The Texas State Board of Education listened to science experts and laypeople last week while making decisions on the science standards Texas children will learn by. They removed the "strengths and weaknesses" language that has been in the standards for twenty years. But they slipped in a few other things which may be just as bad.
In a method similar to -- although not quite as extensive as -- that in which certain board members rewrote the English Standards, Barbara Cargill, Cynthia Dunbar, and Don McLeroy surprised the board with last minute amendments. Chairman McLeroy did not recess the board nor even pause to allow the other board members to review the late proposals. Our local board members (Geraldine Miller, Mavis Knight, and Patricia Hardy) held fast to the ideal of a good science education for Texas students, but they weren't able to stop everything from getting through.
Some of the proposals were innocuous, such as changing the word "understand" to "analyze and evaluate". Some were rather silly in an attempt to inject "humility and tentativeness" into science standards. I'm still giggling over that one. Wouldn't want the science standards to think they were better than the math standards, eh?
In all seriousness, I realize she just wants to take scientists down a peg what with their elitist insistence on evidence and falsifiability and such. The wording she used to make the standards more tentative often made them more rigid (and incorrect) -- such as changing "can lead to" into "is thought to lead to". Most of those failed to pass, but just barely.
As the list of last minute changes progressed, it became clear that the concept of common descent is a big hang-up with the creationists on the board -- to the point that they will try to water down the requirement to understand the early geochemical environment of the Earth.
Two measures passed that try to reduce a students' understanding of common descent. One doesn't seem to have done any harm:
(7)(B) analyze and evaluate the sufficiency or insufficiency of common ancestry to explain the sudden appearance, stasis, and sequential nature of groups in the fossil record;Looking at Mr. McLeroy's notes, I see he doesn't understand the articles and books on evolution that he reads. The answers to his questions along with detailed explanations are in those articles and books he cites. The amendment as it stands supports the teaching of common ancestry as a part of the theory of evolution.
The other has done some harm. The original:
(8)(A) evaluate a variety of fossil types, transitional fossils, fossil lineages, and significant fossil deposits with regard to their appearance, completeness, and rate and diversity of evolution;and the revised version:
(8)(A) evaluate a variety of fossil types, proposed transitional fossils, fossil lineages, and significant fossil deposits and assess the arguments for and against universal common descent in light of this fossil evidence;The wording "proposed transitional fossils" makes it sound like those fossils don't exist and paleontologists are still looking for them. Dropping the second half of the requirement really weakens the standard. Students need to evaluate those fossil types in the same way that the scientists evaluate them in order to understand the conclusions drawn by the scientists. The addition of a requirement to "assess the arguments...against universal common descent..." is a difficult one in that there is no scientific argument against common descent.
These changes aren't final. The board will vote on the science standards for the last time during the regular board meeting March 26-27. Let the board members know what you think of the changes at sboesupport@tea.state.tx.us
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