Despite public perceptions that local school boards are battlegrounds over evolution and other science-related issues, board members in the Kansas City area are far more concerned with developing science, mathematics and technology studies that will ensure students future success, according to research to be discussed Saturday at the National School Boards Association (NSBA) annual conference.
While the findings focus just on one heartland metropolitan area, they likely parallel the interests and challenges prevailing in school districts nationwide, say officials for Public Agenda, the non-partisan research organization. Public Agenda has interviewed dozens of board members, superintendents and other Kansas City-area school officials in the opening phase of a three-year collaboration between NSBA and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), funded by the Kauffman Foundation, to help school boards develop policies and public support for a state-of-the-art curriculum.
The forum will be held from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. (PDT) Saturday April 14 in Room 131 at the Moscone Center, 747 Howard St., in San Francisco.
Public Agendas preliminary findings run counter to impressions created in the high-profile conflicts over teaching evolution in public schools that have played out in the Kansas State Board of Education and in local school boards in Dover, Pa., Grantsburg, Wis., and other communities. But the interest of the Kansas City-area board members in learning more about updated curriculums for a new economy and the technology that can support that effort in the classroom shows the importance of the new NSBA/AAAS project.
Our partnership with the NSBA is very exciting, said Connie Bertka, who is overseeing the project for AAAS as director of the associations Program of Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion. The scientific community will now have an opportunity to discover firsthand what the needs and concer
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Contact: Edward Lempinen
elempine@aaas.org
925-945-1937
American Association for the Advancement of Science
14-Apr-2007