An electronic newsletter for the science education community
AAAS Officials Call for National Science Education Standards
AAAS and Project 2061 have long played a high-profile role in the science standards movement. In recent months, top AAAS officials have been advancing the argument for voluntary national science education standards for K-12 students.
In a Houston Chronicle commentary published 10 June 2009, AAAS CEO Alan I. Leshner and Project 2061 Director Jo Ellen Roseman urged Texas, Alaska, Missouri, and South Carolina to join the push for nationwide education standards, which they argued should include science. Led by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, 46 other states and the District of Columbia agreed 1 June to move toward shared education standards in reading and mathematics.
Leshner and Roseman emphasized the “central role of science in every aspect of modern life” and concluded that national science standards, along with adequate funding for science teaching and learning, promise “dividends for tomorrow’s workforce and for our economy.” Versions of their op-ed also appeared in newspapers in Alaska, Missouri, and South Carolina.
In July, AAAS’s journal Science featured these op-eds and other AAAS efforts to advance consistent science standards for students nationwide as part of AAAS News & Notes.
- Read the feature in AAAS News & Notes from Science [31 July 2009]: "National Science Ed Standards—The Key to Improved Learning?"
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For more information about AAAS Project 2061’s support for national science standards, please contact:
Communications Director: Mary Koppal, (202) 326-6643