{"id":1158,"date":"2010-01-21T07:43:13","date_gmt":"2010-01-21T11:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=1158"},"modified":"2010-01-21T07:44:41","modified_gmt":"2010-01-21T11:44:41","slug":"they-see-a-problem-but-will-they-do-anything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1158","title":{"rendered":"They see a problem, but will they DO anything?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our state legislators claim that they see a problem<\/a> with Florida’s education system, as outlined by Ms. Haithcock here.<\/p>\n

Satisfying Florida’s graduation requirements — but not exceeding them — prepares high school students for one thing: remedial coursework at a community college, Frances Haithcock, state chancellor of K-12 public schools, told a panel of state lawmakers Wednesday.<\/p>\n

“We are not transparent to our parents about what a diploma in Florida means,” she said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Part of that problem involves math and science.<\/p>\n

Florida’s math and science standards in particular are too vague and too low, she said. “There are four [required] courses in math — which is very good, except the most challenging course is Algebra I. There are science courses — three of them — not defined. That is unacceptable.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But will lawmakers actually do something about this? It seems to always come back to $$$.<\/p>\n

A similar proposal died in the Legislature last year, largely because of the cost of implementing such reforms. Developing just one end-of-course exam costs about $1.5 million.<\/p>\n

Times have changed, Legg said, as has the proposal. For starters, he said, the FCAT phase-out in this year’s bill will produce savings, thereby off-setting some of the costs of the new course exams.<\/p>\n

Legg acknowledged that there will be other associated costs, which staff analysts have yet to quantify. For example, since education leaders want to administer the end-of-course tests entirely by computer, schools will have new technology needs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We just have to wait and see now. And communicating (writing, speaking) with your own legislators couldn’t hurt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our state legislators claim that they see a problem with Florida’s education system, as outlined by Ms. Haithcock here. Satisfying Florida’s graduation requirements — but not exceeding them — prepares high school students for one thing: remedial coursework at a … 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-iG","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":150,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=150","url_meta":{"origin":1158,"position":0},"title":"Yet another story about dismal science testing projections","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 6, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's yet another story preparing folks for sinking school grades as a result of science counting on the FCAT and other factors. (Bold emphasis below is mine.) After three years of preparation, the numbers show, Florida's schoolchildren are still woefully unprepared in the sciences. State education officials say privately that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In the Classroom"","block_context":{"text":"In the Classroom","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1621,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1621","url_meta":{"origin":1158,"position":1},"title":"Science education not a priority in Florida?","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"July 18, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Apparently, Florida's education commissioner decided that Florida's C rated science standards, with some tweaks, are just find and dandy. He thinks there is no need to adopt the national science standards like Florida did in other subjects. Bridge to Tomorrow says: Florida is a leader in the Common Core Standards\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 3 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1621#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":264,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=264","url_meta":{"origin":1158,"position":2},"title":"Math standards","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"August 14, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Math is an important component of science, so it makes sense to stay in tune with the revisions being made to Florida's math standards. From the Orlando Sentinel education blog: The new standards -- to be discussed today at the State Board of Education meeting -- are to be \"narrower\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In the Classroom"","block_context":{"text":"In the Classroom","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":161,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=161","url_meta":{"origin":1158,"position":3},"title":"Florida math-science education research","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 21, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"We here at Florida Citizens for Science have been following this fairly closely. We were actually rooting for another university to get the one year grant, but you certainly can't always win when politics are involved. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - A Nobel laureate will head a new state center that Gov.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In the Classroom"","block_context":{"text":"In the Classroom","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":531,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=531","url_meta":{"origin":1158,"position":4},"title":"Free Florida’s students from lagging behind","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"April 7, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's a good guest opinion column in the Orlando Sentinel: Free Florida's students from lagging behind Some 422,000 Floridians remained out of work in February, the housing market continued its downward spiral, and less than two-fifths -- just 37 percent -- of all 11th-graders across Florida had mastered science-learning goals\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":1923,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1923","url_meta":{"origin":1158,"position":5},"title":"Water or food? Your choice.","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"June 25, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"FSU physics professor Paul Cottle is a serious activist for science education, which comes through in this article at NPR about Florida's science standards: Why An Educator Is Worried Common Standards Might Squeeze Out Science. Here's a few quote. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The problem is that if you take those resources out of\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 3 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1923#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158"}],"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=1158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}