“Standards as a flag to lead us forth contrasts for me with standards as a way of standardizing our minds” Deborah Meier

Voluntary, nationwide education standards in science! Voluntary? I don’t think so. But that is the language being used to describe the National Research Council’s effort, with financial support from the Carnegie Foundation, to develop the framework for the next generation of science standards. The draft has been completed, and now Achieve, Inc., a non-profit company that developed the Common Core Standards in Math and Reading, will write and produce the “next generation” of science standards.  Look for them in late 2011 or early 2012.

You can read about the plans that are underway to infuse our schools with the new science education standards here.

None of this effort will be voluntary. States that want to receive Federal Funding will be required to adopt the new standards. I am basing this assertion on the fact that when the Race to the Top competition began, States that did not adopt the Common Core Standards in Math and Reading were put at a real disadvantage in the competition. More than 47 states have adopted them. The same will happen in science education.  Here is a quote from the Achieve website about the adoption of common core standards.  Just substitute common core for science, and you will see what I mean:

In 2009, 48 states, 2 territories and the District of Columbia signed a memorandum of agreement with the National Governors Association (NGA) and Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), committing to a state-led process – the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI). Achieve partnered with NGA and CCSSO on the Initiative and a number of Achieve staff and consultants served on the writing and review teams. On June 2, 2010, the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Mathematics (CCSS) were released. A copy of Achieve’s press release on the CCSS can be found here.

The goal here is to have a uniform set of standards in life, earth, physical and engineering (a new subsection in science education). The draft of the framework for the new standards was once accessible; now the link is down, and you can’t read them unless you downloaded them yourself. I did, and I have read them a couple of times, and they are no more impressive than the 1995 National Science Education Standards, and they lack the reality of classroom learning, and real lives of students.

Standards represent the dogmatism of a particular group that actually writes and finally publishes the science standards. A very small group of people in the science education community are involved in this process. Yes, the directors of this project will tell you that the draft was put on line for review, and the same will happen with the draft of the actual standards by Achieve. But reviewing them does not mean that your views will be included. Review of the Framework was more of a survey, rather than an actual review of the Framework. To assume that one set of standards in science will be appropriate to every school, each community, and every student seems very undemocratic. The medical profession doesn’t even come close to having a uniform set of standards—physicians wouldn’t let that happen. But in education, we hire non-public and private school professionals, many of whom have never had any experience working with students or teachers in the K-12 environment, and this group writes the standards for the millions of professional teachers, none of whom are really involved in the process.  Do you see a problem here?

The march to standardize and uniform the curriculum is a dangerous movement in a democratic society, and one that is so diverse in cultures, languages, and geography as America.  How can we really think that one set of statements of science objectives written by non-practitioners can be truly be valid for all learners, all schools, and all teachers.

But there are very powerful forces behind this movement, and they have convinced the U.S. Department of Education, and State Departments of Education that standardizing the curriculum, and investing public money in profit driven charter schools is the solution to American education.  If you don’t think so, then you might want to view the film Waiting for Superman.  This is a link to one of my earlier blog posts; in there is a link to the film.

I’ve written about the standards in several posts on this blog and you can read them here, here, and here.  For more, check the “Related Posts” just below.