Goals Proving Elusive for Science Education : Funding: The many conflicting ideas on how to revamp the system are only adding to the growing crisis.

In setting ambitious achievement goals for science education, President Bush in his State of the Union address Wednesday night spotlighted one of the nation’s most thoroughly documented problems. The abysmal state of science education has been chronicled by more than 300 studies in recent years.

Now comes the hard part: There are as many conflicting ideas on how to revamp the system as there are reports.

“We know what the goals are. But we still don’t know how to achieve them,” said James Rutherford, a leading science educator. “One reason we can’t make any headway is we haven’t had a clear national strategy on how to get from where we are to where we want to be.”

As a result, there is disagreement on virtually every issue, such as whether to encourage or ban the use of calculators and computers, whether to concentrate on basic science literacy for all or for only the best and brightest, whether to delay math training until students master reading and writing and whether to focus resources on mentoring and other support systems.

Agreement on Need

The only consensus is on the critical need for more federal leadership and funding. But while the new Bush budget proposals represent a start in that direction, there is a long way to go, experts say.

Just last week the private Economic Policy Institute here, in an analysis of education spending from kindergarten through grade 12, put the United States in 14th place among 16 industrialized nations in such spending as a percentage of national income, ahead of only Ireland and Australia.

The burgeoning crisis in science education is unprecedented since the Russians launched Sputnik in 1957 and triggered a new emphasis on science education.

The concern comes amid foreboding forecasts that the overwhelming majority of new workers entering the work force by the year 2000 will be female, black and Latino--groups that have fared the worst in science education.

Yet there is reason for hope, judging from the few nascent attempts to restructure science education around the country, including some in California.

Sets Goal to Be Best

In his speech, the President simply declared, without getting into specifics: “By the year 2000, U.S. students must be first in the world in math and science achievement.”

Bush also mentioned several other “education goals” to be achieved by that year, including a high school graduation rate of “no less than 90%.”

Despite the lack of details, educators were pleased by Bush’s mention of education, in general, and the goal he set for science and math, in particular.

“That’s a refreshing breeze,” said Bill G. Aldridge, executive director of the National Science Teachers Assn. “We certainly don’t need any more studies.”

Here’s what some of those studies show:

--29% of all high schools have no physics teacher, 17% no chemistry teacher and 8% no biology teacher.

--The typical high school biology textbook introduces more new words than the first two years of a foreign language class.

--Student disenchantment with science appears to take hold about the 8th grade. While 5th graders rank 8th among industrialized nations in science, by the time they reach 9th grade, they have dropped to 15th, according to National Science Foundation data.

--Of high school students who enter college intent on pursuing a science career, 40% drop out after the first course and 60% by graduation.

--College enrollment in science courses is at an all-time low and industry already is feeling the shortage.

The Aerospace Industries Assn. said that 67% of its members--including most of the top Pentagon and NASA contractors--are suffering from a shortage of scientists and engineers. And 55% report a shortage of skilled production workers.

In all, the NSF predicts a shortfall of 560,000 scientists and engineers by 2010.

To meet such a demand if the graduation rate for white males in those areas remained steady, U.S. colleges and universities would have to graduate twice as many women, five times as many blacks and seven times as many Latinos--beginning this year, says the congressionally chartered Task Force on Women, Minorities and the Handicapped in Science and Technology.

In the Administration’s new budget, the NSF would get a 14% increase, to $2.38 billion, including $251 million for science education. Moreover, according to White House Science Adviser D. Allan Bromley, the Administration intends to double the foundation budget by 1993, from the base year of 1987.

In overall federal funding for science education, the President is proposing a 26% increase, from $841 million to $1.06 billion, spread among numerous agencies, such as the NSF, the Department of Education, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health.

Project 2061 Launched

Among the new attempts to reform science education is Project 2061, launched by the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science. It is named for the year that Halley’s Comet will next pass Earth.

The project’s current three-year phase enables teams of 25 teachers in six school districts, including the cities of San Diego and San Francisco, to work four days a month--and daily each summer--to design experimental K to 12 curricula, according to Rutherford, AAAS’s chief education officer.

A shorter-term, federally funded project, launched by the National Science Teachers Assn., is designed to come up with new science core programs for 7th through 12th graders that abandon the century-old “layer cake” approach, which requires 10th graders to take biology, 11th graders chemistry and 12th graders physics, Aldridge said.

The goal, he said, is to expose more students--especially women and minorities--to a broad spectrum of science topics earlier but less intensely.

THE CHANGING WORK FORCE

The nation’s pool of talent for new scientists and engineers by the end of the century will be predominantly female, minority or disabled--the very segments of our population we have not attracted to science and engineering careers in the past.

An estimated 42.8 million persons will enter the overall labor force between 1988 and the year 2000. The breakdown:

White Women: 35.2% White Men: 31.6% Black Women: 6.9% Black Men: 5.7% Hispanic Women: 6.8% Hispanic Men: 8.3% Asian and Other (Women): 2.6% Source: Bureau of Labort Statistics’ Task Force on Women, Minorities and the Handicapped in Science and Technology.