus' first charter school,
which is drawing many of our health professional units into educational
innovation for the first time. The point here is that our effectiveness
in many areas depends on the skills and relationships of Dr. Gartzman.
Recognizing and valuing the role of such change agents, should not be
overlooked.
The second point is that all of our work comes from a shared belief
in STEM education as vital to the future of our nation and its people,
especially the children who will be seeing our country through to its
tercentennial and beyond. Technological, medical, and environmental
challenges loom, and they will be addressed in this period by the STEM
workforce we are training today. This is very much the philosophy
behind the America COMPETES Act, which carries through on many
important ideas already. But even as we agree on that I want to remind
us that learning about science and mathematics is also important to the
life of every person, especially in a democracy. I want to recall that,
100 years ago this Fall, John Dewey, who I proudly note was an active
participant in the life of the Hull House settlement that is now part
of UIC's campus, gave an address to the American Association for the
Advancement of Science entitled ``Science as Subject-matter and as
Method.'' In it he outlined, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, the seeming gap
between the rich, connected learning expected of students in the
humanities and the dry, rote learning of the sciences. He argued,
though, that the learning the methods of scientific inquiry is equally
important to learning the content, and not just for the sake of science
and technology. Thus, as he wrote for the conclusion for his address:
If ever we are to be governed by intelligence, not by things
and by words, science must have something to say about what we
do, and not merely about how we may do it most easily and
economically. . .. Actively to participate in the making of
knowledge is the highest prerogative of man and the only
warrant of his freedom. When our schools truly become
laboratories of knowledge-making, not mills fitted out with
information-hoppers, there will no longer be need to discuss
the place of science in education.
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Fornes, W., Russell, C., Boone, W.J. (2006). Developing a New
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Biography for Donald J. Wink
Education
University of Chicago--S.B., 1980, Chemistry
Harvard University--Ph.D., 1985, Inorganic Chemistry
Professional Experience
New York University: Chemistry
1985-1992--Assistant Professor
University of Illinois at Chicago: Chemistry
1992-2000--Associate Professor
2000-present--Professor
2000-2005--Acting Head and Head
2006-present--Director of Undergraduate Studies
University of Illinois at Chicago: Learning Sciences
2006-present--Program Faculty
2007-present--Director of Graduate Studies
Publications most directly related to current testimony:
1. ``Synthesis and Characterization of Aldol Condensation Products
from Unknown Aldehydes and Ketones: An Inquiry-Based Experiment in the
Undergraduate Laboratory,'' by Nicholas G. Angelo, Laura K. Henchey,
Adam J. Waxman, Donald Wink, James W. Canary, and Paramjit S. Arora, J.
Chem. Educ., 2007, 84, 1816-1819.
2. ``Inquiry-based and research-based laboratory pedagogies in
undergraduate science'' by Gabriela C. Weaver, Cianan B. Russell &
Donald J. Wink, Nature Chemical Biology, 2008, 4, 577-580.
3. ``Evaluation of the Center for Authentic Science Practice in
Education (CASPiE) model of undergraduate research,'' by Donald J.
Wink* and Gabriela C. Weaver. Commissioned paper for National Academy
of Sciences Board of Science Education, 2008: http://
www7.nationalacademies.org/bose/
Wink-Weaver-CommissionedPaper.pdf
4. ``Bringing Standards-based Chemistry Instruction to an Urban
School District,'' by Donald J. Wink, Patrick L. Daubenmire, Sarah K.
Brennan, and Stephanie A. Cunningham, Chemistry and the National
Science Education Standards, 2nd Ed., 2008, American Chemical Society:
Washington, DC. http://portal.acs.org/portal/fileFetch/C/
WPCP-010699/pdf/WPCP-010699.pdf
5. ``Fostering Pre-Service Teacher Identity through Student-Initiated
Reflective Projects,'' by Donald J. Wink, Julie Ellefson, Marlynne
Nishimura, Dana Perry, Stacy Wenzel, and Jeong-hye Hwang Choe, Feminist
Teacher, 2009, 19, 31-46.
Publications in other areas:
6. ``Developing a New Model to Provide First and Second-Year
Undergraduates with Chemistry Research Experience: Early Findings of
the Center for Authentic Science Practice in Education (CASPiE),'' by
Gabriela C. Weaver, Donald Wink, Pratibha Varma-Nelson, Fred Lytle,
Robert Morris, William Fornes, Cianan Russell, and William J. Boone,
Chemical Educator, 2006, 11, 125-129.
7. ``Connections between Pedagogical and Epistemological
Constructivism: Questions for Teaching and Research in Chemistry,'' by
Donald J. Wink, Foundations of Chemistry, 2006, 8, 111-151.
8. ``Pennies and Eggs: Initiation into Inquiry Learning for Pre-
service Elementary Education Teachers,'' by Donald J. Wink and Jeong
Hye Hwang, J. Chem. Educ., 2008, 85, 396-398.
9. ``Inquiry and Connections in Integrated Science Content Courses
for Elementary Education Majors,'' by Maria Varelas, Roy Plotnick,
Donald Wink, Qian Fan, and Yvonne Harris, J. Coll. Sci. Teach., 2008,
37(5), 40-47.
10. ``Structure and Reactivity of Alkynyl Ruthenium Alkylidenes'' by
S.Y. Yun, M. Kim, D. Lee, and D.J. Wink, J. Amer. Chem. Soc., 2009,
130, 24-25.
Current Support
1. ``Chicago Transformation Teacher Institutes,'' PI on this ca.
$5,000,000 grant to five Chicago-area institutions of higher education
in partnership with the CPS. July 1, 2009-June 30, 2014.
2. ``Science Approach A: Inquiry to Build Content,'' Chicago Board of
Education High School Transformation Project, January 1, 2006-June 30,
2010. I am a co-PI on this ca. $3,000,000 grant to provide
comprehensive curriculum and professional development to Chicago Public
Schools. Loyola University Chicago is the lead institution (David
Slavsky, PI). The UIC subcontract will be approximately $900,000.
3. ``The Center for Authentic Science Practice in Education,''
National Science Foundation, Chemistry Division, August 16, 2005-August
31, 2009. I am a co-PI on this $2,400,000 grant. Purdue University is
the lead institution. The UIC subcontract is for $300,000 over five
years.
4. ``Scientists, Kids, and Teachers (SKIT): A GK-12 Partnership with
the Chicago Public Schools,'' National Science Foundation, Division of
Graduate Education, January 1, 2004-December 31, 2008, $1,979,787. I am
the PI.
5. ``Research on Student Understanding of Solution Phenomena in
College Chemistry,'' National Science Foundation, Division of
Undergraduate Education, September 1, 2008-August 31, 2010. I am the
PI.
Synergistic Activities
Co-Director, UIC ASCEND program, and NSF STEP grant to
support students at the University of Illinois at Chicago in STEM
majors. Includes networking on campus with major student support groups
and programs to support students in early participation in research
(Lon Kaufman, PI).
Secretary and Councilor, Division of Chemical Education,
American Chemical Society. Member of executive committee for 5000
member Division and also ex officio member and Secretary of the Board
of Publication for the Journal of Chemical Education.
Editorial Advisory Board, Education Division, American
Chemical Society Chemistry in the Community: 6th Edition.
Former Advisors: Undergraduate: Prof. William Evans, University of
California at Irvine; Graduate: Prof. N. John Cooper, University of
Pittsburgh
Collaborators outside of UIC (2004-2009): Miami University: Stacey
Lowery Bretz; William Rainey Harper College: Julie Ellefson Kuehn;
Kennedy-King College, Sharonda Benson; Harold Washington College: Dana
Perry, Mike Davis; College of DuPage: Susan Shih, Mary Newberg, Carolyn
Dockus; Moraine Valley Community College: Ewa Fredette; Truman College:
Yvonne Harris; Olive-Harvey College: David Zoller; New York University:
Paramjit Arora, James Canary; Northeastern Illinois University:
Veronica Curtis-Palmer, Ana Fraiman; IUPUI: Pratibha Varma-Nelson;
Purdue University: Gabriela Weaver, Fred Lytle; Georgia State
University: Jerry Smith; Chicago Public Schools: Michael Lach, John
Loehr; University of West Georgia, Sharmistha Basu-Dutt, Gail Marshall;
American Chemical Society, Angela Powers, Cynthia Mickevicus, Terri
Taylor. Michigan State University: Diane Ebert-May.
Chairman Lipinski. Thank you, Dr. Wink.
Now we recognize Katherine Pickus.
STATEMENT OF MS. KATHERINE F. PICKUS, DIVISIONAL VICE
PRESIDENT, GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP AND POLICY, ABBOTT; VICE
PRESIDENT, ABBOTT FUND
Ms. Pickus. Good morning, Chairman Lipinski, Ranking Member
Ehlers and esteemed Members of the Committee. My name is Kathy
Pickus and I am the Division Vice President of Global
Citizenship and Policy at Abbott and I am also the Vice
President of the Abbott Fund. As someone who works every day
examining how Abbott and the Abbott Fund can make a difference
in our communities, I so appreciate the opportunity to be here
today to explore with the Subcommittee how to meet our
country's increasing needs in science education.
Science and innovation, especially as they relate to human
health, are key to addressing some of our greatest challenges.
At the same time that our workforce needs science, engineering
and technology skills, fewer U.S. students are choosing these
studies, let alone professions. As a health care company,
Abbott is dependent on an increasingly sophisticated workforce
with strong skills in science, technology, engineering and
math. We need to develop and encourage the next generation of
innovators. Currently, Abbott employs approximately 7,000
scientists worldwide. 78 percent of these scientists are based
here in the United States. The ability to fill these well-
paying jobs with people from our communities would be highly
beneficial.
As we all know, we are facing many challenges to achieve
this goal including encouraging an interest in science given
the parental levels. You know, I was struck recently when I was
having a conversation with a student at Foreman High School.
She said she loved science and wanted to be a pediatrician but
she would never share that dream with her friends, not even her
parents because she said, ``No one will support me.'' We need
to create a culture for students like the one I spoke of in
which their interest in science is encouraged and validated.
That means opportunities beyond the classroom, real-world
experience, parents acting as advocates for their children's
scientific aspirations and the scientific community actively
engaged with their counterparts in education.
At Abbott, we took a look at what we could do to advance
science education and determined that we wanted to develop
educational programs that would be built around strong
partnerships with existing educational organizations with
proven records of success like After School Matters. They need
to be strategic, systemic and sustainable and they need to be
driven by scientific evidence, results and measurable outcomes
but we also need them to serve as a catalyst calling others to
action.
Our approach to this endeavor goes far beyond financial
support. We provide expert consultants experienced in science
and education program design, implementation and evaluation,
and we believe that one of the most valuable contributions that
we are making is providing access to our research and
development facilities and our scientists who engage one-on-one
with students.
The research we did indicated that programs that start
early and that continue to touch students at various points in
their K-12 education and involve parents have the greatest
impact, so at Abbott we started reaching elementary students
and their parents through Abbott Family Science. We also
conduct this program in Spanish. And then from there we
continue with Abbott Operation Discovery for middle school
students and then to the high school students in Chicago. We
have worked closely with After School Matters to create
opportunities, again typically not available for public school
students. Each of these programs brings students, teachers and
scientists together for hands-on, exciting experiences.
Building programs with strong community partnerships ensures a
lasting impact over time. In Chicago, we are very proud of our
partnership with one of the Nation's leading after-school
initiatives, After School Matters. By investing in an exciting,
highly successful program, Abbott has been able to develop a
replicable model that provides innovative science education for
Chicago-area youth. Again, we also want these investments to
serve as a catalyst. Our programs are designed to increase the
capacity of leading informal science educational institutions
including museums. They will engage students, parents and our
own employees and will also encourage other private sector
corporations and companies to pitch in and join us as well.
Abbott science education initiatives, grounded in strategic
alliances and best practices, are reaping measurable rewards.
Maintenance of the lab that we have renovated at Foreman, we
didn't do it alone. I want to offer our thanks to the Chicago
Public Schools who heard we were renovating a lab and students
were doing experiments in molecular biology with paper and
pencil, they joined us to expand the project.
Abbott scientists and engineers are participating like
never before. I recently met a Harvard-trained scientist who
pointed out that this type of community involvement was crucial
to his job satisfaction at Abbott. He said that scientists and
engineers crave opportunities that allow them to apply their
skills and knowledge in a way where they truly make a
difference. I also met recently a young African-American woman,
a Ph.D., working as a senior clinical research scientist, who
told me that she can't wait for the next chance to get in front
of young girls at under-served elementary schools to tell them
that you can do it too. And we have seen other evidence that
shows that these programs are having a positive impact on
student attitudes toward science and science careers.
Chairman Lipinski, I agree with you. No single stakeholder
can solve this crisis alone and only through all of us working
together can we effectively address this challenge. As you
develop policy and support of K-12 science education, we offer
our experience as a benchmark but most importantly, we offer
our ongoing commitment and support as you work to advance this
important cause. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Pickus follows:]
Prepared Statement of Katherine F. Pickus
Introduction
In this country, science and innovation, especially as they relate
to human health, will be key to addressing some of our greatest
challenges. Multiple trends and cumulative forces have contributed to a
looming crisis in science and science education, impacting our ability
to compete as an innovative global leader. At the same time, our
workforce needs in science, engineering and technology are increasing
at a time when fewer U.S. citizens are training for these professions.
Over the past 50 years, U.S. innovation has led global developments
in science and technology, simultaneously improving our quality of life
and fueling our economy. However, declining investments in science
education, declining enrollments in science courses and professional
training programs, and a declining level of encouragement from parents
for their children to learn science and consider science and technology
careers are putting us at increasingly greater risk.
In order to increase the perceived value of science learning in
society, increase the level of scientific and technological literacy
across that society, and increase the number of young people selecting
science and technology career paths, we need to create more
opportunities to actively engage the scientific community in education.
Without immediate action, we risk losing our ability to find solutions
to the challenging global problems that all humanity face in the areas
of health, energy, security and the environment.
As a global, broad-based health care company, with scientific
expertise and products that span the human life cycle and the continuum
of care, Abbott is dependent on an increasingly sophisticated workforce
with strong science, technology, engineering, math (STEM), and 21st
century skills. Fifty-three percent of our U.S. workforce has a STEM
background and are recruited from around the globe. While Abbott values
their globally diverse workforce, it would be much to our advantage if
we could recruit a higher percentage of these STEM skilled employees
from our own research and development communities.
To this end, Abbott has taken the same scientific precision with
which we execute our day-to-day research and operations and applied it
to our approach to philanthropy and employee engagement in science
education. We have taken a strategic approach to science education that
capitalizes on Abbott's strengths in science and the strengths of a few
strategic partners well-versed in science education. Our investments in
science education can be characterized as:
1. Strategic, Systemic, Sustainable--working with students and
their families throughout the K-12 spectrum
2. Built Around Strong Partnerships--working with existing
successful organizations and education delivery models
3. Serving as a Catalyst--stimulating additional community
investment and engagement.
Strategic, Systemic, Sustainable
Our focus on STEM education represents an investment along the full
K-12 spectrum. This investment is part of Abbott's global science
education platform serving students of all ages, with authentic,
engaging and developmentally appropriate science learning experiences.
As a research-based company, we rely heavily on scientific evidence
and measurable outcomes. Research shows that early investment in a
child's education reaps tremendous rewards educationally, economically
and socially. According to the National Science Teachers Association,
research also indicates that when parents play an active role, children
achieve greater success as students, regardless of socioeconomic
status, ethnic/racial background, or the parents' own level of
education (NSTA Position Statement on Parent Involvement in Science
Learning, 2008). Couple these factors with programs that are systemic
and sustainable and a model for success is created.
For this reason, Abbott has chosen to invest in programs that are
strategic, systemic and sustainable. The programs start with young
students and continue to provide opportunities through the K-12
educational spectrum.
To reach young children, and encourage greater participation from
parents, Abbott has formed a partnership with the non-profit Family
Science organization. Together we developed Abbott Family Science, a
unique informal educational offering serving elementary school age
children and their parents. Abbott Family Science events actively
engage families typically under-served in the areas of science
education. These programs bring kids, parents, teachers and scientists
together for an exciting, hands-on experience focused on fundamental
science and 21st century skills (observation, problem-solving,
teamwork) and building confidence as life-long science learners. The
program is designed to be replicable year after year, forming a strong,
sustainable partnership between Abbott scientists and schools in their
local community. To date, programs have been launched throughout the
U.S. and internationally in Abbott research and development
communities.
Abbott has also developed experiences that match the needs of older
middle school students. At that age, interest in science often
declines, especially in girls. Providing a rich, authentic, real world
science experience is a way to introduce those students to the exciting
world of scientific exploration and discovery. Abbott's Operation
Discovery program is a guided experience at an Abbott facility in which
Abbott scientists serve as mentors and role models to the students and
facilitate hands-on experiments in small groups introducing the
students to some of the very same tools and procedures that Abbott
employees use everyday in their work.
At the high school level, Abbott is committed to enrichment
experiences that complement in-school learning, thereby optimizing
their investment with a systemic approach. By reaching students through
after school science programs, both during the school year and the
summer, Abbott meets a real need in the community and helps build
bridges between formal and informal education. Working with the
nationally acclaimed After School Matters (ASM) program, Abbott is
actively engaged in increasing the opportunities in science for under-
served students in the Chicago area.
In addition to their investment in After School Matters, Abbott
supports other Chicago area K-12 enrichment experiences including FIRST
Robotics and Project Exploration.
Built Around Strong Partnerships
Developing strong community partnerships ensures that programs
evolve based on the interests and needs of the audiences being served,
and that they are sustainable and have a lasting impact over time. At
Abbott, we believe we can make valuable contributions to science
education by providing scientific expertise and access to authentic
STEM experiences. We also recognize that to have the strongest impact
and make the most efficient use of our own resources, a more strategic
approach to providing science education experiences is to partner with
educational organizations. Informal science education organizations
increasingly are being recognized for their crucial role in providing
innovative STEM education (Learning Science in Informal Environments:
People, Places and Pursuits, National Research Council, 2009).
In recent years, Abbott has increased their focus on partnering
with established non-profits and informal STEM providers. In the case
of Abbott Family Science, we developed our program in partnership with
the Foundation for Family Science, an established non-profit with
proven multilingual curriculum materials and program delivery models.
We have adapted the program to include Abbott employees, scientists and
engineers and are now delivering the program globally. The programs are
designed to be sustainable and will continue to grow. To date, programs
have been launched in the U.S. in Illinois, California, Ohio, Puerto
Rico, as well as internationally in Ireland and Singapore.
In Chicago, we are very proud of our partnership with one of the
Nation's leading after school initiatives, After School Matters (ASM),
to design and launch a science-based after school program for Chicago
area teens. Prior to 2007, ASM did not offer science enrichment to the
nearly 22,000 teens it serves annually. By investing in an existing,
successful informal education delivery model, Abbott has been working
with ASM to retool that model to provide innovative science learning
opportunities. After school and summer programs provide an opportunity
to reach diverse and under-served students, thus potentially increasing
both the size and diversity of our future science and engineering
workforce.
The result is ``science37'', a new category of after school
programming for Chicago-area youth, named after the original gallery37
arts program initiated by Chicago's First Lady, Maggie Daley. Abbott's
investment is intended to serve as a catalyst to both increase the
capacity of ASM and encourage further community engagement and
investment in after school science programming.
The science37 program provides teens with hands-on opportunities
that expose them to rewarding career opportunities and help them
develop marketable job skills that have immediate value in the
workplace. This innovative program also offers paid internships to high
school students in some of Chicago's most under-served schools.
Abbott's support of this partnership goes far beyond direct program
support. As part of Abbott's commitment to after school science, the
company provides ASM with expert consultants experienced in innovative
science and education program design, implementation and evaluation. To
date, Abbott has contributed over $1.5 million to after school science
programs in Chicago, which includes not only direct program support,
but also program research, development, evaluation and scientific
expertise.
Abbott scientists were directly involved in the design of the
partnership and continue to play a major role in the implementation of
two of science37's flagship courses in the Bio Sciences. Key components
include hands-on laboratory experiments, interaction with guest
scientists, visits to Abbott research and development sites, and a
culminating project using important 21st Century skills in research,
critical-thinking and communication.
Abbott continues to partner with ASM to design, expand and evaluate
these innovative science enrichment experiences, and to provide
strategic advice and educational expertise for further Science37
program development and implementation.
Understanding the impact of programs is key, and Abbott has
implemented a formal evaluation process to measure the impact of the
new science37 program. Early indications are that this program is
having a positive impact on student attitudes toward science and
science careers.
In the first full year of the program, students reported
significant changes in their attitudes toward science and science
careers:
Before taking a science37 course, only 33 percent of
the students were interested in ``pursuing a career in
science.'' In post-course surveys, this number increased to 78
percent.
Students' sense of whether ``It will be important for
me to know about science for my daily life'' increased from 47
percent to 89 percent.
Participants in the most recent session of science37 courses
reported significantly increased interest in taking additional biology
and chemistry courses in school.
While many after school programs have a strong interest in offering
science programming, these programs require significant support in
order to effectively implement high-quality science learning
opportunities (Coalition for Science After School Market Research
Study, December 2008). Private-public partnerships are critical for
leveraging existing effective delivery models, and for providing
expertise and innovative science content based on authentic science
experiences, interaction with working scientists and exposure to STEM
careers.
Serving as a Catalyst
In each of its programs, Abbott's investment is meant to serve as a
catalyst. Our investments are designed to increase the capacity of
leading informal science education institutions to deliver top-quality
K-12 STEM programming; increase the engagement of people, including
students, parents, teachers and our own employees in science education;
support improvements in STEM education locally and globally; and
increase the investment of other private sector corporations in this
important effort.
Abbott's investments are generating meaningful progress on a number
of fronts. Abbott's investment in ASM has resulted in increased
interest and investment from the Chicago area informal science
education community, formal education institutions and the corporate
sector. ASM's science37 program workshop classes have increased in
numbers from two to 24 in just three years. Informal science education
institutions across the Chicago area have expressed strong interest in
working with ASM to provide additional STEM programming and to
incorporate authentic science experiences and practicing scientists
into their programming.
Serving as a catalyst can sometimes result in unexpected and
refreshingly positive outcomes. In developing an after school science
program for Foreman High School in Chicago, we discovered that students
were forced to do their lab experiments with just paper and pencil--the
teacher was teaching molecular biology with no working laboratory
sinks, electricity or gas. Abbott renovated the lab, providing an
important resource for both after school students and science students
in classes throughout the day. That investment resulted in an
additional investment from Chicago Public Schools, making a full lab
renovation possible. This summer the full lab renovation is underway,
with a new, contemporary laboratory classroom space to be available to
all Foreman students this fall.
As a second example of the catalytic effect, we are now working
with Dr. Don Wink, who you will hear from shortly, at the University of
Illinois Chicago to create additional authentic research experiences
for the high school students enrolled in science37. UIC undergraduate
and graduate students will be involved in the program, providing strong
role models for the high school students.
In all of Abbott's K-12 science education programs, the company's
investment has been a catalyst for increasing the involvement of Abbott
volunteers in their community. The introduction of Abbott Family
Science in communities has resulted in continuing close relationships
between Abbott employees and local elementary schools. Existing
volunteer programs at Abbott research and development sites have been
reinvigorated by the introduction of Abbott Family Science and Abbott
Operation Discovery programs in their communities.
This connection to the community for Abbott employees, scientists
and engineers is not insignificant. Scientists crave opportunities that
allow them to apply their skills and knowledge in a way that can truly
make a difference.
Conclusion
In summary, we have learned a great deal from working with
experienced science education professionals to provide science
education opportunities to the community. Letting research guide our
strategic decisions, investing the full K-12 spectrum, evaluating our
impact and seeking continual improvement are all hallmarks of our
ongoing platform in science education.
All of these factors have allowed us to be strategic, both
internally and externally, in providing programs that are designed to
have the greatest possible impact for program participants, our
employees, and science education globally.
No single stakeholder can create the improvements we need to
address our nation's crisis in STEM education. By serving as a
catalyst, we have stimulated new program development and expanded
existing programs beyond their initial impact.
As we challenge ourselves as a company every day, we challenge
others to invest in those ideas, individuals and organizations that
show the greatest promise. Taking a systems approach to improving K-12
STEM education requires that all facets of the system work together and
contribute in significant ways. Abbott's science education initiatives
are grounded in strategic alliances and best practices that are now
reaping measurable rewards. In this spirit, we hope to inspire the next
generation of scientists who will deliver the breakthrough, lifesaving
medicines needed throughout the world today. We hope our testimony
assists the Science Committee as you develop policy and program models
in support of K-12 science education. Thank you for the opportunity to
share the Abbott Fund's experiences with you today.
Biography for Katherine F. Pickus
Kathy Pickus serves as Vice President of the Abbott Fund, the
company's philanthropic foundation, managing and developing programs
with not-for-profit organizations that address global needs in the area
of access to health care and science and medical innovation. She also
manages Abbott's disaster relief efforts and product donation program.
In addition, Kathy serves as the Divisional Vice President of Global
Citizenship and Policy for Abbott, overseeing the strategic direction
of the company's global citizenship initiatives and reporting.
Prior to joining Abbott in 2004, Ms. Pickus served as the Director
of Corporate Communications for Fruit of the Loom, Inc. Kathy joined
Fruit of the Loom, Inc., after serving as the Special Assistant for
National Security Affairs to the Vice President of the United States.
Her primary responsibility was to advise the Vice President on all
activities pertaining to U.S. foreign policy interests in sub-Saharan
Africa.
Ms. Pickus began her career at the United States Information
Agency, which at the time was a branch of the U.S. Department of State,
where she worked with private sector organizations to develop and
implement democratic institution building programs worldwide. In 1993,
Kathy was selected by the United Nations to serve as an election
monitor for the first-ever democratic elections held in the Republic of
South Africa. She currently serves on the U.S. Afghan Women's Council,
which is a cross-sectional working group dedicated to advancing the
status of women in Afghanistan currently based at Georgetown
University.
Discussion
Chairman Lipinski. Thank you, Ms. Pickus.
I want to thank all our witnesses for their testimony, and
now we will move on to the questions. I want to say, I am very
pleased to see especially at this time, our last week, almost
our last day before we are going to August recess to see so
many Members who are here and I think it really shows the
interest not only in STEM but it shows that Chicago just brings
everybody out.
I am going to, as I usually do, use my prerogative as
Chair; the Chair will ask the questions first but I want to
pass it along. I will leave myself to the end so right now I
recognize Ms. Fudge for five minutes.
Ms. Fudge. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank all of you for
being here today. I have a couple of questions actually. I am
going to begin with a question for Dr. Ward.
Dr. Ward, in his testimony, Dr. Wink emphasized that there
is a need to bring school principles into any STEM efforts so
that they can develop an appreciation for the importance of
STEM learning in their schools and to provide their teachers
with some support to implement reforms. Can you tell me what or
if NSF is doing anything or addressing the need to bring
principals and other administrators into your K-12 educational
programs?
Dr. Ward. Thank you for your question, Congresswoman Fudge.
I would say that we have a long history in fact in the
engagement of principals in particular but also other
administrators, as Dr. Wink described so well in his testimony.
Even dating back to our formal systemic reform efforts, we
recognized that it was critical for the progress, for the
success and sustainability of education to engage fully
administration, particularly principals, in the shared vision
of what was going on, the shared implementation and the shared
accountability of the reform undertaken. We found that this was
successfully demonstrated in a number of what we called at that
time process and outcome driver approach in our early systemic
efforts and we encouraged administrative support for both
process and outcome to look especially at coordination of sets
of policies and resources for excellence in STEM education with
facilitation and support of and commitment from a broad group
of stakeholders which you are hearing fully from the experts
here today that would include parents, industry and formal
science institutions in collaboration with the administrators
in the various systems. The role that the principals and other
administrators play in helping demonstrating the criticality of
high expectations for both the teachers and the students to
enjoy and to demonstrate proficiency in STEM content and also
the criticality of the support or acknowledging the support and
importance of data to actually inform the decisions that the
administrators would have to make and to track progress towards
success. So yes, we have a history there and we agree with you,
it is quite critical to have that component.
Ms. Fudge. Thank you so much; and this is to any member of
the panel. The test-score gap between minority and majority
students is considered one of the most frustrating problems in
public education. Experts say that such gaps result from
various entrenched factors, often due to socioeconomic factors
that can hinder them inside and outside the classroom. What is
being done now to remove the achievement gap in STEM fields and
how could we do a better job to eliminate some of these
disparities?
Mr. Lach. That is a great question. It is an issue that I
know is near and dear to the hearts of just about everyone who
works for the Chicago Public Schools. In my experience, we have
found that there are no silver bullets to closing the
achievement gap. There is not a certain test or certain
curriculum or certain kind of teacher that enables that. In
fact, there are--it is a multitude of supports all working
together that we can show will enable students to learn at high
levels. In Chicago and around the country, there are existent
proofs that show poor minority kids can and will learn at high
levels when all those supports are put in place. Our challenge
is to figure out how do we bring those existent proofs to
scale, and so our work on creating systems to enable external
partners to help us with the delivery of curriculum, our work
to create the right kind of accountability tools and metrics to
help schools know the right way to go and then connecting the
social service and the families and communities in the school
by extending the school day by more and more after-school and
Saturday programs all seem to work but we know we have to have
all of those levers be pulled in concert.
Ms. Fudge. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know my time has
expired, but I would certainly hope if there are other members
of the panel who would wish to respond that they might do so to
my office or in writing at some point. Thank you very much.
Chairman Lipinski. Thank you, Ms. Fudge. The Chair now
recognizes Dr. Ehlers.
Mr. Ehlers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and let me just
quickly follow up, Mr. Lach, on your last response. What is
your dropout rate in Chicago high schools, the overall dropout
rate?
Mr. Lach. There are several different ways to measure it
but it is around 50 percent, 55 percent.
Mr. Ehlers. 50 percent? Okay. That is not too bad compared
to what we face in Detroit.
First of all, I just want to commend Ms. Pickus on what you
are doing about getting scientists and engineers in the
schools. Every time I speak to a group of scientists and
engineers, I encourage them to go to their nearest school or
their children's school and offer to speak and perhaps offer to
take the students on a field trip to their labs, or if they are
engineers, take them out in the field and show them how bridges
are built. A lot of them are excited about that. The
unfortunate feedback I get at times is that the schools don't
want to do it, and that is where I think you play a key role at
persuading the schools and doing a lot of the legwork. They
don't want to do field trips. There is too much time, too much
trouble. There is liability and there is expense and you cannot
allow someone in the school without knowing long ahead of time
what they are going to say. A lot of them are afraid of that.
So thank you and to Abbott for what you are doing because I can
assure you, based on my conversations, it is desperately needed
to have someone there to make the arrangements and break the
ice.
Also, Ms. Daley, a comment about your statement that most
scientists are led to science by an early experience. That is
also my situation. I don't know whether I would have become a
scientist without that. But my sister, when she was in high
school and was taking high school chemistry, Popular Science
magazine gave free magazines to every student in high school
physics or chemistry. She took them home. I read them. I
remember doing home experiments and I was just astounded that a
little boy in a town of 800 people who had never met a
scientist and never expected to meet any could sit there and
make carbon dioxide and channel it down to a candle flame and
make it go out. I didn't realize it was contributing to global
climate change by doing that. But nevertheless, it was an
``aha'' moment for me, and I think it is very important to
generate and encourage those ``aha'' moments.
Dr. Wink, a quick question. For your MSP program, how are
the teachers selected and where does your support come from
outside of NSF?
Dr. Wink. So as to the selection process, and this goes
back to the question of principals, we are actually going to be
working with schools, and one of things we will be doing this
fall is working in developing some examples but then also in
dialogue with the schools to produce an application process
where it is teams of teachers but also the school
administration comes into the program. So we are not looking to
work with individual teachers. We will expect that the teachers
that are in the team will have a shared commitment but they
will also have initial training appropriate for being a science
teacher in the high schools and then we will be looking at what
their particular needs are in terms of which of the cohorts
that we bring them into. So we really need teachers who are
ready to engage and have initial proper training because they
are going to be in graduate courses that will go considerably
farther but it is not going to be as individuals. It will be
teams that show that the leadership components of the program
actually will have some traction within the schools.
Mr. Ehlers. Very good. I have been in institutes before in
my prior life and that is a key factor, getting the right
people involved, and it sounds like you have a very good
approach.
Back to you, Mr. Lach. you've emphasized several times the
rich resources you have available in Chicago and the use you
make of them. How would you advise or what would you advise
schools in smaller school districts further from urban centers?
Is there any way you would see that they would be able to
substitute for experience that you are making such good use of?
Mr. Lach. A couple comments on that. I think there is a lot
of local resources in every community. It doesn't have to be
something like the Adler Planetarium or the University of
Illinois at Chicago. I am sure there is an awful lot of science
that happens in local businesses and the agricultural
industries and what not in rural areas that could be leveraged
in those sorts of ways. That said, I think there is also the
issue of driving capacity in rural areas is a really difficult
problem to solve because we depend on our partners in Chicago a
great deal. I think something I would encourage local
administrators to consider is ways to leverage some of the
national work around curriculum design, around teacher training
institutes, around online learning that might be available to
their locations. For instance, there are tremendous computer-
based programs. We use some of them to do our high school
mathematics, which don't have to be invented locally but can be
purchased. Most of them were developed with NSF resources at
that point and that can be used to really drive that kind of
work.
Mr. Ehlers. I see my time is expired, so I thank each and
every one of you.
Chairman Lipinski. Thank you, Dr. Ehlers, and I will
recognize Mr. Carnahan.
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the
panel for being here on this subject. It is one of great
interest to me, and I guess I want to start by asking a
question that has really been prominent in my hometown in St.
Louis. Like a lot of urban school systems, we have had
problems, and at the same time, you know, we have had a State
board come take over from our elected school board as they try
to grapple with changes in the system. There has been a big
disconnect, a disconnect between what our really world-class
institutions and resources around the area from universities,
corporations, institutions like the St. Louis Science Center,
the Missouri Botanical Gardens, the Danforth Science Center.
The list goes on. So we have this amazing infrastructure of
institutions but there is this disconnect with the public
school system and those resources in those towns and being able
to be involved and support the public schools and especially
STEM education programs, and they have some stake in seeing the
best and brightest kids get into those fields so they can be a
part of those institutions, and I guess I am very--this is a
fundamental question for our community but I think for a lot
around the country, but I guess I am asking, how do you bridge
that gap? Are there Chicago or other cities that have done this
well, and we really are interested to learn from them in terms
how best to make those connections and support the schools
generally but also with regard to STEM education.
Mr. Lach. I can offer some examples of what we have learned
in Chicago. We have made plenty of mistakes on the way to do
that but I can tell you what we have learned. First, we found
it was really important to have very clear requests from all of
our partners. We are the Chicago public schools. We need as
much help as we can get. I am not really in a position to tell
anybody their help isn't welcome. That said, if I can go to a
university and say you know, I need more help in middle school
science than I do K-5 math because U of C is covering K-5 math,
that is really helpful. So the first thing we did was with our
strategy sort of carved out the pieces and made sure each of
our players and partners had some ownership over those pieces.
The second thing that we have done is, we had enough
political capital to move things in that direction. This came
from several places. The mayor has always been very, very
interested in science and mathematics education. In fact, he
convenes every year a carnival. We call it Science in the City.
It celebrates Chicago as a city of science and organizes all
the people who do science and science-related activities
together. That helps bring people along. We have a plan that is
the center of that and that pulls things in place. Having
resources from external sources is also very, very helpful. At
the high school level, we leaned on the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation. For middle school, we have really focused on
resources from the Chicago Community Trust, the largest local
foundation. For much of the work around organizing
universities, that has come from the National Science
Foundation. If there isn't a political will to get the
university presidents and deans of education and museum
presidents all in the same room, having external resources to
sort of grease the skids and make that happen has been really,
really useful.
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you.
Dr. Ward. I would add and fully agree with what Dr. Lach
has pointed out, the political will is quite critical. Making
the case of the economic competitiveness that a city or a state
or a rural area stands to benefit from this kind of coherence
and seamlessness throughout the learning continuum have served
in a number of places as a powerful incentive. You may be
familiar, several years ago the Council on Competitiveness
initiated an innovation initiative and talked about clusters of
competitiveness and clusters of innovation and, you know, the
saying it takes a village to raise a child, for that child to
come through and become a productive citizen either of that
hometown area or elsewhere, all of the components that Dr. Lach
talked about are quite, quite critical. From the federal level,
particularly at the NSF level, the math and science
partnership, for example, there is an explicit emphasis on that
partnership notion. The awards are made to colleges and
universities but there have to be strong partnerships with that
K-12 system and all other relevant stakeholders in those
respective communities, and so the notion of synergy,
connectivity, integration of the critical components not only
within the system but I would argue within the entire community
that is being served is quite, quite critical.
In terms of tools through that program, there is something
called Math and Science Partnership Network, MSP Net, and it is
designed expressly to be an accessible tool not only to MSP PIs
but anyone interested in both the research and implementation
that is taking place within a network of MSP activities. And
then finally, I would simply add back to the Congresswoman's
statement about the achievement gap, I would recommend the MSP
Net and will make provisions to get copies available to
interested Members. Just last fall, the Peabody Journal of
Education did a special journal issue on the MSP project itself
and it details explicitly all of the data about the achievement
gaps that were reduced across the several MSP Net sites, and we
will provide that to you before recess. Thank you.
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you.
Ms. Fudge. You know that is tomorrow, right?
Dr. Ward. Yes.
Chairman Lipinski. I was hoping it was today.
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Lipinski. Thank you, Mr. Carnahan.
Dr. Wink. Mr. Chairman, if I may just----
Chairman Lipinski. Yes.
Dr. Wink.--an additional point from the university
perspective. The colleges and universities are doing something
already that is vital to K-12 and it needs to be linked more
tightly to what goes on in STEM education reform and that is
teacher preparation. In my own background it was actually in
the area of teacher preparation that I first started to engage
in these questions, and that has to be something that is shared
on the campuses between the colleges of education and the
departments of mathematics and science. It is an important
requirement of NSF funding but it is also something to pay
careful attention to. The universities are creating the
teachers and enroll in this process to do it well and to make
sure those teachers know not only the STEM content but also
some of the issues associated with educating the children in
these particular contexts is absolutely vital.
Chairman Lipinski. Thank you, Dr. Wink, and I will
recognize Mr. Neugebauer.
Mr. Neugebauer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Before we get
started, I think Mr. Lach probably pointed out a much bigger
problem than STEM education and that is the dropout rate in
America, and it is almost embarrassing that one of the most
prosperous countries in the world has some of the highest
dropout rates and the highest incarceration rates, but that is
not the subject of this hearing but certainly should be
something that we should be very concerned about.
You know, I hear a lot of folks talk about, you know, in
the school districts around the country difficulty of retaining
math and science teachers. There is not--in many school
districts there is not enough math and science teachers, and
certainly that is an issue that needs to be addressed. I am
from the business world, and when we used to have a deficiency
in our team, we would go out and recruit the talent that we
needed to complete our team, and sometimes that talent would
cost more to acquire than other skill sets. Has there been
discussion in the academic world K-12 about if we need more
math and science teachers that we would pay a higher rate to
attract and retain a sufficient number of math and science
teachers to make sure that we have those folks on board? I will
throw that out to the panel.
Mr. Lach. I have long been an advocate for paying
mathematics and science teachers more. It was not an issue that
we could successfully include in the most recent contract
negotiations in Chicago but it is something that I think is
particularly important. I do believe that our current Secretary
of Education supports that idea as well.
Mr. Neugebauer. Does anybody else want to comment? Dr.
Ward?
Dr. Ward. Yes. Certainly we appreciate the importance of an
adequate salary for teachers doing some of the most important
work that takes place in the Nation. One particular instance is
through our recent Noyce program. There are explicit provisions
made such that during this teacher preparation time existing
teachers are paid a stipend, if you will, for the period of
time that they are undergoing the training through this program
but the issue that you speak to is far greater than stipends
for preparation itself and it is one that continues to loom
large on the national horizon.
Mr. Neugebauer. So is your opinion yes or no, you think we
ought to pay more for----
Dr. Ward. Yes, I think so.
Dr. Wink. Sir, if I may add something, please?
Mr. Neugebauer. Yes.
Dr. Wink. It is also a question of understanding the
opportunities, as Michael said earlier, that really do come
from being in an urban setting so there are pay differentials
between CPS and some suburban districts which hamper the
ability of CPS to retain teachers, and that is across the
board, but in particular in math and science, and yet it is in
my experience the case that on the same pay, a teacher will
want to teach in Chicago in almost every case, and the reason
is because of the excitement and the opportunities that are
there. So we need to address that gap. But the other thing that
we need is for the teachers to recognize that those
opportunities exist, so we commonly work with individuals who
may be from a background that is not in the city and giving
them the opportunity to see what really good teaching goes on
in the CPS schools and in very many cases really turns them on
to that opportunity. So including urban education experiences
within the training of teachers is an important part to
bringing teachers into these higher-need environments. They are
not going to just come in when they get their bachelor's
degree. They need to be trained in those environments as well.
Mr. Ehlers. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. Neugebauer. I would yield, yes.
Mr. Ehlers. Thank you very much. I have been an advocate of
pay differential for many years and generally it has ended up
being, as Mr. Lach said, when you get to union negotiating,
there are very few science and math teachers and so that
negotiators worry much more about the broad body than they do
about specific disciplines. I think this is something that has
to be addressed in some other way, perhaps through additional
stipends from other organizations which some school districts
use but you are right on. My colleague is right on on this
point. We live in a country that believes in a free enterprise
system. The amount you get paid in your particular job depends
on what could earn elsewhere, and I don't care whether it is
teaching or working in an office or something, and it is clear
that a typical high school science teacher can get at least
$20,000 or $30,000 a year more by going into industry. Why
shouldn't the schools meet the competition? I don't think it
should be a matter of union contracts. I think it should just
be a matter of competition. With that, I yield back.
Chairman Lipinski. Thank you. I wanted to hopefully in my
questions here sort of try to bring a lot of this together
since we are talking about a systems approach, and being the
engineer I am, I am sitting here drawing a diagram. But we have
NSF, a representative of someone that runs an information
education institute. We have K-12 represented here, and
university. We have industry here. But beyond that, you know,
we have talked a little bit about we also have out there
foundations, retired professionals. We have had a hearing
earlier this year about including informal educational
institutions, museums. We talked here about the aquarium and
planetarium. We also have in the Chicago area and some other
places that are fortunate across the country national labs, and
I am probably leaving out some others, but the question is,
what--I am looking for what recommendations that you would
give. If you were going somewhere else to another area that had
a lot of these similar potential for bringing together so many
different pieces, so many different stakeholders, what would
your recommendations be as to how to best try to coordinate?
Because we heard stories from each of you about a little bit of
the coordination that you have done, especially Mrs. Daley
worked with Abbott for some coordination. We have heard some
other examples of how that is done. Mr. Lach talked about how
Mayor Daley has been important in emphasizing Chicago in
science and technology. But how else--how would you recommend
going about making these connections or telling someone else,
telling another city how do you make these connections and make
them work to really have a systemic approach to STEM education
to really better educate our children in STEM education? I am
just trying to throw that out there and give you a chance to
think about, give some recommendations for what you would do
and what you would recommend. Ms. Pickus.
Ms. Pickus. Yes, I would just like to also say that there
is some great leadership that has been demonstrated by Mayor
and Ms. Daley. It is unique for the city of Chicago. They have
reached out to unusual, atypical partners and they have brought
people together to approach a challenge in a uniform manner,
and I think that if we are to take the model that is taking
place in Chicago and find what makes it work, we can share it
with other communities. You know, Abbott has facilities all
across the United States, all across the world, and what we are
trying to do is piece this together. You know, clearly the
leadership that they have provided has given us, you know,
great vision to establish the kind of partnerships that we
could have in Columbus, Ohio, for example, where we have a very
large presence, and we found that by looking at what is going
on in Columbus, small siloed activities were already taking
place. Our nutrition scientists who are based there were
reaching out to their counterparts at the Ohio State University
and they were together going to elementary schools or they were
going to a museum. It is about looking at bringing others in
and establishing some order and getting others to as a group
provide leadership for a long-term vision in this area. So I
suggest we look at Chicago and share the model with St. Louis,
Columbus, other places around the country.
Chairman Lipinski. Ms. Daley.
Ms. Daley. I would say that I agree with you, Kathy. I
think that--when I do talk to other cities and mayors, I will
say really in this case it is really important for the Mayor to
be dedicated to these things, and it will fall into place. You
know, if a Mayor gathers all these people around the table and
says we are going to make this work, I mean, it is really a
great step in the right direction. So in a way it is executive
driven, I think, but then once you get these people together,
then the partnerships develop and everyone I think feels
committed to trying to, you know, enhance the whole idea of
advancing STEM education, and you know, one of the reasons that
business is that businesses can also see how it will affect the
economy of the city, and I think that it really is relatively
easy to do. Once you gather the people together, the
partnerships become, you know, like motivated friends actually,
to make it happen.
Chairman Lipinski. Dr. Ward.
Dr. Ward. I think the role of dissemination of actually
what works and to be candid, what has not worked, so that one
can learn from lessons of previous existence proofs, if you
will. We learned quite a lot during the urban systemic program,
for example, but there was also the rural systemic program. We
now have math and science partnerships documenting very
carefully and rigorously in terms of accountability of all the
critical components that are necessary to make a systems
approach in the effectiveness of STEM education--it can't be
understated. These networks that we are talking about, the use
of technology, for example, so that people have ready access
while they are in the process of trying to mount these kinds of
activities. From the federal level, we do whatever we can in
terms of outreach and making available those best practices and
dissemination. We are talking with the Department of Education
now as they are about to distribute quite a lot of ARRA money
to work together, such that best practices that NSF has
supported over the past several decades can be immediately made
available to communities, and that discussion is going quite
well. We have a workshop coming up I think within a month's
time, for example, for those kinds of things. But recalling
what Dr. Wink had said in his written testimony, I was very
struck by it. This is not easy. It is not quite as easy. It
takes a long-term mounting of trust and relationships among the
critical players, the appreciation of rigor and high
expectations, the needed infrastructure in place, not only just
the physical infrastructure but financial resources in place,
the necessary policies being aligned well, standards,
standards-based instruction being aligned well so that you can
see the necessary student attainment in the STEM fields that
are so desired.
Chairman Lipinski. Thank you. Any other comments?
Ms. Daley. Yes, I would like to comment. We are talking
about two very important things, and one is changing and
enhancing what is happening during the school day, but I would
also, because of course I am involved in out-of-school
activities, I think at the same time we have to consider the
importance of that just as Dr. Ehlers was saying where often is
that spark. We want to have more scientists and engineers in
the future of our country, and if in fact it does seem that
quite a few of them develop that interest in and out-of-school,
I think that that is something that we should pursue and think
about because it is actually easier to do. It is important to
work on the system and continue to do that but to make impact
out of school is relatively easy to do and also is very cost-
effective. It is not nearly as expensive as the traditional
school day. So I just think that that should definitely be a
priority as well.
Chairman Lipinski. I yield to Dr. Ehlers.
Mr. Ehlers. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I just
wanted to comment on an experience I had in the past few weeks.
I learned to fly many years ago and then gave it up because of
a number of reasons and got back into it recently, but I met a
teacher in Grand Rapids. He was a high school teacher, and he
had learned to fly at one point. He was hoping to become an
airline pilot and return to the Bahamas where he was from and
run tours. He never quite managed to do that, but he decided
that a good way to get the kids excited, elementary school
kids, excited about math and science was to have them study
aviation, and so he volunteered to teach them after school and
has them build model airplanes. I met him at an event where a
chapter of the Experimental Aviation Association, of which I am
a member, was meeting. We invited him in, gave the kids rides
in real airplanes. It is amazing. I would predict that more of
those kids would go into math and science as a result of that
simple experience than would have almost any other experience
he could have given them in the school. They love airplanes.
They love to build their own now and so forth. So I think there
are endless opportunities to use that after-school time to
really develop kids' interest in math and science and careers
in those fields other than just the standard things that we
have been doing in the past. Thank you.
Chairman Lipinski. Does anyone else on the panel want to
add anything here?
Ms. Pickus. One last quick comment. You are talking about
during school education and then after school and how they
relate, but one of the things that we saw with After School
Matters was the investment that we have made in the facility at
one high school actually impacted the course, the science
courses for during school and leveraging those investments and
also with regard to attracting teachers, and I think the
teachers we are working with at Foreman High School, you know,
their opportunity to reach and do more work in an after-school
environment I think also encourages them to become more engaged
in the Chicago public school system and also engages them with
the students long-term.
Chairman Lipinski. I certainly think, and we all know,
everything feeds off each other in all these and I certainly
know that that was the case in my life, in my education and
growing up and it was very significant to be in Chicago and
have the opportunities that I had, you know, and I have talked
about this many times, going to the Museum of Science and
Industry, the aquarium, Adler Planetarium, Brookfield Zoo and
all those things, you know, especially that really played into
and got me more and more interested in eventually getting a
degree in engineering. But I want to thank you for all your
work. Ms. Daley.
Ms. Daley. I actually have one little anecdote that I would
like to share. One time when we were doing a robotics program
in school that was having difficulties, and it wasn't one of
our more successful high schools but it was, you know, always
these teenagers are wonderful, and I was observing a Tech 37
program which was dealing with robotics, and what happened is,
I noticed a gentleman was there observing these kids and he
came over to me and he said, you know, Mrs. Daley--you saw 25
teenagers very much engaged in robotics, they actually were
walking on the tables and on the floor and they were all having
a wonderful, joyous experience in this learning experience, and
he came over to me and he said, you know, he said, I have to
tell you this, I have been teaching in this school for 25
years, I am a math teacher, and he said sometimes I would get a
little down thinking that these young people really just don't
care, they are not interested, and he said after watching this
this afternoon, he said I realize that I need to change the way
I teach. So that was an ``aha'' moment for him, I think, and so
I think that working together out of school and in school and
getting all of us, you know, to realize the potential of our
teenagers. Even in the schools that are failing, the potential
is great. So we have to create these activities that allow
these youngsters to show their possibilities.
Chairman Lipinski. And it is not just the students who
learn. We all learn as we go along and learn how to do this
better and get some reinforcement out of doing these things
with these kids, and I just want to thank you for the work that
you do. I want to thank all of our witnesses today for their
testimony. The record will remain open for two weeks for
additional statements from the Members and for answers to any
follow-up questions the Committee may ask of the witnesses.
With that, the witnesses are excused and the hearing is now
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:32 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]