Maybe instead of blaming teachers for Donald Trump’s insurrection and pretending she alone can write civics curriculum to equip kids for the challenges of civic debate and participation in democracy, Governor Kristi Noem should consider reforming the state science standards. The National Center for Science Education and the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund say South Dakota’s K-12 science standards don’t do enough to prepare kids to deal with the primary threat to global stability and human civilization, climate change.
The NCSE and TFN evaluates how well each state’s science standards deal with these four basic points about climate change:
- It’s real: Recent climate change is a genuine phenomenon.
- It’s us: Human activity is responsible for the global change in climate.
- It’s bad: Climate change is affecting and will continue to affect nature and society.
- There’s hope: It is possible to mitigate and adapt to climate change [National Center for Science Education and the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund, “Making the Grade? How State Public School Science Standards Address Climate Change,” October 2020, p. 3].
They then ask these questions about each state’s science standards:
- To what extent is the treatment of the issue in the standards helpful in permitting students to reach these conclusions?
- To what extent is the treatment of the issue in the standards appropriately explicit?
- To what extent is the treatment of the issue in the standards integrated in a coherent learning progression?
- To what extent do the standards make it clear to teachers what knowledge and skills students are expected to attain?
- To what extent would a student who met the performance expectations in the standards relevant to the issue be prepared for further study in higher education?
- To what extent would a student who met the performance expectations in the standards relevant to the issue be prepared for responsible participation in civic deliberation about climate change? [NCSE & TFN, Oct 2020, p. 3]
Hey, look at that: good science standards contribute vitally to good civics education!
But Kristi Noem is la-la-la-plugging her ears already; after all, she’s the same Kristi who voted to resist acknowledging and teaching South Dakota kids the reality of climate change when she was pretending to legislate back in 2010. But her ostrichy thinking persists in South Dakota’s science standards, which faced with the NCSE/TFN analysis, only get a C-:
In contrast to the superior marks for neighboring North Dakota’s standards, South Dakota’s get very poor marks across the board. One reviewer noted policymakers’ stunning decision, made explicit in the standards document, to abandon a serious effort to address climate change (or evolution), instead largely leaving the issue to parents. Another similarly objected: “The fact that South Dakota had to put a disclaimer at the beginning of [its standards] that says climate change is controversial and should be left to the parents is completely and totally irresponsible as an educating body.” The standards get failing marks for preparing students for study of climate change in higher education or for responsible participation in civic deliberation about the issue [NCSE & TFN, Oct 2020, p. 18].
“Totally irresponsible as an educating body”—yeah, let’s put that on Kristi’s covid-dollar South Dakota promotion ads!
Here’s the disclaimer in our K-12 science standards that so alarmed the reviewers:
Through the public hearing process related to adoption of the South Dakota Science Standards, it is evidence that there is particular sensitivity to two issues: climate change and evolution. The South Dakota Board of Education recognizes that parents are their children’s first teachers, and that parents play a critical role in their children’s formal education. The South Dakota Board of Education also recognizes that not all viewpoints can be covered in the science classroom. Therefore, the board recommends that parents engage their children in discussions regarding these important issues, in order that South Dakota students are able to analyze all forms of evidence and argument and draw their own conclusions [South Dakota Board of Education, “South Dakota Science Standards,” 2015.05.18, p. 6].
Yeah, kind of like we let kids draw their own conclusions about Newton’s laws, Einstein’s theory of relativity, and Heisenberg’s and Bohr’s quantum mechanics, because kids will learn much better from all those expert physicists who are parenting in South Dakota than from the people with degrees in their fields teaching in our classrooms.
South Dakota isn’t the worst at teaching kids about climate change. Virginia, Texas, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Alabama all get Fs. Florida, where climate change left to Noem/Trump inaction would likely swamp Mar-a-Lago, gets a D. But every state touching South Dakota offers kids better education about this keenly important scientific issue: Wyoming gets an A, North Dakota an A-, Iowa B+, Minnesota B-, Nebraska C+, and Montana C.
So where’s the real fire in education, Kristi? Maybe you should shut off your fawning Fox/Federalist headphones, listen to some real educators, and let those experts decide what our kids need to learn.
I found out Noem wears western boots instead of cowboy boots. All the crap is on the inside of the boot
South Dakota used to have pretty good standards in science. What happened?
Evolution is not just a theory developed in biology; it is the organizing principle for biology and associated fields. If you aren’t teaching evolution, you aren’t teaching biology. In fact, you can’t teach biology without at least touching on evolution, which is why, as Cory often points out, standards don’t mean much once you get to the classroom level. Any good science teacher is going to present the subject no matter what the standards say. And any good school district is going to have curriculum that addresses evolution.
Climate change is a physically identifiable result of physical inputs. It’s the stuff of science. You can ignore it, like we all ignore gravity. Gravity don’t care if you ignore it, but if you are on a tall ladder, you ignore it at your peril. Same with climate change. Better to teach it than be ignorant.
My science class in South Dakota were great, we used to hand around liquid mercury to get a feel for it.
Biden elevates science advisor to cabinet level post.
https://www.rawstory.com/bank/biden-elevates-science-post-to-cabinet-level/
They should be working on a problem we know to exist in the currently described form (right now it appears as another grift).
So, maybe we could establish a fund to solve that problem.
Pay citizen scientists handsomely to collect, house, analyze and distribute climate information.
It would be much more difficult to corrupt patriotic americans writ large than it has been to corrupt a handful of administrations and professors.
This idea would do double time in a home school family running a home-based information systems small business (entrepreneurship is awesome).
That is all.
I think we have enough mindless dribble fed to school age children, by some parents. Of course, then it is only a short regurgitated spew to blame “bad teachers”, or corrupt administrators and professors or unions.
Donald Pay writes:
Dutch biologist Jan Swammerdam observed and described red blood cells in 1658. Those who rejected the Bible and insisted on millions of years of earth history didn’t get a firm foothold on most scientific institutions until the mid 1800s. Macroevolution hadn’t gained widespread acceptance before the late 1870s.
At least 220 years of modern biology obviously had nothing to do with macroevolution.
The anti-Christian socialists at the so-called National Center for Science Education claim:
How could that claim be proven scientifically?
Science, including evolution and climate change, is not anti-Christian. But certain Christians, like Kurt and Kristi, are anti-science… Kristi moreso than Kurt, I suspect. Kurt reads the wrong stuff, but at least he reads.
The market does speak, John. Parents look around for good schools. They look at South Dakota and see we offer inferior education, and we lose out on immigration and economic development.
Wow. That is ridiculous. It is almost like the Science Standards are designed to prevent us from solving the climate crisis? Who benefits from that decision?
Cory has a great idea. I think it would work really well in a PBL (project based learning) school.
Wasn’t Mr. Swammerdam that fellow who overgodded on bugs until he went more insane than before and died?
I don’t trust bug science, Mr. Dale, it’s hokum. If the 5 Gs were really going to do something insidious, they’d be making more bug mutations than we see today. At the Conservatives with Common Sense breakfast today, our speaker will not discuss bugs but will discuss face painting hoodlums.
Jason, I dig PBL. The best projects will integrate everything, math and science right along with communication and civics. Part of good science education is teaching kids how to connect their science knowledge and research skills to crafting and promoting sensible public policy.
Noem is still parroting her fallen hero Donald J. Trump who once threatened funding of California schools that teach the New York Times 1619 Project. He pushed for a more “pro-American” history in school curriculum. Schools could well be improved but there are many other factors contributing to the riots in D.C. that need fixing.
Stunned to hear Noem in her 12 Jan State of the State address substitute the rather odd word “special” when she meant “exceptional” in her statement that curricula should explain “why the U.S. is the most special nation in the history of the world.”
This is an exact echo of Trump telling the insurrectionists six days prior on 6 Jan that they’re “very special” people.
Cory replies to me:
I didn’t say science was anti-Christian, but the socialists at the so-called “National Center for Science Education” are.
According to the tenth chapter of Mark’s Gospel, Christ Himself referred to the first chapter of Genesis when He said that “from the beginning of creation God made them male and female.” If God had made humans male and female billions or millions of years after the beginning of creation, that would mean either that Christ was wrong or that we have no accurate record of what Christ taught. In either case, claiming to be a Christian wouldn’t make much sense.
I’m not speaking for the governor, whom I’ve barely met, but I’m not anti-science. I’m a former high school science teacher who tested out of my first six credits of college biology. I took a 300-level course in macroevolution at SDSU, and when the instructor factored in his grading curve, I ended up with a final score above 100 percent for the semester.
If I’d only read “the wrong stuff,” it would seem to indicate negligence on the part of that openly atheistic Ph.D. professor.
Modern science was born amid the rapid spread of traditional Bible Protestantism in the 1500s and 1600s, and it has deep roots in the Christian conviction that beauty and order can be discovered in the universe because our loving Creator has put them here.
Kristi’s inability to govern is finally starting to catch up with her, as her lack of knowledge, common sense, and willing to accept reality show brightly. Without an “R” in front of her name, she’d still be a rancher!!!