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New research shows a clear need for improved science education that incorporates the biosciences at the middle and high school levels if the United States bioscience industry sector is to remain globally competitive.
Funded and researched by BIO, Battelle, and the Biotechnology Institute, The report rates the states' performance in life science education according to certain indicators of achievement, and it identifies best practices and programs throughout the nation.
“The bioscience industry is a knowledge-based sector dependent upon the skills of its workers. Bioscience workers are needed to conduct research, translate innovation into product development and improved health care techniques, and ultimately to manufacture biomedical and other bioscience-related products,” explains James Greenwood, President of BIO and member of the Board of the Biotechnology Institute, bot.
Recognizing the importance of high schools and middle schools in preparing students for bioscience research and careers, researchers asked five questions:
- How well are students being prepared in the biosciences in particular and in science and mathematics in general?
- How and to what extent are states incorporating the biosciences into school curricula?
- How well prepared are science teachers to teach students about the biosciences?
- To what extent are students exposed to the biosciences and made aware of career opportunities and educational requirements?
- To what extent have states recognized the need to incorporate the biosciences in K-12 education and how have they done so?
Their findings demonstrate the need for change:
- On average, only 28% of the high school students taking the ACT reached a score indicating college readiness for biology and no state reached even 50%.
- Only 52% of 12th graders are at or above a basic level of achievement in the sciences, and for 8th graders only 57% are at a basic level of achievement.
- Average scores for 12th graders in the sciences have actually declined from 1996 to 2005 and shown no improvement for 8th graders both overall and on the life science component.
- A significant gap exists in science achievement for low-income middle-school students, although the gap is slowly narrowing.
Patterns of student performance suggest put Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Vermont, Wisconsin in the lead. A second tier of performance includes Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington.
A category of "Middling Performance" goes to Alabama, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Montana, South Carolina, Wyoming. Identified as lagging are Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, West Virginia. States that do not participate in the NAEP science assessment were not rated.
States are uneven in incorporating the biosciences in state science standards, supporting focused bioscience education programs and advanced bioscience courses, and ensuring well-qualified science and bioscience teachers. Only thirty-one states reported that their science standards explicitly mention or define standards or applied laboratory or other instruction tools specifically for biotechnology or the biosciences.
At least half the states have at least one school with a bioscience focus, and all of the states have schools with a focus on broader STEM education. However, states do not seem to be succeeding in encouraging high school students to take upper-level science courses. Although data on this subject are very limited, the share of students taking the AP biology exam averages 4.6% of high school graduates.
The report also notes that nearly one in eight U.S. high-school biology teachers was not certified to teach biology. The average share of biology teachers who are certified in a given state ranged from 50% to 100% in data collected by the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), although 88% of biology teachers are certified nationally on average.
The report recommends that states should:
- Incorporate biotechnology as they revise their science standards and should involve research scientists with expertise in the biosciences in their development.
- Commit to improving student achievement in biology and the life sciences and ensuring that their high school graduates are ready to pursue college-level bioscience courses.
- Improve the collection and dissemination of data, tracking student participation and performance in the biosciences and the broader sciences and if they do not participate in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) science exam should be encouraged to do so.
- Take a more systematic approach to teacher professional development, experiential learning, and career awareness.
Though access to and use of technology is vital to this endeavor, this initial report did not attempt to gauge this element.
Sources: Taking the Pulse of Bioscience Education in America: A State by State Analysis, BIO, Battelle, and the Biotechnology Institute press release, Bioscience Education Study Finds Some States Lagging
