Researcher and political scientist Jon Miller has concluded that the majority of Americans "don't have a clue" when it comes to science:
Over the last three decades, Dr. Miller has regularly surveyed his fellow citizens for clients as diverse as the National Science Foundation, European government agencies and the Lance Armstrong Foundation. People who track Americans' attitudes toward science routinely cite his deep knowledge and long track record... Dr. Miller's data reveal some yawning gaps in basic knowledge. American adults in general do not understand what molecules are (other than that they are really small). Fewer than a third can identify DNA as a key to heredity. Only about 10 percent know what radiation is. One adult American in five thinks the Sun revolves around the Earth, an idea science had abandoned by the 17th century.At one time, this kind of ignorance may not have meant much for the nation's public life. Dr. Miller, who has delved into 18th-century records of New England town meetings, said that back then, it was enough "if you knew where the bridge should be built, if you knew where the fence should be built"...No more. "Acid rain, nuclear power, infectious diseases - the world is a little different," he said.
One thing that hasn't changed is the attitude of some of the know-nothings; when Miller speaks on the radio about his findings, he always receives postcards from fundamentalists who say they are praying for him.
[Miller] had firsthand experience with local school issues in the 1980's, when he was a young father living in DeKalb, Ill., and teaching at Northern Illinois University. The local school board was considering closing his children's school, and he attended some board meetings to get an idea of members' reasoning. It turned out they were spending far more time on issues like the cost of football tickets than they were on the budget and other classroom matters. "It was shocking," he said.
It continues today. Note this article from the LA Times about how a proposed NCLB extension to high school students is destined to fail:
"High school reform is really hard," said Susan Traiman, director of education for the Business Roundtable, an organization of corporate leaders who recently issued a call to improve the nation's high schools. "The experience in the reform movement is that it takes hold most easily in elementary school."The reasons are myriad. For one thing, said Tom Loveless, an education specialist at the Brookings Institution, bolstering academic standards would clash with the social, athletic and other elements of high school that are important to many students and their parents. It's "a cultural thing," he said.
"Kids in high school want to spend time on sports, and there's a huge percentage who work part time," Loveless said. Given that most parents seem to want their children's high school years to be filled with proms and football games and socializing, he added, "I don't see any groundswell of support" for extending No Child Left Behind to high schools.
Emphases mine. If we've redefined high school as the time when it's more important to attend football games and proms than gain hard knowledge, no wonder only a quarter of Americans grasp the basics of science.
Posted by kswygert at August 31, 2005 12:52 PM