Science Education Reform in Washington State
Receive Article Updates (RSS)November 20, 2008
What/Where: Washington State LASER (Leadership and Assistance for Science Education Reform)
When: Launched in 1999
Who: A collection of 13 organizations were instrumental in this effort, including National Science Resources Center (NSRC), Washington State Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, North Cascades and Olympic Science Partnership, Pacific Science Center, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Biological Sciences Curriculum Study Center (BSCS), National Academy of Curriculum Leadership (NACL), Washington Science Teachers Association, Institute for Systems Biology, Battelle, Agilent Technologies, Educational Service Districts (ESD), and lead school districts in the state.
Why: After five years of school improvement efforts, the science education community felt that little had been done to improve science education in public schools and that there was a need to increase student achievement in science. They also felt that existing initiatives and resources were not cohesive, so they began looking for a coherent, systematic, and scalable system for improving science education in the state. Many scientists in the state had existing affiliations with the NSRC.
History
Leadership and Assistance for Science Education Reform (LASER) is an initiative of the National Science Resources Center (NSRC) that began in 1998 with the support of the National Science Foundation whose mission includes increasing student achievement. LASER assists states and school districts in exploring, adopting, implementing, and sustaining quality science education reform. Washington is one of 11 regional sites included in this national program. The program consists of a strategic planning institute that helps school districts to implement hands-on, inquiry-centered science programs to schools. LASER uses curriculum developed through research and best practices with an emphasis on using science kits. School systems develop alliances to pool resources and share in the cost of purchasing, maintaining, and training teachers to use the science kits.
Washington launched the LASER program with a focus on K-8 science education reform in 1999 with 15 initial school districts that volunteered to participate. Currently, eight of Washington’s nine regional Education Service Districts (ESD) have joined in the LASER efforts and as of 2007, nine LASER alliances, or consortia of school districts working together, have formed, with over 150 districts now in the LASER program.
In 2003, Washington State’s LASER leadership team began to investigate the National Academy of Curriculum Leadership (NACL) as a means of addressing high school science reform in the state. After determining that NACL and LASER were compatible programs, 16 Washington high schools as well as one high school each from California and Delaware had been selected for NACL. NACL is a three-year process of professional development for reform in high school science education involving the adoption of inquiry-based learning practices, effective use of standards-based instructional materials, and development and execution of a plan for education reform. Schools send leadership teams consisting of two or more classroom teachers, one coach, and one administrator. Teams attend institutes and academies held in the summer, spring, and fall of each year in the three-year cycle.
Washington State LASER has conducted several independent evaluations of the program. According to an independent evaluation of Washington State LASER, students are continuing to make gains on the Washington State Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) in science at the 5th and 8th grade levels. The evaluators also found that the greatest gains were made by teachers who had 18+ hours of professional development. Results from these studies have been used to identify schools that have sustained improvement so that their efforts could be studied and duplicated.
Strengths
Jeff Estes, one of Washington State LASER’s co-directors, identifies several key points that have contributed to the nine year success of the program. First, he notes that the science education community in Washington was a tight-knit group that shared the same enthusiasm, dedication, and motivation for improving science education in Washington, but they were all doing different things and needed a coherent, systematic, and scalable system to organize their disparate efforts. Second, an infrastructure for organized delivery to public schools was already in place in the form of nine existing Education Service Districts. Third, there was buy-in and support for the program at all levels including: teachers, administrators, education service district personnel, the governor’s office, the state superintendent’s office, the business community, the informal science learning community, and later the higher education community. Each level demonstrated leadership and took action. They also formed public-private partnerships that pooled resources and focused them in strategic ways. Fourth, this was a multi-year investment with ongoing support from NSRC, which gave the program the longevity needed to show improvement in student performance and gave all partners the chance to improve the things that were not working. Fifth, there was a commitment to program evaluations and an implementation study, which has helped identify strengths and weaknesses. Last, Estes emphasizes that connecting to state and national standards also contributed to the program’s success.
Future Plans
School districts have come on board and adopted LASER at different times and different levels of involvement. Therefore, as the program matures, Estes believes that there is a substantial need to continue to pay attention to the contextual factors of LASER implementation at all phases. In addition, several areas may need more attention as the program continues to evolve. Those areas include: addressing the tension between the state test and curriculum-led reform efforts; reaching districts that are not yet on board and continuing to increase involvement from participating districts; fulfilling the need for teacher leaders; increasing administrator and community support; continuing new efforts to include high school science reform in the program; and coordinating efforts in the higher education community as they examine their teacher preparation programs.