| Teacher Supplies home >
Teacher Supplies News Center > Two Problems in Need of One Solution
Two Problems in Need of One Solution
Click
here to see our selection of Teacher Supplies.
 Beryl
Lieff Benderly
United States
7 April 2006
For the great majority of Ph.D.s, high school science is a thing
of the distant past. But if Jo Anne Vasquez--pictured left--and
other members of the National Science Board (NSB) have their way,
holders of advanced degrees will soon be returning to the secondary
school classroom, this time as teachers.
The nation will need 240,000 new math and science teachers over
the next decade, according to a recent NSB report. Tens of thousands
of postdocs meanwhile hunt futilely for faculty jobs. With the right
policies and incentives, Vasquez suggests, each of these two problems
might hold at least a partial solution to the other.
America's precollege science and math education is mediocre enough
to threaten the nation's continued scientific supremacy in today's
"changed world" of globalized science, warns Science and
Engineering Indicators 2006, NSB's latest biennial report on the
state of the nation's research enterprise, which was released in
February. NSB members feel such strong "continued and growing
concern" about the situation that they also issued a shorter
companion document, America's Pressing Challenge—Building
a Stronger Foundation, as an urgent call to action.
"A high-quality teaching workforce" is vital to providing
a "world-class education in STEM [science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics] fields for all Americans," Challenge declares.
Some of the excellent new teachers the nation needs, Vasquez noted
at a Washington, D.C., briefing, could be postdocs attracted into
the classroom partially by a desire to pass on the excitement of
science but also by new programs that could provide incentives such
as higher pay and opportunities for continued participation in research.
Improving Incentives
Her own experience tells Vasquez that several things need to be
fixed if teaching is to entice holders of advanced science degrees.
Vasquez doesn't just hold a Ph.D.; a former elementary school teacher,
she is the first person ever to serve on NSB who has actually been
a K-12 educator. (The other 23 members of the prestigious, congressionally
chartered and presidentially appointed body, which oversees the
National Science Foundation and advises the president and Congress
on science and engineering policy, are university presidents, national
laboratory directors, and prominent science professors.) Vasquez
is also a textbook author and past president of the National Science
Teachers Association.
"To make precollege science and math teaching more competitive
with other career opportunities, resources must be provided to compensate
teachers of mathematics, science, and technology comparably to similarly
trained S&E professionals in other economic sectors," Challenge
declares. Paying science and math teachers salaries higher than
those of other teachers is probably a political nonstarter, Vasquez
said. But one way to increase incomes and also provide another lure
for Ph.D.s would be for private firms and other organizations to
hire them to work in labs, at private-sector wages, during summers
and, if appropriate, perhaps also on weekends and vacations during
the school year. Vasquez wants "industry to step to the plate
and find a way for high school teachers ... [to have] a real job
in the summertime in a laboratory." Discussions with several
industry leaders have thus far been encouraging, she told Next Wave.
In addition, Congress is considering another financially favorable
proposal, forgiving student loans of up to $10,000 or $15,000 for
science teachers who work in at-risk schools. And according to Gerald
Stancil, a Johns Hopkins physical chemistry Ph.D. who recently retired
from a teaching career at New Jersey's Orange High School, the benefits
and salary earned by a high school teacher with a doctorate compare
favorably with median earnings at colleges and universities--although
teacher salaries and reward for advanced degrees vary greatly in
different parts of the country. Teachers, furthermore, work only
about 9 months of the year.
But will Ph.D.s actually take jobs at high schools in meaningful
numbers? "Potential interest [among Ph.D.s] in careers in secondary
school science and mathematics education is much higher than the
0.8% of Ph.D.s who currently work in K-12 education," says
a 2000 report by the National Research Council called Attracting
Science and Mathematics Ph.D.s to Secondary School Education. Some
36% of science Ph.D. holders have considered the possibility, the
report states: "Chemists, with strong career options in industry,
were less likely than respondents in the biological sciences, physics,
and mathematics to consider secondary teaching positions."
Women and U.S. citizens appear "most open" to the idea,
the report says.
"Stereotypes about Ph.D.s both in the secondary schools and
in the universities create obstacles," states NSB's Attracting.
Most images of the guy supervising frog dissection or a chemistry
lab hardly glamorize the profession. (And in the American imagination,
it seems always to be a man, despite the many women who teach high
school science and math.) There is, of course, Edward James Olmos's
Oscar-nominated portrayal of the heroic Jaime Escalante in the stirring
film Stand and Deliver (probably the only hit movie ever to hinge
on AP scores), and also the ever-resourceful Professor on Gilligan's
Island. But otherwise, the few science and math teachers in pop
culture have tended to resemble the wimpy Mr. Peepers or the clueless
Mr. Boynton from the sitcoms of TV's "golden age."
In Europe and Asia, on the other hand, the idea of secondary school
teachers with serious intellectual credentials and accomplishments
is well accepted. Nobel laureate, novelist, and philosopher Jean-Paul
Sartre, who held the French equivalent of a Ph.D., long made his
living teaching at a lycee, or university-prep high school. A more
relevant role model for scientists is Konstantin Tsiolkovky, who
is recognized for developing the basic principles of aeronautical
science during his long career teaching math in a Russian high school.
His many publications include the calculation of the velocity necessary
to escape Earth orbit, the conclusion that a multistage rocket would
be needed to accomplish this, and a design for such a rocket and
even the airlocks that would permit a space traveler to pass from
that vehicle into the vacuum of interplanetary space.
Making the Move
Successful passage into the secondary school classroom is also
a "hurdle that a lot of people who don't deal with young people
have to get across," says Vasquez. Experience shows, she continues,
that instead of being "thrown to the wolves" on their
own, career changers need training and mentoring to deal effectively
with teenagers. But that doesn't necessarily mean enrolling in traditional
teacher-training courses. "Alternate path" programs in
a number of states now allow holders of subject-area degrees to
gain skill and certification through supervised on-the-job training
and mentoring plus special formal instruction in pedagogy. Some
employers, such as IBM and the Defense Department, are also helping
retirees prepare for second careers as high school teachers.
For Stancil, teaching provides the satisfaction of opening the
world of science and the opportunity of science careers to young
people. Until encountering him, many students had never even heard
of the Ph.D. and initially thought that he was a physician. During
his tenure at Orange High, the number of physics students quintupled.
The majority of the Ph.D. scientists teaching in high schools who
answered a survey for Attracting reported being happy with their
careers and concurred that a major reason is the pleasure of watching
their students discover science. "I believe [public school
education] is where we should be putting our very best people. The
kids with the greatest needs need the greatest teachers," one
said.
Not every Ph.D. scientist who tries teaching will emulate Stancil's
example and make it a long-term career, Vasquez acknowledges. But
even if they spend only a few years before moving on to other fields,
their deep expertise will help students while they are in the classroom,
she believes. Ask any scientist what motivated his or her choice
of field, Vasquez says, and "99% of the time" they will
mention "a great high school teacher who really turned me on
to science."
http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_development/previous_issues/
articles/2006_04_07/two_problems_in_need_of_one_solution
This weeks top selling teaching supplies
Click here to see more classroom
supplies & decorations
Discuss teaching ideas, lesson plans, classroom
strategies
and more on our teacher
forum!
|
