Is It Possible to Teach “Science for All” in a Climate of Accountability? Educational Policy and the Equitable Teaching of Science

Abstract

Teachers, students and the members of the entire educational system find themselves in another period of change. In 2010, the nation embarked on yet another reformulation of federal education policy with the proposed reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA, formerly known as No Child Left Behind), this contentious proposal continues to be debated in 2011. At the same time a set of prominent multistate standards was proposed in the form of Common Core State Standards in language arts and mathematics, and a new science education framework proposed by the National Research Council (NRC) provides an overarching vision of what it means for K-12 students to be proficient in science in an effort to inform the design of Common Core Standards. Given this period of flux, it seems wise to reflect on how the last wave of national policy as embodied in the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 legislation interacted with science education reform efforts (Duschl, Schwingruber and Shouse 2007) to influence the science teaching and learning of nonmainstream learners, as well as look forward to changes proposed to this legislation. As has been described by George DeBoer in this volume, one of the original goals of the