{"id":1104,"date":"2009-08-10T20:58:52","date_gmt":"2009-08-11T00:58:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=1104"},"modified":"2009-08-10T21:00:03","modified_gmt":"2009-08-11T01:00:03","slug":"you-earned-an-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1104","title":{"rendered":"You earned an A!"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new study examining the mention of evolution in states’ science standards<\/a> spotlighted us here in Florida for the huge turnaround from a grade of F to a grade of A!<\/p>\n

Florida\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Over the past decade, Florida has improved its standards more dramatically than perhaps any other state. The 1999 standards received an F from Lerner (2000) for their (lack of) treatment of biological and geological evolution and scored zero in the Fordham Foundation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 2005 report, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The State of State Science Standards.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d As both reports observed, evolution was not even mentioned by name at the time. However, after several months of public discussion and debate, the Florida Department of Education\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s writing committee developed a vastly superior set of standards in 2007. Biological evolution became prominent, human evolution was explicitly discussed, and geological and cosmological evolution were covered as well. In February 2008, after fierce creationist opposition, the Board of Education approved a revised version in which evolution was persistently referred to as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the scientific theory of evolution.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d A similar label was used for plate tectonics, cell theory, atomic theory, and electromagnetism (this tactic of protecting creationist-opposed topics by textually grouping them with less \u00e2\u20ac\u0153offensive\u00e2\u20ac\u009d areas of science, in order to imply that all are equally legitimate, is also used in the Minnesota standards; we discuss below why we believe it may be largely ineffective). However, the standards also explicitly required that students be able to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153recognize and explain that a scientific theory is a well-supported and widely accepted explanation of nature and is not simply a claim posed by an individual. Thus, the use of the term theory in science is very different than how it is used in everyday life.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d This does an excellent job of heading off \u00e2\u20ac\u0153just a theory\u00e2\u20ac\u009d-style attacks on evolution, and Florida\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s current standards score a solid A.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Congratulations, everyone. YOU are the ones who helped earn this A for Florida. (h\/t NCSE<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new study examining the mention of evolution in states’ science standards spotlighted us here in Florida for the huge turnaround from a grade of F to a grade of A! Florida\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Over the past decade, Florida has improved its … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","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-hO","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2832,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2832","url_meta":{"origin":1104,"position":0},"title":"Congratulations! Florida gets an A!","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"July 19, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"A paper in the latest edition of Evolution: Education and Outreach examines how each state's middle school science standards cover evolution (A state-by-state comparison of middle school science standards on evolution in the United States). The standards were judged in five categories:\u00c2\u00a0Is the term \u00e2\u20ac\u0153evolution\u00e2\u20ac\u009d used; Is the concept of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Our Science Standards"","block_context":{"text":"Our Science Standards","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":484,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=484","url_meta":{"origin":1104,"position":1},"title":"“Academic Freedom Act” filed","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 2, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Welcome back to another exciting episode of \"Days of our Florida Lives.\" In our last episode, the Florida Board of Education voted to approve a new set of state science standards, which include for the first time official inclusion of the word evolution. However, the standards were tweaked by inserting\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Our Science Standards"","block_context":{"text":"Our Science Standards","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":334,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=334","url_meta":{"origin":1104,"position":2},"title":"News Release: Standards can go from F to high B","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"December 3, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The following news release was sent out today as a joint effort of Florida Citizens for Science and the National Center for Science Education. Prof. who flunked Florida science standards says new ones are shooting for an A Expert gave current statewide standards an F but new draft is \"a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In the News"","block_context":{"text":"In the News","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2951,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2951","url_meta":{"origin":1104,"position":3},"title":"“Controversial theories” science education bill filed in Florida senate","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"November 20, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got a live one. This past Friday Sen. Dennis Baxley filed a bill in our state legislature concerning public education. Senate Bill 966\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s purpose is to revise \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the Next Generation Sunshine State Standards; providing that such standards are the minimum baseline core content standards for K-12 public schools.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d In\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Controversial Theories bill 2017\/18"","block_context":{"text":"Controversial Theories bill 2017\/18","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=34"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3395,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3395","url_meta":{"origin":1104,"position":4},"title":"“Controversial Theories” bill returns to Florida senate","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 14, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"A bill was pre-filed for the 2019 legislative session in the Florida senate that would impact the standards for all academic subjects, especially science. The bill proposes allowing school districts to adopt their own sets of educational standards if they are equal to or more rigorous than the state's educational\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Controversial Theories bill 2019"","block_context":{"text":"Controversial Theories bill 2019","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=36"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":26,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=26","url_meta":{"origin":1104,"position":5},"title":"Can our teachers rely on the science standards?","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"June 27, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Florida's public school science standards are not in need of a tweak or pretty makeover. They need to be overhauled. The Thomas B. Fordham Institute gave Florida an ugly ol' F for its science standards. In part, the review says: Life sciences and evolution are given shorter shrift than any\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Our Science Standards"","block_context":{"text":"Our Science Standards","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104"}],"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=1104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}