{"id":531,"date":"2008-04-07T19:27:12","date_gmt":"2008-04-07T23:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=531"},"modified":"2008-08-31T16:32:20","modified_gmt":"2008-08-31T20:32:20","slug":"free-floridas-students-from-lagging-behind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=531","title":{"rendered":"Free Florida’s students from lagging behind"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s a good guest opinion column in the Orlando Sentinel: Free Florida’s students from lagging behind<\/a><\/p>\n

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 as of May 2007. Though K-12 students are improving statewide and locally, too, fewer than four in 10 Orange County 11th-graders, or 36 percent, were hitting their science-learning marks last year.<\/p>\n

Yet, despite such serious educational and economic challenges, state lawmakers recently spent time reviewing a veiled proposal to wedge one religious viewpoint into science classrooms, which would weaken science education. By allowing teachers with a religious agenda to recast well-documented scientific facts as questionable, the deceptively named Academic Freedom Act could leave Florida’s K-12 students confused about the nature of science, and hamstring them when it comes to competing for future jobs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … 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":[23],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-8z","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":150,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=150","url_meta":{"origin":531,"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":1345,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1345","url_meta":{"origin":531,"position":1},"title":"Science FCAT 2011","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"June 6, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Results for Florida\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s annual science exams taken by 3rd, 8th, and 11th graders were released today. The good news? Scores overall improved since last year. The bad news? The rise in scores is small, and 50 percent of our state\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s students aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t proficient in science. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m tired of being a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "FCAT"","block_context":{"text":"FCAT","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=22"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1619,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1619","url_meta":{"origin":531,"position":2},"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":1059,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1059","url_meta":{"origin":531,"position":3},"title":"Op-ed: Is science education important to Florida?","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"June 4, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Earlier this week I submitted an op-ed column to newspapers across the state on behalf of Florida Citizens for Science. Today the Gainesville Sun ran it. The Sun even ran a political cartoon with the column! A couple of other papers expressed an interest in it, but I haven't gotten\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1059#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1201,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1201","url_meta":{"origin":531,"position":4},"title":"2010 Science FCAT and beyond","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"June 29, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The annual Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test results are finally released. These are exams that students across the state in specific grade levels must take in core subjects. These scores can influence students\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 promotion to the next grade, and dictate what the student can or cannot take the next school year,\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 3 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1201#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2784,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2784","url_meta":{"origin":531,"position":5},"title":"Eight years later: Are Florida’s students still losing out on a solid science education?","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"June 13, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"In June 2009, a full eight years ago, I wrote a column published in the Gainesville Sun with the pointed headline: Is science education important to Florida? Is science education important to Florida? That is a relevant question to ask after analyzing the 2009 science FCAT results released last week.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "FCAT"","block_context":{"text":"FCAT","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=22"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/It-feels-good-to-be-loud-300x200.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531"}],"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=531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}