There is another “race to the top” in education, but this time it’s the race to develop a new generation of science standards.

Twenty states will collaborate with Achieve, a standards writing organization that uses donated funds from large corporations and foundations to carry out its tasks.

There is a lot of excitement, especially for the twenty state departments of education that will be selected to participate. Selections are to be announced soon.  Maine and Kansas have been mentioned in the national media.

The new standards will be based a recent publication of the National Research Council entitled, Framework for K-12 Science Education.

It’s true that the current science standards are 15 years old, and it indeed might be good to write new ones, but not under the present environment. The underlying premise of the standards movement is to centralize and create a common set of standards within each content discipline.

Following the development of common science standards, national achievement tests will be developed and used to test the daylights out of kids.

By writing new standards, and writing rigorous tests we will ensure that our students will be competetive in the global market place, thereby making for a stronger economy. This sounds really good, but it’s not supported in the research literature.

For example, the factors that determine a nation’s economic competitiveness are multifaceted and complex.  Rankings on achievement test Scores (even on international tests) are minuscule compared to the real forces that the impact the robustness of any economy. It’s time to stop holding teachers and students hostage to the claim that their test scores have an effect on the economy.

The U.S. Economy, which is ranked number four out of 139 nation, is influenced by corporate ethics, the failure of the U.S. Congress to get it’s financial house in order, the incentives to businesses to take risks and be innovative, not by achievement test scores.  The World Economic Forum assessed the economic competitiveness of 139 nations based on 12 major factors including basic requirements (institutions, infrastructure, etc.), efficiency enhancers (higher education, good market, labor market, financial market, etc.) and innovation and sophistication factors (business sophistication, innovation). A state’s economy is not tied to the academic performance of students based on bubble test scores, especially when curriculum innovation is held back by the testing culture that controls schooling today.

New standards will have little effect on helping students understand science if we do not deal with poverty which effects more than 46 million Americans.  The government released new statistics that show that poverty is growing, and the present state of the economy will only make it worse.

The single most influential factor effecting student success in school is their socioeconomic status. Research in science education has repeatedly shown that the present science curriculum is a failure for many students. The new framework does not offer content much different than the work done 15 years ago.

Reform is needed, but in not in the form of raising the bar, creating rigorous standards, or creating standards that so far removed from the real lives of students and teachers.

Will this be race to nowhere?