National Science Education Standards: Looking Backward and Forward

As a whole, the National Research Council's National Science Education Standards describes a vision of scientific literacy for all students. Taken separately, the standards for content, teaching, assessment, professional development, school and district programs, and the science education system provide criteria to measure progress toward that vision. After reporting on the process for developing them, I describe 4 distinctive features of the standards. The first is the emphasis on all students understanding science. The next is the expanded definition of science, which is grounded in inquiry, includes the facts, concepts, laws, and theories of science subject matter, and extends to human dimensions of science. Another feature is the inclusion of standards for science content, teaching, and assessment in the same document in mutually reinforcing ways. Finally, the professional development, program, and system standards provide criteria to support the vision of science education. I discuss 3 barriers to the implementation of the standards and suggest indicators of progress toward the vision, such as increased student involvement in scientific inquiry.