A Checklist for a New Millennium School Science Department

My focus is both narrow and incomplete, for it is limited to a single area of learning: science, and it is in the form of a working list, a beginning of things one might write down, not in any particular order—so that they might be remembered and edited over time, with colleagues. Improving schools, teacher preparation, and professional development are important national priorities as we enter a new millennium. Past emphasis on targeted innovations in the short term are now conceptualized into the idea of continuous improvements that are connected in the long term. Today, the idea of improvement itself is being challenged. “Improvement,” the term of the technocrat, is being recast in the context of student learning—that is, how can we educate our young or learners of any age?