Posted on 03/17/2015 12:56:21 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
SIOUX FALLS — Proposed standards for science education in South Dakota’s public schools became the latest Monday to receive criticism from some parents whose values are at odds with the direction of the state Department of Education.
The state Board of Education held a public hearing that was split between science professionals who strongly support the new standards and opposing parents who disbelieve climate change and evolution.
State law requires the board to hold four public hearings on changes in school standards. The board will reach its decision on the science proposal after the fourth hearing set for May 18 in Aberdeen.
‘Fringe ideas’
One of the mothers who testified Monday said she applied to serve on the work group for the science standards, but wasn’t selected. She said she knew three other parents who also weren’t chosen.
“I wish that you allowed that opportunity to occur,” Nicole Osmundson of Sioux Falls said.
Osmundson described climate change and evolution as “fringe ideas,” but suggested there could be ways to hold classroom discussions about them without the school system advocating for or against them.
Another opponent, Catherine Billion of Sioux Falls, tied the standards movement to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization — often referred to as UNESCO — and its Agenda 21 plan for sustainable development that was adopted at an international conference in 1992.
Billion said many South Dakota families have values that don’t match the school standards as proposed.
“And that pits school against parents,” she said.
The state board could adopt the science standards at the May 18 meeting or direct the department to further revise them for possible final approval at the board’s July 27 meeting in Rapid City.
School districts would be required to have the standards in use for the 2017-18 academic year, according to the board’s president, Don Kirkegaard of Sturgis. He is superintendent for the Meade school district.
Good for all students
The opponents, however, saw more than twice as many science teachers, researchers and scientists testify in favor.
“I am fully in support of the adoption of these standards,” said Julie Olson, a Mitchell High School science teacher and president of her profession’s statewide organization.
Olson, who’s taught for 24 years, said the standards as they are proposed feature a steady progression and would work well for at-risk students, limited-English students and advanced students.
Others said school districts’ science standards varied widely and sometimes have been “a slippery slope” that didn’t encourage the rigor needed in science disciplines.
Sam Shaw, who’s overseen the science standards development for the department, said the work group accepted earlier suggestions that the standards need to be aligned by grade groupings, such as for grades six through eight and for high school. The work group will convene this summer to address that situation, according to Shaw.
“That’s a big concern for many of us,” Kirkegaard said.
The state board also took comments Monday on proposed new standards for three more areas.
Fine arts and K-12 educational technology will get their final public hearings at Aberdeen on May 18, while social studies will get hearings at Aberdeen and on July 27 at Rapid City.
The four-city hearing requirement — Aberdeen, Sioux Falls, Pierre and Rapid City — was adopted by the Legislature after the state board voted in 2010 to adopt Common Core standards for math and English language arts.
People claimed in subsequent years they didn’t know the state board planned to take the action. The board followed the standard public process set previously by the Legislature for rule-making.
Attempts fell short last year and this year to have the Legislature repeal or suspend Common Core. The new Smarter Balanced standardized assessments using those standards are in their second year of use this spring.
In a somewhat unusual event Monday, a state legislator testified as a neutral party on the science standards.
Rep. Mark Mickelson, R-Sioux Falls, said he was neither a supporter nor an opponent, but said parents need to feel they are being heard.
Mickelson, who said his family’s children attend public school, noted that private schools pay attention to parents who provide tuition and donors who benefit the schools.
"America will destroy itself from within"........Khruschev was pretty accurate and his warning is playing out, right on cue.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture—education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
Eliminate the Dept of Indoctrination.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/cabinet
OUT OF CONTROL executive branch v state
The latest that I see is that the deterioration of the West Antarctic ice sheet is accelerating, and has passed a tipping point, so we’ll see.
Don’t know if this helps:
“Climate Change” is simply the Doomsday story of the leftist religion of earth worship.
It’s really about their own self-righteousness for wanting to save the erf.
If the erf isn’t in danger, they have nothing to hang their halos on for wanting to save it.
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