On MiamiHerald.com, Gary Fineout reports:
U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings … stayed as far away as she could from the unfolding controversy over whether the word “evolution” should be included in Florida’s science standards for schools. The State Board of Education is expected to vote on the new science standards next month.
Spellings said it wasn’t [...]
Category Archives: Standards & Testing
US Education Secretary: No position on Evolution in Science Standards
January 9, 2008 – 1:02 pm
Texas forebodings: textbooks and science standards
November 17, 2007 – 12:49 pm
Although the specific textbooks involved this time were in elementary mathematics, the broader concern here is that, if the Board is allowed to get away with rejecting textbooks without and explanation, they could use that practice to censor textbooks for ideological reasons in controversial areas such as teaching about evolution in biology.
Kansas School Board Action on Science Standards
February 14, 2007 – 9:21 am
The KSBE voted Feb 13, 2007 to replace the 2005-2006 standards with revised science standards that return to a definition of “science” as a quest for explanations based on natural principles, rather than including non-natural or supernatural explanations, as the previous standards had done.
Kansas science standards vote Feb 13, 2007
February 7, 2007 – 9:16 am
UPDATE Wednesday Feb 14, 2007: for the action taken by KSBE, see
http://curricublog.org/2007/02/14/kansas-science-decided/
UPDATE Sunday Feb 11, 2007: See this article in today’s LJWorld.com for background on the vote that is expected Tuesday.
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According to their agenda, the Kansas State Board of Education is scheduled to “Act on Kansas Science Education Standards” at 4:00 Tuesday afternoon on Feb. [...]
Kansas School Board member Janet Waugh on Science Standards
November 21, 2006 – 3:31 pm
KS School Bd. member Janet Waugh: “I doubt if the current majority would agree to discuss changing the [science] standards; therefore, we will have to wait until January for the discussion to begin.”
Teachers surveyed on NCLB
November 11, 2006 – 12:44 pm
As we gear up for the reauthorization of NCLB, there may be some interest in surveys of teachers on what they have seen and experienced since passage of the law. Here are a few.
NCLB & the New Congress
November 9, 2006 – 8:00 pm
Reauthorization of NCLB is a top item on the agenda for the U.S. Congress that will convene in January 2007. The November 2006 elections has set the table for what might happen this time around, and it is time for people committed to quality education to begin planning for effective advocacy.
TX GOP to ban use of Economics Standards?
October 16, 2006 – 7:26 am
The 2006 Platform of the Texas State Republican Party declares that “We support the objective teaching and equal treatment of scientific strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories, including Intelligent Design. We believe theories of life origins and environmental theories should be taught as scientific theory not scientific law; that social studies and other curriculum should not be based on any one theory.”
Wells’s Promiscuously Incorrect Guide as Test for science education
September 15, 2006 – 11:49 am
Does Wells’s Promiscuously Incorrect Guide give us a vehicle for considering, and improving, the quality of science education for the population of non-scientists?
Wells’s Promiscuously Incorrect Guide as High-Stakes Test for science education
September 15, 2006 – 11:02 am
first, a little fun with Wells’s title, and then to the point of this post:
The title: Wells’s book is part of Regnery’s series of “Politically Incorrect Guides” to whatever hot-button topics will sell product to their right-wing readership.
The book is getting thorough critical review on the Panda’s Thumb.
A number reviewers and commenters have noted that [...]
wikis and/as textbooks
September 12, 2006 – 2:35 pm
An article in Teachers College Press reports on the lack of adequate textbooks in California’s public schools — especially in financially less well-off communities. The authors have been sharply critical of high-stakes consequences being imposed by NCLB on students in schools without the resources needed for an education that measures up to the state’s standards.
Meanwhile, [...]
dilemma: hi-stakes history test ?
September 3, 2006 – 12:49 pm
== UPDATE ==
Bender’s talk will be re-aired on Sunday Sept. 10, 2006 at 3:00 am EDT. See:
http://www.booktv.org/History/index.asp?segID=7137&schedID=449
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See http://www.booktv.org/History/index.asp?segID=7137&schedID=448 for info on a talk by one of my favorite American Historians on his most recent book, which concerns the teaching of American History as part of World History.
During the Q&A, Bender commented on the dilemma of high-stakes [...]
History: US in the World; also hi-stakes testing
September 3, 2006 – 9:15 am
Bender is right about US & World history; but I disagree with the notion that history can or will really be taught if we have high-stakes testing for history.
