Math and Science Bill Signed by President Bush

U.S. Shortages Especially High Among Underrepresented Groups

President Bush recently signed into law a bill that seeks to bolster mathematics and science education through improved teacher recruitment and training and the promotion of successful classroom practices through federal grants for schools.
The bipartisan legislation, which the House approved by a 367-57 vote and the Senate passed unanimously, had the backing of numerous education and business organizations.
Members of Congress have dubbed the bill the America COMPETES Act, a reference to what they believe is the proposal’s potential to strengthen the quality of the U.S. workforce and gird the economy against foreign competition.
The law will establish several new federal math and science programs and expand existing ones. If Congress appropriates money for all the programs, it will cost $43.3 billion over three years, though much of that spending would be devoted to research programs in technology, energy, and other areas.

The measure will broaden the Robert Noyce Scholarship Program, which awards grants of $10,000 a year to college majors in math- and science-related subjects for those who agree to teach in high need schools, by expanding recipients’ years of eligibility for aid and giving them more time to finish teacher training.
The bill, signed by President Bush on Aug. 9, also addresses some of the president’s priorities for math and science education. It will create “Math Now,” a program in which the Department of Education will award grant money to implement proven strategies in that subject.
Bush administration officials have likened Math Now to the federal Reading First program, a $1 billion-a-year effort that seeks to improve instruction through the promotion of research-based practices in reading. The math program seeks to help students reach grade level in that subject and prepare them for algebra, which most students take in 8th or 9th grade, through federal grants that will flow to the states and then to local schools to improve K-9 instruction.
The law also authorizes more grant money for the expansion of Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate classes in schools nationwide—programs the administration has supported.
In addition, it calls for the secretary of education to contract with the National Academy of Sciences to convene a national panel to “identify promising practices” in school science, technology, engineering, and mathematics studies—the so-called STEM subjects.

For decades teachers have noticed a lag in student performance when reading isn’t a part of their summer break. A new Johns Hopkins University study concludes that two-thirds of the reading achievement gap between 9th graders of low and high socioeconomic standing in Baltimore public schools can be traced to what they learned –or failed to learn – over their childhood summers.
The study, performed by sociology professor Karl L. Alexander and colleagues at Johns Hopkins, tracked data from about 325 Baltimore students from 1st grade to age 22. The study points out that various characteristics that depend heavily on reading ability – such as students’ curriculum track in high school, their risk of dropping out, and their probability of pursuing higher education and landing higher-paying jobs – all diverge widely according to socioeconomic levels.
Research demonstrates that all students experience significant learning losses in procedural and factual knowledge during the summer months. Studies also show that the magnitude of summer learning loss varies significantly by grade level, subject matter, and family income. Most importantly, research identifies the cumulative effect of summer learning differences as a primary cause of widening in-school achievement gaps between students by family income.
Another study performed by Harris Cooper, a professor of psychological sciences at the University of Missouri estimates loss for all students equals about one month on a grade-level equivalent scale.
On average, all students regardless of socio-economic status, lose approximately 2.6 months of grade level equivalency in mathematical computation over the summer months. Researchers speculate that summer learning losses in mathematics are similar among lower and middle-income students because all students are less likely to practice math skills outside the formal classroom setting.
Family income plays an important role in predicting the magnitude of summer loss in reading. Low-income students experience significant summer learning losses in reading comprehension and word recognition. On average, middle-income students actually experience slight gains in reading performance over the summer months.
In the “Beginning School Study,” the researchers found that the increasing gap in test scores between children from families of high and low socioeconomic status over the elementary-school period accrued entirely from the differential gains that students made when school was closed.
Poor families could not make up for the resources the school had been providing. Middle-class families could make up for the school’s resources to a considerable extent and so their children’s growth continued, though at a slower pace than during the school year. By the end of fifth grade, poor children fall more than two years behind their middle-class peers in verbal achievement and 1½ years behind in math.
Alexander’s research has also attracted interest outside of academia. Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois is co-sponsoring the Summer Term Education Programs for Upward Performance Act of 2007, a bill that cites Alexander’s research.
The legislation would authorize $100 million to be divided among five states selected by the U.S. Secretary of Education for summer programs that combine fun and academics for children who are eligible for the federal free-lunch program. States would have to match the federal contribution of $1,600 per child per summer.
Some question whether the study was broad enough to make sweeping generalizations.  Alexander acknowledged such limitations but suggests that the same results would be seen in high-poverty school systems across the country. To solve the problem, he recommends that students spend more time in school.

— Teachers of Color