In the name of science, school systems — state school boards typically — around the nation are working on science standards. Much is made, by many, of American education’s need to focus on STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) (and, often now, STEAM: Science Technology Engineering Arts Mathematics).
For the moment, this is the opening for the Department of Education STEM page:
“[Science] is more than a school subject, or the periodic table, or the properties of waves. It is an approach to the world, a critical way to understand and explore and engage with the world, and then have the capacity to change that world…”
— President Barack Obama, March 23, 2015
Then comes a discussion of STEM shortfalls: in numbers of teachers, pipelines of students to meet 21st employment requirements, etc … STEM is, for many, core to economic competitiveness in the years, decades, centuries to come.
Amid the drive to tackle this challenge, the Next Generation Science Standards “to create a set of research-based, up-to-date K–12 science standards. These standards give local educators the flexibility to design classroom learning experiences that stimulate students’ interests in science and prepares them for college, careers, and citizenship.” The NextGen Standards were state driven and funded, with several dozen states involved. These standards are having impacts in science classrooms around the country.
New Mexico is next in line, it seems, with a proposal of new teaching standards (sort of) based on the NextGen Science Standards. Why ‘sort of’?
omit references to evolution, rising global temperatures and the age of Earth from the state’s science curriculum.
Right … New Mexico’s state Public Education Department has proposed that public school science education does not educate students about
- The Scientific Theory of Evolution,
- The reality of Global Warming
- let alone humanity’s driving of a warming earth, and, of course not,
- the risks that unchecked climate change creates for humanity let alone
- the risks of making the desert Southwest virtually uninhabitable with the potential for massive droughts amid hotter temperatures;
- Geology’s scientific learning as to Earth’s history
Ignoring and, in fact, seeking to undermine quality science in the name of — almost certainly — religious extremism and ideological purposes is the exact opposite of what STEM/STEAM is about.
All young people should be prepared to think deeply and to think well so that they have the chance to become the innovators, educators, researchers, and leaders who can solve the most pressing challenges facing our nation and our world, both today and tomorrow.
This is being done in the name of having education that is “a reflection of the diversity of New Mexico“, the “diversity of perspectives” of NM residents. With that in mind should ask:
- Will New Mexico’s science classes offer alternative perspectives that the Earth is flat?
- Should students be taught that the moon landings were fake?
- Will history classes teach that the Bush Administration was behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks?
- Will there be a year of education about alien abductions?
- Will there be an AA portion of NM’s science education: astronomy + astrology?
- Will …
All of these are, sadly, beliefs held by some Americans, including in New Mexico. Does ‘diversity of perspectives’ mean equally balancing the ‘perspectives’ of people whose last science education was in 10th grade thirty years ago and a Nobel-laureate scientist?
Ignoring and undermine STEM education will not make America and Americans more competitive in the 21st century and will not help set the path to ‘solve the most pressing challenges.
“I’m certainly not going to move a high-tech company here, because I’m not going to get a scientifically educated population,” said Kim Johnson, a physicist and former president of the New Mexico Academy of Science.
“We’re doing the one thing in terms of educating our children that tend to push those kinds of businesses away,” he said.
Johnson said the proposed standards are an attempt to appease those who have for years tried to scrub evolution and climate change from the state’s science curriculum.
Just as appeasement worked very well with Hitler, it isn’t any more sensible as a path to deal with those with anti-science attitudes. The proposed New Mexico (anti-)science standards that emphasize “diversity of perspectives” would will lead to an undermining of the education of New Mexico’s public school students.
NOTEs.
- Material from the US Department of Education about STEM is from an 18 September 2017 to the Dept of Ed STEM page. This very rich, thoughtful, and link/science heavy page dates from the Obama Administration. It is possible (probable) that the same ideological/religious blinders driving policy in New Mexico (and, sadly, other states) will hit the Federal Government in the Trump Era.
- Related, sobering material on the Trump Administration’s progress in ‘silencing’ US government climate science communication.
- A key organization meriting support in the battle to keep science education about science is the National Center for Science Education:
“NCSE defends the integrity of science education against ideological interference. We work with teachers, parents, scientists, and concerned citizens at the local, state, and national levels to ensure that topics including evolution and climate change are taught accurately, honestly, and confidently.”
UPDATE: Excellent Mother Jones article on this last week.