The first public draft of the common science standards is facing criticism for “lack of clarity and coherence” and omitting key content knowledge in favor of “an overdose on scientific ‘practices.’” However, these critiques are not being viewed as unfriendly—rather, the two organizations offering the feedback (the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and the Fordham Institute) are taking a “critical friend” approach. Both groups advocate for the creation of common science standards, but say that the proposed standards need more work.
“The quest for fewer standards has led to over-compression, overgeneralization, and omission,” wrote Fordham’s set of seven expert reviewers. “Much necessary ‘prior knowledge’ to attain some standards is never supplied. Such omission is in some ways disingenuous, as it will require curriculum developers and teachers to fill in many gaps, expanding thereby the number of explicit standards and their breadth.”
The proposed standards are guided by a framework developed by the National Research Council, and the standards-writers have several priorities:
- Promoting depth over breadth
- Ensuring greater coherence in learning across grade levels
- Helping students understand the cross-cutting nature of crucial concepts that span scientific disciplines (such as energy and matter)
- Ensuring that students apply learning through scientific inquiry and the engineering-design process to deepen understanding
The deadline for submitting comment was June 1, and though it is unknown how many organizations took advantage of this window, only the NSTA and Fordham have shared their comments publicly.
To read the full story, please visit http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2012/06/more_feedback_has_been_coming.html
