Precollege Science Teachers Need Better Training: U.S. Science Education is Improving, But a Few Local Programs are Demonstrating How It can Become Even Better‪.‬

Now and in the decades to come, science literacy may well be the defining factor for our success as individuals and as a nation. Indeed, U.S. global competitiveness and its national security rest firmly on our ability to educate a workforce capable of generating, coping with, and mastering myriad technological changes. In the summer of 2000 and again this past spring, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan broke with tradition and testified before Congress not about interest rates or inflation but about the importance of strengthening U.S. science and math education as the foundation to continued economic growth and national security. Those planning to pursue science and engineering careers will need higher levels of science literacy than most, but perhaps not so obvious is the fact that even nonscientists will need a baseline level of science understanding if they are to become responsible citizens, capable of functioning fully in a technology-driven age. Yet, many of us who work in science and technology (S & T) fields do not believe that the country has made the full commitment to improving science education. We are routinely barraged by reports telling us that our students are simply not making the grade when it comes to science. From the National Assessment of Education Progress to the Third International Math and Science Study (TIMSS), which periodically compares U.S. student performance in math and science to that of students from other countries, the news has not been favorable.