The curriculum in both mathematics and science should be broad-based and include both process skills and content knowledge. NCTM and NSES documents delineate these areas. There are many effective instructional strategies that can be used in either mathematics or science. Such strategies can also be used to meet the needs of individual students. How do the identified disparities relate to what mathematics and science is assessed.
All instruction is assessed in terms of student learning and performance.
Assessment is much more than testing. Assessments should occur before, during, and after instruction and must be directly tied to instruction. The purposes of assessment are to evaluate and modify programs, to meet the needs of individual students, to improve instruction, and to recognize accomplishments and communicate them to the learning community. Disparities occur from how assessment is viewed or how assessment is used. The list of needs should focus on how the learning community can lessen the identified disparities.