Kentucky science and social studies standards contain almost no academic content and the problem with them is ... cursive writing

Richard Day at Kentucky School News and Commentary is apparently upset that State Education Commissioner Stephen Pruitt is going to include a new state standard covering cursive writing.

First he goes after critics of the contentless new state science and social studies standards:

One supposes the delays in fully implementing Science and Social Studies is political avoidance behavior. Politically, these catch the most opposition—from climate change deniers and to those who would remove Thomas Jefferson from U. S. History books. Perhaps the word came down from On High. How else might we explain why Pruitt, until recently the nation's lead science standards guy, is taking his foot off the gas.

But instead, apparently Kentucky will add 21st century standards for cursive writing, but not the critical skill of shoe lace tying.

Yeah, those deniers who are upset about a whole semester unit on climate change in Kindergarten, before they even know about, oh, I don't know, nature. In fact the science standards contain little about actual study of nature, which is actually interesting for younger students, and opting instead for technological abstractions that are sure to bore children stiff.

Similarly with the social studies standards, which,instead of teaching children about the rich history of America and the Western world, have Kindergartners identifying "ways that physical and cultural characteristics may affect people living in a place."

If these people don't turn off a whole generation of students to history and science, it will be a miracle.

Oh, and then there's this in the Kindergarten social studies standards:

K.GR.9 Human—Environment Interaction Identify the characteristics of climate and explain how it affect peoples’ lives in specific places.

No mention of George Washington, Patrick Henry, Paul Revere, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, the Liberty Bell, the Revolutionary War, the U.S.S. Constitution, the Star Spangled Banner, Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War, World War II, Civil Rights, Martin Luther King, Jr., or the Vietnam War. But we just can't get enough of climate change. In fact, although all of these other people and events are never mentioned in Kindergarten, climate change is mentioned five times.

And I'm wondering why Day is concerned about other people removing Thomas Jefferson from the history books when Jefferson seems to be absent from the state's proposed social studies standards, along with virtually every other historical figure, event, and document.

And then there's cursive, which Day obviously doesn't like. Of course, I can't think of a better way to prevent students from reading any of the original documents that Jefferson wrote, since they were all penned in cursive. In fact, good luck reading any original source material from about 50 years ago and before if all you know is manuscript writing.

If you wanted to erase a nation's cultural memory, you couldn't do it any better than with standards like these.

Diane Ravitch savages Common Core

Education historian Diane Ravitch savaged the Common Core Standards at last week's meeting of the Modern Language Association. I don't agree with everything she said, but 90 percent of it is absolutely right. Kentucky even gets an ignominious mention:

The Common Core standards were written in 2009 under the aegis of several D.C.-based organizations: the National Governors Association, the Council of Chief State School Officers, and Achieve. The development process was led behind closed doors by a small organization called Student Achievement Partners, headed by David Coleman. The writing group of 27 contained few educators, but a significant number of representatives of the testing industry. From the outset, the Common Core standards were marked by the absence of public participation, transparency, or educator participation. In a democracy, transparency is crucial, because transparency and openness builds trust. Those crucial ingredients were lacking.

... Some states—like Kentucky–adopted the Common Core standards sight unseen. Some—like Texas—refused to adopt them sight unseen. Some—like Massachusetts—adopted them even though their own standards were demonstrably better and had been proven over time.

Read the rest here.

Group calls Governor's Common Core comments “warmed over KERA rhetoric”

From yesterday's press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 8, 2014

LEXINGTON, KY—"We've already done KERA. Why are we doing it again?" asked a spokesman for The Family Foundation after last night's comments by Gov. Beshear on the Common Core initiative. Martin Cothran called Kentucky's Common Core initiative a "warmed over version of the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 (KERA)," which the group pointed to as a colossal failure.

"It's ironic that the very year we were all supposed to get out our party hats and celebrate the success of the 1990 reforms in Kentucky is the year we are talking about all the problems we have to solve in our schools."

Cothran, spokesman for the group and a professional educator himself, cited KERA's goal of all schools being "proficient" by 2014. "This year was the year our schools were supposed to have been cured of their education ills under the 1990 reforms. Instead, we have to listen to the same failed rhetoric we had to endure 25 years ago."

"Kentucky's version of the Common Core initiative is a rehash of old education ideas that were trotted out in the 1990s and have been completely discredited. Listening to the Governor's comments last night on Kentucky's supposedly 'new' education efforts made it sound like the Governor was reading the KERA playbook of 1990."

Cothran pointed specifically to the segment in the Governor's speech when he pitted basic content knowledge against thinking skills: "Core Content [sic] plays down rote memorization," said Beshear, "and instead gives students the skills that today's workplace demands: creating and critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, creativity, and communication."

"This is almost word for word what people like former State Education Commissioners Thomas Boysen and Bill Cody, State Sen. Ed Ford and other KERA advocates were telling us we were doing in 1990. It didn't work then and it won't work now.”

Cothran pointed to the false dichotomy education reformers are always invoking between memorization and content knowledge on the one hand and thinking skills on the other. "To say we're not going to memorize anymore and teach thinking skills instead is like Coach Calapari saying, 'My team is going to play down the fundamentals and instead give players what today's NBA needs: three point shots, crossover and spin dribbles, behind the back passes, and change of pace fakes'."

"It’s simply ludicrous to say that there is something wrong with memorization and that it detracts from thinking skills and creativity. The Governor's comments are a bad sign for education prospects in this state."

###

Propaganda Can't Save Schools: How will we know if Common Core has "worked" in Kentucky?

2014 was the year we were all supposed to know whether the Kentucky Education Act of 1990 (KERA) had worked. And yet here we are, in 2014, talking about a completely different education reform proposal: Common Core.

KERA is dead: Long live Common Core

All experiments have some procedure for evaluating their success--some means of verifying whether a particular program is successful or not. The advocates of Common Core owe it to the rest of us to explain exactly when and how we will know if their program has worked.

With KERA, which involved the largest tax increase in state history, the justification of which was to improve our schools, we were given an actual date and some actual numbers that would verify its success. We were told that by 2014, all schools would reach "proficiency" on state tests. We were even given exact numbers: "Proficiency" meant scoring 100 to 140 on state tests. If this happened, then it would be judged a success. If it didn't happen, then it would be judged a failure.

State Sen. Ed Ford, KERA advocate and then chairman of the Senate Education Committee famously said, "It will take a generation to know whether KERA has worked." Well, it is now 2014 and not only did KERA not pass its own self-imposed test, but it has been almost completely forgotten.

By its own criteria, KERA was a failure.

But at least there were was an actual date and actual criteria. Where is the date we can use to tell if Common Core has worked? Where are the criteria we can use to judge its success?

Brad Hughes, spokesman for the Kentucky School Boards Association, says its "too early to tell" if Common Core has worked. He says two years is too short a time period to tell whether it has succeeded. We need, he says, "at least three years worth of data to tell."

Okay. Three years to tell if Common Core has worked. Is that our time frame? Is everyone agreed on this?

But then we still have the other matters necessary to verify success, such as 1) having criteria we can use to determine whether a school has successfully implemented Common Core; 2) a means of telling whether a school's improvement is due to Common Core or some other factor; and, most importantly, 3) Specific criteria whereby we can define what success is.

Where are these specific criteria? Can Hughes tell us? If not Hughes, who?

We need to get beyond the propaganda. The failure of KERA should have taught us that propaganda can't save schools.

HT: Richard Day

Anthony Esolen on the Common Core Standards for literature and English

Anthony Esolen assesses the best of the model essays recommended by the authors for the Common Core State Standards in literature and English and discovers it is riddled with errors:

The best essay by far, for both style and organization, is a report on the economic effects of the Spanish Flu, in the United States after the First World War.  No other essay in the set comes close.  To read the others, after this one, is to stumble down the side of a ravine.  Yet I would not want one of my students to have written this essay, not in a hundred years.

The writer, however, makes a number of assertions about the Spanish Flu that are either plainly wrong or just contradictory:

These problems, which do not have to do with the style of the essay, are pretty easy to notice.  They are boulders in the reader’s path.  All you have to do is to pause and look.  But the author did not do that, nor did his teacher, nor did the mechanics of the Common Core Curriculum.  For the mechanics, the crucial thing is that the author presents “evidence” for his claims, and not whether the evidence is really evidence, or whether the pieces of evidence are consistent with one another, or whether the author draws just conclusions from the evidence.  They apply the rubric of their very badly written checklist: the author “develops the topic thoroughly by selecting the most significant and relevant facts, extended definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples appropriate to the audience’s knowledge of the topic.”  Again, this is their model essay, and it is the best of them all, written with no time constraints and with opportunity for “feedback” (note the mechanical term) from the teacher.

In the process of critiquing the essay, Esolen, an English professor at Providence College, points out the sophistical view that Common Core takes of literature:

The authors believe that the humanities are subordinate to rhetoric.  We read a poem by Keats in order to see, or to pretend that we see, how he uses images or odd words or a cunning series of expressions to persuade us of some peculiar point of view.  The authors do not read poems at all, really.  They read texts, or, as they put it with the air of technicians, text.  When you read a passage by Dostoyevsky, or a poem by Donne, or the maunderings of a politically correct doyen, you are reading text, and reading text requires the same techniques, always and ever, just as there is a correct way to dissect a dead cat on the laboratory table.  But I and my comrades believe that rhetoric is subordinate to the humanities.  We attend to Keats’ words and metaphors so that we will better see what he is saying to us about what it means to be human.  We do not invert the order of ends.  We care ultimately about the good, the true, and the beautiful, and what vision of those that Keats was granted to see.  We read poetry as poetry, and we rejoice in its truth and its beauty, nor do we presume to know all about it.

Read the rest Anthony Esolen on the Common Core Standards in literature and English.

Richard Day: Opposition to science standards a plot by coal companies

I posted a comment on the most recent silliness coming from Richard Day's blog, where anti-religious conspiracy theories take the place of rational arguments. Richard's most recent fantasy involves The Family Foundation taking coal money to advocate against climate change.

Seriously.

Maybe, as I point out my response, which I have included below, that is why I have publicly opposed mountain-top removal.

These are the people who are going to be teaching your children "critical thinking skills."

I'm not sure quite what Richard means when he says that I will "go with whatever argument gets [me] movement." Is he saying that I try to use the best arguments for my position? If so, I'm fail to understand what the problem with that is. Is he implying that I use arguments that I don't believe in myself? If so, he's questioning my motives. 

When you start questioning people's motives, it usually means you don't have much in the way of arguments. You owe it to your opponent in an argument to refute his best arguments, not his worst motives. 

The problem with Richard and some of his readers is that they can't seem to answer the main argument I presented, which is that the standards are weak on content knowledge (which they are). Instead, they launch off into speculation about my being a closet creationist (which I'm not) and go off into spinning conspiracy theories about me wanting to foist my religion on everyone. 

Richard and his followers don't have a shred of evidence for this, so they have to manufacture things. 

For example: that The Family Foundation of Kentucky's "new interest" in the climate change issue (the only comment in regard to which I can even remember being the two or three paragraphs in that one op ed) is due to "donations from pro-coal interests." 

This is absolutely false. In fact, it's pretty close to a smear. But that was conspiracy theorists do: they charge their opponents with things that they don't have a shred of proof for that make them feel comfortable in their own ignorance. Charges like this are not only reckless, they are ethically questionable and they don't belong in a civilized exchange of beliefs. 

And besides, how does this charge square with my publicly-stated opposition to mountain-top removal? 

One thing you can say for Richard, he can pack a lot of falsehoods into one pretty brief comment. He claims that I "roused up church folks to go testify." I presume he means at the recent Administrative Regulations Review Subcommittee meeting in which the science standards were rejected.  

In fact, although The Family Foundation urged people to call legislators (because of the content issue), no one in that organization, including myself, ever asked anyone to go to the meeting to testify. In fact, when the chairman asked for the seventeen people who had signed up to testify against the regulation to decide among themselves which one would speak for them, Richard Innes of the Bluegrass Institute and I went to the table and told the chairman that we had no idea who the other 15 people even were, so it was hard for us to "decide." It was then he allowed both of us to speak briefly--in a smaller space of time than the advocates got to give their case. 

But even if it were true we were "rousing up church folks" to testify at the meeting, how would that act be "specifically anti-evolution"? 

I think the real answer is for Richard and his friends to get out more. Maybe actually acquainting himself with religious people would help him realize that they don't go around thinking anti-evolution thoughts all day. It also might diminish the necessity of him having to lay awake nights worrying that someone, somewhere might be thinking creationist thoughts if he realized that not all people who take their religion seriously are creationists. 

But the best thing to do is to stop trying to discern people's private thoughts just because they can't answer their public arguments.

You can read more about the secret plot by Christians to foist a knowledge of nature on poor, helpless school children here.

More Science Follies: UK science professor defends former professor who says that scientific method is a Medieval superstition

Someone must have spiked the contents of the water cooler over at the faculty lounge of the University of Kentucky's science department.

Yesterday's claim by a former UK science professor in the comments section of my Lexington Herald-Leader op-ed that the scientific method is obsolete is being defended by a current UK science professor.

Our own Art, a UK science professor now under the influence of the Next Generation Science Standards Kool-Aid, says that his former colleague "can be excused" for saying that the teaching of the scientific method is "a return to early 13th century standards in teaching science."

Why?

Because, says Art (still clearly suffering the after-effects of one cup too many), I believe science consists of "rote memorization of Latin names" and think scientific inquiry consists of falling "on your knees and ask[ing] the voices in your heads for the answer."

This is not the first time Art has suffered such hallucinations, but I think maybe the Kool-Aid touched off an unusually serious visitation.

Perhaps he should seek some kind of treatment for this. I suggest an emetic, followed immediately by a laxative, followed by frequent repetitions of this same regimen over a period of several days. It may not make him feel better, but a few of the rest of us will certainly be cheered by it.

Of course, it might just be the result of his humors being out of balance, in which case a good bloodletting might be in order.

I wouldn't be surprised if he couldn't find a leechmaster right there in the UK science department. I mean, after all, I understand they still practice the scientific method there.

Scientificus Contralogicus

If you can't deal with someone's argument, simply change the subject something completely unrelated.

In response to my op-ed on the science standards in yesterday's Herald-Leader, we get this from Paul Vincelli, an extension professor and Provost's Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Kentucky who apparently wandered into the comment section of my op-ed from a totally different article:

I use the word "theory" in the sense of modern science: a set of well-established concepts that fit observations. In other words, no one doubts the existence of electricity, our understanding of which is based on the theories of electromagnetism, atomic structure, and quantum mechanics. In that sense of the word "theory", the theory of evolution and the theory of human-influenced climate change are fundamental to modern science. 

This is in response to my argument that the Next Generation Science Standards Kentucky just implemented are lacking in content knowledge. Don't you see the argument?

Evolution and global warming are fundamental to modern science
Therefore, content knowledge of nature is not fundamental to modern science

Maybe we should just take this as an indication of what is coming in the "critical thinking skills" program that the Common Core people still haven't produced.

Scientific method obsolete, says defender of state science standards

Okay class, next question: Which planet are defenders of science standards from?

Here is Tom Kimmerer, a former science professor at the University of Kentucky, responding to my article in yesterday's Lexington Herald-Leader:

Mr. Cothran is trying to blur what his organization is after: a return to early 13th century standards in teaching science. The scientific method, consisting of observation, hypothesis, experimentation, and independent verification, was developed beginning in the mid-1200s, mainly by the clergy of several faiths. It is absolutely in the interest of all Kentuckians that we teach our children a 21st century view of science. Children are natural-born scientists, observing, playing and hypothesis testing in a natural way. Mr. Cothran wants to wring this ability out of students by appealing to didactic fundamentalism. Those of us who live in the current century should thank the Governor for ignoring the forces of ignorance.

Oh my. The scientific method. A medieval superstion. I think. I'm going. To laugh now.

Defenders of science standards way ahead of their time

Why is it that proponents of the Next Generation Science Standards want to inject religion into the discussion of the standards?

In response to my op-ed in the Herald-Leader today, Pete Landfield, who is involved in Information Systems at the University of Kentucky, says, "Let's all remember that the "family foundation" is a religious group comprised of right wing evangelical 'christian' dominionists."

 Really? Is he talking about me? I'm a Catholic, which makes it theologically impossible for me to be a "dominionist."

Amazing the strange bedfellows that reckless stereotyping can make.

But Landfield, the informationally challenged information systemetizer, goes on: "What Mr. Cothran fails to remember is that there is a separation of church and state in this country, and teaching religion in the public sphere is prohibited. If Mr. Cothran were to get his way and have right wing evangelical 'christian' version of creationism taught and climate science ignored, then I say we should also teach Satanism, Voodoo, Hoodoo, Hinduism, Buddhism, Wiccanism, paganism, and lest I forget, Flying Spaghetti Monstorism in school. After all, isn't that the jist of religious 'freedom'?"

And I recommended teaching religion ... where?

Had Landfield paid attention to the informational aspect of what I said he would have noticed a curious fact: That I not only made no recommendation to teach religion, but made no reference to religion whatsoever. So what exactly is he referring to? It's hard to say.

In pondering the kind of intellectual care Landfield and other commenters on the article take in interpreting what I actually said in the article, I'm seeing some interesting things in our scientific future.

I'm thinking of alchemy and leechcraft here.

My article on the sham approval process of state science standards in today's Herald-Leader

Here is an excerpt of my op-ed on Kentucky's science standards in today's Lexington Herald-Leader:

This is the problem with science education, we are told: students have memorized too many facts. Their heads are bursting with them. There is not enough room in their tiny little brains for an understanding of how these facts should be applied because all the room is currently taken up by facts. There is simply no space in those fact-crowded little heads for scientific applications. 

This may be the first time anyone has argued that the problem with our schools is that students know too much.

Read more here.

Florida governor orders state out of Common Core tests

The War on Knowledge just ran into more opposition.

Just days after former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush excoriated opponents of the Common Core for defending ignorance (as opposed to actually implementing it, which is what he recommends), current Florida Gov. Rick Scott issued an executive order calling for the state to lop off the testing tentacle of the Common Core, called "PARCC":

Gov. Rick Scott is directing the state Education Board to withdraw from the national consortium creating tests to accompany the new Common Core State Standards. 

Scott sent a letter to state Board of Education Chairman Gary Chartrand Monday recommending a six-point action plan for pursuing higher standards in education. 

His first recommendation: pull out of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, and start the competitive bidding process to select the state's new assessment.

Read more here.

HT: Michelle Malkin

Where is Common Core's thinking skills program?

One of the reasons given by proponents of the Common Core, for not requiring particular content knowledge is that they are teaching kids "critical thinking skills." But merely repeating the phrase doesn't constitute a program. In spite of the fact that Common Core proponents like to shake their pom-poms and cheer it on, they don't seem to even know what "critical thinking skills" means, much less have any actual program to teach it.

The first problem is that Common Core proponents don't seem to even know what "critical thinking skills" are. If you want to talk about "critical thinking skills," you should at least be able to define what they are. In all the reading of done on Common Core, I can find a single definition of the term.

You can require that students exercise thinking skills, but how are they going to be able to actually employ them if they never learn them? And how are they going to learn them unless there is some kind of systematic program to teach it to them?

A case in point is a recent post from Susan Weston at the Prichard Committee, who is running a series of posts on the Common Core standards. In her most recent post, she reblogs Stu Silberman's post in Education Week on three of the Common Core reading standards.

One of them reads: "Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, including the validity of the reasoning as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence."

Sounds great, doesn't it?

Here is Silberman, commenting on this section:

With a parent or citizen audience, I'd emphasize two points. 

First, Standard 8 is my very favorite part of the whole Common Core process, because it asks students to track the evidence and check whether each author's positions are well grounded in reliable facts and sensible reasoning. To me, that sounds like the basics of citizenship preparation, and close to the root of why America has public schools. 

And second, Standard 8 is my inspiration for this set of blog posts. For those who are wary about Common Core, I urge them to start by reading Common Core. If you think they're wrong for the kids of your state, say which part you think is wrong, quoting from the actual text. Wrestle the real document and the real evidence, and don't settle for anyone else's summary.

Okay, fine. So maybe Stu or Susan can tell me how the Common Core is going to teach this ability to "delineate and evaluate" an argument? How is a student going to learn how to "check whether each author's positions are well grounded in ... sensible reasoning." And what is "sensible reasoning"? Most importantly, where in the standards does it outline the method by which it is going to teach students how to determine "validity"?

There are certain specific things a student has to know in order to deter the validity of an argument. In categorical reasoning, one has to know how many terms an argument has and that they are not equivocal. He has to know the four kinds of logical statements and whether the terms are distributed in each subject and predicate. He then has to know the rules for validity and be able to apply them to actual arguments.

If the reasoning is hypothetical, then he has to know, given the particular structure of the argument, which term (the antecedent or consequent) he can affirm or deny in order to derive the correct conclusion.

Where in the standards are these things required of students so that they would actually have the capability to determine the validity of an argument? Where is this process taught to teachers who will be implementing the standards? And is it reasonable to expect a K-5 student to be able to do this, much less a 6-12th grade student who has never had any training in logic?

The only way to determine validity of an argument is to use logic, and no mention is made in the standards of whether or how it is going to be taught. Unless there is some procedure for teaching students how to actually determine validity of arguments, then all the talk about "validity" is meaningless and ineffectual.

The next battle in the academic left's War on Knowledge: Social studies standards

Another tentacle has reportedly grown on the Common Core monster that promises to suck even more knowledge out of the minds of your children.

We go now to Frederick M. Hess at the Enterprise Institute for an update:

Yesterday, on Constitution Day, a coalition of social studies organizations issued their “College, Career and Civic Life (C3) Framework for State Social Studies Standards.” One of the partner organizations was the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools co-chaired by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and former Congressman Lee Hamilton. Now, the exercise had more than a little irony, given that the organizations went out of their way to ensure that these “social studies standards” make no mention of the U.S. Constitution—or other historical events, dates, or persons. 

Susan Griffin, executive director of the National Council of Social Studies (NCSS), explained, “Many state standards in social studies are overwhelmed with lists of dates, places and names to memorize – information students quickly forget.” Instead, she said, the new framework would help states establish “fewer, higher, and clearer standards for instruction in civics, economics, geography, and history,” the standards emphasize “critical thinking, collaboration, and inquiry.” Without delving into what students should actually know, the new C3 framework, explains an accompanying fact sheet, “Intentionally envisions social studies instruction as an inquiry arc of interlocking and mutually reinforcing elements that speak to the intersection of ideas and learners.” 

... 

Frederick? Frederick? Are you still there? Well, we've lost Frederick. But you can get the rest of his report on the new social studies standards here.

I have said before that the people who talk the most about "critical thinking skills" are the least able to explain exactly what they are. But we may now have a breakthrough.

What the permissivist educational establishment appears to mean by "critical thinking skills" is the process of eliminating content knowledge from the minds of children. So when you hear them using contentless expressions such as "critical thinking, collaboration, and inquiry," pack up the minivan and flee to the hills before your children's minds are turned into mush by the Common Core monster.

In Defense of Facts: Students know too much, say science standards advocates

While most of us think that it is ignorance that needs to be stamped out, advocates of Kentucky's new unapproved and forcibly implemented science standards are targeting ... knowledge.

Just take a gander at the responses to my opinion piece in the Louisville Courier-Journal which were published on Monday. According to Brad Matthews, former director of curriculum and assessment for the Jefferson County Public Schools, one reason we need these unapproved and forcibly implement standards is to extirpate that bane of all modern permissivist educators: memorization.

"Science education has moved away from the memorization of many facts," says Matthews, "and toward understanding how the laws and principles of science are applied."

That's right: students have memorized too many facts. Their heads are bursting with scientific facts. There is not enough room in their tiny little brains for an understanding of how these facts should be applied because all the room us currently taken up by scientific facts which these students have memorized. There is simply no space in those fact-crowded little heads for scientific concepts.

The solution is obvious to people like Matthews: clear all that knowledge out of there so they will be able to apply the knowledge they will no longer have under these standards.

Just check out some of those Jefferson County schools Matthews had a hand in overseeing and you'll see the extent to which kids are overstuffed with memorized factual knowledge.

What exactly is it that modern educators have against memorized knowledge of facts? And why is it that they are always pitting facts against application and concepts? Is the possession of memorized facts really inconsistent with an ability to apply scientific procedures and an understanding of scientific ideas?

Since we're now abandoning memorization, we can apparently look forward to the prospect of Kentucky students knowing fewer facts than ever before.

What a relief.

Unapproved but forcibly implemented state science standards advocate misrepresents my arguments

Robert Bevins, a former professor of biology at Georgetown College who is probably the most widely-quoted supporter of Kentucky's unapproved but forcibly implemented new science standards, said at a recent legislative hearing that Kentucky would be seen as a "backwater" if it didn't approve the science standards.

The problem is that if the science standards are passed, Kentucky students won't know what a backwater is.

In the legislative committee meeting in which the standards were rejected, Bevins gave testimony asserting that my word counts were incorrect when I asserted, in my Lexington Herald-Leader article, that climate science terms were used 130 times while other terms one would expect to be more common in a set of science standards were far fewer--or absent altogether.

I made some notes while Bevins was speaking, just before I gave may own testimony on Bevins' attempted refutation of my argument. Then, I discovered his more extensive response to my arguments on the website of the group he heads, Kentuckians for Science Education.

Here is what he says in the post on his site responding to my arguments: "An examination of the Next Generation Science Standards by word count and context regarding claims of excessive focus on climate change." He then goes on to give his own findings about what he found in the NGSS document.

First problem: Bevins misrepresents the document I claimed to have analyed
The first thing to note about his response is that he completely misrepresents what I claimed. He says I claimed to have done a word search on the Next Generation Science Standards document: "Mr Cothran’s initial analysis of the NGSS document," he says, "vastly overestimates the importance of anthropogenic climate change in the NGSS document, especially in elementary and middle school grades."

Mr. Bevin's assertion is simply false.

I said very specifically in my op-ed that I did the word search on the Kentucky Core Academic Standards document, which is the actual document in question in this debate. Here are my exact words: "If you do a simple word search through the Kentucky Core Academic Standards document, the problem becomes apparent ..." [Emphasis added]

In other words, Bevins' entire attempted refutation is based on a mistaken understanding of the document at issue.

Now obviously the Kentucky Core Academic Standards includes the Next Generation Science Standards as well as a number of other subject areas. In addition, I have not done a careful comparison between the science sections Kentucky standards document and the NGSS document. I suspect they are substantially the same, although Kentucky Department of Education officials said at the legislative meeting last Wednesday that they had made some modifications which sound minor.

In any case, I never claimed to have done any kind of content analysis on the Next Generation Science Standards document itself, as Bevins claims, and therefore the word counts he claims as corrections of my word counts are irrelevant.

Second problem: Bevins overstates what I said the document emphasized
He also asserted that my word count involved terms related to climate change and that, in fact, the terms I found in my word search were related to climate science in general, but not climate change in particular. What I in fact said was that these were terms related to climate science.

Again, Bevins misrepresents what I said. Here is what I said: "If we had only Kentucky's science standards to go by, we would have to conclude that climate and weather issues are more important than gravity, photosynthesis, electricity, genetics, radiation and quantum mechanics." [Emphasis added] I then said, very specifically, exactly which terms I was counting: "...the terms "climate," "weather" and "global warming" are together mentioned over 130 times."

I did say, prior to those specific claims, that there was "an avalanche of terms related to climate change." I said that because my assumption was that the reason for having all of those climate and weather related terms in the standards was because of the recent interest in climate change. In other words, the prevalence of climate science terminology was my evidence for an emphasis on climate change in the standards.

Now I suppose someone could argue with my assumption that the reason for the inclusion of all the climate science emphasis in the standards is not due to the interest in climate change (and Bevins tries to do this), but that would be rather hard to believe. It would also not square with the responses by standards supporters to my argument, which was not that I was wrong about the emphasis on climate change, but rather that the standards were, in fact, correct in emphasizing it (through an emphasis on climate science). Just see the two responses that appeared to my article in the Herald Leader two weeks later.

In any case, my claims about the data itself had to do specifically and explicitly with climate science terminology.

So the two chief assumptions of Bevins refutation are mistaken.

And in regard to his claim that Kentucky will be seen as a backwater if it doesn't pass the standards, so what? We should mis-educate our children in order not to look bad?

Kentucky children are not stupid

For Immediate Release

September 13, 2013

LEXINGTON, KY—The Family Foundation today decried what it called "ugly rhetoric" from supporters of the state science standards. "Supporters of the science standards need to tone down their criticism of Kentucky students before they make the standards more unpopular than they already are."

Comments made by a liberal blogger and supporters of the standards who testified before a legislative committee in favor of the standards prompted the group to speak out. After the science standards were rejected by a legislative panel yesterday, Jake Payne, who runs Page One, Kentucky, said in response to the vote, "Wondering why Kentucky kids tend to be the dumbest mother****ers on the planet these days? That’s why."

Cothran said the current science standards are not better than previous standards and leave out even more science content. "If Kentucky students were as stupid as Payne thinks they are," said Cothran, "then it would be the result in part of the last set of standards we passed in this state. Remember them? The ones that were supposed to make everything better? The people who are now telling us that the Next Generation Science Standards will fix things are the same people who told us that the Last Generation Science Standards were going to solve our problems. "

"Kentucky children are not stupid. But they are ill-served by an education establishment that ignores basic content knowledge as the new science standards do. And people like Payne should stop blaming children."

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Media coverage of legislative rejection of Next Generation Science Standards

Below is a list of media outlets carrying my remarks on the rejection by the Administrative Regulation Review Subcommittee of the states new science standards which are based on the Next Generation Science Standards:

Kentucky panel to review state's new science standards

...new standards would be a horrible embarrassment for the state. Martin Cothran, spokesman for The Family Foundation, said the standards should not be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge...

09/11/13 12:39 | United States | courierpress.com No Title ...new standards would be a horrible embarrassment for the state. Martin Cothran, spokesman for The Family Foundation, said the standards should not be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/12/13 06:13 | United States | westkentuckystar.com Gov. Beshear overrides decision to spike science standards ...was political. “I pretty well predicted this,” Holliday said. Martin Cothran, spokesman for The Family Foundation, said the standards shouldn’t be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/12/13 04:26 | United States | state-journal.com Kentucky's new science education standards rejected ...new standards would be a horrible embarrassment for the state. Martin Cothran, spokesman for The Family Foundation, said the standards should not be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/11/13 16:58 | United States | wdrb.com Kentucky legislative panel finds science standards lacking ...new standards would be a horrible embarrassment for the state. Martin Cothran, spokesman for The Family Foundation, said the standards should not be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/11/13 16:27 | United States | wpsdlocal6.com Governor to implement new science standards ...inadequate" and he said the subcommittee vote was political. Martin Cothran , spokesman for The Family Foundation , said the standards shouldn't be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/11/13 11:18 | United States | timesunion.com Governor to implement new science standards ...inadequate" and he said the subcommittee vote was political. Martin Cothran , spokesman for The Family Foundation , said the standards shouldn't be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/11/13 11:18 | United States | newstimes.com Governor to implement new science standards ...inadequate" and he said the subcommittee vote was political. Martin Cothran , spokesman for The Family Foundation , said the standards shouldn't be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/11/13 11:18 | United States | stamfordadvocate.com Governor to implement new science standards ...inadequate" and he said the subcommittee vote was political. Martin Cothran , spokesman for The Family Foundation , said the standards shouldn't be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/11/13 11:18 | United States | ctpost.com Governor to implement new science standards ...inadequate" and he said the subcommittee vote was political. Martin Cothran , spokesman for The Family Foundation , said the standards shouldn't be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/11/13 10:18 | United States | beaumontenterprise.com Legislative Panel Finds Science Standards Lacking ...new standards would be a horrible embarrassment for the state. Martin Cothran, spokesman for The Family Foundation, said the standards should not be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/11/13 09:26 | United States | lex18.com Governor to implement new science standards ...inadequate" and he said the subcommittee vote was political. Martin Cothran , spokesman for The Family Foundation , said the standards shouldn't be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/11/13 08:18 | United Kingdom | sfgate.com Governor to implement new science standards ...inadequate" and he said the subcommittee vote was political. Martin Cothran , spokesman for The Family Foundation , said the standards shouldn't be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/11/13 08:18 | United States | seattlepi.com Governor to implement new science standards ...inadequate" and he said the subcommittee vote was political. Martin Cothran, spokesman for The Family Foundation, said the standards shouldn't be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/11/13 04:07 | United States | palmbeachpost.com Legislative panel opposes new science standards | Politics and Governm... ...new standards would be a horrible embarrassment for the state. Martin Cothran, spokesman for The Family Foundation, said the standards should not be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/11/13 01:11 | United States | kentucky.com Legislative panel finds science standards lacking ...new standards would be a horrible embarrassment for the state. Martin Cothran, spokesman for The Family Foundation, said the standards should not be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/10/13 19:16 | United States | wkyt.com Legislative panel finds science standards lacking | State News ...standards as “low level” and “woefully deficient in engineering.” Martin Cothran of the Family Foundation, another conservative advocacy group, claimed the standards exhibit “an over emphasis on climate control”... 09/11/13 19:09 | United States | thetimestribune.com Governor To Implement New Science Standards ...inadequate" and he said the subcommittee vote was political. Martin Cothran, spokesman for The Family Foundation, said the standards shouldn't be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/11/13 21:09 | United States | lex18.com Local teachers cautiously optimistic about newly proposed science stan... ...practices and critical thinking for kids," said Ladd. It's a move Martin Cothran with The Family Foundation said is a mistake. "That aspect of science which is the most useful for the most students is going... 09/11/13 20:18 | United States | wpsdlocal6.com No Title ...new standards would be a horrible embarrassment for the state. Martin Cothran, spokesman for The Family Foundation, said the standards should not be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/11/13 19:33 | United States | westkentuckystar.com Legislators finds science standards lacking, but governor orders them... ...standards as “low level” and “woefully deficient in engineering.” Martin Cothran of the Family Foundation, another conservative advocacy group, claimed the standards exhibit “an over emphasis on climate control”... 09/11/13 14:03 | United States | richmondregister.com Blogs 1 new results New Science Standards Defeated in Committee In his testimony* before the committee, Martin Cothran of The Family Foundation criticized the standards ... standards for Kentucky. My name is Martin Cothran, I am with The Family Foundation of Kentucky. I would like... 09/12/13 08:48 | savetherevolution.com No Title I'm saddened, but not surprised by this group. And then I had to listen to Martin Cothran on NPR lamenting the gay agenda on Sunday. Education in Kentucky? An educated Kentucky? Me thinks not... 09/10/13 19:55 | theprincipal.blogspot.com Kentucky governor approves new science curriculum despite conservative... ...basic knowledge about the natural world,” foundation spokesperson Martin Cothran told the Associated Press. But the NGSS still won backing from both the state Board of Education and local education groups... 09/11/13 21:33 | rawstory.com Kentucky School News and Commentary: Kentucky's proposed science standards... Wednesday in the State Capitol Annex in Frankfort. Martin Cothran, senior policy analyst with the conservative ... the Bluegrass Institute and Martin Cothran and those folks have some valid concerns," he said. "We... 09/11/13 10:27 | theprincipal.blogspot.com

PRESS RELEASE: Governor’s action “crisis in educational legitimacy”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
September 12, 2013 

LEXINGTON, KY—"This creates a crisis of educational legitimacy," said a spokesman for The Family Foundation after Gov. Steve Beshear said he was going to ignore the decision of a legislative panel that voted down controversial new state science standards on Wednesday.

"The Governor has basically told parents to take a hike," said Martin Cothran. "We told the committee that the approval process for these standards was a sham and now the Governor has proven our point." The Kentucky Department of Education had not made a single change to the standards in response to criticism, Cothran had told the committee.

"If there is any doubt that the approval process for education standards is a joke, the Governor has dispelled it." Cothran said that there has only been rag-tag opposition to the standards up to this point. "What was ripple could now turn into a tsunami," said Cothran.

The Family Foundation opposed the standards because they lack an emphasis on basic science knowledge about nature while overemphasizing climate change and other trendy science topics.

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Kentucky state science standards rejected by legislative committee

LEXINGTON, KY—The state’s science standards were defeated today in a bipartisan vote in a legislative committee. “This is a sign of the level of discomfort many people in this state have with science standards that ignore basic aspects of science in order to make room for trendy topics like climate science.”

In his testimony before the vote, Cothran criticized the standards for ignoring basic scientific knowledge about animals, plants, rocks and minerals. “Half of science is left out of the science standards,” he told the members of the Administrative Regulations Review Subcommittee.

Cothran also criticized the approval process for the science standards and said that, despite all the criticism and comment, the Kentucky Department of Education hadn’t made a single change. “The Department has never intended to change anything. Even the Commissioner of Education said yesterday that there is no way to change them. If that’s correct, then why did we spend all this time going through an approval process?”

The vote seemed to come as a shock to educational officials who seemed simply to assume the legislature would give a rubber stamp. "This is a huge victory for families in Kentucky who want to know that their schools are teaching what they say they are teaching. This was a battle over educational integrity and educational integrity lost."

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