Latino Deficiency in Science is More Than Sputnik Moment

“Fifty-eight percent of Hispanic 12th-grade students scored below basic” proficiency in math and science. The quote was taken from a story published in the chron.com about dismal science scores across the country. We’re doing badly as a nation and Latino’s, specifically, are doing the worst.

Very few students have the advanced skills that could lead to careers in science and technology, according to results of a national exam released Tuesday that education leaders called alarming.

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said the results mean students aren’t learning at a rate that will maintain the nation’s role as an international leader in the sciences. He and others expressed concern that more students aren’t prepared for careers as inventors, doctors and engineers in a world increasingly driven by technology.”Our ability to create the next generation of U.S. leaders in science and technology is seriously in danger,” said Alan Friedman, former director of the New York Hall of Science.

But even if you consider the achievement of white students bad, the gap between white and Latino students is stunning. Sixty percent of 12th graders, overall, score at a basic level or above in science knowledge. I’ll reiterate the lead sentence, fifty-eight percent of Hispanic 12th-grade students scored below basic proficiency.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told the Chron that

President Barack Obama has called for an “all hands on deck” approach and set a goal of recruiting 10,000 new science and math teachers over the next two years.
“Our nation’s long-term economic prosperity depends on providing a world class education to all students, especially in mathematics and science,” Duncan said.

According to Alan Friedman, who was quoted above, there are many reasons for the dismal science scores, among them the famed No Child Left Behind initiative of the Bush administration and continued by President Obama. Friedman says that an “unintended side effect of the No Child Left Behind law has been less emphasis on science, history, arts and other subjects in order to emphasize performance in math and reading.” Obama promised changes to the NCLB program as part of his State of the Union speech. And while that’s great for science scores overall, it doesn’t address the dismal Latino performance specifically, which has to with more than a federal program. We should consider the age and physical state of science labs in minority majority schools across the country; we should investigate the salaries of science teachers in predominantly Latino schools; the quality of science teachers and the materials they have at their disposal; the funding schemes in predominantly Latino school districts that are strapped for economic sustenance; the attitudes of parents vis-a-vis their children’s schools; the attitudes of the schools, administrators and teachers toward their students (there are actually teachers in inner-city, poverty stricken schools who believe that their students can’t learn); shall I go on?

Sputnik was a great metaphor in a speech; I want to know what that moment will actually look like. If raising Latino science scores, specifically,  isn’t a goal of our Sputnik moment, then little else is.