Page 467 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

442 J.L. Atkinson

Since the standards movement is deeply tied with business and economic interests,
the need for cultural assimilation is implicit in curriculum with standards-based
education. Strong economies need skilled workers, so the standards documents
upon which the teachers build their science curricula are centered on producing a
new generation of science workers. Because the need for a strong national economy
outweighs the needs of what the local community may desire, the standards and
criterion-referenced tests become the tools to reinforce the power infrastructure of
capitalism and economy. However, other problems are present such as individual
and community health issues, the resources within the school, the availability of
funds based on property values, and the sustainability of the economy. Standards
do not produce equity in science achievement; rather, they reinforce the current
stratification of the existing class systems around capitalism.

Deficit Models in Science Education

If the current standards movement in the United States grew out of the government
document A Nation at Risk, then the spirit behind the standards is one which pro-
motes the notion that students are “falling behind” their international counterparts
in the sciences. Much of No Child Left Behind and its subsequent effects on forcing
states to adopt accountability measures assume that some children are deficit while
other children are not. Because the standards movement assumes a homogenized
mixture of children with no regards to differences based on culture or ethnicity, we
must ask the question: what does this standards-based child look like? Leonardo
(2007) has criticized No Child Left Behind and the standardization of knowledge
as an “educational construction of whiteness” (p. 261). Students are now being
classified based on adequate yearly progress (AYP), which divides students based
on ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic factors (see http://www.doe.k12.ga.us/
ayp2009.aspx, e.g.). The ability to claim that standards are “colorblind” and the
equity that surrounds the standards movement is an issue reinforces the societal
notion that race, ethnicity, and culture do not matter in education.
It is highly plausible that students who do not have to confront issues of race or
ethnicity in the classroom have a privilege of whiteness (but may not necessarily be
“white”). Leonardo (2007) defines “whiteness,” or “color blindness” as a conscious
effort to downplay and avoid issues of race while reinforcing the individualness of
success or failure (p. 267). If a school fails, then the fault rests with the students and
teachers and their failures rather than infrastructural inequalities. Conversely, if a
school passes, then merit is based upon the success of individuals rather than struc-
tures, which insure success. The ideology behind a standards movement assumes
that people who are unable to claim or unwilling to claim the privilege of whiteness
are deficit and ultimately labeled as failing the national educational system. It is not
a coincidence that schools, which have higher achievement rates tend to have a rela-
tively homogenous population of seemingly white, middle class advantaged students.
The “achievement gap,” or differences in scores between groups of people, exists