Are We There Yet?

This time of year I just can’t help it. I think about commencements speeches and road trips. I think about the impatient child in the back seat asking, “are we there yet?” and the exasperated parent thinking up one more game to keep this child occupied along a tireless highway.

The latest buzz has been about including environmental education in federal policy. Hmmm, does this sound ground-breaking to you? I guess a little history lesson is needed…

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) is the federal law that governs public education and prioritizes federal funding. America has had public education since the days of President Adams (who thought up the concept of a free and public education), but it was funded at the state and local level until the 1960s as a Defense Department response to the Russians launching Sputnick – our first realization that there could be a crisis – that other countries could be educating their children better than we do – and a realization that our children need to understand math and science in order for us to compete in the global market.

Almost as soon as there was funding for public education there was a legislator wondering if funding was making a difference. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), better known as Our Nation’s Report Card, has tracked student achievement in various subjects since 1969 in hopes of answering that question. Since it was first administrated, educators have been confronted with the question of what to do to increase student achievement and have used the results of NAEP to garner funding for various proposed programs.

No Child Left Behind, the 2002 authorization of ESEA we are currently governed by, focused states, districts, and schools on how to give elementary level children a strong foundation in reading and mathematics by prioritizing funding in the primary grades. As a result, we’ve heard lots of conversation about the “narrowing of the curriculum,” a “back to basics” approach, and how best to teach children in the early grades. While some states have made measurable changes in their programs based on this focused funding, the results on NAEP have changed little. Finally, someone realized that when each state decides what students will learn and the assessment doesn’t reflect the same content, the results of the assessment might not be capturing the improvement that is occurring. This has sparked the new Core Standards movement. With 48 states promising to adopt these standards, the diversity in how we educate children across the nation is sure to narrow significantly.

Today, Obama’s administration gets the chance to lead a reauthorization and has published Blueprint for Reform outlining a focus on a “well-rounded education.” Various special interests have greeted this document with great excitement. I particularly like the community’s proclamation that finally environmental education has made the national conversation. If you consider success as the phrase “environmental education” listed twice as part of a laundry list of topics to be taught, hidden within a 45-page document as significant, then celebrate.

However, the historical view would tell me that this trivial mention of environmental education is a step backward. From the days of Teddy Roosevelt, civics and science have been a part of the national education focus. People have chosen to teach their children about nature and how to protect it through stories, allegories and scientific experiments. Neither historians nor scientists argue that the environment is important for children to understand and to protect as a national treasure. Children care about where they live naturally and that makes it a great context for teaching how to read, write, argue and solve problems. What has changed is whether each idea that children should learn should also be articulated as an item to be checked off on a list.

What will environmental education look like in the new reauthorization? Will it be a list of skills or facts students must master or an authentic context through which students are driven to learn more about where they live and analyze the choices they make. I have no idea, but I do know that that when we try to design education too concretely, the art and passion that sparks student learning is lost in translation. I personally think environmental education is too important to run the risk of vital ideas being trivialized.

Some states have been working on articulating important ideas about the environment into their policies for years. Forward-thinking states like California have woven environmental education throughout various program requirements. At every grade level, in both social studies and science, environmental education topics can be found in the academic content standards adopted in 1999. In 2003 California then adopted environmental principles as a context for teaching about cause-and-effect impacts across the subject areas. To support teachers with ideas on how to layer instruction to include these principles while working toward mastery of the content standards, the Environmental Protection Agency has spent over $3 million since 2005 developing 85 model lessons that they will distribute at no cost to the local level. Various agencies have built coalitions with businesses to provide schools with training, curriculum and instructional resources to teach environmental topics.

So what does the mention of environmental education in federal policy do? For a state like California, probably very little – and can possibly move them backwards in times of budgetary constraints. For other states, just recognizing the phrase and wondering what it means in terms of their programs could be a giant step forward.

With the Secretary of Education talking about competitive grants, selected states can develop meaningful environmental literacy programs for targeted student populations. However, if environmental education is so important, isn’t it important for all students?

So I ask you, are we there yet?