Survey questions

Well, I guess it's time to post something. To get the ball rolling, I've listed a few questions that will help frame the issues and concerns that any graduates of RHS might have about the science curriculum.

1. How many science courses did you take at RHS?

2. How well did you feel these courses prepared you for similar courses in college?

3. What were the best things about science education at RHS? What could be improved?

4. If you could change three things about RHS science ed, what would it be?

I'll get the ball rolling:

Q1. Which science/math courses did you take at RHS?
A1. Science: Bio honors, Chemistry honors, and Physics AP.
Math: Geometry honors, Algebra 2 honors, Trig (summer), Calculus
AP, Statistics AP

Q2. Hit and miss. Bio was decent; I studied for and took the Bio AP test senior year, and then had to study for and take a placement exam a year later to place out of the notoriously terrible intro bio course at Harvey Mudd. I got to take an evolutionary biology course, which was very interesting and gives me limited street cred when discussing evolution with both scientists and the public today. Chemistry and Physics were pretty unhelpful; I didn't have the discipline to study on my own at that stage. The math courses were okay, though Calculus and Statistics were outstanding.

Q3. Best: Organized lectures in bio, surprisingly substantial lab equipment in physics.
Improvement: (1) Poor connection/coordination between science and math departments. (2) Few laboratory, hands-on experiences (3) programming class desperately needed (4) improve rigor and training in upper-level science course curriculum

Q4. I've got more than three:

Organizational:
(1) Create an alumni network. Organizational theory tells us that institutions do not change unless (1) they fail, (2) there is outside pressure, (3) an external threat to the organization inspires change. As of now, there is no apparent external pressure from the PTA or any community organization to push for science education changes, nor is the external threat manifested through a loss of local jobs in the technological/industrial sectors (partly because Rosemead's economy is not structured around those sectors). Failure is difficult to measure if you don't keep track of your alumni. An alumni network can help administrators (and meddling community activists) keep track of employment trends of alumni, and figure out whether things are getting better, worse, etc. Also, an alumni network can be a source of motivated speakers and volunteers who are willing to give talks or provide resources.

In the classroom:

(1) Connect coursework with the "real world". This includes everything from gimmicks involving liquid nitrogen ice cream (and why it tastes better than store-bought) to real experiments. Lab equipment should be updated and really used; education studies show that interactive, hands-on learning is about 3 times as effective as traditional lecture learning for retention of material.

(2) Each math and science course should have a syllabus that describes in detail what should be covered in the class. This helps students see the big picture and

Curricular:

(3) Create and maintain a good programming class. This is CRITICAL. If a student doesn't know how to program by the time they enter college, they're already substantially behind everyone else who wants to study science. Besides, it teaches a way of thinking that is useful.

(4) Eliminate honors classes, or at least make an effort to convert to AP classes, where possible. The accountability of having an exam with measurable results will help ensure that teachers see them as a challenge and a responsibility, rather than merely a mark of prestige/seniority to claim.

Extracurricular - Community Partnerships:

(5) Recruit volunteers from local industry to teach students about real workplace skills. I wanted to be an astronomer since I was six, but I didn't have any clue as far as what an astronomer was, or what they did. I learned the hard way by doing, and now I like it less. If we want students to make enlightened choices and not completely waste undergrad, we ought to provide opportunities to introduce students to real engineers, real scientists, real programmers, real architects, real nurses, etc.

(6) Get GATE and CSF to sponsor more talks and visits. I hope things are better now; both were pretty damn scattered when I attended their meetings. Then again, I was poorly organized and clueless in high school. Funding issues aren't insurmountable as long as you have dedicated, ambitious students and a solid advisor who can help facilitate connections that can bring in good speakers.

School/District Policy

(7) Solid commitment from the administration. The administration can either help or hurt science ed reform by their hiring practices and policies. For example, they can help by grantwriting, doing the nice political stuff with local businesses and colleges, and making an effort to pass their own exit exams. If resources are scarce, administrators can also work at the district level to create a central lab facility to be shared by all five high schools and local policies that ensure that the underfunded provisions of NCLB (counseling, tutoring, tracking, etc.) are instituted. Again, if funding is the problem, I think it would be possible for either RCS or another agency to hustle.

(8) Improve counseling services. The counselors are overworked; there's no way that you can keep track of 300+ students and provide meaningful profiles for all of them. This is especially true of the career counselor, who has to split his 40-hour week between Rosemead and El Monte High Schools. Either we make it required to have freshman fill out a career sheet that is processed over time, or otherwise make up the shortfall by providing more counseling services. I emphasize career counseling in this case, though it is possible that more emotional counseling services are needed as well - this is beyond my area of experience and expertise, and would require the input of the school psychologist.

National policy

(9) Soul-searching from the academic community. Those of us who are scientists (or pretenders to the throne) need to do some real soul-searching about what science is and is not, what we expect from scientists, and how science can serve society. Those of us who have some measure of either guilt, social conscience, or just decent PR skills owe it to ourselves and our community to put ourselves out a bit and make sure that science doesn't stagnate. Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) are a fact of life in most institutions, and research science is no different. The key is retaining enough youth and creativity - both in and out of the lab - to be willing to try novel solutions within the broader framework of vested interests, institutional inertia, and economic and political realities. Most agree that standardized tests are a crappy way of measuring problem-solving abilities, but they do have the advantage of being (1) easy to quantify, (2) standardized, and (3) relatively cheap. Alternative solutions need to show a payoff that warrants the investment in time and political capital that will be needed for such a shift. This isn't a job so much for Rosemead, though an inspired and plucky school/district administration could make a name for itself by trying things that Sacremento does not explicitly mandate, nor the electorate explicitly demands.

Where to now? Well, hopefully I'll shore up my academic situation here, then put together a business plan with an action item list for RCS, then go from there. Hopefully we can recruit some effective leaders in situ in the Rosemead area to work on this - it's too hard to manage this project 3,000 miles away.

Post your thoughts!