Is Science Education Irrelevant?

_"The False Crisis in Science Education" by W. Wayt Gibbs and Douglas Fox, in Scientific American (Oct. 1999), 415 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. 10017–1111._

Ever since Sputnik was launched in 1957, there have been repeated cries that American elementary and secondary science education is in "crisis." Supposedly, runs the repeated complaint, it is failing, or on the verge of failing, to produce enough scientists and engineers to assure continued U.S. economic and scientific dominance. Nonsense, assert Gibbs and Fox, a senior writer for Scientific American and a freelance science writer, respectively. Indeed, they argue, American schools are too devoted to turning out future scientists. They should be reoriented toward producing scientifically literate citizens.

Science education in the public schools traditionally has worked to filter out all students except the brightest and most motivated, according to Paul DeHart Hurd, an emeritus professor in Stanford University’s School of Education. The curriculum is heavy on formulas, jargon, and memorization—bound to put off all but the most committed youngsters.

At the universities, further filtering takes place, Gibbs and Fox note. Of the 305,000 students who took introductory college physics courses in 1988, only 1.6 percent went on to get a bachelor’s degree in the subject. And of those nearly 4,900 physics majors, only 700 proceeded to obtain doctorates. But there seems to be no shortage of newly minted science and engineering Ph.D.s., say Gibbs and Fox, in part because of a steady rise in the number of foreign students, most of whom remain in the United States to work. Since 1966, the annual production of science and engineering Ph.D.’s has soared 130 percent, while the U.S. population has increased only 35 percent. And if more Ph.D.’s were needed, universities could probably get them simply by filtering out fewer undergraduates, observes Glen S. Aikenhead, a professor in the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Education.

Contrary to the perpetual warnings of the crisis-mongers, it is doubtful that schooling in science before college has much impact on U.S. economic competitiveness, the authors maintain. For the vast majority of students, they say, it "is utterly irrelevant."

In all the crisis chatter, Gibbs and Fox point out, "the question of what schools ought to teach about science" is often overlooked. But among science education researchers, teachers, and practicing scientists, "a consensus has begun to emerge...that schools should turn out scientifically literate citizens, not more candidates for the academic elite." Such citizens, having a broad understanding of the scientific enterprise, would be more aware of its important role in society—and perhaps more inclined to give it their generous support.