National Science Standards
Under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 public schools receiving government funding are required to test and assess student progress each year. Individual States and not the Federal Government are required to develop their own set of standards by which they measure student progress. Although Standardized Testing is seen as a valid way for measuring content knowledge and progress in areas such as Math and Reading at the primary level there is much dispute amongst the scientific community on how to measure the progress of scientific knowledge.
In 1996 the National Research Council (NRC) and the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) got together with other Science organizations to develop the ‘’National Science Education Standards’’. In the past simply the study of and presentation of core content knowledge for areas such as: physical, life, earth and space sciences; was seen as sufficient. After the development of the new ‘’Science Standards’’ concern shifted from teaching content alone to learning science “disciplines in the context of inquiry, technology, personal social perspectives”
Read more about this topic: Primary Education In The United States
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