Florida Governor Ron DeSantis caused quite a stir when he announced he was directing Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran to review the state’s academic standards and suggest revisions by January 1, 2020. I believe every single news story focused nearly exclusively on the governor’s desire to throw out Common Core standards, which are math and language arts. But as I’ve pointed out before, the governor’s executive order says: “By January 1, 2020, the Commissioner of Education-shall comprehensively review Florida’s Kindergarten through grade twelve academic standards and provide recommended revisions to the Governor.” The executive order does later emphasize the elimination of Common Core, but also mentions civics education, which is not Common Core. This strongly suggests that all standards are under review, which means science, too.
With that in mind, please consider offering your input to the Florida Department of Education. The DoE has posted a link to a survey for citizens to complete. It’s a very simple one that asks only three questions: your name, your organization and then a text field for you to offer your opinions on the current standards and suggest what should replace them.
Even this Orlando Sentinel article about the survey falls into the trap of only mentioning Common Core.
To that end, the Florida Department of Education has opened a survey, seeking input on what educators, parents and others might not like about the Common Core standards and what they think should be adopted in their place.
Unless the governor or the commissioner state explicitly that science standards are not being reviewed, I suggest that we assume they are. With that in mind, please consider filling out the DoE survey. Do you like our current science standards? Should we keep them? If not, should we go with the Next Generation Science Standards (which would likely be a non-starter give the hatred for Common Core)? Or what other science standards do you suggest?
Speak up. Be heard.
