“There’s nothing that has no relationship to science,” Comer said after the class. “It’s very important to me that students know how the world around them functions.”
But learning science is like learning another language, she said, and only 10 percent of Baychester’s students read English at or above grade level. Complicating matters, elementary school teachers vary widely in their interest or ability to teach science. By the time kids arrive in Comer’s sixth-grade class, some have had virtually no science, some have only read textbooks, while others have been doing full-on experiments. Even at the middle school level, she said, “science is not a priority because of testing. The high stakes of math and [language arts], that’s what kids get promoted based on and what teachers get rated based on.”
Complicating matters further, the school sits opposite the borough’s largest public housing complex, with 42 buildings, 2,000 apartments and a history of gang violence.