1) Energy can move around and take different forms.
2) Matter and Energy are conserved.

That is it. There are benchmarks for different grades etc. but nothing about Newton’s Laws or E&M. There is also some space science stuff that nobody teaches. I don’t think I will try to fix them because nobody cares about physics standards. I’ll just work on producing good curriculum and show teachers how to use it. Maybe we can get physics education out of the 19th century and into the 21st.

Your concern about understanding vs. certification hits pretty close to home. Spending two years getting my license was the most ridiculous, insulting thing I think I have ever done. Writing poems about myself, doing skits about education articles out of Newsweek, on and on. It was a total joke, except for the student teaching, which was great. I don’t know how to change that and the seniority system. I guess the best place is by showing them what a difference content understanding can make. Nobody cared about content understanding when I started. But as teachers have watched me in the classroom that have started to see what is possible, they, and a couple of the department heads, are starting to get it. We’ll see if I can start convincing department heads and principals, then we can get some movement.

Thanks for your thoughts. Now its time to break for some Bush Bashing!

Gavin

In 1996, the state board of education drafted new state standards for math. There was an uproar, not only from conversatives but also from many fairly apolitical mathematicians. The draft standards were a triumph of style over substance. They were, moreover, tied to a specific math curriculum called MathLand. The education establishment jumped the gun and started adopting MathLand before the standards were approved. But the opposition prevailed and the governer enlisted some Stanford math professors (because they had been complaining) to write better standards. They did. The adopted standards are not only more stringent, they are also clearer, more logical, and ironically more flexible than the draft standards. It has been personally convenient for us because we have two children in public school. The standards make it easier for us to know where our children stand with regard to the curriculum.

So the state standards for math and science are an important lever. Beyond that, the most important reform would be for the schools to seek and reward teachers who understand the material, instead of smothering that concern with irrelevant certification requirements, with seniority, and with other purely bureaucratic decisions. I don’t know how you can make the necessary changes, but in any case that is what is needed.