{"id":293,"date":"2007-10-21T15:25:47","date_gmt":"2007-10-21T19:25:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=293"},"modified":"2008-08-05T19:46:43","modified_gmt":"2008-08-05T23:46:43","slug":"news-article-about-draft-science-standards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=293","title":{"rendered":"News article about draft science standards"},"content":{"rendered":"

Florida Citizens for Science president, Joe Wolf, had an excellent quote in an Orlando Sentinel story this weekend<\/a> about the new draft of the state science standards. He did a great job of playing down this “controversy” over evolution by putting it into realistic perspective. Thanks, Joe!<\/p>\n

On the other hand, I personally don’t think the reporter should have made evolution the focus of the story. Evolution is just one part of the vast field of science. Because it attracts so much attention, I guess it’s pretty much mandatory for reporters to write about it. So, I understand that evolution needed to be brought up, but the focus should have been on the Fordham report, or Florida student performance on the science FCAT. The desire to make these standards useful to teachers and students is what’s important. Just because some people have heartburn with one concept out of many science concepts doesn’t merit the lead of the story.<\/p>\n

Let’s not get distracted from what really matters: kids learning science.<\/p>\n

Here’s Joe’s quote from the story:<\/p>\n

Joe Wolf, president of Florida Citizens for Science, called the draft standards a “wonderful” blueprint for science education. Wolf, of Winter Haven, said the evolution debate holds little interest to most scientists, who accept it as fact. That’s why the issue did not become controversial during the standards-writing meetings, he said.<\/p>\n

“It’s a PR issue,” he said. “And it’s a religious issue. In the scientific community, it’s not an issue.”<\/p>\n

If the new standards are adopted, “I think the kids will have a better understanding of science, which is what it’s all about,” Wolf added.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Be sure to read through the reader comments that are with the story. It’s a good, if scary, look at what people are thinking. It’s obvious a lot of people out there desperately need better science education!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Florida Citizens for Science president, Joe Wolf, had an excellent quote in an Orlando Sentinel story this weekend about the new draft of the state science standards. He did a great job of playing down this “controversy” over evolution by … 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":[3,7],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-4J","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":357,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=357","url_meta":{"origin":293,"position":0},"title":"Florida Baptist Witness is on the case","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"December 19, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"We learned of Florida Board of Education member Donna Callaway's dislike for sound science education, namely, her opposition to evolution being taught, in the Florida Baptist Witness last month. It looks to me like the publication is rallying the flock to turn up the pressure with their latest story on\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":300,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=300","url_meta":{"origin":293,"position":1},"title":"Article on science standards\/evolution in The Ledger","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"October 24, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The Ledger ran an article today about the new draft science standards and predictably focused entirely on the inclusion of evolution. As I've mentioned before, I think that is irresponsible and sensationalist. I understand that evolution garners high interest, but the real story is that the standards are being improved\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":[]},{"id":338,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=338","url_meta":{"origin":293,"position":2},"title":"Miami Herald article","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"December 8, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The Miami Herald jumps into the fray over evolution in the Florida public schools science standards. The reporter writes a comprehensive piece on what is going on, the history of attacks on evolution education, and interviews quite a few people to try to display everyone's views on the subject. In\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":330,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=330","url_meta":{"origin":293,"position":3},"title":"Standards are getting a thumbs up","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"November 30, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"This article in the St. Petersburg Times does what every good article should do: talk to the experts. The real experts. This gives such writing proper balance without resorting to the \"equal balance\" fallacy. The paper commissioned their own reviewer to render an opinion about the new draft of the\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":349,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=349","url_meta":{"origin":293,"position":4},"title":"Evolution: it’s on the test. Someone should tell the school board members!","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"December 12, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The Northwest Florida Daily News published a story about evolution in the new draft of the state science standards. (Make sure to click through all three pages of it.) There are a lot of positive, reasonable quotes in the story, such as: Evolution is already tested on the ACT and\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":317,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=317","url_meta":{"origin":293,"position":5},"title":"Last night’s science standards meeting","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"November 16, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The Orlando Sentinel reports that several people attended last night's meeting in Orlando about the new draft science standards with the objective of promoting intelligent design and complaining about evolution. But several people who spoke Thursday urged state Department of Education officials to allow schools to teach intelligent design and\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\/293"}],"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=293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}