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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsU.S. State Science Standards Are ‘Mediocre to Awful’
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/budding-scientist/2012/02/01/u-s-state-science-standards-are-mediocre-to-awful/How state science standards stack up, according to a new report from The Fordham Institute
A new report from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute paints a grim picture of state science standards across the United States. But it also reveals some intriguing details about exactly whats going wrong with the way many American students are learning science.
Standards are the foundation upon which educators build curricula, write textbooks and train teachers they often take the form of a list of facts and skills that students must master at each grade level. Each state is free to formulate its own standards, and numerous studies have found that high standards are a first step on the road to high student achievement. A majority of the states standards remain mediocre to awful, write the authors of the report. Only one state, California, plus the District of Columbia, earned straight As. Indiana, Massachusetts, South Carolina and Virginia each scored an A-, and a band of states in and around the northwest, including Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Nebraska, scored Fs. (For any New Yorkers reading this, our standards earned a respectable B+, plus the honor of having some of the most elegant writing of any science standards document).
What exactly is going wrong? The studys lead authors identified four main factors: an undermining of evolution, vague goals, not enough guidance for teachers on how to integrate the history of science and the concept of scientific inquiry into their lessons, and not enough math instruction.
Lets take these one by one. For evolution, the report points out that eight anti-evolution bills were introduced in six state legislatures last year. This year, two similar bills were pre-filed in New Hampshire and one in Indiana. And these tactics are far more subtle than they once were, write the authors. Missouri, for example, has asterisked all controversial evolution content in the standards and relegated it to a voluntary curriculum that will not be assessed Tennessee includes evolution only in an elective high school course (not the basic high school biology course). Maryland, according to the report, includes evolution content but explicitly excludes crucial points about evolution from its state-wide tests.
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U.S. State Science Standards Are ‘Mediocre to Awful’ (Original Post)
xchrom
Feb 2012
OP
xchrom
(108,903 posts)1. i'll give this 1 kick. nt
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)2. Nobody needs "science"
It's just a conspiracy dreamed up by pointy-headed liberals to undermine faith in Jebus. If it ain't in the Buybull no one needs to know it.
Sadly, millions of people actually think this way.