Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). The TEKS, for example, devote a
significant portion of the objectives to the Nature of Science and process skills and
the rest to content knowledge.
The teaching of science as inquiry embedded in theteachHOUSTONpro-
gramme is also recommended by a myriad of resources including theNational
Science Education Standards (National Research Council [NRC] 1996 );
Benchmarks for Science Literacy(American Association for the Advancement of
Science 1993 ); andRising above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing
America for a Brighter Economic Future(National Academy of Sciences 2007 ).
The National Science Education Standards (NRC 1996 ), for instance, defines
inquiry as follows:
Scientific inquiry refers to the diverse ways in which scientists study the natural world and
propose explanations based on the evidence derived from their work. Inquiry also refers to
the activities of students in which they develop knowledge and understanding of scientific
ideas, as well as understandings of how scientists study the natural world. (p. 23)The features of classroom inquiry and their variations as endorsed by the National
Research Council are outlined in Table30.1.
Despite the emphasis placed on the use of inquiry in science education being
addressed in preservice and in-service science teacher preparation programmes,
research has shown that the majority of teachers still fail to incorporate inquiry
teaching methods into their teaching repertoires (Salish I Research Collaborative
1997 ).teachHOUSTONwas initiated for this latter reason in addition to the urgent
problems present in the Texas educational landscape, which we will discuss next.
30.4 The Texas Educational Landscape
As foreshadowed, the challenges of the Texas educational landscapes are mammoth,
particularly since the largest, most well-known Houston area school district currently
has 80% of its teachers withfive years or less experience and 50% of its principals
withfive years or less experience. Also, in Texas as a whole, more than 30% of
middle school (grades 6–8) mathematics and science teachers are teaching out of
their specialty areas and 13.3% (mathematics) and 28.7% (science) high school
teachers (grades 9–12) teachers are additionally instructing out offield. This phe-
nomenon is more pronounced in secondary schools, which tend to employ the least
qualified teachers to instruct the most disadvantaged youth. These campuses expe-
rience the greatest shortages, creating an achievement gap that Darling-Hammond
( 2011 ) perhaps more appropriately termed an“opportunity gap.”A study conducted
by Nelson et al. ( 2009 ) reported that underserved students are twice as likely to have
teachers who are not certified in comparison to their white peers. Figures30.1and
30.2illustrate the percentages of high full-time equivalent (FTL) school science and
mathematics teachers in Texas who are assigned positions out offield in relation to
the percentages of youths living in poverty.
458 C.J. Craig et al.