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Kansas, Missouri School Board members to explore improvements in science-related education

Saturday seminar to explore issues and challenges facing US School Boards

Nearly 100 elected school board members from three dozen districts in Kansas and Missouri will meet with some of the nation’s top education experts in Kansas City on Saturday (June 23) to explore how local boards can help to support and improve science, mathematics and technology education from kindergarten through high school.

The Kansas City seminar is the latest phase in an historic three-year national project that is developing plans and materials to help school boards nationwide develop policies and public support for state-of-the-art science, mathematics, and technology curricula. The project is co-sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the National School Boards Association (NSBA), with funding provided by the Kansas City-based Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

Saturday’s seminar is scheduled to run from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. at The Westin Crown Center, 1 Pershing Rd., Kansas City, Mo.

The presentations and discussions at the seminar will cover a range of critical issues and challenges in K-12 science, technology and mathematics education. The seminar also will consider public attitudes about science, mathematics, and technology education; performance standards and science literacy; and how school boards can effectively engage the public on controversial science-related issues. The day will conclude with a session devoted to helping board members integrate what they've learned into a preliminary action plan tailored to their individual districts.

Among the speakers: Jo Ellen Roseman, director of AAAS’s pioneering Project 2061 science literacy initiative; Joseph S. Villani, NSBA’s deputy executive director; Will Friedman, director of Public Agenda’s Center for Advances in Public Engagement; Connie Bertka, director of the AAAS Program of Dialogue on Science, Education and Religion; and Rita Barger, assistant professor of Curriculum & Instructional Leadership at the University of Missouri, Kansas City.

The NSBA/AAAS project, begun early this year with a $739,000 Kauffman Foundation grant, has focused on the Kansas City metropolitan area. Public Agenda, the non-partisan opinion research and civic engagement firm, has conducted interviews, focus groups and surveys of elected school board members in the region. Those findings, combined with Saturday’s presentations and discussions, will shape the training materials and Web site that will be delivered to state school board associations nationwide early in 2008.

Some findings thus far have been surprising: While attacks on evolution education have made headlines in Kansas and Missouri—and nationwide—most Kansas City-area school board officials are more concerned with learning what schools must do to prepare students for the 21st century economy, in which growth and opportunity will be concentrated in science and technology fields.

Saturday’s event is also co-hosted by the Kansas Association of School Boards and the Missouri School Boards’ Association.

The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City is a private, nonpartisan foundation that works with partners to advance entrepreneurship in America and improve the education of children and youth. The Kauffman Foundation was established in the mid-1960s by the late entrepreneur and philanthropist Ewing Marion Kauffman. Information about the Kauffman Foundation is available at www.kauffman.org.

The National School Boards Association, founded in 1940, is a not-for-profit federation of state associations of school boards. Its mission is to foster excellence and equity in public education through school board leadership. NSBA achieves that mission by representing the school board perspective before federal government agencies and with national organizations that affect education, and by providing vital information and services to state associations of school boards and local school boards.

Public Agenda was founded by social scientist and author Daniel Yankelovich and former U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance in 1975. The two-fold mission of the non-profit organization is to help American leaders better understand the public's point of view and to help citizens know more about critical policy issues so they can make thoughtful, informed decisions. It explores issues ranging from education and foreign policy to immigration, religion and civility in American life.

AAAS, founded in 1848, is the world's largest general scientific society, serving 262 affiliated societies and academies of science that reach 10 million individuals. It publishes the journal Science, which has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world and an estimated total readership of 1 million. The non-profit association is open to everyone and fulfills its mission to “advance science and serve society” through initiatives in science policy, international programs, science education and more. For the latest research news, log onto EurekAlert!, www.eurekalert.org, the premier science-news Web site, a service of AAAS.

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