U.S. Students Flunk Science Assessment

California leads the world in Nobel Prize winners and high-tech companies, but the state’s students trail everyone else in science literacy, finishing dead last among 40 states in a nationwide examination.

Nationwide, scores among fourth and eighth graders remained about the same on the exam taken in 2000 as they had four years earlier: About 60% of students achieved at least a basic level, but only about three in 10 were considered proficient--meaning that they knew fundamental facts and could apply them in new situations.

Among high school seniors, however, scores dropped during the period, so that barely half now meet even basic requirements.

California’s science results are similar to those obtained on tests of mathematics and reading proficiency released earlier: The state’s elite students do very well, but the average is consistently among the lowest in the country.

California’s scores were similarly poor four years ago. That time, the only states whose students did worse than California’s were Hawaii, Mississippi and Louisiana. This time, no state did worse than California among fourth-graders. Among eighth-graders, California was tied for last with Hawaii. In both cases, American Samoa, Guam and the Virgin Islands were worse than any state. State-by-state rankings were not prepared for high school seniors.

In part, California’s low scores reflect the large proportion of the state’s students who have difficulty reading English, state officials said. Between one-fifth and one-quarter of the state’s students, varying by grade level, are not fluent in English.

But that is not the entire story. In the eighth grade, for example, California’s non-Latino white students--most of whom are fluent in English--were among the lowest-scoring non-Latino whites in the country. Children of college graduates also scored very low compared with their peers elsewhere.

And nationwide, scores of white students at the high school level dropped on the science test, causing the performance gap between white and minority students to narrow slightly.

“We want to narrow the gap between the races, but not that way,” said former astronaut George “Pinky” Nelson, who directs the K-12 school program of the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science.

The poor science results reflect the reality that many schools teach little or no science and have few teachers with science training. Also, state competency tests generally do not include science questions, giving schools little incentive for teaching the subject.

The nation’s poor showing, and especially California’s, do not bode well for the future of high-tech industries, government officials and industry leaders said.

Already, about a third to a half of new scientists hired by American companies are immigrants, noted Edward Donley, a former chairman of Air Products and Chemicals Inc.

“The numbers and problems are much greater, however, in finding technicians to fill the middle-level jobs requiring some scientific training,” he said. “Business has a hard time finding the people we need because most students don’t have the science and math they need.”

Steve Wozniak, one of the legendary founders of Apple Computer Inc., who has spent recent years teaching children how to use computers, also expressed concern about the results.

“The future of our economy is going to be influenced by new technologies,” he said. “That all comes from science.”

Experts do not see any prospect for immediate change. Efforts to improve science education, including better training for elementary and high school teachers, new textbooks and Web-based materials, could all yield results, but not for several years, Nelson said.

“Five years down the road we could see some improvement,” he said.

In many California school districts, science is simply not taught much, said state Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin. State tests do not include science until ninth grade, she said. “As I’ve always said, ‘What gets measured is what gets done.’ ”

Science will be added to the tests for the lower grades in the spring of 2003, she said. New science standards will also go before the State Board of Education next year.

Teacher training must also be improved, Nelson said. Most teachers in elementary and middle schools have an undergraduate training in science that “is pretty pitiful--broad, shallow survey courses. They get through college knowing no science and are then expected to teach it,” he said.

At the upper levels, teachers “generally get a pretty good education in science content, but are shortchanged in their preparation as teachers. And once they are in the field, they are not given the resources they need,” he said.

On the test, students whose teachers were science majors in college did better than those whose teachers were not.

The federal government’s National Assessment of Educational Progress tests students every four years. This year’s science survey included 46,000 students in the fourth, eighth and 12th grades whose scores produced the national survey and another 200,000 students whose scores produced detailed results for the 40 states studied.

Overall, about 29% of fourth graders, 32% of eighth graders and only 18% of high school seniors were scored as proficient.

Boys opened a small gap over girls between 1996 and 2000 in the fourth and eighth grades, according to the report, but the difference disappeared by the 12th grade.

White students had the highest scores, followed by Asian/Pacific Islanders and Native Americans. Blacks had the lowest average score--about one-third that of whites. The average for Latino students was about half that of whites.

The scores also indicate that the basic-level science classes that many schools call general science are “worthless,” said Robert C. Rice, chief operating officer for the Council for Basic Education. “Students who have not taken any science class score the same as those who had taken a course labeled general science.”

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For full results see https://www.nagb.org

Times staff writer Dave Wilson contributed to this report.

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Science Exam Rankings and Questions

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