Guest Opinion by James Sawhill –
The Next Generation Science Standards provide two new science areas that teachers are to present, students are to learn, and for which K-12 US schools will be held accountable –
Weather and Climate and Earth and Human Activity
Recently, Jim Steele posted a piece here relating to A Framework For K-12 Science Education Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas – That “Framework” language has recently morphed to this newer “Next Generation Science Standards”. To be clear, we’re addressing the same teaching and learning standards. The education industry seems to be searching for what they might better name this. Jim Steele was proposing a set of activities for science teachers and students using data and graphing for learning and recognizing that such activities are lacking in anything brought forward so far. I wish us to look at a specific target standard.
[References are cited with links provided at the end of the essay. I have provided more references than citations for any who would like to explore this complex territory.]
Background
In 2011, a consortium began to reconsider the 15 year old Common Core standards for K-12 education in the US and, for the first time, codify standards for science education. They now call these Next Generation Science Standards and they are linked to the original Common Core.
The original Common Core standards were limited to English/Language Arts and Mathematics. [1] Those standards are owned (by copyright) by the National Governor’s Association (NGA). In large part the NGA financed the efforts – albeit with federal funds and state taxes – and states were encouraged to adopt them and thereby become eligible for federal grants. I’ve included references [2], [3], and [4] at the end for any wishing to probe the density of the Common Core.
“The Next Generation Science Standards were developed by a consortium of 26 states and by the National Science Teachers Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Research Council, and Achieve, a nonprofit organization that was also involved in developing math and English standards. The final draft of the standards was released in April 2013” [5], [6]
“As of March 2014, eleven states had adopted the standards: California, Delaware, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Rhode Island, Vermont, Oregon, Nevada, and Washington, along with the District of Columbia (D.C.)”. [5]
West Virginia and New Jersey have since adopted these standards while South Carolina and Wyoming have either blocked their adoption or sent consideration back to committee. Texas has decided to craft its own standards.
While adoptions to date amount to 25% of the States, there is mounting pressure from Departments of Education to have legislatures take up approval. These standards are politically and policy charged and may attract attention in upcoming US elections, although that I am aware, both Democrats and Republicans nationally have so far avoided the combination of climate and education.
Here’s a first “Standard” –
Climate Literacy: The Essential Principles of Climate Science
Guiding Principle: Humans can take actions to reduce climate change and its impacts
- Climate information can be used to reduce vulnerabilities or enhance the resilience of communities and ecosystems affected by climate change. Continuing to improve scientific understanding of the climate system and the quality of reports to policy and decision-makers is crucial.
- The impacts of climate change may affect the security of nations. Reduced availability of water, food, and land can lead to competition and conflict among humans, potentially resulting in large groups of climate refugees.
- Humans may be able to mitigate climate change or lessen its severity by reducing greenhouse gas concentrations through processes that move carbon out of the atmosphere or reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
- A combination of strategies is needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The most immediate strategy is conservation of oil, gas, and coal, which we rely on as fuels for most of our transportation, heating, cooling, agriculture, and electricity. Short-term strategies involve switching from carbon-intensive to renewable energy sources, which also requires building new infrastructure for alternative energy sources. Long-term strategies involve innovative research and a fundamental change in the way humans use energy.
- Humans can adapt to climate change by reducing their vulnerability to its impacts. Actions such as moving to higher ground to avoid rising sea levels, planting new crops that will thrive under new climate conditions, or using new building technologies represent adaptation strategies. Adaptation often requires financial investment in new or enhanced research, technology, and infrastructure.
- Actions taken by individuals, communities, states, and countries all influence climate. Practices and policies followed in homes, schools, businesses, and governments can affect climate. Climate-related decisions made by one generation can provide opportunities as well as limit the range of possibilities open to the next generation. Steps toward reducing the impact of climate change may influence the present generation by providing other benefits such as improved public health infrastructure and sustainable built environments. [13]
There’s a lot more in other Standards, but this should be a good first bite. Plus here’s the “Climate Literacy” booklet each kid will get – I encourage you to download a copy.
www.pbs.org/teacherline/courses/common_documents/climate_literacy_booklet.pdf [10]
Implications and Reactions
An early criticism appeared in the NY Times at the time of the release of the Next Generation Science Standards:
“The focus would be helping students become more intelligent science consumers by learning how scientific work is done.” and “Leaders of the effort said that teachers may well wind up covering fewer subjects, but digging more deeply into the ones they do cover. In some cases, traditional classes like biology and chemistry may disappear entirely from high schools, replaced by courses that use a case-study method to teach science in a more holistic way”. [11], [my bold]
More concern from James Rust at masterresource.org:
“However, it is clear not only that human activities play a major role in climate change but also that impacts of climate change—for example, increased frequency of severe storms due to ocean warming—have begun to influence human activities. The prospect of future impacts of climate change due to further increases in atmospheric carbon is prompting consideration of how to avoid or restrict such increases”.
“Even greater dangers from the science portion are teaching people to accept the political use of science and not follow fundamental principles of scientific inquiry – propose a theory about the behavior of Nature and continually test that theory by experiment”. [12] [my bold]
UK Precedent against Propaganda (we’re not alone in the US)
About the time that the new US Standards were released, The Global Warming Policy Foundation issued a report, Climate Control—Brainwashing In Schools. [15]
Statements in the Report’s Executive Summary are as follows:
“We find instances of eco-activism being given a free rein within schools and at the events schools encourage their pupils to attend. In every case of concern, the slant is on scares, on raising fears, followed by the promotion of detailed guidance on how pupils should live, as well as on what they should think.
In the main body of the report is the statement, ‘The chairman of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri has suggested that a focus on children is the top priority for bringing about societal change, and that by ‘sensitizing’ children to climate change, it will be possible to them to ‘shame adults into taking the right steps’”. [15]
Shame on us. And, please move to higher ground.
References
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Core_State_Standards_Initiative
[2] http://www.corestandards.org/
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_model
[4] http://www.pbs.org/teacherline/courses/common_documents/stem/030/standards.html
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Generation_Science_Standards
[6] http://www.achieve.org/next-generation-science-standards
[7] http://www.nextgenscience.org/search-standards
[8] http://www.nextgenscience.org/msess-wc-weather-climate
[9] http://www.nextgenscience.org/ms-ess3-5-earth-and-human-activity
[10] www.pbs.org/teacherline/courses/common_documents/climate_literacy_booklet.pdf
[12] https://www.masterresource.org/debate-issues/common-core-climate-indoctrination/
By James Rust — April 21, 2014
[13] http://www.pbs.org/teacherline/courses/common_documents/stem/030/standards.html
[14] http://www.thegwpf.org/ The Global Warming Policy Foundation
[15] http://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2014/04/Education-reducedportrait-5.pdf
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Dumping Biology & Chemistry science courses to be replaced by a “holistic” immersion into surviving “climate change” is lunacy! Our educators are inviting China and Russia to jump ahead of our students in physical sciences.
If you dump Chemistry there goes the ability to understand what CO2 is, how it is made, and what it can do. Then if you dump Biology there goes the understanding of its use in nature by plants to feed us. Ergo the carbon scare is fulfilled.
Hasn’t the grand strategy all along been to dumb down the science portions to where the magical greenie philosophy becomes believable. As far as? I suspect our “educators” have already accomplished the insidious goal of inviting China and Russia to leap ahead of our students in the physical sciences with their PC agenda. They are now only working on crushing any lingering initiative remaining in those few still capable of independent thought.
It goes beyond dumbing down, this story talked about the Teaching and Learning Frameworks. These require an activity and inquiry focus and the phrase ‘teaching and learning’ is the English translation of a Russian word–obuchenie. This explains why an obuchenie focus is so psychologically manipulative. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/unveiling-the-true-focus-of-the-common-core-obuchenie-within-students-to-gain-desired-future-behaviors/
Remember False beliefs are just as impactful on perception and likely behavior as true ones, especially when working with them is practiced over years until it’s a ‘habit of mind’. One’s beliefs become a habit of mind and part of a student’s worldview it is hard to change. All these reforms are based on all that research. In fact I have documents from the OECD’s CERI unit bragging about the different neural pathways a constructivist emphasis creates.
In the main body of the report is the statement, ‘The chairman of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri has suggested that a focus on children is the top priority for bringing about societal change, and that by ‘sensitizing’ children to climate change, it will be possible to them to ‘shame adults into taking the right steps’”.
That explains it. Packy was “sensitizing” the gals in the office, to “shame them into taking the right steps.”
Also, Dumping Biology and Chemistry will eliminate the gateway into the Medical Profession. I guess we will require significantly fewer doctors when the population declines to 500,000,000 globally. But High School Chemistry and Biology are the First rung of the Ladder to this highly important field
Bingo!!
Maybe foreign money is being channeled to certain influential individuals in order to encourage western countries’ educational system failure/economic suicide. Nah, that could NEVER happen, government officials don’t accept bribes…
“inviting China and Russia to jump ahead of our students in physical sciences.”
Huh? I thought we ranked near dead last already. How can we get worse?
Enforce affirmative action, thats how
Actually the Gates Foundation is funding and pushing Big History as being the interdisciplinary answer to all coursework including the hard sciences. Search for David Christian.
The knowledge of all history including physical sciences, literature, and mathematics is unwieldy. We need to assist students by structure of instruction so they can manage and comprehend.
Absolutely…
We should do everything in our power to ensure that all students are educationally handicapped WRT the rest of the world. Coddle them…Wipe their noses…Do their homework for them…Because they are incapable of learning or comprehending knowledge of History, Physical Sciences, Literature and Mathematics.
I mean, Lets face it, We are doomed from the start when our fundamental education is predicated on ‘The 3 R’s”
The three Rs (as in the letter R)[1] refers to the foundations of a basic skills-oriented education program within schools: reading, writing and arithmetic.
Last I ran Spell Check Reading Riting & Rithmatic didn’t pass the muster
History is political by nature, the winners get to write a lot of the history. As Orwell said (paraphrasing) he who owns the present owns the past. The best we can do is ensure freedom of speech so we can get multiple views of history and not just the federally approved one.
Intelligent design was an interesting intersection of science, politics, and religion. In that case we were able to keep religion out of the classroom when intelligent design made their push to politicize science in order to subversively push their religious beliefs and use government resources to indoctrinate. There are still intelligent design “scientists” out there doing who knows what but at least they are not infecting our schools.
Climate Change is another attempt at politicizing science, just a lot more successful attempt than intelligent design. To be fair there is much more valid science in Climate science, but it supports climate change/global warming which is a movement using religious evangelizing techniques (ambiguous terms, ambiguous evidence, false presentations of certainty, circular reasoning, fear mongering, etc). This has made Climate science no longer an independent free thinking entity but a funded tool subservient to a political movement.
Politics and government do not give a squat about religion or science, their game is power, and Next Generation Science Standards is political indoctrination to consolidate yet more power within the federal government by indoctrinating children. Put simply, the curriculum suggests, “You need to control the climate, if you do not many horrible things will happen to you (insert photos of climate hell here). Fortunately the government is here telling you what to do.” Government creates the imaginary, horrible problem and then in its benevolence and wisdom provides the solution as well.
Anyways we were able to keep religion out of our schools using science which was an incredible victory for reason, empirical truth and science. In terms of climate change in class rooms – science is not coming to the rescue. Government has that science in their back pocket.
Maybe we need a separation of Science and State amendment.
Now that climate ‘science’ has turned into a religion, (witness the lighting of candles in Seattle on Earth Day), we certainly do need separation of science, religion, and government.
Yep. American public schools will no longer produce college science majors. Thank God for the private schools.
College SAT and ACT tests will be made to reflect the CC content. Therefore even private schools will need to teach CC to get their kids admitted.
skorrent1
April 24, 2015 at 11:27 am
SAT/ACT/etc are used for two purposes. The important and legitimate use occurs when an admissions committee comes across an application that shows brilliant performance but is from an unknown school. Then the test is consulted. If it corroborates the school record then the record is taken seriously.
The other use is for window dressing and advertising. It looks good to have a lot of National Merit Scholars and to have a high average for all students on test scores. But this is rarely a deciding factor in the admission of a particular student.
All quality private schools, not to mention home school associations, are aware of the above.
As regards our ruling class, the Milton Academy(s) will teach the challenging material and the universities will come begging to them. That is where the ruling class attends high school.
The private schools use the same teacher training colleges.
The main reason they do better is higher class students. (socioeconomic class)
But there IS a way to restore a far higher quality of education.
http://www.constitution.org/col/one_room_schoolhouse.htm
You begin with religious schools if you have a religion, because your schools need to be academically superior to attract students. When the movement is large enough, the public fool system will follow to get the warm bodies back for Federal subsidies.
This is not something new, untried as yet. It was resoundingly successful.
It makes far better citizens, too, worthy of their freedom. It is how you restore the Constitution as well, for that reason.
They already have
Its not only science – check out this exam exemplar from my country. Children are being groomed for a whole new society. https://thedemiseofchristchurch.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/exemplar-3-2008-exam.pdf
I found this on our governments official education site! http://www.nzqa.govt.nz/ncea/assessment/view-detailed.do?standardNumber=90812
Read more at http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
Cheers
Roger
Hi Roger, but – maybe the teachers of science aren’t as capable as those we had at school. High school that is or secondary as we called it. We had Biology, Chemistry, and Physics, I was a B student in all those disciplines, but when I went into 4th Year to study for the GCE ‘O’ levels I was not permitted to sit Chemistry and Physics because of my low Math levels. Both the teachers of Chemistry and Physics said I was good but as I progressed I needed a good Math comprehension. So I went into the Arts, or 4 Literature, I got Biology.(just) The compulsory question was name a rabbit’s skeleton, we hadn’t studied that, so I named the bones I knew existed in a human skeleton. The same thing blighted me at University when I joined as a mature student. I would have liked to sit a B.Sc, but again, Chemistry was a must. So I stuck with Archaeology and Palaeoanthropology that was also a B science unit then, but now in the Science degree. In both degrees one could sit a number of B units that belonged to another facility.
How are they going to progress in Science if they don’t have a grounding in Chemistry and Physics? Maybe we should look at their Mathematics comprehension as not being so good and their teachers academic qualifications. Most of mine had MA’s and that is 60 years ago, would you believe.
All of this agenda operates in concert with the pushing of “research” into the “social sciences”.
Actually when I went to elementary school, we did regularly do “social studies” as a mandatory part of the curriculum, along with “English” which rapidly morphed into “English literature” with virtually no continuance of English Grammar.
So what did “Social Studies” consist of, for us not yet in our teens ?
Why it consisted of Geography, History, Anthropology; just what else would you expect it to be ?
Now it seems to be all about racism, and the 57 recognized genders; and of course today, there is the mandatory studies of the Koran and mohammadanism, in California grade schools, and apparently parents cannot opt out their kids from those courses.
Equality has regressed by several generations, since the coronation of the present white house royalty, and the empress is waiting in the wings ready to finish the job.
Climate Literacy: The Essential Principles of Climate Science
Guiding Principle: Humans can take actions to reduce climate change and its impacts
============
How can policy be called science? What is being promoted as science is not science at all.
Since climate is simply the average of weather, “to reduce climate change” requires that we control the weather over a long period of time. Since we cannot predict the weather more than a few days in advance, and even then it is only a probabilistic prediction, there are enormous technical problems in trying “to reduce climate change”. The Law of Unintended Consequences looms large in the face of uncertainty.
I gave the new definition of science in today’s post having no idea this story was going to be posted. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/harnessing-the-meaning-making-capacities-of-the-human-mind-and-then-assessing-for-the-tightness-of-the-fit/
The assessments are tied to the Guiding Principles and Big Ideas like what are called Understandings of Consequences. The NSF has been funding that research by AI doctorates now involved in education pushing things like Cognitive Reorganization. I am not kidding. Look at David Perkins at Harvard for example
“here are enormous technical problems in trying “to reduce climate change””. If we are talking about catastrophic climate change due to man made CO2 emissions we may not have to do anything, since it appears that increases it man-made CO2 emissions had not resulted in an increase in the rate of increase of CO2.
Climate is the integral of the weather. An average is a made up number; defined in that branch of mathematics called statistical mathematics.
Since it is not a real number that can be observed or measured, but can only be calculated after the fact, it is self evident, that an average can have no effect on any physical system, including the climate.
Averages cannot be determined until after everything has already happened; which is too late to do anything about.
Lordy. Science used to be about using gold standard research methods that is followed by valid and reliable results that meet high standards of significance and new discovery. Now it’s about forcing those methods to FOLLOW and kowtow to a priori beliefs.
To wit: The standards use weasel words like climate change “may” be caused by human influence but then takes a step too far by promoting human climate wrangling as if it has been proven.
Idiots.
In an earlier discussion of “core” standards, I thought you were in favor of them?
Me too. As a high school substitute teacher of math and science I bashed common core on this site and received a counter from Pamela. Common core received most of its input from the more densely populated areas of the country and then rural states did not do their homework and this crap got through. A real problem since we do need standards but not the propaganda that is inerrant in what we received.
As a teacher, now mostly retired, with many years in the public school system, I took a cursory look a few years ago at common core. What I saw seemed unexceptional, and I didn’t inquire deeply. However, I am dismayed by how it is working out in California. My feeling is that common core provides a very general framework, leaving individual states to fill in the details. The effect has been to leave existing state curriculums wide open to unrestricted revision, and every group with an ideological agenda is jumping in to take advantage of the opportunity. In California, we’re suddenly back to the 60’s. It’s the new math all over again, with its elaboration of useless and sometimes opaque terminology, presentation of multiple ‘tricks’ to avoid using one’s memory, and on and on. Ultimately it will be the politicians who reign in (or fail to reign in) the ideologues. And that is truly scarey….
Also remember that the Next Generation Science Standards are incorporated into the English Language Arts Common Core Standards. Reading and Writing across the curriculum as it is hyped. Because Common Core forces students to use just the materials provided, students will be practicing their writing citing false statements. Again locking in the concepts and vocabulary to hopefully guide thought.
What materials?? The standards are not materials or curriculum that students study. There are certainly lots of materials curriculum publishers are producing. But those materials are not the “standards”. The standards stand alone, outside curriculum.
In my opinion the best way to approach meeting those standards is NOT by off-the-shelf curriculum but by well-prepared engaging teachers who are defined by well-honed fluent use of high-end pedagogy that has been shown to produce well-educated learners ready to take their place on any world stage. These newly minted US citizens should be able to take any position on most world subjects, be they pro or con, and should be able to come to the table armed with well-reasoned claims backed up with unimpeachable cited sources. This standard should hold for any subject talked about or any endeavor engaged in.
What worries me about the Science standards relates to the occasional focus on forgone conclusions in areas of research still in their frontier infancy, such as climate change, over how to research, and critique the research on these frontier topics.
A possibly relevant piece of information: over 95% of academia vote for Democrats. Pretty soon teaching will be a hereditary profession, just like in Mexico.
With error bars, you can easily get to 97%.
I actually love the ELA and Math Common Core Standards. Great tool. Much, much superior to our state standards. And no it is not curriculum nor does it have political statements or beliefs in it. It is simply well-defined standards set to allow students from US schools to being able to compete on the world stage related to critical reading, effective writing, and high level math-related jobs. My opinion still stands strong as ever. Common Core States ELA and Math standards rock!
The Science standards as now written, not so much in certain areas. When it comes to Science I am old school.
Well Pamela, when it comes to standards, I too am old school, and I believe in the three R’s: Readin, Ritin, and Rithmatic.
If you can’t do arithmetic in your head who cares if you followed the standard CC method.
There is an infallible test of whether or not you are using the correct method of solution.
You GET the correct answer EVERY time. if you don’t, then the method is clearly wrong.
And yes I’m related by marriage to a grade school teacher, so I can just reach across the table and pick up her common core paraphernalia. And that is exactly what it is; paraphernalia.
Well its like a paper (cardboard actually) form of Obama’s stereoscopic tele-prompters that give him the tennis neck syndrome.
Pamela: I’m not sure I disagree with anything you have written. My view, as expressed above, is that the standards themselves are generally unobjectionable, but that they are being used opportunistically to push special interest agendas. I may agree that the best way to approach meeting those standards is NOT by off-the-shelf curriculum , but the fact is that in CA that is exactly what we are given. So I teach from books that have “COMMON CORE” conspicuously blazoned across the front covers. But it gets worse: in another school there is no math book at all. Instruction is by way of the computer lab. That’s about as off the shelf as it gets. And everywhere Pearson publishing controls, by virtue of the new computer testing regime.. Well, one good thing from this-they’re finally getting serious about teaching keyboarding in the primary grades, rather than wasting high school time doing what could have been done years earlier.
George: You’re making me nervous here. As a one time member of The Council for Basic Education I am disappointed that the expression ‘basic education’ has become bastardized in the public mind. If you read Fadiman, he used it to refer to a broad-based education including history,. geography, civics, art, music, and more. But for my entire career the battle cry “back to basics” has encompassed nothing more than the three R’s. The result has been an ineffective reductionist curriculum, strongly reinforced by the fact that, generally, those have been the only subjects tested. To the extent that Common Core can re-inject some content into the curriculum, it may do some good. But propaganda doesn’t count.
Pamela, the devil in Federal Democrat core standards is that ultimately anything can gradually be put in there. Socialists are very patient and the oldest socialist experiment had 3-4 generations to perfect how to USE education to armor plate ideology, how to translate policy into motherhood statements, how to redefine knowledge, history, to fit the program. Eventually, you have questioning students allowed to do so but only on approved ranges of questioning and dissent.
They can use political correctness or, in a convoluted way bring it into the ‘conversation’ about dissent. I can’t remember the thread, but I made a remark that the diversity bandwagon appears to be too full to include skeptics, a well defined group making up a small minority. It’s okay to consider jailing, or hanging them if they don’t go along, I think was the subject. The well know polemic (the core standards worked well on him), Brandon Gates, seemed to see in my remarks racism or homophobia or misogyny or…. he was not clear but that seemed to be the only avenue for dealing with my criticism of the idea of outlawing climate skepticism. Be very skeptical of federal incursions into education of other state responsibilities particularly those tied to federal money if you adopt them. There are no Mr. Niceguys in this stuff.
Like.
Sorry not Facebook. But that you for stating the truth. Common Core is nothing conservatives should fear, maybe these standards for climate, but no the ones for math.
Wow! Scary stuff. Those who know what’s best for us must rise up and save us from ourselves. Ignorance and prejudice and fear walk hand in hand.
I’ll save myself thank you.
Most of the songs of the artists being quoted are about self reliance and persona responsibility. The name of this one is “Witch Hunt.” It’s about what happens when people stop thinking for themselves.
Like again.
So said one Neil Peart….
“The impacts of climate change may affect the security of nations. Reduced availability of water, food, and land can lead to competition and conflict among humans, potentially resulting in large groups of climate refugees”
Well now, we can’t have any of that nasty competition or conflict stuff, can we? That might actually lead to *gasp* co-operation for mutual benefit! The thought! And those large groups of climate refugees, so often predicted but never seen, might actually appear (some day, perhaps 85 years from now… just you wait).
/snark
B.b.b.b.ut they’re here now, don’t you know?
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/james-blog/2405629/this-is-what-climate-crisis-really-means
/sarc
Wow, Id’tau, comments on that link are a t’rip.
========
Kim,
Skimmed the first few lines and wondered how I would get my wasted time back. Then read your comment, went back and skipped to the bottom and wow, what a t’rip.
Those comments were brilliant. The author is a totally shameless twat. (he probably wrote it for the expressed purpose of getting more “hits” on his blog)
we’re doomed, doomed I tell you.
Which is why more and more parents are pulling their children out of public schools.
It won’t make a difference when these are the expected standards that will be carried on into college. Don’t believe? No diploma for you! No diploma? No job for you!
And sending them to Catholic schools where they learn how to walk on water, part oceans and fly around the moon, but not learn where babies come from.
“for example, increased frequency of severe storms due to ocean warming—have begun to influence human activities.” Soooo… what happens if this is taught and my children come to school with proof this claim is false? does the teacher continue to teach it? Fail my children for knowing the actual data? This might be an amazing propaganda tool, but it also might backfire horribly when teachers get bombarded with actual data. Some children are actually curious and can read more then just what you stick in front of them, they also talk to their peers.
I read the section on Peer Review in the booklet. Indeed that is how it is supposed to work. Reality is somewhat different.
Scary stuff indeed.
Ah, history repetes itself …
Climate Jugend …
One thing that we can learn from history is that we don’t learn from history.
Can’t be more true!
What?? Surely we do. That’s why we keep repeating it. Oh, wait…..
@ur momisugly Phil R and Jim San Fran, thanks for the chuckle. If there is one thing we have learned from history I’d like to know, I might buy some stocks. Oh wait those evil oil Co’s stocks keep going up.
I’m loathe to sound off about conspiracy’s …..really!
But this smells of UN Agenda 21 and the Club of Rome from top to bottom. (just google both and you’ll see what I mean).
This is how the “left” has finally figured out how to surreptitiously take over with themselves as our “elite” in charge……
This is awful news and it must be revoked.
Scott-I trace the links to Agenda 21 and the Club of Rome and also the OECD using their own statements and reports. It is laid out in the Concluding chapter of my book Credentialed to Destroy: How and Why Education Became a Weapon. I also cover constructivism generally in math and science and how it led to the math and science wars. The idea developed that the dispute was over a difference in how to teach when that is not the actual issue at all.
Robin, Thanks for that, I will certainly look at your book.
Later today, I found a book about “Technocracy” exposing the original One World Order promoted by
anti-semite Zbignew Bryzinski and the Rockerfeller Foundation.
How did Huxley’s “Brave New World” and Orwell’s “1984” slither into our culture?
I was well trained in such weaponry. But I place my blades at the service of others than those by whom I was trained. I am an apostate in their midst. But I am one of them and can never be anything else. They are formidable, yes, but they don’t live by or up to their own intellectual code, and that is a serious weakness.
Here’s my cartoon contribution to Friday Funny.
http://www.maxphoton.com/something-new-under-the-sun/
http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/commentaries/Federal-Government-Assets-and-Student-Loans.php
Some fodder for your cannon.
The enslavement of young people using non-dischargeable student loans as manacles has got to be one of the sickest events I have ever seen unfold.
Incidentally, the Federal Reserve is insolvent. Repeat: the Federal Reserve is insolvent.
Remember when we saw the FED chairman and the Treasury Secretary solemnly explaining that they saved the world from total financial collapse by bailing out failing banks? Do you know what the point of that exercise in propaganda was? By acting live the savior, the FED gave the impression to the world that it was not bankrupt. But it is. The FED is the sump for toxic debt that will never be paid off. Selling a thimble-full of that sludge would, because of declining marginal utility, render the market value of ALL of that debt to ZERO.
The FED’s balance sheet is an optical illusion.
WP (and Max’s follow-up)
My older son is a high school senior and will be starting college in the fall. Unfortunately, we’re going to become another data point on that chart.
Dawn is a trigger warning.
============
+1
Max,
Just a quick kudos. Really enjoy your cartoons.
that climate literacy booklet states;
“b. When Earth emits the same amount of energy as
it absorbs, its energy budget is in balance, and its
average temperature remains stable.”
Wouldn’t that only be true if there was no plant life ?
Thank You (!) James Sawhill, for bringing this important topic to the attention of WUWT readers!
These policies will be implemented if the readers of this blog do not take action to stop it. It is not enough to just discuss it ‘here’. You must take action to stop this!
What can you do? Campaign for and get elected to your local school board. Actively support (time and $$$) candidates at all levels of government that oppose Common Core indoctrination. Make opposition to Common Core a ‘litmus test’ for all candidates seeking office. Inform your neighbors, educators, and legislators. Join community groups that are working to stop it. Take Action Now.
You’re welcome, Mac, although I am sure that this is not welcome news.
I agree that action is needed and that was a substantial reason that I sent this piece to Anthony for possible posting here. I know of no stronger group with wide ranging skills and willingness to speak than you here.
I expect that “climate education” questions for those seeking public office will be deflected with the usual non-responses. Saying “I’m not a scientist” by any party is not a satisfactory response to standards for education.
!!! mods – let me through moderation – I’m Jim Sawhill
Do I have to give up Bubba Cow?
[Nothing in the queue. ?? .mod]
I second the thanks for alerting on this. Was unaware. And second the call to action.
The Early Bird has found the worm, and sparks flew from its eyes.
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There’s a phrase that describes this type of activity …. child abuse. These people need to be punished.
Hold your hosses, son. Today we try them? Tomorrow they try us.
Don’t even go there. The politics is bad enough.
Can’t the courts be used? Is everyone helpless to stop this Lysenkoist brainwashing. Parents, unfortunately have largely been already brainwashed. I think there should be summer camps outside of school for kids to really learn the scientific method and how to question all this. I never thought this could happen in America. I knew that once you got into University you were in a lefty stamping plant but smart kids who managed to question things as they came through K-12 could survive it. I guess the universities want to fix this before these kids get to them. Parents who know and care should be taking on more responsibility in education of their children. You may have to tell them to give the teacher the “right” answer on the test though!
Weather and Climate , given the professionals working in this area have ‘standards ‘ that often range form being awful to be a joke , I am not sure you want to teach any children to live up to those.
But you can point out what an easy , fact free and scientific light areas these are to work in for those who do do ‘hard science’ it is a good , and at the moment , lucrative career . So perhaps careers advice they are talking about .
Teaching children in the future that we are going to roast to death will be a total failure in 20 years due to all the ice, snow, glaciers and other Little Ice Age stuff going on outside. Children will freeze to death going to school like in the Victorian era.
This fad for blaming CO2 for everything is going to fade fast as reality sets in as the solar cycles get less and less active.
You make the case for developing reading standards related to critical reading.
Lenin said something to the effect, ” let me educate the children for x number of years and they will be good commies for the rest of their lives”.
The Jesuit maxim “Give me a child for for his first seven years and I’ll give you the man”
Life is longer now.
Vladimir Lenin
And as a Friday night bonus:
Vladimir Lenin
I have a one word antidote to this:
Homeschooling
Hard to do that when both parents need to work.
Another? “No, the snowblower uses gas. Go shovel.”
Good thing you said Homeschooling…Liberals have developed a Penicillin resistant strain of Partisan
Homeschooled kids still have to take the SAT or ACT and they will be top heavy with this crap and Common Core. Thanks Bismarck!
If you do your job right, homeschooled kids should be able to ace any college entrance exam. Are you scared homeschooled students would not be able to examine three conflicting sources, examine the claims as to whether or not the supporting details are valid, and create a decent conclusion?
No, of course not. It is the extra effort required to separate the political from the lesson that concerns me. And ultimately it is easier to just swallow the nonsense because the right answer depends on your degree of indoctrination not your degree of reasoning.
So similar to the Hitler Youth programs. I am so appalled, I really don’t know what to say.
37 years a teacher. Watched the education system in New Zealand “progressively” dumbed down. Glad I’m out.
i posted about this propaganda course being sponsored by edX and University of Queensland
edX is sponsoring a course – Making Sense of Climate Science Denial
Climate change is real, so why the controversy and debate? Learn to make sense of the science and to respond to climate change denial.
University of Queensland
Starts April 28th, 2015
Enroll Now
Level: Introductory
Length: 7 weeks
Effort: 1-2 hours per week
Subject: Communication
Institution: UQx
Languages: English
Video Transcripts: English
Price: Free
The instructors make a good list of those to ignore on climate change.
John Cook
Daniel Bedford
Gavin Cawley
Kevin Cowtan
Sarah A. Green
Peter Jacobs
Scott Mandia
Dana Nuccitelli
Mark Richardson
Keah Schuenemann
Andy Skuce
Robert Way
Ove Hoegh-Guldberg
Queensland is where the UN’s Transdisciplinary vision was piloted as the Basic Skills Project and the Key Abilities Model. It is explained with extensive quotes here. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/opting-out-as-the-remedy-may-mean-accidentally-accelerating-nonconsensual-transformations/
There is also a global program called GELP-Global Education Leaders Programme pushing the transdisciplinary vision. In the US it is hiding in the Competency-based education push and the CCSSO’s Innovation Lab Network of about 10 states. The other 40 are right behind if only the true nature of what is still being misleadingly called standardized tests were more accurately understood.
It’s a good thing I’m ending my teaching career as of June 18, 2015. I’ll be damned if anyone will force me to teach this BS, trying to pass politically correct climate science off as rational thought.
Anytime I have been asked to teach in a way that is not solidly based in valid and reliable research, and that is not paired with a fully informed parent, I move on. I had to do that once.
Do you wonder how can they get away with this? Will they next replace the scientific method with belief?
Here is one very well researched and disturbing view by Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt. Iserbyt served as Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), U.S. Department of Education, during the first Reagan Administration
http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/
The PDF is free to download and enjoy. Not that I agree with everything she says but it does explain a lot and once armed with knowledge you can defend yourself and you kids better.
Knowledge is a weapon to your enemies and an ornament to your friends.
How can you recommend a site where the first linked video is a poorly made argument against fluoridation of water? There are enough kooks on the anti-CAGW side as it is. We don’t need “friends” like that muddying the discussion.
So you have debunked the scientific findings that fluorides harm the development of the nervous system in rats?
“How can you recommend a site where the first linked video is a poorly made argument against fluoridation of water?”
The fluoridation video simply makes the case that any kind of preventative or medical treatment should not be administered through the water supply. I do not mean to include making the water safe to drink. I found it reasonable.
In answer to your question, I think we all learn to have indulgence, flexibility, and charity towards others in smaller issues.
Welcome to “diversity.” Don’t expect too much of yourself at first, and good luck!
We seem to have very nervous test rats.
takingbacthegreen: Being an unwitting product of a successful lefty education (it shows in your deprecatory dismissal of CAGW sceptics without any apparent need for evidence other than that of authority’s say so), nothing will change your mind about politically sanctioned and paid for science.
I had forgotten about the fluoridation of water issue but having taken several courses in mineralogy, I was aware that two varieties of the mineral apatite (which is a phosphate essentially the same composition as teeth and bones), one with chlorine as the halide present and one with appreciable fluorine (chloro-apatite and fluoro-apatite), the latter is comparatively more brittle than the former – makes more fines when crushed and ground. No one has done any testing on bone and teeth samples to check it out, but it is bad science to put into the water supply something that may protect your teeth, but make your bones more brittle. I always wondered what the relative frequency of old folks breaking their hips and other bones with a fall compared to pre-fluoridation – there does seem to be lot of it these days. Their may be no significant difference, or if there is a higher proportion of breaks per age group there may be other reasons for this. Granted. But don’t you think it amiss that the policy folks and their dental advisers have no clue about this mining knowledge? Also, a dentist isn’t thinking about other effects. Like the situation with mainstream climate science, this is how one might define linear thinking.
Huh? Gary Pearse, are you feeling okay?
I have repeatedly and clearly stated that I believe the idea of CAGW is ludicrous.
Not interested in engaging on anti-fluoridation looniness. BUT just so you know: The hip usually breaks first, resulting in a fall. Not the other way around. And the culprit is usually genetics.
Yes this is happening in UK too. I found some old biology A level papers that I took in to my daughters school.. The teacher told me that the paper was too advanced for a modern 18 year old to attempt. That was about seven years ago and it has got worse. The problem is that the Teaching Unions call the shots and there is so much red tape that we have an educational system with third world standards. If someone has no understanding of basic science then they cannot have an argument against a theory that is fundamentally wrong. The Left Wing want mediocrity in all things but, especially in education so they can further their hidden agendas for a left wing world government and redistribution of all wealth. It is called the Mushroom Policy, kept in the dark and fed on sh@t.
A friend of mine who is studying solar science contacted a well known solar astronomer in the UK to ask her a question about the Sun’s rotation. This ‘expert’ answered her by saying ‘I don’t understand what you mean by the Sun’s rotation’. This ‘expert’ is often on TV telling us what little she knows about the Sun. Talk about mediocrity.