State standards and assessment tests, positive and negative implications for AMS Education initiatives

The 1990's may become remembered as the decade of the standards and assessments. National standards in math and science have been developed by boards, committees, and organizations. During that time, states like Maine joined in the pursuit of learning consistency with its "State of Maine Learning Results" of goals and standards for school and student performance, published in 1997 when adopted by the legislature. This year the Maine Educational Assessment Test (MEA), a statewide testing program, has been revised such that all questions now must correlate directly with the "Learning Results". In addition, all programs, grants, federal financial incentives, and other activity having any state agency association must demonstrate support of "Learning Result" goals and objectives. Since state assessment results are made public, the pressure on schools and teachers has significantly increased and some flexibility has decreased.

Being involved with AMS programs Project Atmosphere, Maury Project, and DataStreme I have been able to use my experiences to promote weather and marine sciences in the state domain. I served since 1993 on the development of the "Learning Results" document and now serve on the 11th grade science Assessment Design/Development Committee. Generally speaking, the trend in Maine is for a strengthening of the Earth Sciences in both middle and high school areas, thereby providing a positive impact for the AMS programs. However, I also have recently been involved with NASA material where we had to identify state standard alignments. This may become necessary for our AMS materials in Maine and other states. There has also been a definite reduction in content staff development as the mandates in implementation and assessment have emerged. I would like to present an examination of the changes and trends in professional development and the potential impact on teacher enhancement programs.