In an earlier post, which was critical of an editorial in the Journal of Research in Science Teaching, I pointed out that reform in science education needs to focus on what is happening in urban high schools (or what is not happening). We are losing many of our students, and in some urban cities, we are losing more as dropouts, than those you dropin and stay for graduation.

Today, the USA Newspaper had as its headline a discussion of the dropout problem. Reform in education must start here, and focus on helping students stay in school, and develop the abilities to move to post-secondary education. As I mentioned in that earlier post, some very outstanding work is being done through the Gates Educational Foundation, and is worth looking into.

Departments of Education, such as the one in Georgia, are out of the loop when it comes to reform, and they are more interested in their annual experience of testing and reporting to the public. We need curriculum reform, and teacher reform directed at working with students in smaller, more intimate environments.