{"id":964,"date":"2006-12-29T08:55:49","date_gmt":"2006-12-29T08:55:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2006\/12\/29\/no-child-left-without-a-pony\/"},"modified":"2006-12-29T08:55:49","modified_gmt":"2006-12-29T08:55:49","slug":"no-child-left-without-a-pony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2006\/12\/29\/no-child-left-without-a-pony\/","title":{"rendered":"No Child Left Without a Pony"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday’s Inside Higher Ed<\/cite> had a story about the latest group to report on science education<\/a>. Like any good blue-ribbon commission, they have changes to suggest:<\/p>\n

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The panel’s members seemed agreed on several major goals. One is to align all components of education in science technology, engineering and math (STEM). The current system in the United States, they agreed, lacks any attempt at coordination either horizontally across school districts, or vertically from one level of education to another. Lack of a coherent system for STEM education means that students who move between states may miss fundamental concepts as they jump from school to school. […]<\/p>\n

The second major goal is to improve the lot of STEM teachers. Many commission members emphasized that it is time to “professionalize” STEM teachers and make their jobs as prestigious and well-paying as their counterparts in industry. Approximately one quarter million math and science teaching positions will need to be filled by 2016. However, few people are qualified to take these jobs, and schools are having problems hiring for these positions.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is accurate and sensible, and wouldn’t rate a link were it not for the final sentence of the article, which is a beautiful bit of understatement:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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The commission has recommended an increase in pay for STEM teachers and the development of continued professional training as happens in the medical field. During the discussion, almost every commission member said that pay must increase for STEM teachers so that they do not leave the profession to enter industry. However, there appeared to be little clarity about how to finance these pay increases.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

“[T]here appeared to be little clarity about how to finance these pay increases.” I love that. It makes it sound like the problem is that there are too many good options, and they couldn’t agree on just one.<\/p>\n

I’m sure this could also be profitably deployed in other contexts: “There appeared to be little clarity about how to triple the funding for the NSF;” “There appeared to be little clarity about how to establish a stable government in Iraq;” “There appeared to be little clarity about how to provide every seven-year-old girl with a pony.”<\/p>\n

Try it. It’s fun!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday’s Inside Higher Ed had a story about the latest group to report on science education. Like any good blue-ribbon commission, they have changes to suggest: The panel’s members seemed agreed on several major goals. One is to align all components of education in science technology, engineering and math (STEM). The current system in the… Continue reading No Child Left Without a Pony<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}