Two sets of comprehensive standards for science education have been promulgated in this decade. The National Science Education Standards (NSES) were published in 1996 by the National Research Council (1), and the Benchmarks for Science Literacy were developed by the AAAS Project 2061 (2) and published in 1993. Last year, the American Chemical Society published a chemistry teacher's guide to the standards that contains much useful information (3). Both sets of standards provide goals for student learning and emphasize new ways of teaching and learning. They do not specify course content, nor do they define any specific way to achieve the goals set. Therefore, considerable interpretation and effort are required of us teachers to implement the standards appropriately and effectively.

Both the standards and the students (see last month's editorial) agree that the most important factor in improving education is teachers, and so it behooves us to expend a great deal of effort to improve that factor - ourselves. Crosby (4) has provided a worthy challenge for college and university faculty to educate pre-service teachers using the same new techniques that the standards expect teachers to use with K-12 students. Ware (5) and the ACS book (3) provide excellent advice for teachers who will be dealing with implementation on a day-to-day basis. Nevertheless, it will take many individual decisions and a lot of individual creativity from each of us to make these standards real and effective in the classroom.

Several things are important to keep in mind as we apply our creativity and make our decisions. First of all, the standards are intended to delineate what science every student should know, understand, and be able to do. They are not designed to limit what some students can know, understand, and be able to do, and we should strive to avoid such limitations as we help every student to attain science learning goals set by the standards. Second, some time will be required for full implementation of the standards and for all students to be able to achieve as anticipated, because upper-level students will not have had the benefit of lower-level changes for several years. The overall goal of the standards is that students who have participated in a standards-based curriculum from kindergarten through 12th grade should all be able to know, understand, and do what is specified.

Third, the fact that we teach aspects of chemistry that are not part of the standards does not necessarily mean that we are "going beyond the standards" appropriately. The standards suggest that some traditional topics ought to give way to others that are more representative of contemporary chemistry, such as organic chemistry, biochemistry, environmental chemistry, and industrial chemistry. Fourth, scientific inquiry is part of the content that the standards delineate. It is no longer a question of whether to fit inquiry-based learning into the curriculum at the expense of content. Inquiry is content and must be included in a standards-based curriculum.

It is also important to recognize that content standards reflect only one of six categories in the NSES. The others are standards for science teaching, professional development of science teachers, assessment in science education, science education programs, and science education systems. It is also important to recognize that standards continually need to be reconsidered and scrutinized with an eye towards improvement. Change is characteristic of science, and effective science education must reflect the current or anticipated state of science, not its state of 10, 20, 30, or more years ago. Consequently, it is up to all of us to consider how the standards could be improved and made to include the most important aspects of science for all our students to learn.

Standards provide excellent guidance and much food for thought. Ultimately, however, it is your choices and mine as teachers that really determine what our students learn and how well they learn it. Let's consider the standards as guideposts, not fence posts, and implement them as intelligently and effectively as possible.

Literature Cited

1.National Science Education Standards; National Research Council, National Academy Press: Washington, DC, 1996.
2.Benchmarks for Science Literacy; American Association for the Advancement of Science, Oxford University Press: New York, 1993.
3.Chemistry in the National Science Education Standards; American Chemical Society Education Division, Washington, DC, 1997.
4.Crosby, G. A. J. Chem. Educ. 1996, 73, A200-A201.
5.Ware, S. A. J. Chem. Educ. 1996, 73, A307-A308.