{"id":1015,"date":"2009-04-24T10:33:14","date_gmt":"2009-04-24T14:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=1015"},"modified":"2009-05-31T19:23:26","modified_gmt":"2009-05-31T23:23:26","slug":"physics-made-a-comeback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1015","title":{"rendered":"Physics made a comeback"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is an update to Jonathan’s earlier post <\/a>tracking bills related to science education.<\/p>\n

Physics made a comeback on the floor of the Florida House of Representatives late yesterday afternoon.\u00c2\u00a0 Late the previous night, Representative Fresen, sponsor of the House graduation requirements bill (HB 1293<\/a>), filed an amendment <\/a>to put physics into his bill and to – get this – take Agriscience Foundations out.<\/p>\n

He did not include the biology end-of-course test in his new amendment since that is what got yesterday’s amendment into trouble. The amendment was adopted Thursday afternoon.\u00c2\u00a0 Then the bill’s most contentious provisions dealing with raising the required score for graduation on the 10th grade reading, writing and math FCAT score to 10th grade proficiency were addressed, and the bill was approved by a relatively contentious 75-42 vote.<\/p>\n

The bill is now in the Senate’s court.\u00c2\u00a0 The Senate companion (SB 2654<\/a>) was “temporarily postponed” by the Senate K-12 Appropriations Committee on Monday.\u00c2\u00a0 The good news in the House is that physics is in and Agriscience Foundations is out.\u00c2\u00a0 The bad news is that there is no mention of Earth\/space science.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Representative Mayfield, sponsor of the biology-only high school science testing bill, tucked her testing plan into another bill on student achievement in the secondary grades, HB 7087<\/a>, as an amendment that she filed Thursday morning and was adopted that afternoon.\u00c2\u00a0 HB 7087 passed a minute later on a unanimous vote.\u00c2\u00a0 Here’s the relevant language of Mayfield’s amendment:<\/p>\n

During the 2010-2011 school year, an\u00c2\u00a0end-of-course assessment in biology shall be administered as a field test at the high school level. Beginning with the 2011-2012 school year, the end-of-course assessment in biology shall eplace the comprehensive assessment of science administered at the high school level. During the 2011-2012 school year, each student’s performance on the end-of-course assessment in biology shall constitute 30 percent of the student’s final course grade. Beginning with the 2012-2013 school year, a student must earn a passing score on the end-of-course assessment in biology in order to pass the course and receive course credit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mayfield’s own biology-only testing bill, HB 543<\/a>, passed on its own, once again on a unanimous vote.\u00c2\u00a0 There is no mention of any subject but biology in her bill.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now it is up to the Senate how to respond.\u00c2\u00a0 At present, there is no high school science testing provision in any active Senate bill.\u00c2\u00a0 As mentioned above, the Senate graduation standards bill is in a coma in the K-12 Appropriations Committee.<\/p>\n

In a related development, Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue signed into law a bill that would boost salaries for teachers with proper math or science certification<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 That is the sort of commitment it is going to take to make our state world-class in\u00c2\u00a0 science education.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is an update to Jonathan’s earlier post tracking bills related to science education. Physics made a comeback on the floor of the Florida House of Representatives late yesterday afternoon.\u00c2\u00a0 Late the previous night, Representative Fresen, sponsor of the House … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-gn","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1012,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1012","url_meta":{"origin":1015,"position":0},"title":"Politics Trump Physics","author":"Jonathan Smith","date":"April 22, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Despite the good faith efforts of three representatives to improve the bills on high school science assessment and graduation requirements, today's events in the Florida House of Representatives demonstrated how difficult it can be to get education policy right in a challenging legislative environment.\u00c2\u00a0 Representative Fresen, the sponsor of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 3 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1012#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1705,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1705","url_meta":{"origin":1015,"position":1},"title":"10.5.12 This & That","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"October 5, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"-- I'm not a big fan of essay contests. But when the prize is super cool, who wouldn't want to get to writin'? 11 Palm Beach County students win chance to talk to astronauts on International Space Station Eleven lucky students will gather this month at the South Florida Science\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":561,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=561","url_meta":{"origin":1015,"position":2},"title":"Yet more amendment action","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"April 25, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"UPDATE III: I think they are on the final amendment to 7135 here at 12:03 p.m. So, hopefully, the anti-evolution bill will be up in a few minutes. UPDATE II: Bill 7135 has a ton of amendments, making it take more than an hour to work through. We're still waiting\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "\"Academic Freedom\" bills '08"","block_context":{"text":"\"Academic Freedom\" bills '08","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=23"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1106,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1106","url_meta":{"origin":1015,"position":3},"title":"2010 Legislative Session already gearing up","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"August 15, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The Gradebook blog notes that a bill filed in the House for the 2010 session focuses on math and science requirements for graduation. The part concerning science in HB61 states: Beginning with students entering grade 9 in the 2011-2012 school year, one of the three credits must be Biology I\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 5 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 5 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1106#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1022,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1022","url_meta":{"origin":1015,"position":4},"title":"Graduation standards bill declared dead","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"April 29, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The Gradebook blog says that SB2654 is down for the count. Senate sponsor Thad Altman, R-Melbourne, said tonight that SB 2654 won't be heard on the Senate floor --- though the proposal passed the House barely two weeks ago --- because there's just not time. Former Gov. Jeb Bush's Foundation\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1022#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":559,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=559","url_meta":{"origin":1015,"position":5},"title":"Amendments are flying","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"April 24, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Tomorrow, the Florida House is expected to debate and consider amendments to House Bill 1483. There will not be a final vote that day, though. This bill in its current form is proposing a one line addition to the Florida Statutes concerning Required Instruction in the public schools. The bill\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "\"Academic Freedom\" bills '08"","block_context":{"text":"\"Academic Freedom\" bills '08","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=23"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1015"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1015\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}