Page 120 - Standards for K-12 Engineering Education

Standards for K-12 Engineering Education?

APPENDIX B 105

Development of Department Policies

Policy Successes
Although it has taken years, significant progress has been made by the Department in aligning
the various policy elements so that technology/engineering is now treated as an academic
discipline. The grounding in the state’s 1993 Education Reform Law was essential for making
this possible. The law not only provided a basis for developing the standards, it also provided the
justification for developing corresponding policies.

The Department has repeatedly pointed out similarities between the structures of
technology/engineering and traditional sciences. Both articulate a core body of knowledge, and
both have an articulated process (closely aligned) to guide practice and generate new knowledge.
Based on these “equivalences,” the Department has claimed (from a policy perspective) that
technology/engineering can be counted as a science. This rationale supports changes to all other
policy elements

Once the first framework was developed, changes to the state’s science assessment followed.
Since technology/engineering was recognized as a strand in the framework, equivalent to other
science disciplines, the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) incorporated
technology/engineering items into its assessment. Technology/engineering currently counts for
15 percent of the grade 5 test and 25 percent of the grade 8 test and is one of four options for the
high school end-of-course test.

Next, the licensure expectations for teachers of technology/engineering had to be adjusted. This
took much longer to implement. The Department currently offers an academic
“technology/engineering” license which has expectations equivalent to those of other science
licenses: required content knowledge (including passing a content test), completion of a
practicum, available licenses for grade PreK–8 and 5–12, and being “highly qualified” as
required by NCLB.

However, because technology/engineering evolved through the progression of industrial arts to
technology education to technology/engineering, the license was not completely new; it is
actually a transition of the corresponding licenses of the same titles. As a result, all industrial arts
and technology education certified teachers have been grandfathered into the system with
licenses to teach a core academic technology/engineering course. This arrangement provided a
pool of teachers qualified to teach the new subject, but it also led to confusion by administrators
about whether those teachers were really qualified.

Finally, since the state recognizes technology/engineering as a core academic science option,
schools and districts can award science credit for these courses and apply them to high school
graduation requirements. The alignment of all of these policies means that schools and districts
now have the support they need to develop academic technology/engineering programs.

are not currently available). In addition, NCTL has supported leadership teams in approximately 55 Massachusetts
districts, including over 250 teachers and administrators, to design and implement technology/engineering programs.

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