Science Education & Policy

You may find these remarks cynical. You may find them helpful. Strategy Cons: This is the age of corporate short-termism. Nothing matters except this quarter’s returns. Strategy implies long-range thinking. So no corporation does strategy any more.  Academic strategy studies are so theory-bound that professors never look at real-world data. Not surprising, as no publicly listed company in the real world is strategizing anyway. Pros: Strategic thinking is valuable for one’s own life and career. Governments, NGOs, and some smaller companies still indulge in it.  Sustainability…

The U.S. won't change the predominately white-male face of its science and technology workforce until higher education addresses the attitudes, behaviors and structural practices that undermine minority students' access and success at college, a new study suggests. Economic prosperity has been the federal government's rationale for implementing programs to increase the numbers of youth preparing for careers in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) sectors. However, underrepresented students will remain a trickle in the STEM-fields pipeline until postsecondary educators'…

Dropping off a child at kindergarten for the first time can be one of the most memorable yet terrifying experiences of parenthood. Among the many concerns parents face is the worry whether your child will make friends - a key factor, research shows, in reducing anxiety, depression and the likelihood of being bullied. For parents of children with disabilities, the concern is even greater as four-out-of-10 of their children will enter kindergarten without the social skills necessary to develop close friendships. The response from schools has been to create inclusive classrooms, where a…

Health food stores often regard science and evidence-based medicine as the tools of profiteering and greed so it is ironic that they continue to sell dietary supplements to children. Some even recommend them, despite clear warning labels that read "for adult use only." Though supplements are an unregulated wild frontier at the US Food&Drug Administration level, body-shaping supplements are banned for sale to minors in 49 U.S. states. Nonetheless, 15-year-olds were able to buy them in health food stores across the country and the staff even recommended certain products that were illegal…

Those "Diary Of A Wimpy Kid" books are not "The Good Earth", they are not going to win Pulitzer Prizes, but they are a lot better for kids in the summer than staying glued to YouTube videos. And for most kids, that is going to be the choice. Rather than sending home a reading list (poor schools) or stacks of books (rich schools) in the hopes of combating the the literacy loss experienced during the summer break, a new study finds that letting kids choose the books is better. The study, conducted in kindergarten, first-, and second-grade classrooms in the Rochester City School District, showed…

A Boston College expert in educational measurement is taking a look at the controversial college and university rankings lists that are promoted by schools hoping to lure full-fare students from out of state and parents and students who want validation for their choices.  The rankings industry is a big business for organizations such as U.S. News&World Report and Princeton Review. Even the federal government is going to start picking winners and losers from among schools now, they are moving toward their own ranking system for colleges and universities. Despite criticism, all this…

It’s all very well choosing not to eat genetically modified (GM) food, or even banning it entirely, but what if you then rear your cows on GM soya? Can you really maintain a consistent moral objection? This is the dilemma many European countries are faced with now the EU has proposed measures that will further de-harmonize rules on genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The latest proposal would allow member states to “opt-out” from the use of GM food and animal feed, thereby mirroring legislation passed earlier this year that allowed members to opt-out from GM cultivation. The official aim…

Science topics in culture, be they vaccines, GMOs or global warming, may seem to be about science but they are more about politics, including identity politics, and sometimes about economics.  Nonetheless, only one of those topics is hot in academia - ironically, the reason for that is also political. An impartial analysis of Congressional testimonies shows that, politics or not, most of the experts that the Republican majority requests to speak during hearings support the consensus on climate change - which means resistance to taking action is not because they are against science, it is…

As we celebrate Earth Day this week, it is an opportune time to recognize that not all Americans have equally enjoyed the dividends of our nation’s environmental protections. Decades of research clearly demonstrate that poor and minority communities often experience more environmental burdens and enjoy fewer environmental amenities. These communities tend to host a disproportionate number of landfills, incinerators and other polluting facilities. These are not only unpleasant to live by but also can pose significant health risks. We know from epidemiological studies, for example, that rates…

Teachers are likely to interpret students' misbehavior differently depending on the student's race, according to a new paper.  Racial differences in school discipline are widely known, and black students across the United States are more than three times as likely as their white peers to be suspended or expelled, according to the background information, but the psychological processes that contribute to those differences have not been clear. "The fact that black children are disproportionately disciplined in school is beyond dispute," said Stanford psychology Professor Jennifer Eberhardt…