Science At Its Best

After my completely depressing post last week, at least there is hope. An elementary school class in the UK recently published (in a real journal!) a study on bees. For this study, with the guidance of their teacher, they brainstormed, formulated an experiment, carried out the experiment, and wrote the paper, which included hand-drawn figures. Pretty impressive stuff for 8-year-olds! I wish I had an elementary school teacher with this idea. With a little help from their teacher, the students also managed to get their paper published in a reputable journal (click here for the article, which is free until January 1). Ed Yong over at Discover Blogs has a nice write-up of the story, so head over there and read all about it.

What's happening to our public schools?

I suppose this isn't really a news item, but I felt like ranting and had nowhere else to do it, so here goes. This morning I went to Donorschoose.org in order to make a donation. I came across the following request: http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=430063. If you read the request in detail, the teacher says that students in her 5th grade class are reading 2-3 levels below the 5th grade level. The thing I don't understand, is WHY are students who are reading at a 2nd and 3rd grade level allowed to be in 5th grade? I suspect this is a result of the lovely "No Child Left Behind Act" that has proven time and time again to be ruining our public schools, and yet is not repealed. (Of course it was brought to us by George W. Bush, who posed the question: "Is our children learning?") The main flaw is that schools are pressured into allowing students to pass to the next grade, regardless of whether or not they actually have skills to do so, because if the schools do not, they risk losing funding. The system encourages corruption, as seen in these recent news stories: here, here, here, and here. I can only hope that the system is changed, before it's too late.

Addendum: Now I'm really scared. This proposal asks for flash cards for multiplication tables for HIGH SCHOOL students: http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=457663. I am at a loss for words. We, as a society, are failing our kids.