So … I started reading the Next Generation Science Standards, which were released Tuesday in their final form after several rounds of revision, reposting, and public comment.
I turned to page 74, of this PDF file, which is entitled “HS.Natural Selection and Evolution.” I have a huge interest in this, being a trained scientist who went to medical school and pursued a Ph.D. in neural and behavioral biology from a decent Big 10 university.
There I found the following “disciplinary core idea”:
LS4.A: Evidence of Common Ancestry and Diversity
• Genetic information, like the fossil record, provides evidence of evolution. …
How much money did taxpayers spend on these?! That sentence isn’t even correct. Any document that asserts that “the fossil record” is an example of “Genetic information,” as the word “like” implies, is not worth my time. Change “like” to “and” and then change “provides” to “provide” so it agrees with the subject of the sentence, and we might actually have a true statement worth teaching to kids. As stated, this document doesn’t deserve a place in our classrooms.
Focusing purely on recall, a sample standardized test question might be written to test students’ knowledge of this “disciplinary core idea”:
Which of the following is an example of genetic information?
A. the fossil record
B. the color of the sky
C. President Obama’s Second Inaugural address
D. none of the above
The answer would be (A), according to the standards officially published as 26 states’ “Next Generation Science Standards.”
This is quite a big document, 83 pages of color-coded “storylines,” so our analysis will take a while. But initially, I’m not pleased. Our science standards themselves weren’t really calling for an overhaul, although Maryland was one of the 26 lead states on the NGSS project.
Allowing simple factual errors to stand in the final document gives the impression that it was sloppily thrown together to meet some deadline. That is not how workers should write this type of document.
Countless hours of state and local educators were spent on the NGSS, hours paid for out of our taxes, and hours that could have been spent on regular state business. I realize Achieve and Carnegie paid for hotel rooms and travel to meetings, but these people did not declare vacation days from their state jobs.
Instead, we have produced another “curriculum” full of performance expectations that is notably an improvement over what many states have but not much of an improvement over others, particularly ours.