Missed Opportunities

I know that things move a little slower in the South, particularly in our own state and I’m sure that’s all well and good if you’re cutting grass or picking oranges. However, when it come to making decisions in planning future science education for our nearly 2.5million students, you would think that dragging your heels would not be the obvious course of action.

In Brandon’s previous 2 postings he pointed out the missed opportunities which caused Florida to lose any input in the National Science Standards. Not that the National Standards will suffer in Florida’s absence, however, it would have been advantageous for us to have at least some input. The current position it now seems is to “put a band aid” on the current state standards and hopefully the FBOE who meet on May 9th, will decide (with lots of political wrangling) to to adopt the national standards. In the mean time, the wounded state standards will be repaired and nursed for a year or two.

All this time and expense could have been avoided with just a little more urgency from those in Tallahassee. Now Paul Cottle over at “Bridge to Tomorrow” http://bridgetotomorrow.wordpress.com/ has expressed his opinions on this issue, stating that “the best option of all is simply to do nothing – and to wait for the final national standards to be released next year.” I agree with Paul and that should go down well with the decision makers of Florida, after all,taking things slow seems to be the way to do things here in good old Florida-sigh.

This article now linked to the Grade Book at the Tampa Bay Times

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5 Responses to Missed Opportunities

  1. Chris says:

    Is it really about raising the bar with a national science standard or rather attempting to solidify the humanist religious doctrine of molecule to man evolution on the federal level.

    Most of the persuasive conversation here has nothing to do with science but rather with the promotion evolutionary doctrine within the public school system.

    What exactly is the problem which needs federal intervention?

  2. IvoryGirl says:

    Chris, the problem is that the US is ranked lower that 17th in science education compared with the rest of the world. One of our problems is that some states have a much higher level of science education than others. National standards would give all our students equal opportunities and allow for each individual state to compare its self to other states.
    Evolution is just one small part of this pictures and I don’t think anyone who really cares about science education try’s to promote anything but good science in the science classroom. Acceptance of evolution is not a problem in the countries that are leading the US, its scientific validity was established years ago. If there is any attempt to promote a specific doctrine in the public school system, then you only have to look at the right wing religious fundamentalists who are trying to promote their particular religious ideologies in the form of creationism.

  3. Chris says:

    IvoryGirl

    Promoting any religious doctrine should be avoided. It’s true the overwhelming acceptance and promotion of religious humanist doctrine has brought a few creationist out of the woodwork crying foul with some silly ideas of there own.

    The continued onslaught of garbage science may be taking its toll on the overall field.

    If a higher ranking can be achieved by the further acceptance of evolutionary theory as truth, there could be a problem here in the US. Wile many believe in molecule to man evolutionary theory and a large number just tolerate the fantasy the problem is an even larger portion of the population know it’s pure BS.

    Losing respect for authority and the public school system in general can somewhat be attributed to the political and religious humanist influences promoted in our educational systems.

    Standardizing science curriculum across the country may have very sound benefits, but I think there are much bigger problems which if addressed would have a far greater impact on student performance and success.

  4. IvoryGirl says:

    Chris as a 9th grade science teacher I just don’t agree with your views.As I stated,evolution is only a part of science education. Never the less evolution IS good science and unless we have evidence to dispute this, we need to teach it in the science class. The reason why, as you said “a large number just tolerate the fantasy the problem is an even larger portion of the population know it’s pure BS.” is because the public are ill informed about the subject. The only way we can break this cycle is to better educate our students.

  5. Chris says:

    IvoryGirl

    I must commend you on your comment “evolution is only a part of science education.” Evolution also is only a part of science. And to not accept evolution’s whole bag of tricks does not make one anti-science.

    I would have to disagree that the public is ill informed about evolution. There is no place you can go within the US and not be exposed to it’s theory. Television, radio, public school systems, collages, state parks and even many religious organizations proclaim the presupposition that man has evolved from lower life forms. Evolution is more than just a scientific theory and it not only applies to biological life but the so called natural process now encompasses the entire universe. Looking at the facts as they are Darwinian atheist Michael Ruse recognizes the theory for what it is .”Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion—a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. . . . Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today.”

    The problem is that our population is well informed and much of the foolishness associated with the fantasy portion of the theory has degraded the entire scientific field. The continued dumbing down of America may bring in more converts to the faith based components of evolutionary theory. But compulsory indoctrination of any belief system should not be part of public education, even if you don’t have anything else.

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