{"id":1175,"date":"2010-03-12T07:50:54","date_gmt":"2010-03-12T11:50:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=1175"},"modified":"2010-03-12T07:50:54","modified_gmt":"2010-03-12T11:50:54","slug":"science-in-the-legislature-and-beyond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1175","title":{"rendered":"Science in the legislature and beyond"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Florida lawmakers debate on whether to raise graduation requirements and replace some FCATs with end-of-course exams, some very interesting public opinions are popping up. For instance<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Rocky Hanna, principal of Leon High School in Tallahassee (and speaking, he said, for all that district\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s high school principals), said his colleagues have \u00e2\u20ac\u0153serious concerns.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

They are worried the proposed requirements would hurt graduation rates and the ability of some teenagers to join the military after high school \u00e2\u20ac\u201d because they wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have diplomas.<\/p>\n

Expecting all students to pass algebra II or chemistry is just too much, Hanna said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If I have to pass chemistry, I never would have graduated from high school,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he added.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Paul Cottle already tackled that one<\/a>. “A great teacher is supposed to encourage his students to do better than he did, not use his shortcomings to justify those of his students.” He then makes a good point<\/a>: “He demonstrated that the legislature must step in to demand excellence because the educational establishment will not do so on its own.”<\/p>\n

So far, the bills in both the House and Senate are moving along, passing through committees with little problem.<\/p>\n

In other science-related news:<\/p>\n

Check out the robotics competition <\/a>going on this weekend at UCF.<\/p>\n

“Middle and High school students from nine Central Florida counties will face off Saturday in the 12th annual Orlando Science Center Science Challenge<\/a>.” Official link here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Students’ perceptions about the Earth’s age influence their acceptance of human evolution, according to a University of Minnesota study<\/a> published in the March issue of the journal Evolution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Florida lawmakers debate on whether to raise graduation requirements and replace some FCATs with end-of-course exams, some very interesting public opinions are popping up. For instance: Rocky Hanna, principal of Leon High School in Tallahassee (and speaking, he said, … 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-iX","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1057,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1057","url_meta":{"origin":1175,"position":0},"title":"What the professors said","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"June 2, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Following up on yesterday's post about Florida science professors wanting end-of-course tests rather than the 11th grade FCAT, here is the white paper they wrote and here is the list of folks who signed it. Below is the text of their statement: --------------------------- Graduation Requirements and Assessment Policy for High\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1012,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1012","url_meta":{"origin":1175,"position":1},"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":1022,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1022","url_meta":{"origin":1175,"position":2},"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":1191,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1191","url_meta":{"origin":1175,"position":3},"title":"Florida isn’t alone in science testing woes","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"May 28, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Here is an interesting article about Massachusetts high school students failing required science exams needed for graduation. If I'm reading the story and associated graphic correctly, more students failed science than either math or English, resulting in no diploma. I admit I know nothing about Massachusetts' science test and requirements,\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1191#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":954,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=954","url_meta":{"origin":1175,"position":4},"title":"Toughening high school graduation requirements","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 17, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The Florida legislature is trying to toughen high school graduation requirements. Among the proposed changes are to require: Starting with the freshman class of 2014: Take algebra I and geometry for two of the four required math courses. Take biology I as one of three required courses. Starting with the\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 3 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=954#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1164,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1164","url_meta":{"origin":1175,"position":5},"title":"House Bill includes expanded science testing","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 11, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The Florida House is the first out of the gate with a comprehensive bill that is meant to kill the FCAT, replace it with end of course testing, and beef up graduation requirements. The Orlando Sentinel blog the Gradebook (and this Sentinel article) and Paul Cottle's blog Bridge to Tomorrow\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175"}],"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=1175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}