Next Generation Science Standards VS Oklahoma Academic Standards – Yet Another Lesson In Deception From The State Department of Education

A Comparison SO Easy - Even a Caveman Can Do it!

Here are the Kindergarten Oklahoma Academic Standards for Science and the Next Generation Science Standards.  Aside from maybe a few punctuation marks, can you really determine any differences?

Oklahoma Academic Standards - Science

Next Generation Science Standards

ROPE has evaluated the Next Generation Science Standards[i] (NGSS) and the Oklahoma Academic Standards[ii] (OAS).  As you can see from the screen shots above – we found them to be virtually identical – the same components – the same structure – the same exact verbiage in most of them in fact.  (I have posted screen shots from 6th and 9th grade as well at the bottom, so you can get the idea.)

There have been deletions from the NGSS to the OAS.  For example a unit on Global Warming found in the middle school and high school standards under ESS3.D: Global Climate Change and a section on Darwinian Evolution found in the NGSS high school standards under LS4.C: Adaptation were removed.   I did not review each section of either set of standards, however, because after I identified word-for-word language common to both sets of standards, there was truly no necessity to do so.  At that point it seemed completely logical and realistic to accept the sameness of the standards and provide previous reviews of the NGSS as means for evaluation.

Many reviewers have complained bitterly about the NGSS.  You can find very excellent evaluations here:

Review by the Thomas Fordham Institute[iii] (supporters of the Common Core State Standards)

Fordham issued a complete technical analysis which detailed numerous problems including that the NGSS, “never explicitly requires some content in early grades that is then assumed in subsequent standards.”  They give the standards a C.  (in the interest of full disclosure; Fordham gave Oklahoma’s PASS in science an F).

Education Reporter[iv] aggregated several reviews together but opined;

“The science standards, like those for math and English, are not based on empirical evidence of efficacy nor are they tested in any environment. They are fresh out of the box and will be field-tested statewide in any state that signs on.”

Shane VanderHart of Truth in American Education[v] highlights many criticisms of the Thomas Fordham study but also a review from Dr. E. Calvin Beisner, who approaches his critique from a faith-based perspective.  He quotes Beisner as saying,

“The standards frequently present science as “an enterprise promoted by consensus.” On the contrary, consensus is not a scientific but a political value, as should be clear to anyone familiar with the history of science, which chronicles scores or even hundreds of great reversals of once reigning paradigms—as documented, e.g., in Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.  Science does not seek to attain truth by popular—or expert—vote, but by logical reasoning from premises provided by observations of the surrounding world.”

Erik Robelen writes in EdWeek “Draft of Common Science Standards Draws Friendly Fire[vi]” that the National Science Teachers Association finds a lack of clarity and coherence in the standards’ performance expectations and that the standards do not make clear 

“…what students are to know and be able to do, and how they should be taught those things.”

In “A Science Teacher’s View: The Backward-Engineered Common Core Science Standards[vii]”, an anonymous chemistry teacher who participated in developing the standards says,

“The "Next Generation Science Standards" have set out to backwards engineer the whole science curriculum into a coherent, self-validating tool. The goal all along was an instrument to market both teaching and assessment products to a captive education system, not to provide a framework for good teaching of the sciences.”

I personally like the way the NGSS (aka OAS) standards are organized.  In my opinion, the specific standards were easier to identify for each grade level than the PASS under which I taught.  

Unfortunately, I most dislike the FACT that our Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) would give the good citizens of Oklahoma whose trust and tax dollars they enjoy, a set of standards based entirely on the NGSS and then call them Oklahoman.  This smacks of such deception it is frankly hard to conceive.  If Oklahoma had intended to use a modified version of the NGSS, they had but to say so.  Instead, Oklahomans have been treated to various versions of how the NGSS were not “Oklahoma” standards and that the OSDE was writing THEIR OWN OKLAHOMA STANDARDS in order to create a set of standards more in line with “Oklahoma values”.

But then again, as we have pointed out numerous times, Oklahoma Title 70 (school law) dictates the use of Common Core State Standards[viii] in – not only English L/A and math as we have currently (though also re-named Oklahoma Academic Standards) – but also in Social Studies (which we have also shown to be simply a re-write of the National C3 Social Studies Standards[ix]) and science.  Consequently, it is no great mystery as to why the OSDE has chosen to take this direction.  They have limited choices here:

1.   Repeal the Common Core from state law (which our governor and state superintendent have sworn not to do) and allow districts to use whatever standards work for them – or allow the state to re-write our own standards our own way

2.   Accept all national standards provided by the various non-profit and federal agencies as declared by state law (the NGSS were created by Achieve and the National Research Council), keep their names and turn a deaf ear to the outcry from citizens

3.   Accept all national standards as declared by state law and re-name them in order to prevent citizen complaint

The Oklahoma State Department of Education has apparently decided upon #3. 

How do we explain the large number of educators and others we are told wrote, developed and reviewed these standards?  I have no intention of disrespecting any of the individuals listed.  I feel certain they had only the very best intent in this project.  Yet one only has to look at the pictures and read the standards to wonder exactly where any Oklahoman had a hand in these.

Long time Oklahoma teacher Claudia Swisher[x] wrote about being a ‘manipulated teacher’ in her blog and ended it with a quote from a friend’s blog – another teacher who said,

"Way too much of what passes for dialogue and scholarship around teachers' professional work has been managed, packaged and sold as authentic. It's not teacher leadership or advocacy. It's slick marketing, using the friendly faces of teachers."

The chemistry teacher described above had this to say about development of the standards,

“I was serving a term as a volunteer on my state's Math and Science Advisory Council three years ago. I'm only describing my personal experiences, and can't speak for the rest of the committee, but some of those experiences were really frustrating for me. For instance, representatives of the DOE came to our meetings and asked us to "integrate" the inquiry strand of our state science standards into the testable bullets. We wrote a beautiful report on the role of inquiry, and the interaction of science and mathematics. The DOE then edited our report without our input, "correcting" our references to laboratory work so that virtual simulations could be substituted.”

Another example comes from a paper[xi] I read recently upon which I wrote a blog[xii].  It describes well the art of the Delphi technique[xiii] – a way in which to achieve consensus in a group.  We have all been “Delphi’d” at one point I feel sure – it’s become one of the most popular techniques for government organizations to advance difficult and even unconstitutional projects because it simultaneously gives participants the idea they were included in important decisions while allowing leadership to maintain all control over the process.

Follow the links provided, do your own research and then contact the State Department of Education and tell them we will NOT accept these science standards.  Our current PASS were actually devised in Oklahoma by Oklahomans – let’s work to revise those, not copy a square reinvention of the wheel.

PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU TAKE THE TIME TO COMMENT ON THESE STANDARDS IN WHATEVER WAY YOU CHOOSE.  Here is the information on making public comment on the standards:

The draft of the Oklahoma Academic Standards for Science is available. Educators and the public are invited to submit written comments regarding the proposed draft. The public comment period is from Dec. 13, 2013, to Jan. 17, 2014. All comments must be received by 4 p.m. on Jan. 17, 2014. The standard 30-day public comment period has been extended by one week to provide ample time for educators and the public to provide feedback.

Submit Comments

E-mail okscienceeducation@sde.ok.gov or send written submissions to the Oklahoma State Department of Education at 2500 N. Lincoln Blvd., Oklahoma City, OK 73105-4599.

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[i] Next General Science Standards:  http://www.nextgenscience.org/search-standards-dci

[ii] DRAFT – Oklahoma Academic Standards for Science: http://www.ok.gov/sde/sites/ok.gov.sde/files/documents/files/DRAFT_Science%20Standards-12-13-13e.pdf

[iii] Fordham Institute Review of the Next Generation Science Standards; http://www.scribd.com/doc/147892835/Fordham-Institute-Review-of-the-Next-Generation-Science-Standards

[iv] Education Reporter, Next Generation Science Standards: Common Core Incognito; http://www.eagleforum.org/publications/educate/july13/next-generation-science-standards-common-core-incognito.html

[v] Problems With Next Generation Science Standards: http://truthinamericaneducation.com/next-generation-science-standards/problems-with-next-generation-science-standards/

[vi] EdWeek, Draft of Common Science Standards Draws Friendly Fire; http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2012/06/more_feedback_has_been_coming.html

[vii] Anthony Cody, A Science Teacher’s View:  The Backward-Engineered Common Core Science Standards; http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2012/05/a_science_teachers_view_the_ba.html

[viii] Governor Brad Henry, Addendum to the Race To The Top Grant; http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/phase2-applications/amendments/oklahoma.pdf

[ix]Liar Liar Pants on Fire – Bringing The OSDE Into Reality About Common Core http://restoreoklahomapubliceducation.blogspot.com/2013/10/liar-liar-pants-on-fire-bringing-osde.html

[x] Claudia Swisher; http://fourthgenerationteacher.blogspot.com/2013/09/my-name-is-claudia-and-im-managed.html

[xi] Stephanie Block, “Change Agents, Alinskyian Organizing Among Religious Bodies”; http://johntwo24-25.net/Volume%20II%20-%20Systemic%20Reform.pdf

[xii]Parental Rights VS The Collective – Or Tyranny VS Freedom http://restoreoklahomapubliceducation.blogspot.com/2013/12/parental-rights-vs-collective-or.html

[xiii]Using the Delphi Technique to Achieve Consensus; http://www.eagleforum.org/educate/1998/nov98/focus.html

6th Grade OAS Science Standards

6th Grade Next Generation Science Standards

9th Grade OAS Science Standards

9th Grade Next Generation Science Standards

The Ultimate in Educational Stupification - Global Warming

As if it isn't hysterical that a man who lived in a multimillion dollar mansion in Tennessee that used more power than a small African country has created a cult to bully others into living a 'green' lifestyle, it's even MORE hysterical that in the face of ClimateGate, our backward, roundabout federally funded Common Core State Standards initiative would make Global Warming the centerpiece of their Science Standards!

And so it is that Achieve, The National Research Council, the National Science Teachers Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science released their version of Science the way they want school children all across the country to learn it, this week to a flurry of comment:

New Teaching Standards Delve More Deeply Into Climate Change
Next Generation Science Standards Go All In With Climate Change
New Science Standards Put Global Warming At Core of Curriculum

Several things have caught my attention.

First, when one visits the Oklahoma Department of Education website to find our Science standards, our DOE would have you believe that ALL the Common Core State Standards (Language Arts, Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science and Math) were released in their final form on June 2, 2010.  Actually, English Language Arts and Math only were released in a final version of sorts on June 2, 2010 (after the Oklahoma legislature had voted to make them law in our state through SB2033) and it doesn't appear through any research I've been able to dig up on the internet that those were the final ELA and Math standards (the Common Core website and a site called Education Northwest were the only ones I was able to track any information on standards release dates and both those sites give incomplete information).  Social studies standards are not really social studies standards but ELA standards that include History Literacy - specific social studies standards have yet to be developed.  In fact, Oklahoma's Social Studies Standards indicate just this exact situation.  You can read them for yourself here.  Notice that you'll see Common Core ELA standards referenced for reading and writing assignments in addition to previously developed state Social Studies standards.  These are the ones that we wrote about in the blog, "A Republic Ma'am, If You Can Keep It".  Obviously, the Common Core Science standards are just NOW being released for public comment.  A bit disingenuous, don't you think?

At any rate, back to the Science standards.  EdWeek reports,

"Observers say the treatment of evolution and climate change, two politically thorny issues, may complicate decisions in some states."

Goodness yes in Oklahoma those would be thorny issues!  They also go on to report,

"With biological evolution, for instance, the standards make clear that the concept is a fundamental underpinning of the life sciences. And with climate change, the document calls human activities “major factors.”

Wow.  Yea, those aren't going to play well in the Bible belt I'm afraid.

Now look, I'm often criticized because I have a Master's Degree in Biology and I don't want Evolution taught in schools.  I don't want ANY untested THEORY taught in school as a fact.  I maintain that if you want to teach THEORIES, then teach competing THEORIES - Evolution and Intelligent Design for example - but don't begin to tell children that it's one way or the other factually.  If you do, you have completely invalidated the scientific process as neither THEORY can be observed and/or recorded in order to be disproven (or proved).  Obviously, I have faith in Intelligent Design, but as a scientist that's all I can impart to a student as I go on to also explain the THEORY of Evolution (in which I hold no belief at the macro level).

So, where did all this theoretical nonsense come from?  Well, I did a bit of internet digging tonight after looking at Oklahoma's Science Standards.

I taught 7th grade science in the late 1990's early 2000's using the Core Knowledge standards and the Oklahoma PASS.  I spent a LOT of my year talking about chemistry.  Guess what?  There is no chemistry in Oklahoma's Science standards until HIGH SCHOOL!  Well, there you go!  We don't want to overdo our scientific knowledge - we don't want standards "a mile wide and an inch deep" we want them "a mile deep and an inch wide".  Certainly, it will be easy for kids to pick up the language of Chemistry by high school (snark).  Interestingly, in the above-cited articles this notion is mentioned.  It was felt that these standards needed to be more earth science focused, so apparently, chemistry got the short shrift!  It is interesting to me then, that without a proper study of Chemistry to understand the breakdown of ozone and methane, you could buy the whole global warming thing hook line and sinker!

I also found this,

The science standards in this document were developed based on the National Science Education Standards by the National Research Council (NRC), the Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and the Science Frameworks by the National Association for Educational Progress (NAEP). The United States has established a goal for all students to achieve scientific literacy. These national publications, developed by science and education experts, will enable the nation and the state of Oklahoma to meet this goal. (page 1,2)

Okay, let's assess this.  Here is the NRC - which houses the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and Institute of Medicine.  What do you see when you click the link?  NOTHING BUT STUFF ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING!  Oh yes, there's really nothing else on the page.  In fact, the NRC's home page has the banner, "Climate Change at the National Academies".  Very non-partisan, right?  Very scientific!  It's no wonder the standards are all about Climate Change and chemistry has been taken out in favor of 'earth' science.

Let's try the AAAS.  I'll bet they're more scientific and less partisan...Oh goodness.  On the front page of their website at the top, they have this article,

"A Mosaic of Human and Ape [11 April 2013] New findings in Science shed light on the anatomy and likely habits of Australopithecus sediba, a possible human ancestor discovered in South Africa in 2008.

A quick trip over to the "programs" tab finds this,

International Office
• Sustainable Development
• International Cooperation
• Women's Collaboration
• Science Diplomacy

• Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law Program

As one who wears the epithet of "Conspiracy Theorist" with a smile, I'm not comfortable with any of that.  Are you?

Now the Next Generation Science Standards says,

States have previously used the National Science Education Standards from the National Research Council (NRC) and Benchmarks for Science Literacy from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to guide the development of their current state science standards. While these two documents have proven to be both durable and of high quality, they are around 15 years old. In addition, major advances have since taken place in the world of science and in our understanding of how students learn science effectively. Explore the timeline below to read some of the recent foundational science education research and reports on which the Next Generation Science Standards will be based.

Unfortunately, when you scroll down the list of NGSS supporting documents, they come from, yes, you guessed it, the AAAS and the NRC.  I guess the NEW stuff is the Global Warming hysteria.

People will ask, it's inevitable, but NO, the NGSS are apparently NOT under the direct title of the Common Core State Standards - they are called, College and Career Ready Standards.  As I posted in the first paragraph, there is definite confusion on the exact differences between the Common Core and College and Career Ready Standards, but I can tell you this, just like with the Common Core, all the same players are involved - mainly Achieve.  This is important because earlier tonight, my friend and co-worker Danna sent me a copy of Oklahoma's State Longitudinal Grant Application.  I am working on a story on this document alone, but Danna pointed out and it struck me quite hard, that this document included the CV of Oklahoma's Executive Director of Student Information, John Kraman (page 97).  Among other things, it says,



 
 

This guy was in on the ground floor of the Common Core State Standards - which CAME OUT OF WASHINGTON, D.C. where he worked with Achieve. So, I guess you can say that no matter whose name is on the standards, it's all the same names and all the same people - it's just the regular people that are getting nothing out of the whole takeover dealio but stupification of our kids and a tax burden!

In closing, just like with the Common Core, this writer, bemoans the following about his frustration with all the climate change nonsense,

These reports only rarely contain blatant lies. Instead, we are fed a mélange of half-truths, incomplete statements, and misquoted citations.  Who really expects reviewers to dig so deep as to uncover all of these?

Climate data has been proven to be fudged, tampered with, contrived, and yet the National Science Foundation (NSF) continues to take our money to fund global warming studies.  How can you even wrap your brain around using public funding to perpetuate a myth?

Well, if you can bully and scare school children with this silly concept, you drive wedges between parent and child.  As I wrote in a blog some years ago, "The Zombies Are Coming, The Zombies Are Coming",

My daughter brought home yet another piece of fabulous homework (PROPAGANDA) from my Blue Ribbon winning elementary school, Quail Creek Elementary. This one was called, "Shifting Shape; The earth is changing shape because of GLOBAL WARMING!"

Yes, according to the worksheet, "For more than 200 years, Earth has been getting warmer. Lately it seems to be happening more quickly....."

I tell my daughter after she makes me aware that she is stumped and doesn't know how to complete this worksheet, "I forbid you to do that and turn that in." And so goes our conversation:

"I forbid you to do that and turn it in! It's a lie. You're perpetuating a lie!"

Betty: "But MOOOOOOOOOM, You're the ONLY parent who ever gets upset at this kind of thing! You're embarrassing me!"

"It's about more than being embarrassed child, it's about doing something that promotes "junk science" - science that isn't true and hasn't been proven!"

Betty: "But I don't care! I don't want to get a bad grade for NOT doing it and my teacher will be mad!"

"I don't care if you get a bad grade! This isn't important to your base of knowledge in any way mainly because it ISN'T TRUE - it's completely unfounded science that even the man who runs the Weather Channel - among others - says isn't true either. It's not just your MOOOOOOOM, you know. What would you say if they started teaching that God was a lie, or Faith was a lie?"

Betty: "They don't do that mom and I don't care. I don't want to get a bad grade and have my teacher be mad at me." 

There's no way to beat this.  I mean, kids tend to think their parents are just three bricks shy of a load anyway.  When you get someone at school in a trusted position pushing political garbage that has no business being in a public school, your child is going to be hard pressed - especially in the younger grades - to stand up to that teacher and tell them how the cow ate the cabbage.  That's basically the definition of indoctrination and you don't have to have to be wearing a tin foil hat to see that - even though Reynold's Wrap tends to make the gray in my hair shine!