An Offer They Can’t Refuse

The California commission charged with developing the state’s first public school academic standards needs to think more creatively about its job. A good place to start would be reconsideration of an offer by a distinguished group, including three Nobel laureates, to write science teaching guidelines.

At a special meeting today, the state Commission for the Establishment of Academic Content and Performance Standards has a chance to reverse its decisions rejecting the Nobelists’ free offer and awarding a $178,000 contract to a San Bernardino education group, the Institute for Science. The best-known member of the Nobel group is chemist Glenn T. Seaborg, the author of a stinging 1983 report on public education, “A Nation at Risk.” Seaborg and his colleagues argue for more rigor in science teaching. In a letter, Seaborg stated, “Educational content is continually diluted in a failed effort to produce palatable bits of information for progressively less skilled students.”

One member of the state commission criticized the Nobel group as non-educators, saying, “They wouldn’t know a classroom if you put it in front of them.”

The San Bernardino group, mostly science teachers and education professionals who are experienced in curriculum writing, proposes teaching science with more hands-on projects and less theory.

Each group has something to offer. The commission staff recommended starting over, throwing open the bidding on the science contract. It would prove most useful if the scientists’ group and the educators’ group, despite their very different viewpoints, could agree on a joint approach to developing the teaching standards.

California prides itself on its high number of world-class scientists. Three 1997 Nobel Prizes--in chemistry, physics and physiology--were awarded in October to scientists at UCLA, Stanford University and UC San Francisco. Unless the public schools can keep feeding talented, well-grounded students to universities, California will be hard-pressed to continue that kind of track record.

The state’s new academic standards will provide guidelines for what students should know, from kindergarten through high school. The content should be as engagingly taught as possible, but not at the expense of solid understanding and high expectations. The Nobel laureates’ generous offer should not be disregarded, whether they end up writing the standards, co-writing them or critiquing them before a final version is issued.