Only a third of students in California meet the state's new science standards, the Los Angeles Times reports.
California adopted a new approach to teaching science in 2013 in which teachers ask a question, such as, the LA Times says, 'how does a wound heal?', and then discuss related processes, like cellular reproduction, and have students talk about what other processes or factors they think might be needed.
But students haven't done well on testing, the LA Times says, noting that the new standards haven't yet been implemented everywhere. Only 27.7 percent of high school students met the state science standards.
It notes that low scores could be in part due to it being the first year of that test and to students taking the exam using a computer program they may not have been familiar with. Other factors, the LA Times says, could be the shortage of teachers, especially science teachers, in the state and a shortage of lab materials and computers.