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What We're Talking About Saturday, February 4, 2012

A Class of 51

The Fordham Institute recently released their assessment of state science standards with a handy color-coded map—and California was the only state to receive a solid "A," along with the District of Columbia. On Pharyngula, PZ Myers wonders how his state will ever get into college with a lowly "C." He writes, "The Institute does a fairly thorough breakdown, so there are some bright spots: Minnesota is doing a good job in the life sciences, but where we got dinged hard was on the physical sciences, which are 'illogically organized' and contain factual errors." But at least Minnesota wasn't one of the twenty-seven states to get a "D" or an "F." Greg Laden repaints the Institute's map with only two colors, making a "Pass/Fail" version of the assessment. At first glance the blocks of red and blue look electoral, but much of the South is blue with passing grades, while Oregon and half of New England are red for failure. Obviously, the quality of education depends on complexities far exceeding geographical and political alignment. Greg Laden writes, "It is an interesting report to browse through, and you can get your PDF copy of it here for free! Also, have a look at this overview from the NCSE. How did your state do?"

Your state's report card

pharyngulaFebruary 2, 2012

"Minimal is OK, as far as I'm concerned; it think it's more important to get across a solid conceptual understanding. Of course, given that some teachers do a very poor job of getting those concepts across, more specific guidelines might be useful.

"What's really awful about our C, though, is that that's the same grade Texas got. Oh, the ignominy!

"I think we got robbed, though. The detailed breakdown says that a major problem is inconsistency: some bits of the Texas standards are stellar, others are terrible; different grade levels get variable quality of coverage. Texas gets slammed for life science standards that are 'woefully imbalanced, with poorly developed material in the early grades and strong, sometimes excellent, content in the upper levels.'"

The State of State Science Standards

greg laden's blogJanuary 31, 2012

"The vast majority of American public school students are not proficient in the level of science learning expected for their age group. The Thomas B. Fordham Institute has issued "The State of Science Standards 2012" as part of an effort to assess the causes of this dismal state of affairs. Here's a map summarizing their results.

"Notice that some of the battleground states for the 'Evolution-Creationism Controversy' have reasonable ratings. Notice also the vast regions of D and F states. In fact, in order to convey the meaning of it all, I've created a new version of the map that signifies all states with D and F rankings with one color, and all states with C or better grades with a different color (The 'Pass/Fail' version of the test!)"

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Alleged global cooling is really noise caused by sporadic weather patterns on Greg Laden's Blog.

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Dolphins stir up nets of sand to catch a fish dinner on Life Lines.

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Salamanders (and caterpillars) curl up and roll out of harm's way on Pharyngula.

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