Science standards fall short

As a citizen of New Mexico, I am deeply troubled by the state Public Education Department’s proposed new science standards for K-12 science education.

The good news is that the proposed standards come largely from the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). They were developed in an open process by a national collaboration between publicly identified educators and scientists that included public comment and input and open hearings also involving the National Research Council, the National Science Teachers Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. These standards have been adopted in their entirety by many states.

Critically, however, the state Public Education Department has significantly diluted the science standards in its proposal. State bureaucrats have deliberately and pointedly obscured or omitted a number of key scientific concepts. Adopting these deeply flawed standards in our schools would put both New Mexico students and the state’s economy at risk and at a competitive disadvantage in an increasingly challenging world for science and mathematics.

Even more troubling, however, is the education department’s complete lack of transparency and accountability about the process involved in developing the proposed new standards. Who (name? position? area of expertise?) suggested the deliberate and key omissions from science standards that have so deeply flawed New Mexico’s proposed standards? Who (names? positions? area of expertise?) actually drafted this flawed and inadequate proposal? Who is exerting outside pressure?

Education department officials say only (as quoted by The Santa Fe New Mexican on Oct. 3, 2017) that input was obtained from “a bunch of different groups.” This is a vastly incomplete and totally unacceptable accounting of responsibility.

New Mexico’s students and citizens deserve much better.