Education and Social Issues
U.S. Needs Outstanding S&T Expertise
 Solutions to many of the problems facing the nation — from an economic crisis to the lack of affordable health care to the fight against global warming — will require the best minds from science, engineering, and medicine. To ensure that the new administration can fill approximately 80 high-level science and technology posts with top-notch candidates, a report from the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine identifies ways that the administration can make these positions more attractive for well-qualified people. It also calls on the scientific community to serve.
Science and Technology for America’s Progress: Ensuring the Best Presidential Appointments in the New Administration — the latest report in a series issued by the Academies on the presidential appointment process — urges the new president to immediately select a confidential adviser on science and technology, who should also direct the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The OSTP director should be included in cabinet discussions about the scientific and technological aspects of broader policy decisions, the report recommends.
President Obama swiftly chose NAS member John Holdren — an expert in climate change, energy technologies, and nuclear arms control — to be his science adviser and director of OSTP. Holdren will also co-chair the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology — a presidentially appointed group of 35 individuals that enables the president to receive advice from the private sector and academic community on technology, scientific research priorities, and math and science education.
The report calls on the president and the Senate to accelerate the appointment process for S&T leadership to allow important positions to be filled quickly, and reduce the personal and financial burden on nominees. Congress and the Office of Government Ethics should simplify procedures aimed at avoiding conflicts of interest in appointees, which have become unduly complex over the years. The president should ensure that his administration makes the process for appointing people to federal advisory committees explicit and transparent. Those chosen to provide S&T expertise should be selected solely for their knowledge, credentials, and professional integrity.
President Obama enacted several of the Academies’ recommendations and has quickly filled a number of high-level science and technology posts.
The study was funded by the National Academy of Sciences and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
Science Masters Find Success
 In many fields of the natural sciences, master’s degrees are considered stepping stones on the path to a doctorate. But over the past decade, foundations and universities have been developing new master’s programs in the natural sciences for students seeking professional skills for the global economy. Currently, approximately 60 universities offer more than 125 such programs, which typically include interdisciplinary studies and incorporate communication and problem-solving skills.
This type of graduate education is preparing students for advanced science-based work in a way that is highly desired by employers, notes a report by the National Research Council. Science Professionals: Master’s Education for a Competitive World says that professionally oriented master’s degree programs should be encouraged, and policymakers, universities, and employers should work together to speed their development.
Salary and placement data indicate that in industries such as banking and financing, biotech, and defense, there is a strong and increasing demand for graduates of such programs, the report says. Over the last decade, salaries of master’s degree holders in science and engineering have grown faster than salaries of those who hold either bachelor’s or doctoral degrees.
To scale up existing programs and develop new ones, a concerted effort is needed from Congress, universities, and industry, the report says. The 2007 America COMPETES Act authorized the National Science Foundation to develop a new program of grants to help four-year institutions create or expand professional master’s programs. Other major federal science agencies such as the departments of Defense and Energy should also participate by awarding grants to colleges and universities to begin these programs and offer need-based scholarships for U.S. citizens who enroll. Congress should direct funds to this multiagency program.
State governments should also support the creation and expansion of professional master’s programs in the natural sciences and target particular state and regional needs, the report says. Philanthropic institutions need to offer matching funds for federal grants, assist with financial aid, and provide seed money for new programs. Professional societies in the natural sciences and science- and technology-based industry associations should develop strategies to address higher-education needs in their fields, including professional science master’s programs.
Since the report was released, the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provided $15 million to the National Science Foundation to fund the professional science master’s program.
The study was funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Teaching Above Board
 For the past 25 years, the nation has been implementing various reforms to improve K-12 student performance. Among them is an effort to improve teaching by developing standards that define accomplished instructors, beyond the basics needed for initial licensure. The nonprofit National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) developed criteria for what effective teachers should know and be able to do, along with a process to evaluate whether individual teachers meet these standards. To become NBPTS certified, teachers must complete six computer-based exercises and assemble portfolios that show how their teaching meets the standards — a demanding process that typically takes more than 400 hours and can take a year or more to complete. But does earning that certification actually make them better teachers?
Assessing Accomplished Teaching: Advanced-Level Certification Programs, a report from the National Research Council, says the certification process is an effective way to identify highly skilled teachers. However, it is unclear whether the process of getting certified improves teachers’ performance in the classroom. Research is needed to determine if earning NBPTS certification makes teachers more effective as they become familiar with the standards and complete the assessment, or if high-quality teachers are attracted to the certification process.
Students taught by certified teachers make greater gains on achievement tests than students taught by other teachers, the report says. And students taught by teachers who tried to earn NBPTS certification but failed make lower gains on achievement tests than students taught by either certified teachers or teachers who have never pursued certification. These findings were the result of studies that examined reading and math achievement for students in Florida and North Carolina. Further studies should examine the effects of NBPTS certification on students’ achievement in more states and subjects. Research should also cover how certified teachers affect outcomes other than test scores, such as student motivation and attendance rates.
One of the goals of NBPTS certification is to retain high-quality teachers in the profession. Limited evidence suggests that teachers who have earned certification remain in the profession at higher rates, but it is unknown whether certification is a factor in influencing decisions to stay in the field or whether teachers who plan to stay in the field are more likely to pursue certification. Evidence from a study of teachers in North Carolina suggests that certified teachers tend to change teaching jobs at a higher rate than teachers who are not certified, and they tend to move to more advantaged schools — such as schools that have fewer students in poverty. However, it is not clear whether this tendency is stronger for certified teachers than for others with excellent qualifications, or if this finding would extend beyond North Carolina.
The NBPTS standards were designed in the hope that they would have a broad impact and that certified teachers would influence how their colleagues teach. However, little research has been conducted to determine if the standards are having these effects. And there is no evidence that districts or schools are encouraging NBPTS-certified teachers to work in difficult schools or mentor other teachers.
The study was funded by the U.S. Department of Education.
No to a National Ballistics Database
 When firearms are involved in a crime, investigators collect cartridge cases or bullets at the scene and examine them for toolmarks. Thought to be unique to each gun, these toolmarks are left on ammunition components when guns are fired. The advent of computerized imaging in the 1980s made it possible to acquire images of the markings on crime-related ballistics evidence and search for images of bullets or cases with similar marks. Two states, Maryland and New York, have created computerized databases that contain images of toolmarks from all new guns sold or manufactured there. The National Institute of Justice asked the National Research Council to examine whether a national database of images from test fires of all newly manufactured or imported firearms should be created to enable investigators to trace ballistics evidence to a gun’s original point of sale.
The resulting report, Ballistic Imaging, says that a national database would not be advisable given the practical limitations of current technology for comparing images. Images from as many as 4.5 million new guns sold annually would be entered each year, and many would have similar toolmarks. Today’s technologies are not sufficiently precise to make a national database feasible because searches using such a large database would likely produce too many candidate “matches” to be helpful.
While it does not assess whether firearm-related toolmark evidence should be allowed in court, the report advises against allowing a statement often made by firearms examiners in court — that a bullet or cartridge casing came from a particular gun “to the exclusion of all other firearms.” Such statements lack a firm statistical basis and fail to account for the element of subjectivity involved in declaring a match. Additional research on the fundamental assumptions of uniqueness and reproducibility of toolmarks is needed.
Even so, current ballistic imaging technology can be used to generate leads in law enforcement investigations. The report identifies more than a dozen ways to strengthen an existing ballistic image database — limited to evidence associated with crimes — that is administered by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. A promising technique called microstamping, which imprints unique marks on guns or ammunition, should also be studied as an alternative way to attain the same basic goal as an image database for new firearms.
The study was funded by the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice.
Assessing the Pre-K Set
 In this era of accountability in education, children are being assessed and tested on every level. As more public and private initiatives focus on expanding Head Start and other early childhood programs, especially for disadvantaged children, policymakers are trying to determine whether these programs are worthwhile. Toward that end, Congress asked the National Research Council how children should be assessed from birth to age 5 in preschools, child care, and other early childhood settings.
Early Childhood Assessment: Why, What, and How says that well-planned assessments can inform teaching and efforts to improve programs and can contribute to better outcomes for children. However, if assessments are poorly designed or the results are misused, they harm both individual children and educational programs. The report identifies principles to guide the design and use of assessments for these educational settings.
Federal agencies, states, school systems, and other organizations that evaluate early childhood programs should make the purpose of any assessment explicit and public in advance. For example, a state should specify whether an assessment will be used to help teachers gauge the progress of individual children or to help public agencies decide whether to continue a program’s funding. Effective assessments must be part of a larger system with a strong infrastructure to support children’s care and education, the report says. Standards for what children should learn and what constitutes a quality program need to be clearly articulated.
The report warns that policymakers should proceed with extreme caution in using assessments for high-stakes decisions. For early childhood settings, it would be inappropriate to borrow the model from the No Child Left Behind Act — which links yearly progress assessments to explicitly defined academic content area for children in grades 3 through 12. The quality of early childhood education and care should be assessed not only on academic skills such as language and mathematics, but also on whether other important aspects of child development, such as social and emotional skills, are improved.
Assessments of children should not be used to cut funding or impose other negative consequences unless certain conditions are met, the report says. For example, assessors should ensure that programs have been given enough resources to meet expectations and that children’s levels of development before entering the program are taken into account. Child assessments should never be the only information considered. And a program should not be closed or restructured if doing so would have worse consequences for children than leaving it open.
The study was funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
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