Science Tests Come as Teaching Time Falls

Maryland elementary and middle students are being tested this week in science for the first time under No Child Left Behind, a federal law that, in the minds of many educators, has squeezed science instruction to the margins of public education.

The results might be sobering, top science educators said.

In five years under the Bush education mandate, the nation's elementary and middle schools have pursued reading and math achievement with zeal, frequently at the expense of science.

Many elementary schools offer half as much science instruction as they did before the law was enacted, teachers and principals said. Science and social studies, once taught separately, share time to make room for more reading and math. Some middle schools that used to offer a full year of science and social studies give a semester of each.

But starting with the 2007-08 academic year, the law requires states to test students in science. A new exam is being field-tested in Maryland this year.

"I think the test will open up some eyes," said Brian Freiss, a fifth-grade teacher at Highland Elementary School in Silver Spring.

The new test catches many Maryland schools at an ebb in science instruction.

The No Child act, signed into law in 2002, requires schools to post adequate yearly progress on their way to attaining 100 percent proficiency in reading and math by 2014. Schools would have to attain 100 percent proficiency in science by 2020 under a proposed reauthorization of the law.

Some states, including California, Florida and Virginia, assess students in science at multiple grades as part of statewide testing programs. Others, including Maryland and Pennsylvania, are beginning science field tests this year. The District's school system did not respond to requests for information on its science instruction.

Last year, the Prince George's County school system restored lost classroom minutes, increasing daily science instruction from 30 minutes to 60 in the lower elementary grades and from 45 minutes to 60 in grades 4, 5 and 6. Montgomery schools are rolling out new textbooks in grades four and five as part of a curriculum overhaul. Frederick schools are field-testing fifth-grade lessons that teach specific science topics during time allotted to reading.

In a fifth-grade classroom at Garrett Park Elementary School last week, students started work on a unit called "Magnets and Motors," an exploration of magnetism, electricity and the electric motor. Students tested their magnets on earrings and braces. Ilias Katsifis, 11, announced to classmates that if a magnet is set against the face of his watch, "it stops time."

Before the No Child act, 45 minutes to an hour of daily science instruction was common in fifth-grade Maryland classrooms, said Mary Thurlow, science coordinator for the State Department of Education.