My hair catches on fire when I hear about more standards being shoved at the states by corporate-federal partners, because I believe that constitutional, local conscience, not federal or corporate intentions, should determine what a child’s standards should be.
To me, it’s a matter of huge consequence: whether to give away my power of finding and defining truth for a child, to then be determined by a corporate-federal partnership’s board meeting, or whether to retain that power.
But this post is written for people unlike me, those who ask, “what’s wrong with common NGSS science standards; isn’t this just a modern science update?”
I want the public to realize that the NGSS standards are not the standards to which anyone should aspire, not even for those who believe that standardizing education nationally and globally is a good idea.
Here are ten reasons to flee from the Next Generation Science Standards.
- NGSS DODGES MATH
NGSS standards were rated a “C” by Fordham Institute. Fordham suggested states that are seeking science updates should check out Massachusetts’, South Carolina’s, and Washington D.C.’s superior science standards:
“NGSS aren’t the only alternative and, in the judgment of our reviewers, they aren’t nearly as strong as the best that some states developed on their own. A state with shoddy science standards should also consider replacing them with those of another state that’s done this well.”
What was Fordham’s “C” rating of NGSS based upon? Its review included these reasons:
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“… Our expert team was disappointed by what they found, and didn’t find, by way of math, especially in relation to physics and chemistry…
- “… Far too much essential science content was either missing entirely or merely implied.”
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… There is virtually no mathematics, even at the high school level, where it is essential to the learning of physics and chemistry. Rather, the standards seem to assiduously dodge the mathematical demands inherent in the subjects covered.”
And then, this surprise:
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“… Where NGSS expectations require math in order to fully understand the science content, that math goes well beyond what students would have learned in classrooms aligned to the Common Core.
The Next Generation Science Standards and Common Core were each birthed and funded by Achieve, Inc., with the Gates Foundation. It’s no secret: NGSS boasts of being aligned with Common Core. See Appendix A #7: “The NGSS and Common Core State Standards (English Language Arts and Mathematics) are aligned.”
Achieve, which directed the Common Core of English and math, is the developer and partner of NGSS science standards “on behalf of the lead states and other partners”. NGSS explains: “Achieve is leading the effort… Achieve coordinated the second phase of the NGSS development process”.
3. NGSS SCRAMBLES “INTEGRATES” SCIENCE
A Common Core-shared attribute of NGSS science is the integrating of science subjects.
This means dissolving distinct classes in biology, chemistry, physics, etc., as we know them today, to be replaced by conceptually-based (not math based) integrated science. At every grade level, children will be taught a watery version of these integrated subjects. This dilutes the expertise of teachers, too, who must change from teaching the richness of biology or chemistry or physics, to teaching a simplified, mostly mathless, conceptual mix of all the science subjects integrated at all grade levels.
4. NGSS THREATENS INQUIRY FOR STUDENTS
NGSS standards for sixth graders include this: “design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment”.
The assumption that minimizing human impact on the environment is always the right thing to do is unscientific. Think of all the remarkable human decisions that have blessed the earth’s environment. The assumption that humans should be monitored is, likewise, politically and academically narrow-minded.
How can students learn the scientific method, creating hypotheses and then proving or disproving theories with evidence, reason and intellectual debate– when NGSS holds assumptions and many scientific theories as already settled science? NGSS sets into concrete certain things that the scientific community has not settled. Is global warming a theory or a fact? Is Darwinian evolution one of many theories, or is it a fact? Is the idea that humans are to be blamed for the globe’s problems a settled science, or a fact? Is the theory of intelligent design (God) a scientifically mentionable, debatable question, or a settled fact?
Even though I side with intelligent design (a literal, actual God) I would not force this belief or its opposite into the science curriculum as the only allowable conversation. Scientific, political and religious freedoms demand open minded discussion and debate.
But NGSS frowns upon this.
Some who believe that NGSS is just “updating” school science say that any opposition to NGSS comes from closed-minded creation believers who want to push their religions into schools. But both Darwinian evolutionists and in Bible-based creationists should hope for freedom of thought and of scientific inquiry and debate. Otherwise, there’s no freedom nor true science at all– just dogma.
5. BELIEVE IT OR NOT, NGSS ACTUALLY OPPOSES OBJECTIVITY
In Kansas, Citizens for Objective Public Education (COPE) sued the state for adopting NGSS because of a lack of objectivity. The lawsuite wasn’t based on the idea that NGSS dismisses intelligent design (creation) –although it does– but instead, based on the idea that the NGSS promotes a religion of its own that crushes objective thought about the design and/ or evolution of the earth. So, NGSS stands accused by COPE of being its own religion (evangelizing the sustainability movement at the expense of scientific discussion)– while NGSS accuses opponents of the same thing.
Science standards should not be about Darwin vs. God. They should promote open inquiry for truth. As board member Wendy Hart of Alpine School District in Utah wrote:
“I know many believe the opposition to NGSS is purely religious. For me, it is purely scientific. Our ACT science scores are better than the NGSS states… The math associated with physics and chemistry is currently taught and applied…. I don’t think science standards should compel or repel belief one way or another. It is not our role as public educational entities to dictate belief systems for the students in our purview. True scientific inquiry does no such thing.” More here: http://wendy4asd.blogspot.com/2015/05/state-standards-burden-of-proof-rests.html.
6. NGSS PUTS A CEILING ON SCIENCE: “ASSESSMENT BOUNDARIES”
Fordham Institute noted that “… Inclusion of assessment boundaries… place an unintended but undesirable ceiling on the curriculum that students would learn at each grade level.” Why would science standards control or limit assessment boundaries? I can only guess that the standardization of tests is more important to NGSS than the power of a student to learn science.
7. NGSS OFFERS NO LEGITIMATE UPDATES
The dull, gray flavor and language and goals of the promotion of NGSS is the same as for common core. For example, “The NGSS are designed to prepare students for college, career and citizenship” and “Science concepts in NGSS build coherently from K-12“.
I think: if NGSS came up with the idea of preparing kids for college, what were classic science standards doing, then? How did our standards manage to churn out Nobel Laureate scientists and amazing U.S. astronauts, doctors and engineers? Were previous science standards an incoherent mess of scrambled eggs? Are we helpless without top-down education dictators? The truth is that this is not an update to science, but a skewing of it, to become a political tool to influence young people.
8. NGSS DELETES LEARNING
Fordham noted, as others have, that “Far too much essential science content was either missing entirely or merely implied”. NGSS literally deletes some scientific subjects, and grossly minimizes others. This is probably the most egregious, and most grimly ironic, of NGSS’s academic crimes.
What does that deletion of science look like, close up?
A sixth grade science teacher from Morgan County, Utah, Dana Wilde, wrote:
“My biggest concern with the NGSS is that key science concepts are missing… Why is matter and energy repeated throughout 6th-8th grade as almost an overkill of that subject, whereas other key science concepts are completely removed from the new standards? This is very concerning to me as a 6th grade science teacher… Virtually all the science concepts we have been teaching in 6th grade are not part of the new standards, with the exception of heat energy. The new standards are very environmentally heavy and move [away] from talking about microbes, heat, light, sound energy, space and astronomy to mostly global warming and human impact on the environment… The new proposed standards are not exciting topics for 11 and 12-year-olds, nor are students mature enough at this age to sift through all the information and misinformation that is out there about global warming (one of the performance tasks required in the new drafts). It’s not that I don’t think students should learn about these topics, it’s that I don’t believe it should be in the 6th grade curriculum… I believe the Next Generation Science Standards were not written by anyone who has spent the last 20 years in a room full of 6th graders.”
Another 5th and 6th grade science teacher from Southern Utah, who asked to remain anonymous, wrote this letter to Utah’s superintendent:
“I am doing this anonymously because of the tensions… I don’t have faith that those of us that have a different opinion will be allowed to voice our opinions without repercussions…. I love helping young people discover their potential, but these standards are stifling my ability to do just that. I will never sabotage my students’ learning for a political agenda…”
The teacher’s letter listed three examples of political sabotage in the new science standards:
“6.2.4 Ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperatures over the past century, 6.4.1: Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment, and 6.4.3: Construct an argument supported by evidence for how increases in human population and per-capita consumption of natural resources impact Earth’s systems. These are very odd requirements to put in a 6th grade science standards. These belong in a college level environmental debate class, not in a 6th grade classroom. I have seen the other NGSS standards for the lower grades, and they do not allow a teacher to delve deep into each concept. They require a very shallow teaching of the standards. I understand that the theory behind this is that each year will build on the previous year. That is not how younger minds work. Students need an understanding that they can take with them.”
A science and math teacher who has been compelled to teach Common Core math and NGSS science standards at Mar Vista Heights High School, at Imperial Beach, California, wrote:
“At the high school level, NGSS standards require integrated science, just like common core requires integrated math. My school tried integrated math in the 1990’s and abandoned it as a bad idea. Now, I am teaching integrated math III.
“However, science is different than math. Most math teachers have enough background in algebra, geometry and statistics to teach any level of integrated math. It is the rare science teacher who has expertise in all science domains: earth science, biology, chemistry and physics.
“NGSS writers posited that chemistry and physics principles like Newton’s laws, the gas laws, and atomic structure would be so thoroughly apprehended by 8th grade, that it would not be necessary to teach them in high school. In high school, student are to create reports and videos that explain the energy transformations behind global warming and how Darwin’s laws of evolution correctly explain the development of life.There are almost no high school chemistry or physics standards in NGSS.
“I personally believe that the existence of global warming caused by human activity (burning fossil fuels) is settled science. I also think Darwin was a gifted scientific observer, whose theory of evolution is well-founded. On the other hand, why overweight the standards with these two controversial topics? I am not saying ignore them, but they are central to these new science standards and they do not need to be.
NGSS was never pilot tested and was rushed into existence before people had a chance to vet it. Therefore, NGSS is full of errors and horribly misaligned.NGSS is another of those dreams held by a rich powerful man that has been ramrodded into existence. Luis Gerstner, the former CEO of IBM, started campaigning for these standards in 1995. In 1996, he talked the National Governors Association into making him chairman of a new non-profit named Achieve Incorporated. Achieve was charged with making his standards dream a reality… Like Gates’s Common Core, Gerstner’s NGSS is terrible education policy that came about because America’s democratic process and the principal of local control of education were sundered.”
Julie King, A PTA mom who serves on the Community Council in Utah’s Alpine School District, wrote:
“…There are holes in the NGSS. There is a lack of computer science as well as chemistry, and the lack of any human anatomy is what raises a red flag for me. Why would we completely eliminate human anatomy?
“… There is obvious bias in the standards…. Part of true science is being willing to question things and doubt. We need to look at what our focus is. When there are over 50 mentions of climate change and only one reference to electric circuits, we are overemphasizing one idea and excluding others. Am I ok with my kids learning about climate change? Absolutely! But I am not OK with my kindergartener being asked to solve global warming. The following is a kindergarten standard: Communicate solutions that will reduce the impact of humans on the land, water, air, and/or other living things in the local environment.
“…Do you know what kindergarten science should be? The five senses, weather, and the life cycle of a butterfly and ladybug. Maybe planting seeds and learning about how plants grow… With less than 3 hours a day, kindergarten should largely be about reading and learning to follow rules… not about rationing paper so that less trees are cut down.”
9. DISHONESTY: ALSO, WHAT NGSS SHOULD REALLY ADMIT
Visit NGSS’s hogwashy, vague and frankly boring website. Even just for a minute. Doesn’t it sound scienc-y and savvy? How can a math-slaying, science-erasing set of science standards look so slick?
Now visit a state office of education’s website for evidence that NGSS is being used. It’s hard to find. States know that the public is against common standards as a movement. In my state, the officials pretend we’ve no intentions of using NGSS. But it’s not really so.
In fact, for some grade levels, Utah’s been secretively using NGSS for years.
Here is what I wish NGSS and Utah’s State Superintendent would flat-out admit –and publish:
The NGSS are designed to standardize U.S. students’ science learning and testing, for the convenience of unelected bureaucrats and for the financial gain of NGSS partners, also meeting the social and political goals of NGSS funders and UNESCO.
NGSS will curtail scientific debate in schools and will dismiss academic freedom of teachers, to promote the controversial, U.N.-based initiative of sustainable development, which seeks to bring about forced, global redistribution of resources by stirring up earned and unearned guilt in human beings.
NGSS is promoted under the banner of “updating science” but NGSS will mimimize the teaching of science subjects: electricity, astronomy, anatomy, chemistry, math, etc., in favor of finding enough room to focus on sustainable development programming.
To silence its critics, NGSS will call critics unfashionable, or religious, or stupid.
If you haven’t already, please watch the video that documents the promises Utah’s superintendents made to citizens that we’d never adopt common science standards.
10. NGSS REMOVES LOCAL CONTROL
Like the math and English Common Core standards, the NGSS science standards are locked up by the people who made them and are double bolted by the tests and curriculum to which they are aligned. A local, nobel prize-winning scientist or a state superintendent or a dad will have absolutely no say in what students will learn as truth when we’re all shackled to NGSS.
NGSS-based tests may label your child or your school as incompetent if he or she has freedom of thought that goes beyond NGSS “scientific” assumptions and standards.
For certain, NGSS is no friend of local control.
Maybe because of the standardization of education data standards, maybe because of the standardization of federal, unconstitutional mandates and the conditional money they come with, maybe because of the standardization of federally approved school testing, now maybe our state office of education believes that saying “no” to common science standards is too much like swimming upstream.
Maybe we don’t believe we have power anymore. Maybe we believe other people are better off deciding for us what’s best for us. But if so, we are wrong.
The U.S. Constitution is still the supreme law of this land. That means people, not bureaucrats, are to have the power over their own lives –and it means that education is to be a local, not a federal, authority.
Stand up and make your voice heard.
Just because the corporate greed and political goals of Microsoft and Pearson and the United Nations match the standardization movements of the NGSS (and of CCSS and CSE and common library standards and common art standards) it does not mean that we don’t have the power to say no to these partnerships whose gaze is on our tax dollars.
If you’ve been following this blog, you know of the extreme dishonesty that’s been going on at the state office of education concerning science standards. Why the state office chooses to hide its headlong dive into using the common NGSS science standards is a mystery. Why the teachers and parents don’t rise up in absolute rebellion against NGSS is another.
We can say no. If we don’t, we might be as unthinking as NGSS wants us to believe that all its opposers are.
COMMON CORE 