Are Public Education . . . Science Museums . . . Under Siege?

Starting in spring 2014, new Florida elementary and secondary school teachers can no longer earn tenure. Instead they may become eligible for “merit pay” ¹ based on their “effectiveness ratings.” Effectiveness ratings are calculated through a “value added model” in which significant portions depend on student “annual growth” on standardized test scores, an increasingly common practice in many states. Meanwhile in June 2014, a California judge ruled that tenure in that state was “unconstitutional” and generates the retention of ineffective teachers, especially in urban schools with large numbers of students of color.

It is not just these developments on tenure that can be disturbing. I am an inveterate reader of comments on online news stories. One dominant theme I have read on dissolving K-12 tenure addresses its low necessity. University faculty may need this freedom of speech protection, so it goes—but grade school or high school teachers? Apparently not. My impression is that these commentators (e.g., on CNN.com) believe that these teachers simply paraphrase textbooks that were selected by state or local district school boards and thus have no need for academic freedom. A corollary seems to be that such parroting constitutes effective teaching.

One major problem, however, is that elementary and secondary teachers in many school districts are unaware that academic freedom protections are unnecessary. Try telling that to faculty under fire from local parents, supervisors, school board members, or even ideological think tanks (e.g., Luskin, 2014), because they may have taught a “phony consensus” on biological evolution, human contributions to global warming, or even describing millions of years of archaeological formations. It is one thing when American states allow teaching Biblical creation in public school science classes as an alternative explanation to evolution, as in Louisiana; it is another to discipline or even fire the teacher who does not do so.

Of course, life and physical science K-12 teachers are not alone in potential controversial mires. For example, a few years back Arizona enacted a law that makes teaching ethnic history (including U.S. treatment of Latinos or Native Americans) extraordinarily difficult for social studies instructors. School districts, especially those adopting “Texas model” textbooks, have sometimes urged teachers to follow a format in which “traditional (and heterosexual) marriage” and abstinence as the sole form of birth control are emphasized. Above and beyond “value added models” and future hullabaloos that I cannot even conjecture—except to confidently assert that they will occur—academic freedom is clearly important for teachers at any educational grade level.

I suspect most individuals reading here will generally agree with a concept of “accountability.” But it is defining and measuring “accountability” that creates dissonance and the possibility for academic freedom grievances. For example, not all states accept the “Common Core” science standards. Currently many states have unique criteria for their K-12 state exams, which become a partial basis for their “value added” systems. Those who do not “teach to the test” therefore can risk jeopardizing their school’s state rating—and probable funding. In April 8, 2014, the American Statistical Association issued a report criticizing such state value added models in teacher assessment, especially when high stakes (e.g., teacher retention) are involved. Elizabeth Evans (2014) provides thoughtful commentary both on the American Statistical Association report and through her experiences as an educational consultant.

Museums play a major role in what has been termed “informal science education.” In 2012, nearly half the U.S. adults surveyed in the General Social Survey reported visiting a zoo or aquarium. Furthermore,

. . . according to the GSS, natural history museums (28%) and science and technology museums (25%) continued to attract about the same percentage of people in 2012 as they did in 2008. . . . In total, 58% of Americans said they had visited at least one of these three types of cultural institutions in the 12 months prior to the 2012 survey. (National Science Board, 2014, pp. 7-18)

U.S. residents are more likely than those of several other countries to visit these facilities (National Science Board, 2014).

Most large and many smaller U.S. cities sponsor science museums or major science exhibits in urban museums. ² They, too, have experienced some political hassles. Parallel to public education systems, museum topics such as biological evolution, global warming, or earth science may be truncated or even eliminated (Kuchment, 2014). Both public and private museums, Kuchment (2014) asserts, face pressures, for example,

The Perot Museum’s donors have no direct influence over museum content, and current and former executives there say donors have never expressed any opposition to displays about global warming. But other science museums admitted to feeling pressure from the public to play down the fact that human activity is the primary cause of global climate change. “We don’t need people to come in here and reject us,” said one.

Political attempts to truncate the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Social, Behavior, and Economic Science division continue in the federal Senate after relative legislative success in the House of Representatives. It is not only budget funding at issue but also more political micromanaging of the NSF peer review process. Several professional associations have opposed such legislation. ³

It is easy to dismiss these actions, even the discussion postings on venues such as Yahoo.com or CNN.com, as venting from a small, disgruntled minority. Two major problems with this perspective are (1) this is not such a small minority ⁴ and (2) attitude research indicates that those holding more extreme attitudes of any kind are more likely to hold strong attitudes and are more likely to act on their feelings than those of more moderate persuasions (Schuman & Presser, 1977; Scott & Schuman, 1988).

What are the sources of such micromanagement or opposition—for schools and even museums? One quick answer would cite cost: for example, competitive concerns about replacing an aging infrastructure, or city conflicts about pension, retirement, and medical allocations for the ever-increasing tide of aging Baby Boomers versus funding new school programs or museum exhibits. It is the case that many companies involved with fossil fuels—or states with economies heavily dependent on mining or oil exploration—feel economically threatened and lobby elected representatives on “climate change.” Yet many public expenditures, such as maintaining already existing science education programs or science museum exhibits, are quite modest.

Second, the perennial old saws resurface: the synopsized, often even unrecognizable, study or exhibits on an obscure or arcane topic, species or population that are seized on as illustrative wastes of taxpayer dollars. For example, Greenberg and Carville (2014), in an admittedly partisan report, conducted homogenous focus groups of Republican identifiers. ⁵ As one respondent put it:

The government will spend you know hundreds of thousands of dollars to check out some bird you know, that’s fading away or something. Don’t worry about that bird. Worry about the people you know. (Tea Party woman, Roanoke)

Nearly always, such examples constitute “proof by anecdote.” The percentage of allocated dollars granted or fraction of funded civic expenditures, even for a topic the “average person” might consider farfetched, is rarely mentioned.

Hostility to “big government” and the federal government in particular is another possible explanation. Even “Common Core” school science standards have been framed as a federal mandate (which they are not). Opposition to the data collection in the American Community Survey often centers on possible violations of personal privacy. Yet many of the same politicians who support truncating the American Community Survey or cutting funding to NSF divisions also support antiabortion legislation or outlaw certain kinds of sexual relations. It is tough to envision a more personal invasion than a transvaginal ultrasound exam, which some states require before a woman obtains an abortion.

Clashes about K-12 education or museum exhibit content also can be seen as dimensions of the “culture wars,” but it is not just “big government” that can be a threat, as one of Greenberg and Carville’s (2014) respondent quotes illustrates:

The politicians and those people—celebrities. Most of them may or may not believe it, but it’s an opportunity for them to gain power, make money, push their agenda. They want to regulate everything . . . they want to control it, so this [global warming] is a great excuse for them to gain that control. And if the world were covered in ice right now, they’d find another reason to gain control. (Tea Party man, Raleigh)

It is solely my conjecture, of course, but could one goal of some politicians and pundits in dismantling facets of public education and cultural facilities be an ideological exercise in transparency reduction, obfuscating objective and accurate information, to create a “silent” intractable, uncorrectable (and undetectable) “majority” of opinion and assertion? Ideally conducted, public education, museums, and science disciplines are transparent, supported by our best estimates of fact, solid methodology, and replicable research. Access to this kind of information genuinely helps people to “make up their own minds” on topics that are controversial among nonscientists.

Finally, contributing to misunderstanding science processes, and thus ultimately science education, is the tendency of many media to saturate the public with one study, only to report opposing results a week later. As science communication scholars note, communicative media, for example, Internet, radio, or television, often feel compelled to present “both sides” of a science issue, even when few science authorities disagree, presenting misleading “controversies” to the general public. As yet a third Greenberg and Carville (2014) focus group respondent said:

You could have 12 scientists on this side talking all about global warming, and you can get 12 scientists that will have the complete opposite. So you’re listening and you just don’t know.

Such confusion is reflected in the more representative general public surveys about energy use and climate change analyzed by Biddle, Rochkind, and Ott (2009).

Or, as a pithy letter to the editor ⁶ put it:

It is a credit to the Democrat’s high journalistic standards that it publishes letters and My Views from global warming deniers . . . global warming will have catastrophic impacts ranging from health harms to parts of Florida becoming submerged. In keeping with the highest standards of journalistic integrity, the Democrat also should publish letters from readers who make scientific claims that the world is flat, the law of gravity is a hoax and Americans really did not land on the moon. After all, we’re all entitled to our opinions, even if they are profoundly ignorant. . . . I agree that the role of the responsible journalist is not to filter out junk but to publish every word of it.

In a corollary article, a widely read October 2013 The Economist cover story (“How science goes wrong,” 2013) castigated scientists for complacency, ⁷ conducting “shoddy research,” overly trusting their colleagues’ findings, not conducting replication studies (and journals failing to publish same), stifling dissenting voices, and overall incompetence.

A promising response to mass media science reporting came from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Trust. In a recent headline “BBC Trust says 200 senior managers trained not to insert ‘false balance’ into stories when issues were non-contentious,” The Telegraph (Knapton, 2014) recently cited a BBC-Trust strenuous caution against attempts to present “balanced” science reporting:

The report found that there was still an “over-rigid application of editorial guidelines on impartiality” which sought to give the “other side” . . . even if that viewpoint was widely dismissed. . . . The Trust wishes to emphasise the importance of attempting to establish where the weight of scientific agreement may be found and make that clear to audiences. . . . Science coverage does not simply lie in reflecting a wide range of views but depends on the varying degree of prominence such views should be given. . . . The Trust said that man-made climate change was one area where too much weight had been given to unqualified critics. . . . In April the BBC was accused of misleading viewers about climate change and creating “false balance” by allowing unqualified skeptics . . . too much air-time. . . . In a damning parliamentary report, the corporation was criticised for distorting the debate. . . . The BBC’s determination to give a balanced view has seen it pit scientists arguing for climate change against far less qualified opponents. (Knapton, 2014)

One such attempt featured a British aristocrat who lobbies against U.K. climate change policies. Although readers here are familiar with attempts to treat science as though it were a collegiate debate, a matter of opinion, or a judicial process, it is still refreshing to see journalistic changes that may portray research findings more accurately. ⁸ I hope more American media will follow suit.