{"id":1542,"date":"2012-05-10T21:16:42","date_gmt":"2012-05-11T01:16:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=1542"},"modified":"2012-05-10T21:21:38","modified_gmt":"2012-05-11T01:21:38","slug":"state-boe-kinda-sorta-talks-about-science-standards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1542","title":{"rendered":"State BoE kinda, sorta talks about science standards"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Florida Board of Education met today and discussed a wide range of subjects for several hours. One of the topics for discussion was the current status of the state science standards. Our standards did poorly on a review by the Fordham Foundation. They initially were graded as a D<\/a>, but then were bumped up to a C<\/a> (pdf document). Nonetheless, the standards are not the high quality, world class standards we wanted. So, the big question lurking around the halls of the Department of Education was: what do we do?<\/p>\n

There are currently 23 states joining together to create a set of Next Generation Science Standards<\/a>. We here at Florida Citizens for Science have been encouraging the DoE and State Board to join that effort<\/a>. It appears that Florida Education Commissioner Gerard Robinson at least partly agrees. His recommendation to the Board<\/a> (pdf document) is to temporarily patch up our state standards while waiting for the national standards effort to produce a final product. The Board could then consider at that time adopting the National Standards in place of our state standards. We here at Florida Citizens for Science would prefer that Florida had jumped into the National effort earlier so that we would\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had a stronger say in the documents\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 creation, but the Commissioner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s recommendation is one we can live with.<\/p>\n

Today the State Board spent a whopping seven minutes talking about science. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a weird thing to watch. A DoE representative spends a few minutes essentially rehashing the Commissioner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s recommendation and announces that folks have already been moving forward with the suggested work under the assumption that the Board was going to go along with the recommendation. However, the Board never overtly states their agreement. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s only implied in some of the statements made.<\/p>\n

Then about halfway through, the conversation suddenly veers off into a new direction as Board members start talking about today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s release of the NAEP (the Nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Report Card) 8th grade science assessment results<\/a>. (For more on the NAEP results see The Gradebook<\/a>, DoE press release<\/a>, Bridge to Tomorrow<\/a>, and Orlando Sentinel<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

The bottom line is that there seems to be an unspoken agreement that the Commissioner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s recommendation was accepted and that the standards would be discussed at some undetermined time in the future. Additionally, the Board liked the upward direction that Florida\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 8th graders achieved on the NAEP, even if it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t anything spectacular.<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve grabbed the 7-minute video clip<\/a> for your viewing pleasure. You can also read through my usual paraphrased summary of all the wackiness below. Let me know if you feel it was as disjointed as I think it was.<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

0:00 — Gerard Robinson: says a written document about the science standards is in the Board members\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 packets. A person from DoE will now provide overview about current science standards and update about Next Generation Science Standards and then finally talk about NAEP results.<\/p>\n

0:31 — Jackie Speake: In response to Fordham report the Bureau of Curriculum and Instruction reviewed the A states\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 science standards\u00c2\u00a0 and compared them to Florida standards. They came up with options as far as identifying and working on weaknesses pointed out by Fordham. One option is to use the writing committee\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clarification statements that were designed in the original document and to pull from the A states to write clarification statements specifically for Physics and Chemistry, which were areas identifying by Fordham. This would allow us some time to review the national standards which were released on Monday evening. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve have a copy of that draft for you. At first glance they integrate the engineering concepts, the scientific process skills. They also incorporate the Common Core and a lot of cross cutting concepts. They have been released only to the states. The public review will be released tomorrow. So, you have that advanced copy. We now have the writers and the Florida Association of Science Supervisors along with chemistry and physics teachers designing those clarification statements in anticipation that might be the move you want to go in so that we have some time to review the National Standards for recommendation in the future. She then is asked to introduce herself, Jackie Speake, Science Curriculum Specialist with the Bureau of Curriculum and Instruction, Office of Math and Science.<\/p>\n

2:25 — Kathleen Shanahan: What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the timeline? We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re on a path of addressing our science standards. (Speake confirms that statement). So, what is the timeline?<\/p>\n

2:45 — Speake: We can have the clarification statements for the high school science benchmarks in place for the start of the school year and the K through 8 shortly thereafter. The second draft release is scheduled for the Fall of 2012, and the final release of the national standards would be early 2013.<\/p>\n

3:07 — John Padget: We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been waiting for these standards that you say we will get. Are they here? (Speake confirms they are there in the room.) So they are hot of the press, then? If I read the report that was under this topic in our papers, the question was should we tinker with the current standards or should we adopt those national standards more or less wholesale. And I understand that you haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t had a chance to look at them or just minimally. Would it be possible for you to come back on the July board meeting and having digested everything and checked with Fordham and whoever else and give us an action plan at the July meeting of what is the plan for Florida …<\/p>\n

4:17 — Shanahan: I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to start assigning topics to meetings. Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just figure out the timing working back from the 2013 deadline. (To Speake) Understanding that it is your priority.<\/p>\n

4:30 — Padget: I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m happy with that.<\/p>\n

4:33 — Shanahan: I think if I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m reading this, these are not public yet, is that right? (Speake confirms that.) I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m trying to interpret all the news here. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got new news here. From my perspective it says Florida public school students\u00c2\u00a0 — can I say this out loud — that from 2009 to 2011 we had a five percent increase where the national only had a two percent increase.\u00c2\u00a0 Is that correct?<\/p>\n

5:01 — Unidentified woman joins Speake at the podium: That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s correct.<\/p>\n

5:04 — Shanahan: At least we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re headed in the right direction.<\/p>\n

5:06 — Sally Bradshaw: (Can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hear first part of what she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s saying.) Two percent is statistically significant which is what this says and we fell in reading and math and I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want that forgotten while we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re celebrating the great numbers on NAEP on science.<\/p>\n

5:21 — Roberto Martinez: (asks for clarifications on what the bars on the graphs represent.)<\/p>\n

5:44 — Robinson: Point of clarity, the information regarding the national standards is hot off the press, this was just released, it was embargoed and now it is public. And since we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re talking about science we wanted to make sure we released this to you as we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re talking about it.<\/p>\n

5:58 — Shanahan: It also says the percentage of students eligible for the national school lunch program scored at or above proficient significantly higher, 18 percent versus 13 percent in 2009. So, we have pretty good results.<\/p>\n

6:17 — Speake: May I also add that we did identify the gaps from the NAEP test in the grade 4 and grade 8 course descriptions that you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be seeing for the July board meeting. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not that we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t teach them. We absolutely do teach all the topics in the NAEP frameworks. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just that some of those topics are taught in 2nd grade and 3rd grade so we just wanted to make those 4th grade teachers aware that these may be assessed and were taught at this grade level and the same with grade 8.<\/p>\n

6:46 — Shanahan: Will the department be releasing this from a Florida perspective and doing a press release and doing all of that today? (Speake confirms that.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Florida Board of Education met today and discussed a wide range of subjects for several hours. One of the topics for discussion was the current status of the state science standards. Our standards did poorly on a review by … 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-oS","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3419,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3419","url_meta":{"origin":1542,"position":0},"title":"Will Florida science standards be revised?","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 2, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Gov. Ron DeSantis is making good on a campaign promise he made to launch a revision of the state's education standards. The headlines have been making a big deal out of his targeting of Common Core, such as this one: \"Florida governor Ron DeSantis orders state to get rid 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":2832,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2832","url_meta":{"origin":1542,"position":1},"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":1511,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1511","url_meta":{"origin":1542,"position":2},"title":"We need a better road map to science education success","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"April 13, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The following is a news release\/opinion piece approved by the Florida Citizens for Science board and submitted to newspapers across the state for their publishing consideration. We need a better road map to science education success Florida students have a destination they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re driving toward: a diploma that signifies they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re ready\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 7 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 7 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1511#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":334,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=334","url_meta":{"origin":1542,"position":3},"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":1619,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1619","url_meta":{"origin":1542,"position":4},"title":"Florida’s science standards: I’m confused","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"July 14, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Back in May, the State Board of Education talked for a few minutes about the state's science standards woes. The science standards developed and approved in 2008 simply aren't the best. I provided a lengthy summary of what the Board decided to do, even though that decision was rather hazy.\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 4 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 4 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1619#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":911,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=911","url_meta":{"origin":1542,"position":5},"title":"Revising Florida\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s K-12 Science Standards","author":"Jonathan Smith","date":"February 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Paul Cottle who\u00c2\u00a0has been a champion in the fight for science education in the state of Florida has a excellent editorial in the \"American Physical Society Forum\"\u00c2\u00a0 Paul points out \"The shortcomings of the states\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 science standards were highlighted by comparisons like TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study),\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\/1542"}],"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=1542"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1550,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1542\/revisions\/1550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}