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국제적 과학교육학술논문 요약과 외국 과학교육 및 국제화
[NSTA Express] Congressional Leaders Release Discussion Draft of No Child Left Behind
Late last week Congressional leaders released a discussion draft of the revised language under consideration for the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act.
A number of substantive changes in this discussion draft are of interest to science and math educators. Title II authorizes new grants that would provide performance pay bonuses of up to $12,500 for teachers of math, science, special education, and other shortage subjects in high-needs schools; career ladder programs for teachers; teacher residency programs that would pair a new teacher with an experienced mentor teacher for one year; a study on the correlation between teacher certification and licensure and teacher effectiveness; and grants for teacher centers that would provide high-quality professional development. The draft also stipulates that Title II funding for a state would be contingent on whether that state was taking steps to assess whether poor and minority students are being disproportionately taught by inexperienced, unqualified, or out-of-field teachers, and to address this problem.
The draft language also includes changes to the Math and Science Partnership, most notably requiring that partnership activities be modeled after effective NSF programs with demonstrated success. The language also calls for increased coordination between NSF and the U.S. Department of Education, and for more assistance from NSF to state departments of education administering the grants.
New Math Success for All grants to local educational agencies would provide targeted help to low-income students in kindergarten through secondary school who are struggling with mathematics and whose achievement is significantly below grade level.
Congressional leaders are accepting comments on this NCLB discussion draft until September 14. In late August, Congressional leaders had released a draft discussion of NCLB’s Title I. Language that would amend NCLB to specifically include science assessment scores in each state's accountability system (Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP) was not included in this draft. The discussion draft does, however, include science proficiency as one of multiple measures of student achievement that schools can choose to be evaluated on. Read the Title I discussion draft (435 pages) and read the NSTA response to the proposed language.
House leaders are moving aggressively on this bill. They have tentatively planned a hearing on the proposed Title I language for September 10, and are planning to mark up (approve) the entire bill the last week of September. In the Senate, committee staff are also working to develop a draft bill, but no language has been released yet.
Please send any comments or questions to Jodi Peterson at jpeterson@nsta.org.
NSTA, Week of September 10, 2007
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