{"id":154,"date":"2007-02-12T19:46:15","date_gmt":"2007-02-12T23:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=154"},"modified":"2008-08-05T12:14:24","modified_gmt":"2008-08-05T16:14:24","slug":"lte-florida-nation-need-to-improve-science-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=154","title":{"rendered":"LTE: Florida, nation need to improve science education"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of our board members, Jonathan Smith, had a letter to the editor published<\/a>. Here it is for your enjoyment:<\/p>\n

The editorial Saturday, “Shortchanging Science,” comes as no great surprise to those of us who are actively involved in the pursuit of science and scientific studies. This unacceptable attitude is not only prevalent toward the established scientific organizations, it has it roots firmly planted in the lack of adequate science education in our public school systems.<\/p>\n

As a nation and as a society, our economic growth is increasingly dependant on technology. It is of critical importance that we remain competitive in a world market and, as a state, that we support our future success by investing in our educational system in the present.<\/p>\n

If science is vital to our country and our state, why, then, do the many assessment tests find us so seriously lacking in the many facets of scientific education? Florida, in particular, received an F grade from the Thomas Fordham Institute, which judged the state standards to be “sorely lacking in content” and was marred by “a prevalence of errors in fact and presentation.”<\/p>\n

The NAEP, a congressionally mandated project of the National Center for Education Statistics, found that 49 percent of Florida eighth-graders couldn’t perform at a basic science proficiency level.<\/p>\n

As parents, teachers and scientists we should all be concerned about what awaits our children if we don’t ensure a first-rate curriculum now.<\/p>\n

JONATHAN P. SMITH<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I believe he wrote the letter in response to this piece<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of our board members, Jonathan Smith, had a letter to the editor published. Here it is for your enjoyment: The editorial Saturday, “Shortchanging Science,” comes as no great surprise to those of us who are actively involved in the … 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":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-2u","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1146,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1146","url_meta":{"origin":154,"position":0},"title":"Last in the nation in science, but still twiddling thumbs.","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"December 13, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Paul Cottle, professor and undergraduate director in the Department of Physics at Florida State University, has an opinion column in the Tallahassee Democrat outlining the dismal state of science education in Florida. No one wants to step up and do anything serious about this problem. Florida students are pretty much\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1146#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":337,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=337","url_meta":{"origin":154,"position":1},"title":"Call to Action project","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"December 6, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"We need your help! Florida Citizens for Science has launched a \"call to action\" project: All I Want for Christmas is a Good Science Education. Since the holiday season is upon us, why not spread an educational message along with your Christmas cheer? We need to let the Florida Board\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alert"","block_context":{"text":"Alert","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=6"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":365,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=365","url_meta":{"origin":154,"position":2},"title":"Coalition says scientists and teachers need to get involved","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 2, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The Coalition of Scientific Societies recently conducted a survey about evolution in science education and the public's attitudes toward evolution. I've lamented in the past about how lousy such surveys tend to be, but this one is by far one of the better, more interesting ones to me. I always\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":2910,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2910","url_meta":{"origin":154,"position":3},"title":"Eugenie Scott, Brandon Haught, Bertha Vazquez in Orlando this month","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"October 3, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm reproducing here an edited notice that the National Center for Science Education sent out recently about a central Florida event coming up: NCSE's founding executive director Eugenie C. Scott will be speaking on \"Race, Science, and Society\" at 4:30 p.m. on October 21, at the FREEFLO Freethought Florida Conference,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":47,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=47","url_meta":{"origin":154,"position":4},"title":"Florida Citizens for Science statement released","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"September 27, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The following statement was released to area media today: Florida Citizens for Science Statement Denouncing \"Darwin or Design\" Publicity Event A creationism event to be hosted at the Sun Dome Sept. 29, called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Darwin or Design? Resolving the Conflict,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is a great example of a slick public relations campaign attacking\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alert"","block_context":{"text":"Alert","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=6"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":369,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=369","url_meta":{"origin":154,"position":5},"title":"8-0","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 3, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"So far, eight Florida daily newspapers have written editorials in support of evolution. None have supported \"alternatives.\" Either the reality of the situation is that obvious, or it's just a liberal media conspiracy. I'll take reality. Here's the eighth editorial, which appeared today in the Palm Beach Post. Evolution is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Analysis\/Commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Analysis\/Commentary","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154"}],"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=154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}