ScienceFreedom.org

Issues With Next Generation Science Standards Proposed for Adoption in Utah and the Adoption Process

Updated 18 August 2015
Overview:

The Utah State Office of Education has proposed adopting the Next Generation Science Standards or NGSS. The producers of the NGSS standards clearly intended them to be the science complement to the Common Core standards which Utah adopted a few years ago. The copyright for these standards is held by Achieve, the same organization that holds the copyright for Common Core. We have significant cause for concern about these standards, the motivation for adopting them, and the insidious way in which they are being adopted.

The standards themselves are very politicized, turning a science class into a social experiment in an effort to manipulate society. Further, these standards lack depth and are missing foundational pieces of science. Contrary to the initial appearance, these standards are missing fundamental mathematical integration in the upper grades where the fusion of math and science are essential.

We question the soundness and motivation of the effort to adopt these standards. As mentioned, NGSS is the science complement in the Common Core movement. Continuing down this road of national standards will further erode the autonomy and responsiveness of the USOE to the needs and concerns of parents and students in the State of Utah. A graphic example of such eroding autonomy and responsiveness is the fact that over the two or three years of consideration and adoption by the “Utah Writing Team,” there has not been a single significant word change from the NGSS published “National Performance Standards.”

Additional alarm bells are sounded, when we see the public and recorded statements from USOE officials vowing that Utah “will not adopt [national standards] because there are just too many philosophical variances ... we're not going there.” Yet that is exactly what the USOE is trying to do! Also, the Governor is on the record in the 2015 State of the State address and in the report “Putting the best interest of our students first” on Jul. 17, 2014, that he is concerned about maintaining local control of our schools. When the USOE spends several years considering the NGSS and we find out that not one significant word has been changed from the “National Performance Standard,” what should that tell us about the responsiveness of USOE to the parents of our State now and also the potential in the future?

There is plain evidence that the USOE has tried to adopt these proposed science standards under the radar, not letting the public know what the real and complete plan is for our Utah Science Standards. It appears that board members also have been mislead by statements for the USOE as to this intent. Though it is clear the USOE intends to eventually propose adoption of the entire K-12 NGSS program, the Parent Review Committee was only shown material for grads 6-8; furthermore, the public was limited to seeing only the “Performance Standards” for those grades.

Proper attribution to NGSS and acknowledgment of word-for-word copying of the standards has been avoided by the USOE every step of the approval process thus far.

We have data to back up all of these statements and more. We urge the complete rejection of the currently proposed standards and the formation of a new standards committee from Utah Industry and Education members so that we may eventually develop proper and substantial science standards for our great State.

More details:

Points of Issue with Utah's Currently Proposed Science Standards and the Adoption Process

Updated 18 August 2015

We have concerns with the currently proposed standards in three categories: first is content, second is the purpose and motivation for these particular standards, and third is the methods of adoption.

Content:

• Politicized presentation of Global Warming and Environmentalism. Selected example 6.2.4 MS-ESS3-5 For contrast see this link Global Warming¹

• Darwinian Dogma

  • The Standards lack an objective view of scientific data; teachers are instructed to lead the students to forgone conclusions, ignoring much of the data that speaks to the contrary. Selected example 7.2.4 MS-LS4-2. For contrast consider (link) Cambrian fossils² which shows sudden appearance and original diversity of animal life. See also contradictory fossils: Selected example this link Soft Dinosaur Tissue³

• The indoctrination of a materialistic and highly politicized mantra, which excludes any data and logic that indicates that there is anything more than simply matter and energy as an explanation of our origins. Selected example 8^th grade root question 1⁴.

• This enthroned materialistic view has a devastating affect on the morals of society as a whole. Selected example this link Columbine⁵

• Our graduates end up not understanding the limits of our science and its explanatory ability. Example: see complete Parent Review committee email discussion on Star Formation⁶

• Instances of bad science (things like Haeckel's “Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny,” have been discredited for many years). 7.2.2 MS-LS4-3. For contrast see Haeckel's Embrios⁷

• Missing and “implicit” content. See Fordham report p8⁸

• Artificial limits on learning: “boundary statements” found in the full NGSS and State drafts unnecessarily bind a teacher to a particular tract of teaching, forbidding the teacher to adjust the content to the particular needs and abilities of the class.

• The failure to include essential math critical to science learning particularly at the upper levels where the fusion of math and science is so essential. See Fordham report p9⁹

• Lack of depth in critical topics; for example, in K-12, “climate” is mentioned 58 times, yet “current” (as in electric current) is only discussed 3 times, electron 5 times; also, there is no computer science or anatomy included while the word “evolution” is mentioned 56 times. Which has had a greater positive impact on our daily lives, our technology, our standard of living, the electron and electric current, or the notion that all of us have some distant common ancestral relation to a bacteria, a banana, a fish, and a frog?

• Missing science foundations. See Fordham report p 12¹⁰

• Missing the foundational science concept of falsification. Without falsification, students or researchers can only find lines of support for a theory. This turns the topic from science to a belief system, a dogma, even a religion.

• The watering down of science with social issues, limiting the time to teach the science, instead using the time for social engineering. Selected example 6.3.5 MS-LS2-5.

• Addressing complex social and philosophical issues in early grades/young ages, before the students have developed much background and experience, turns these issues from opportunities for development to instances of indoctrination. Selected example 6.4.3 MS-ESS3-4.

Purpose/Motivation:

• The NGSS (copyright held by Achieve), of which USOE is proposing for our children's education, was clearly developed to be the science complement to the national Common Core standards (of which Achieve was the instigator), yet our USOE officials gave assurances through multiple representatives on multiple occasions that Utah would not adopt further national standards. See Youtube Utah's Science¹¹

• Submitting to a National Standard could bring Federal consequences should we try to deviate from those standards in the future! Selected example: Duncan - phase out the authority of States¹²

• The Common Core philosophy, of which NGSS is a part, extracts agency from the education equation and institutes a rigid structure of testing, accreditation and licensure, allowing total control of education with the intended result of molding society.

Methods:

• Failure to evaluate the whole of the NGSS, only looking at grades 6-8, when there has been a clear intent to adopt the entire set of standards.

• Presentation to the public of only selected material and not the full body of material that will be presented to our teachers even within grades 6-8.¹³

• Evidence of an attempt to intimidate certain participants of the review committee.¹⁴

• Certain participants of the committee urged compliance with what they apparently were led to believe was passed legislation, which legislation required conformity with National and even International standards, but in fact was not law. See Parent Review Committee email discussion¹⁵

• Proper attribution of the NGSS copyright was hidden or obscured from the Board the Parent Review Committee and the public.

• Written and Verbal misrepresentations of the standards' origin. Example April Tab 3¹⁶

Brad C. Smith TO: Members, Utah State Board of Education

ACTION: Release Grades 6-8 Science Standards Draft for 90-Day Public Review

Background: The Utah State Office of Education in collaboration with the Utah science education community (composed of Utah science teachers, Utah district science curriculum specialists, and Utah higher education representatives) has created a revised draft of the Utah Core Science Standards for grades 6-8.

• One example of many verbal misrepresentations of the standards origin Youtube SLC Standards Review Meeting May 19, 2015 (the last)¹⁷

• Evidence of a USOE effort to keep the Board from hearing details about our concerns about the standards.¹⁸

• Stacking the review committee with members of the school administration.

• Writers of the standards as voting members of the committee.

• Withholding or making documents difficult to access.¹⁹

• Initial shortage of time to review.

• In the December meeting, critical issues on the standards were pushed to the last few minutes of discussion when some members had to leave with no opportunity for extension.²⁰

• Members of the USOE and one member of the State Board of Education tried to intimidate and cast inaccurate dispersions on various posts from certain members of the review committee.²¹

• Later format adopted by USOE for the Science Standards meetings provided little opportunity for rebuttal or offering counter statements to those expressed.

• Of all of the discussion and input over the many months that the “writers” had to consider, there has not been one meaningful word that has been changed from the NGSS performance standards.²²

• Representatives of USOE have publicly pledged not to adopt a National Standard yet that is exactly what is being done. Example Youtube "Utah's Deceptive Science Standards Adoption"²³

Clearly, the allegiance of USOE, in their effort to adopt the NGSS, is not with the parents of Utah, but obviously is aligned with certain national and federal organizations.

Teach All of the Science:

We believe the students of our Utah families should be free to hear the full breadth of scientific evidence. Science teachers should not be shackled to sterilized arguments and filtered scientific facts, as we find in the NGSS standards, simply because other data points to what has become politically unpopular conclusions.