Hi all,

I spent the day over at the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) again today. And I'll be there much of the day tomorrow too. We, the Einstein Fellows, were invited over to participate in the semi-annual meeting of the Teacher Advisory Council (TAC). It's a group of teachers pulled together by the NAS to convene for comment about educational matters. Jay, the gentleman from the NAS who seems to oversee the council spoke at length of the importance in having the voices of actual practitioners, experienced educators to speak to policy wonks in Washington DC about the reality of what is going on in classrooms across the country and how policies developed in DC may or may not have relevance or impact once they trickle down to the classroom. It was nice to hear such an affirmation about why we are here, both the TAC and Einstein Fellows, from the group set up by president Lincoln to be the advisors to congress and federal agencies on a whole variety of matters and consists of an amazing group of peer selected scientists, engineers, doctors, etc.

There was much discussion about the Common Core Standards and what that may mean for equity in education. As you may recall one of the first things I wrote about back in September was that the federal government cannot legislate what is taught in classrooms. 10th Amendment says so. The way the gov't has become involved is through equity and equality issues. Title 9 and Title I as prime examples.

The Common Core Standards seem like an end run around the 10th amendment in that they are being developed by the council of chief state school officers and the national governors ...group. Most states have signed on and are participating in their development. And now the federal government has used them as a carrot for states to 'get on board' and sign off on them by August for Race to the Top money. You may have read about President Obama coming to a local VA school to announce another 1.5B in additional Race to the Top funding to make the pot sweeter. Folks are wondering why the push to rush the Common Core Standards through the process of development, review, revision and finalization but it comes down to the need to have them in place by August so that states which are chosen can get their RTTT $$ before the federal fiscal year is up. $ has to be 'out the door' as far as the Feds are concerned by the end of September.

It was an interesting discussion this morning about the typical development of a Framework, moving on to the development of standards which eventually leads to curriculum and the implementation of actual lesson plans. The NAS recently finished a revise of Math Standards and has begun work on new Science Standards. A rep from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics talked for a while about the Core Standards and their (NCTM) new approach to high school math and a focus on "Sense Making and Reasoning" as a cross cutting effort for meaningful connections for students in math. Something the teachers brought up this morning was an interesting question for the NAS, NCTM and the reps from National Science Teachers Assoc (NSTA), one that none of them had considered. And that is why the TAC exists and why the Einstein Fellows were asked to join the conversations. The question was whether or not science standards had been considered in the creation of the new math standards, and vice versa for the adoption of new science standards. Most science teachers do a fair amount of using or teaching math ranging from lesser amounts in life science up to a whole lot in physics courses. Much head scratching ensued and many notes were scribbled down.

Throughout the day a whole host of folks presented to us. The College Board talked about the revamp of the AP curriculum and solicited input. An NAS fellow in charge of convening a roundtable on Climate Change Education presented and asked for effective ways to infuse it into public education, methods which might work and what to avoid. Another group presented about the use of gaming and simulations and research that shows how gaming can be an effective means of student learning and even assessment. I am increasingly becoming intrigued by something called "second life". It's a virtual world, one in which you can 'live', create commerce and design...whatever you want. A tech geek colleague at work (@ DOE) has offered to take me there for a tour. There's a group working to use a bit of that to do some high level virtual training and education and, well, frankly I'm finding my curiousity piqued as to whether it might be a viable tool for use in classroom education. Think of the virtual ecosystems that might be created for analysis!!

One very interesting group to present to us today is a called the Science and Entertainment Exchange. It's a group which pairs scientists with Hollywood in an effort to bring about a more science literate public. They create these 'salons' where a director will invite 'friends' to come over and a couple of top level scientists will give short talks about their specialty and then breakout sessions and discussions will ensue. They have been up to some interesting things including consultation for "The Big Bang Theory" and "Numb3rs". Apparently the creators of BBT were going to have the physicists wear lab coats because that's the stereotype they imagined. This Science and Entertainment Exchange was able to connect the writers with actual theoretical physicists and the writers were amused, if not shocked to find out that they hang out and do their thinking in shorts and t-shirts. I have even heard that there's a guy who personally checks each and every equation written on the white board in their apartment.

Another full day is scheduled for tomorrow and I'm excited to head back over. I thanked Jay at the close of today's events for having us over to participate. He turned it around and thanked us, the Einstein Fellows for coming over and lending our voices to their conversations. It's been a pleasure to find venues where our classroom experience is valued and ears are open and listening to learn about what we have to say.

That's all for this evening.

ciao,

-J