Commission on Mathematics and Science Education, Carnegie Corporation of New York and Institute for Advanced Study
June 2009
Reminiscent of the post-Sputnik push, this high-profile commission report depicts what kinds of schools and school systems America needs if it is to attain excellence in math and science. Commission members started with the premise that the U.S. must make fundamental changes to the nation's schools and boost innovation. The report lays out an extensive menu of actions, reforms, and spending needed from state and federal governments, school districts, higher education, businesses, nonprofit organizations, unions, and philanthropy. It stresses mobilizing support for higher achievement; making math and science focal points of educational innovation and accountability; and creating common math and science standards with aligned assessments to account for the exclusion of science (in favor of reading and math) from other recent efforts (see here, here, and here). This last might be the most intriguing, since a Trinitarian view of curriculum merely leaves us pondering the fate of the rest of the "other subjects," like history. You can find a webcast of the report release and the report itself here.