Lawmakers urge Gov. Newsom to restore funding for science teacher program

Nearly 20 California legislators have sent a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom asking him to restore funding for a professional development program for California science teachers that focuses on best practices and how to implement the Next Generation Science Standards that California adopted in 2013. The Exploratorium K-12 Science Leader Network is offered through the San Francisco-based Exploratorium museum and was previously supported with $3.5 million in state funding before the funds were cut from the current state budget.

Since 2016, the program has partnered with California school districts to train more than 800 teacher leaders in the science standards and teaching strategies, and about 90% of those teachers work in Title 1 schools that enroll large numbers of students from low-income families. The Exploratorium had plans to expand its reach to nearly 125,000 teachers by 2023 before the funding was lost.

Since the coronavirus pandemic has caused most schools to offer distance learning, the Exploratorium science teacher program has shifted its lessons online to provide teachers with science teaching strategies specifically for a virtual classroom. “The impact of COVID-19 with the requirements for Californians to remain at home and the shift to distance learning imposes new demands for teaching and learning science,” the letter reads.