TO:  MEMBERS OF THE MATH ED. COMMITTEE
 
I have received a preliminary copy of this report.  I would be glad
to let any of you see it.
 
Dave K.
 
------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
 
Media contact:                                    August 9, 1996
Peter West                                          NSF PR 96-42
(703) [log in to unmask]
 
Program contact:
Robert Watson
(703) 306-1670/ [log in to unmask]
 
                  BASIC COLLEGE SCIENCE COURSES
                   FILTER OUT MOST STUDENTS
 
     Introductory college science and math courses serve largely
as a filter, screening out all but the most promising students,
and leaving the majority of college graduates -- including most
prospective teachers -- with little understanding of how science
works, according to a new study conducted for the National
Science Foundation.
 
     As a result, despite the observation that Americas basic
research in science, mathematics, and engineering is world-
class, its education is still not, according to the independent
team of reviewers.
 
     America has produced a significant share of the worlds
great scientists while most of its population is virtually
illiterate in science, the study concludes.
 
     Because few teachers, particularly those at the elementary
level, experience any collegiate science teaching that stresses
the skills of inquiry and investigation, they simply never learn
to use those methods in their teaching, the report states.
 
 
     The findings in the report, called Shaping the Future: New
Expectations for Undergraduate Education in Science,
Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology, were made public at a
recent conference in Washington D.C.
 
    The nations goal for undergraduate education, it states,
should be that: All students have access to supportive,
excellent undergraduate education in science, mathematics,
engineering and technology, and all students learn these
subjects by direct experience with the method and processes of
inquiry.
 
     Some institutions, including those that sent
representatives to the conference, already are making the
changes needed to help them meet that goal, officials noted, but
most are not.  This latest review of undergraduate programs
continues NSFs efforts to improve the quality of collegiate
science, math, engineering, and technology programs that began a
decade ago with a study of that became known as the Neal Report.
 
 
     The new reports findings were compiled over the course of
a year by a nine-member committee of officials of two-year and
fouryear institutions, led by Melvin D. George, the president
emeritus of St. Olaf College.  The committees main
recommendation is that college science and math programs should
be refocused in order to better educate the 80 percent of
students who do not major in the scientific disciplines.
 
     Luther S. Williams, the head of NSFs education and human
resources directorate, noted that although there recently have
been some promising indications that student performance in math
and science at the K-12 level is improving, any sustained
national effort to improve science and math teaching eventually
must address the quality of teacher education at the
undergraduate level.
 
     If you consider the implications for school systems as
they attempt to implement standards-based education, then you
immediately confront the problem of paucity of qualified
personnel, he said.
 
                              -NSF-