Science assessment scores “remained consistent”? Seriously?

Posted on June 9, 2017 by Brandon Haught

The results are in for the many mandatory statewide tests Florida’s students take every year. Headlines in newspapers across the state emphasized language arts and math scores, which overall improved over last year’s results. That’s good news.

But science? Here’s what the Florida Department of Education’s press release announcing all of the results says about science:

Compared to 2016, a higher percentage of Florida’s students passed the statewide, standardized assessments in Civics and U.S. History while Science performance remained consistent.

f-school-letter-gradeThat’s all, folks. The press release has a lot of analysis and stats about all of the other exams but a mere “remained consistent” statement about science. Of course, an official press release is going to put as positive a spin as possible on bad news. You have to expect that. But not one single newspaper or other media outlet that I could find said much more about science in their stories than the press release did. Unfortunately, that same pattern of ignoring science results has been going on for years. Let’s look at the numbers.

Biology End of Course
Statewide Percentage Passing (Level 3 or Above)
Spring 2016-2017: 63
Spring 2015-2016: 64
Spring 2014-2015: 65
Spring 2013-2014: 68
Spring 2012-2013: 67
Spring 2011-2012: 59

5th Grade Science Statewide Science Assessment (formally know as the science FCAT)
Statewide Percentage Passing (Level 3 or Above)
2017: 51
2016: 51
2015: 53
2014: 54
2013: 53
2012: 52

8th Grade Science Statewide Science Assessment (formally know as the science FCAT)
Statewide Percentage Passing (Level 3 or Above)
2017: 48*
2016: 48*
2015: 48
2014: 49
2013: 47
2012: 47

In 8th grade, 48 percent of students taking the exam passed it. That means a full 52 percent — yes, more than half of all test takers — did not pass it this year. And that is the same result as the previous year. In 5th grade it’s not any better: 51 percent passed, meaning that nearly half did not pass. And the Biology end of course results have been slipping downward a bit year after year after year.

No, I do not believe the science scores “remained consistent”! They remained dismal. They’re stagnant or falling. And everyone needs to stop sweeping that dirt under the rug.

Does anyone care about Florida science education?

(*FDOE started a year or two ago combining the 8th grade science assessment results with the results of 8th graders who instead took the Biology EOC. The combined statistic reported on most of the FDOE’s documents is 50 percent passing in 8th grade. But the pure Statewide Science Assessment results show a passing percentage of only 48. I highlighted this when I first noticed it in last year’s assessment results post.)

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Give the Devil his Due

Posted on June 7, 2017 by Brandon Haught

All has been very quiet concerning the odious instructional materials bill lately. The bill would allow any resident, not just parents, to protest against what’s found in textbooks, including coverage of evolution, climate change, vaccines, etc. On top of that, school districts must appoint a hearing officer to consider such complaints. It’s bad news all around. But the bill has yet to be delivered to the governor for his signature. I’ve been searching high and low and asking many different people but I have yet to get answers concerning this part of the lawmaking process. Is waiting this long to give a bill to the governor normal? How long can legislators wait? Is there a deadline? I have no idea but I would love to know. Any help would be appreciated.

On the other hand, the religious liberties bill has been plopped onto the governor’s desk. He has until June 20 to take action on it. So, NOW would be a good time to contact his office and urge a veto. This bill would give teachers and school staff the right to express religious views in school and would allow students to express religious views in coursework without discrimination. For us here at Florida Citizens for Science, this is a concern because of the possibility of creationism and other religious views being inserted into science classrooms.

satanologyAnd we’re not alone. Palm Beach Post columnist Frank Cerabino doesn’t pull any punches in his latest piece: Banner flap at Boca High ought to be lesson for Florida lawmakers. Some excerpts:

The Palm Beach County School Board has had a practice of allowing religious groups to advertise their brand of salvation at county public schools. At least that was the practice until Stevens asked Boca Raton High School to display his banner, which said, “The Church of Satanology” and “Give the Devil his due.”

There’s nothing like tossing a Satanist in the punch bowl to get public organizations to shake themselves awake to the Constitutional dictates regarding the separation of church and state.

…

This session, our state lawmakers passed The Florida Student and School Personnel Religious Liberties Act, a bill that encourages more religious proselytizing in public schools.

Its two main proponents have been Rep. Kim Daniels, a Democrat from Jacksonville. She’s a self-described apostle who came to the legislature as a Christian evangelical preacher. Daniels believes that witches are trying to take over the country, and may be working extra hard on President Donald Trump. Seriously.

…

In the Florida Senate, her partner in this quest is State Sen. Dennis Baxley, an Ocala Republican who owns a string of funeral homes and was the former executive director of the Christian Coalition of Florida.

Baxley’s not a fan of evolution, and thinks it’s unfair that Florida’s public school children are being exposed to a science curriculum that doesn’t allow that the earth is just 6,000 years old.

They were the guiding hands that successfully passed a bill that would expand the role of religion in Florida’s public schools to levels that have alarmed the American Civil Liberties Union, the Florida Citizens for Science and the Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

…

I suspect that state lawmakers will do what the Palm Beach County School District is doing — remembering that promoting religious expression in public schools means promoting all forms of religious expression. Something that’s suddenly not such a great idea.

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And the next county on the terrible textbook tour is …

Posted on June 5, 2017 by Brandon Haught

lee countyI’ve already pointed out that Collier County is the main hotbed of textbook unrest in Florida. That’s the home of Florida Citizens’ Alliance, the group that authored and supported the passage through our state legislature of the instructional materials bill that is much loved by creationists and climate change deniers. The Alliance has been protesting about what’s in various textbooks to their school board for quite a while now and they’ve even resorted to filing a lawsuit. But we need to keep in mind that the Alliance has friends in other counties.

The next target could be Lee County in southwest Florida. Someone there has compiled a laundry list of complaints against three social studies textbooks. You can see the complaint documents here. Of special interest to us here at Florida Citizens for Science are these two points:

First is “HMH Social Studies: Civics In Practice Integrated: Civics, Econ, & Geography Florida: Student Edition 2018”

The Geography Handbook contains maps with instructions for interpretation. Two maps in particular call into question bias and slant. Pg 441 includes maps of the west coast of Florida that Project the Impact of Global Warming on Charlotte Harbor. “Maps can be used to predict future conditions. This pair of maps shows how predicted sea-level rise due to global warming might affect the Charlotte Harbor area on Florida’s Gulf coast.” This takes the perspective that global warming is a known fact, introduces it as fact and an accurate prediction and does not allow for discussion regarding the possibility or denial of global warming. BUT the bullet uses “predicted” and “might” in the same sentence. The Skills box asks questions of the students about elimination of landforms, increase of vegetation and changes in wildlife, fisheries and economies as if global warming is an indisputable fact. FACT: Global warming is argued for and against on many levels by some of the best scientific minds and still there is no conclusive evidence that warrants instruction in the classroom where ‘predicted” is considered the correct approach. http://www.nationalreview.com/article/425232/climate-change-no-its-not-97-percent-consensus-ian-tuttle

Next, we have “HMH Social Studies American History: Reconstruction To The Present Student Edition” ~ 2018

Page 966-967 A Global Concern: States without any scientific fact or resource that “extreme weather events are occurring more often” and “the greenhouse effect has led to global warming and climate change.” They conclude that fossil fuels in the atmosphere have caused this. This is purely political diatribe used to gain power and money. Read the book, Global Warming every 1500 Years by S. Fred Singer, or go to http://www.dailywire.com/news/9767/9-things-you-need-know-about-climate-change-hoax-aaronbandler# or http://www.lordmoncktonfoundation.com/ for scientific links and political problems pursuant to the global warming “crisis” promoted by supporters of this debunked theory.

I invite you to check out the links given in these complaints, review them and report back on their claims so as to help the folks in Lee County who might need to fight back against this nonsense.

Posted in Instructional Materials bills '17, Textbooks | 2 Comments

Yes, there is hope

Posted on June 5, 2017 by Brandon Haught

Most of my blog posts lately have been quite the downers as I report on bad bills approved by our legislature and the fallout we’re already starting to see around the state. But every now and then there are some bright spots to enjoy.

roarThe Roar is a student paper produced by the students at West Shore Jr./Sr. High School in Melbourne. The paper published an editorial blasting the passage of the instructional materials bill. It’s a thoughtful, well reasoned piece that really gives me hope. Students are, in fact, not blind to what’s going on around them. Seeing them engaged in legislation that can truly impact their education gives me hope for our future.

Florida House bill 989 designed to curtail broad education:

Some parents, along with legislators in the Florida House of Representatives and Senate, have decided that certain parts of the curriculum being taught in school are too controversial and that they deserve the right to determine how or whether or not these subjects can or should be taught.

…

The problem with this bill is that even though the sponsors claimed that it helps parents get more involved with their students and there are limitations on what can be objected to, the legislation can easily create a situation in which someone can object to a subject being taught in school because it offends them. Groups that don’t believe in certain parts of a scientific curriculum, such as evolution or immunization, for example, can now successfully argue that their children are too young to be learning about a topic that they really just don’t want their students to hear about because it goes against their own personal beliefs.

…

Instead of claiming that everything is inappropriate for their precious kids, parents should want their children to learn about these so-called “controversial” topics in an environment that is controlled and honest conversation can be facilitated.

In order to be a truly educated society, students need to be learning important issues without censorship.

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Collier County: the epicenter of textbook calamity

Posted on June 1, 2017 by Brandon Haught

Seal_of_Collier_County,_FloridaFresh off their success in the Florida legislature where their instructional materials bill passed, the Florida Citizens’ Alliance is now causing migraine headaches on their home turf: Group sues Collier County schools over textbook selection —

Three parents sued the Collier County School Board on Wednesday over new textbooks slated for public classrooms next fall.

Along with factual errors, flaws and omissions, the parents said in the court filing, the board selects books and reviews the materials “behind closed doors to the exclusion of the public.”

[…]

They have identified 222 words and passages they think are problematic in the incoming textbooks, from upper-level law and history books to elementary social studies materials.

School Board attorneys declined to comment because they haven’t had time to read through the lawsuit.

But board member Eric Carter said most of the issues parents have flagged are either easily vetted or inherently subjective.

He cited one complaint a parent made, arguing that women did not fight in the Revolutionary War. Carter quickly referred to the night of Nov. 16, 1776, when Margaret Corbin took a bullet to the shoulder while she was stuffing cannons for colonial residents.

“That took three minutes on Google,” he said.

There’s also a story on a Collier TV station: Parents suing Collier school board over textbook purchases —

A handful of parents will be given 10 minutes each to explain what they found wrong with each book at Thursday’s special school board hearing, but they said that’s not enough time.

“To give a parent who spent 20 hours with a textbook finding these kinds of problems 10 minutes to educate our school board members on it is just a travesty,” [Florida Citizens’ Alliance’s Keith] Flaugh said.

But there’s a voice of reason in the letters to the editor section of the newspaper:

Textbooks have already been scrutinized and approved for adoption by subject level experts at the state Department of Education before they are reviewed locally. Local level review committees also are selected on the basis of their knowledge and experience in the subject area that they are reviewing.

After months of work, the selected texts are now being challenged at the local level because the review committees did not have the “correct” political makeup. Seven “concerned citizens” with ties to ultra-conservative organizations founded by School Board member Erika Donalds are now moving their objections to a public hearing at a special board meeting Thursday.

All of these “concerned citizens” had the opportunity to volunteer their time to serve as members of the review committees of the textbooks that they object to, but none of them submitted a corresponding application.

These citizens would be better off spending their time volunteering in classrooms than spending their time analyzing the members of the review committees and comparing them with voting records. Is that the mentality we want in our school district?

You can see the long list of complaints the Alliance has about the textbooks here. They stuck with law and U.S. history books, so there are no mentions of evolution or climate change … this time.

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Unfortunate students stuck in the middle of a debate they don’t understand

Posted on May 31, 2017 by Brandon Haught

wnyc_square_logoNew York’s flagship public radio station WNYC recently broadcast/published stories about conflicts over teaching evolution and climate change in classrooms across the country. I spent quite a long time talking with a reporter about the situation here in Florida, especially in relation to the Religious Liberties and Instructional Materials bills approved by our state legislature and awaiting the governor’s signature. The first couple of stories went live today.

One story is on a show called The Takeaway: New Law Would Let Citizens Fight to Get Climate Change, Evolution Out of Florida Classrooms. It’s an interview with Glenn Branch from the National Center for Science Education. Overall, it’s a good, informative story. But I feel some nuance was missed, as indicated in the story’s title. Even those who promoted the bill have said it’s not about getting subjects they don’t like out of the science classroom, but rather trying to balance them with other views. And the bill doesn’t directly impact the curriculum but rather just the instructional materials, such as textbooks. I’m not sure if the reporters who I’ve talked with aren’t understanding that or they are choosing to simplify the topic for their audiences.

upset-studentThe other story is on a show called The United States of Anxiety: “Would you debate gravity?”: climate change in the classroom. The main story can be played right at the top of the page, but there are several other audio clips further down the page, including mine roughly halfway down. My clip features some fumbling pauses in the beginning because I was trying to think of the best way to tell my story without providing too much detail that might identify and embarrass or upset the story’s subjects if they were to happen to hear it. The main point I was trying to make was that some poor students find themselves stuck in the middle between a teacher and his/her family. The student brings a question to me but as I delve deeper into the question with the student it becomes clear that the student is just relaying it from a parent and doesn’t even understand the question.

But there was more that I told the reporter that didn’t make it into that 28 second clip. I said that’s a horrible situation for the student and I refuse to use the child as a messenger. Instead, I decline to answer the question, explaining that I want to hear questions that the student comes up with, not the parent. What I teach is a very basic foundation and this is probably the first time students are hearing about climate change in an academic setting. The questions the parents come up with are full of misleading inaccuracies and outright false information that would take forever to try to explain to a child who has just learned for the first time from me what the greenhouse gases are (other than carbon dioxide) and what the albedo effect is. Honestly, I think the students are relieved that I take that stance.

With that in mind, I want to point out that if the instructional materials bill is signed into law by the governor, we’re going to see the situation I described much more often.

I was told that more clips from my long interview might be used in other stories still to come.

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Heartland’s junk mail arrives in Florida

Posted on May 26, 2017 by Brandon Haught

Today was my last day of school with students for the year. After saying a final farewell to my students, I wrapped up my day with my usual trek to the mail room and I found a little gift in my mailbox:

heartland

For those of you who don’t know, it’s climate change denial garbage from a conservative think tank. This New York Times Op-ed explains.

The book is unscientific propaganda from authors with connections to the disinformation-machinery of the Heartland Institute. In a recent letter to his members, David L. Evans, executive director of the National Science Teachers Association, said that “labeling propaganda as science does not make it so.” He called the institute’s mass mailing of the book an “unprecedented attack” on science education.

Judging from the responses of educators I know who have received “Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming” in recent weeks, most copies of it are likely to be ignored or discarded. But if only a small percentage of teachers use it as intended, they could still mislead tens of thousands of students with it year after year.

Knowing that the other science teachers at my school received the same package, I sent an email to my department explaining what’s going on and pointing them to the National Center for Science Education’s material that refutes Heartland’s junk. I’m glad I did. I later spoke with a fellow teacher who didn’t know anything about Heartland. With that in mind, I advise that all teachers educate their coworkers when this junk mail shows up!

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Nature notes one bad bill; no one notices the other

Posted on May 12, 2017 by Brandon Haught

nature-header.ed_400x400-150x150The science journal Nature published an article about antiscience bills that have cropped up across America, with a special focus on our very own Sunshine State: Revamped ‘anti-science’ education bills in United States find success. The piece focuses on the instructional materials bill that pretty much sailed through the state House and Senate.

The Florida legislation, for example, does not try to change state or district education standards. Instead, it enables any tax-paying resident of a given county to file complaints about the curriculum of the schools in their district. A complaint would trigger a public hearing to determine if the material in question is “accurate, balanced, noninflammatory, current, free of pornography … and suited to students’ needs”, according to the legislation.

“But who decides what ‘balanced’ and ‘noninflammatory’ mean?” asks Joan Bertin, executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship, based in New York City. Currently, instructional materials come from an approved list provided by the state, she says.

However, I think it’s important to note something missing from each and every news outlet’s coverage of Florida’s antiscience legislation. Even our friends at the National Center for Science Education never touched on it. No one ever talks about the religious liberties bill that also successfully made it through the lawmaking gauntlet. We here at Florida Citizens for Science were against that bill from the beginning because of its potential negative impact on science education. I even personally testified during public comment time at a Senate hearing about it. I encourage you to read through our series of posts on the bill. Admittedly, we eventually took our focus off it, because it was clear we had no chance of stopping it and we felt that our time and energy were better spent on the instructional materials bill. But we’ve felt throughout that the religious liberties bill was still a threat to science education.

We’ve been right all along.

The group [Florida Citizens’ Alliance] supported legislation that also passed Friday to protect students and educators who wish to express their religious beliefs in school from discrimination. If signed by the governor, Flaugh said his group will use it in conjunction with the instructional materials bill to contest textbooks that demonstrate “bias toward Islam and seldom mention Christianity,” and promote those that push for a Christian view of the origins of life.

“Darwin’s theory is a theory, and the biblical view is a theory, and our kids should be taught both in a balanced way,” he said.

Any time you take any action in protest against the implementation of the instructional materials bill, I encourage you to mention the religious liberties bill, too. They’re connected at the hip and we need the general public to be aware of that.

Posted in Instructional Materials bills '17, Religious Liberties Act 2017 | 2 Comments