8/57 - 7/62 9/55 - 6/57 2/55 - 8/55 1/51 - 1/55 High school physics teacher; graduate student, University Undergraduate student, University of Kansas, Lawrence. buildings and bridges. Electronics Technician, USAF (S/Sgt.) OTHER PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE Participant International Conferences on Physics Education: Edinburgh, Scotland, July 1975; Oxford, England, July, 1978. National Science Foundation representative to the Federal Interagency Committee on Energy Education. Member, Editorial Board, The Physics Teacher (1977-1979). Member, Executive Board, American Association of Physics Teachers (1970-1973). Consultant for numerous college and publishing companies with special expertise in course and curriculum development, technical education. Member of various advisory committees (American Institute of Physics; Educational Testing Service; University of Michigan NSF Project; Technical Education Research Centers). Representative of St. Louis Community College to the League for Innovation in the Community College (1970-1971). Assisted faculty with, and prepared proposals and plans for various instructional research and development projects. PUBLICATIONS (In the past 10 years) Three books, eight monographs, and one book in progress (McGraw-Hill; Merrill; Articles (The Physics Teacher; Physics Today; Engineering Education; School Science and lathematics). HONORS AND AWARDS Outstanding Performance Award (8/78) from the National Science Foundation ("For Distinguished Service Citation of American Association of Physics Teachers NSF Science Faculty Fellow (1967-1968). STATEMENT OF BILL G. ALDRIDGE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SCIENCE TEACHERS ASSOCIATION Mr. ALDRIDGE. Thank you, Mr. Pease. I would like only to emphasize certain points in my written testimony, so that what I say will be somewhat disjointed. I come as a representative of the National Science Teachers Association. I note that most of the people who come before you in one way or the other, I suppose myself included, represent some vested interest. But we don't have the students here, and we don't have the teachers here. There is a serious problem, and that problem is not being addressed in the budget or in the authorizations for the National Science Foundation education directorate. The range of problems and the kinds of problems which exist for people who are trying to teach science in the schools either at the undergraduate level or in particular, at the precollege level are every serious, and they are not being addressed adequately at this time by anyone at the Federal level. You listen to the testimony by different groups who have their own special concerns with regard to the NSF budget and each of these concerns is legitimate. Each is very important and something that ought to be considered. But then we have Jim Rutherford with $86 million in the science education directorate trying to find out where he is going to put it to meet all of the expressed concerns. We have a situation in science education where there is not sufficient money to do a single research project well. Yet in the research directorates we have money for replication. You have industries doing applied research with the findings of basic research, but essentially nobody doing applied research in education. The amount of money that you have provided for science education is so far below the threshold to do anything significant, that you are going to face serious consequences as a result. What we see happening now will become even worse. The reports are there; the evidence is there; the people need only look at it to see what has happened. The moneys in this budget will not solve or even begin to solve those problems. I have tried to point out the contrast between the problems and the level of effort in my written testimony. I would like to comment just a bit about what is happening with local resources. Dr. Zacharias suggests that there is something like $100 billion out there in local resources. Let me point out that about 20 percent of that amount is being absorbed this year in increasing energy costs and other inflationary costs by those institutions. We are facing a time when the salaries of teachers are diverging rapidly from salaries of other workers and professional personnel. Teachers salaries are not keeping up with those of other workers. Teachers must go out and work in summers. They can no longer afford to go to school. The NSF does not have programs for them which will provide even modest stipends. Teachers are not going back to school to improve themselves for their performance in the classroom when they can't even provide for their families, I tried to identify a couple of areas of support shown in the new Department of Education budget. They show a rather sharp contrast between the kinds of support that is being provided for the NSF Science Education Directorate and what is available in other agencies. Let me refer to an example. This happens to be at a community college where we were attempting to work with blind students in a physics class for technicians. There would be quite a bit of money available, were the course in vocational education. But because it was a service course for students in vocational programs, there was no source of support. That is happening not only at the community college level. It is happening throughout the school system. Schools are being pushed into situations where they must adapt to requirements of the Federal Government with regard to handicapped, disadvantaged, and minorities, but without any support to make those adaptations. It cannot be done without additional resources. The point I am trying to make, of course, is that somebody is neglecting science education, particularly at the precollege level. In my judgment, that neglect is not a consequence of actions of the NSF Science Education Directorate. It appears to me that the responsibility for that rests directly with the National Science Board, and with the Office of Management and Budget. It seems to me that those are the people who make the decisions on what the science education directorate is going to have. The only way that we are going to have any significant increase in support for NSF science education is for the Congress to say that this is what you are going to do and you are going to add it on. That is what happened in the past and that is the only thing that makes a difference and all the rest of the talk will be for naught. I made a number of specific recommendations at the end of my written testimony. I won't go into those now. I prefer to respond to any questions you may have and I would be happy to respond to any questions that you may send later. [The prepared statement of Mr. Aldridge follows:] I am Thank you for inviting me to appear before this committee. Bill G. Aldridge, Executive Director of the National Science Teachers Association. I was educated to be an experimental physicist and teacher of physics. Over the past twenty-two years I have taught science at the high school and college levels and have been a science department chairman, division chairman and dean in a community college. Within the last ten years, I have directed two NSF curriculum development projects, taught in the NSF Chautauqua-type Short Courses program, and, most recently, served as a program manager in the NSF Division of Science Education Development and Research on an assignment under the Intergovernmental Personnel Act. I believe that this background, coupled with my present position as Executive Director of the largest science education organization in the world, provides me with a unique perspective on the science education programs of the National Science Foundation. The National Science Teachers Association, through its conventions, meetings, publications, and committee activities, advances science education at all levels. The journal, Science and Children is aimed at the elementary and middle school levels; The Science Teacher is principally for the secondary level; and at the college level, we offer the Journal of College Science Teaching. Our numerous publications range from a wide collection on energy education to areas involving women and minorities in science, and include the Sourcebook-Science Education and the Physically Handicapped. Our NSTA members include the I have examined a number of documents, trying to approach the preparation of my testimony in a conventional way. I have studied numerous NSF publications including science education program guidelines, program reports, the NSF Activity Reports to the Congress, and the 1981 NSF budget. I have examined the Ohio State report on The Status of Pre-College Science, Mathematics, and Social Science Education: 1955-1975; The Weiss Report of the 1977 National Survey of Science, Mathematics and Social Studies Education; The University of Illinois Case Studies in Science Education; an NSTA working paper, Science Education: Accomplishments and Needs; the NSF Science Indicators; the NCES Projections of Education Statistics to 1986-87; and the Astin ACE report on The American Freshman: National Norms for Fall 1978. My overwhelming reaction to information presented in these documents is dismay. None of the results or conclusions are surprising to those of us who have been in the classrooms over the past twenty years. Children on the whole leave high school lacking even the most fundamental knowledge of science needed to act in their everyday lives in regard to energy, technological purchases (cars, and appliances) or personal life decisions which can be influenced by superstition. Apart from the social consequences of this level of scientific ignorance, the pool of scientific and technical talent available to colleges and universities is becoming smaller each year. The entire range of problems facing pre-college science can be summarized in a quote from the Executive Survey of The Illinois Case Studies. |