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
How about this one?—Question (liberal) authority.
How the he!! can science be “holistic?” It reminds me of the kid’s chemistry sets nowadays, there are almost no chemicals. When I was a kid, my chemistry sets had real chemicals, litmus paper, PH strips, candles, burners, flasks, test tubes, etc. I guess the contemporary chemistry sets are “holistic chemistry sets.”
I think it is great that schools will now be teaching the fundamentals of climate and climate change. Climate has always changed but right now it is changing at a rate faster than it ever has because of human activities. Since the industrial revolution we have seen a steady increase in the amount of fossil fuels being burned as well as an increase in the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere which pair up with an increase in global temperature. The only explanation for this increase in temperature is human produced CO2, and since older generations clearly cannot grasp this concept it is great that they will be teaching children about it in hopes that they can impact our planet positively.
Megan,
Your error-filled statement as just political talking points. It’s also apparent by your statements that you have no background in science.
I’d ask you to stick around and engage in the conversation, but I know that you won’t and that no amount of data and truth would change your mind, or make you think that the possibility even exists that you could be wrong. You “believe it”, so it must be right.
I would love to stick around and engage, what points are you talking about exactly?
This is when someone is supposed to come in and say *crickets*, but no one will rescue you. They will just pull up another chart to support what they want to think or deny. Clearly no one wants to admit that we are causing climate to change faster and have population dislocations, fires, wars, droughts and bad wine, it would require some self assessment. Denial is easier.
To take one of your claims, fire, can here in Aus, a fire prone country, we’ve had one of the coldest, wettest and fire free summers on record all the while CO2 rises.
Patrick, climate change has an effect on wind and water patterns. Some places are experiencing extreme droughts, take California for instance, while other places are getting more rain and snow than usual. GLOBALLY we are seeing temperature rising.
Megan says “Climate has always changed but right now it is changing at a rate faster than it ever has because of human activities. ”
Really??? You need to get your facts straight. That is the common assertion by alarmists but it is not true, but simply fear mongering propaganda. CO2 has risen at unprecdented rates but climate did not respond accordingly. First consider there has been a warming hiatus for 18 years. I have to laugh when scientists have been scrambling to explain the slow rate of warming, yet the devotees of CO2 try to scare the public about change happening faster than ever. LOL
Second consider that places like eastern USA and eastern Antarctic show no warming for 50 o 100 years, Nearly every tree ring data set show no or very little warming since the 1950s. Third scientists reported the rate of warming in the Arctic in the 1930s was faster than same cyclical warming seen today in the Arctic (read Chylek 2006) Fourth regional “average” temperatures may have risen, but largely driven by land use change and urbanization, while maximum temperatures have declined since the 30s many places such as in California.
http://landscapesandcycles.net/image/103207378.png
Finally the truly fast rates of climate change happened during the ice ages as is well documented for the Dansgaard Oeschger events. As the world warmed those rapid rises and falls in temperature were muted.
http://www.ig.utexas.edu/people/staff/charles/images/gisp2_d18o_small.jpg
Megan I suspect you would be against debating climate change in the schools because it make students aware of these incovenient truths.
Thanks, Jim. Glad to have you here.
I believe it is you who needs to get their facts straight considering there has most definitely been warming since the industrial revolution. I am talking about warming on a GLOBAL level which you do not see since you are cherrypicking data. 2010 was the hottest year on record and global temperatures are still rising and we see that they are rising in correlation with the amount of fossil fuels that are burned as well as the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere. Also your data refers to the year 2007 where we saw rapid cooling caused by a strong La Nina, again you are cherrypicking your data. Their is a difference between weather and climate I am talking about warming on a global level which is warming at a rapid rate caused by human activities. In the past CO2 levels rose at a rate of 1 ppm (part per million) in 500 years, the current rate of increase is 2ppm in one year which is 1,000 times as fast. In 2010 we saw the amount of carbon in the atmosphere increase by 30 billion tonnes. We are producing more carbon than the carbon cycle can recycle and this carbon is sitting in our atmosphere causing a green house effect and warming of our planet.
http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/gwp/temp/sum_wld.html
Jim– the chart I linked in above is convenient in that it tells me you are hilarious too! More importantly everyone is hung up on models and 18 years and their own little nano second of a life on this planet, while Greenland took eons to form and tasty tuna took god knows how many years to evolve, but we’re sure trying to make them both go away so we can watch 3 TVs at once and eat all the sushi we can before it’s gone.
Thanks, Jim. Glad to have you here.
Always nice to hear from a Climate Station brother-in arms.
Another important consideration, Megan, is for you to determine the resolution of temperature reconstructions that are ubiquitously attached to current fine scaled temperature sensor data without proper explanation as to the effects of this splice.
MeganJ224
April 24, 2015 at 12:08 pm
“Climate has always changed but right now it is changing at a rate faster than it ever has because of human activities.”
Nope, that’s BS. In fact we even have a temperature standstill for 18 years now, not that that’s historically unique, happens in all climatic maxima, obviously.
If we have not seen climate change in the last 18 years how do explain the fact that 2010 was the hottest year on record?
Consider that the global average temperature is a chimera of many different dynamics, and then ponder why you are filled with fear and alarm from a questionable graph
http://landscapesandcycles.net/the-global-average-temperature-chimera.html
MeganJ224
April 24, 2015 at 7:42 pm
“If we have not seen climate change in the last 18 years how do explain the fact that 2010 was the hottest year on record?”
Gavin’s Magic Wand.
NASA produces two kinds of products: First, THe fudged pseudoscience from misinterpreting a vanishing number of terrestrial thermometers produced by the propagandist Gavin Schmidt at GISS. This product is for public consumption and keeping the “Fight Climate Change” taxpayer money running, 1.2 billion USD a year for NASA.
Notice that this product has NOTHING to do with NASA’s domain: SPACE.
Second, NASA via their satellites also delivers the basis to produce better global temperature measurements (better, because they violate the Nyquist or Shannon theorem less): UAH and RSS.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss
These products do not get any airplay by the warmunist media, yet interestengly they are produced in a much more hitech, much more expensive, much more NASA-specific way.
Maybe these are the products strategic planners – if the USA has any left – and has not replaced them all with delusional regime changers /promoters of political assassinations like Brzezinski and Nudelman – use? Of course, not for public consumption.
@jim Steele There are three main drivers of global temperature, solar activities, Milankovitc cycles, and greenhouse gas forcing. Studies show solar activity is having no impact on the warming trend, Milankovic cycles are actually cooling the earth, leaving only greenhouse forcing to explain the warming.
MeganJ224 – hope this posts in the proper place –
The “what’s left” notion is what pointed them at CO2 originally during a period when T and CO2 were spuriously behaving. Didn’t work before and hasn’t happened since, but they’d grabbed a valuable molecule and were otherwise entrenched.
What about oceans? No possible influence? It is a water world.
Megan, I encourage you to review some of the evidences that are cited as irrefutable proof that manmade climate change is happening, such as the receding of glaciers and the rise in sea levels.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/04/18/the-rhone-glacier-then-and-now/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/17/james-balogs-inconvenient-glacial-canaries/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/07/16/latest-noaa-mean-sea-level-trend-data-through-2013-confirms-lack-of-sea-level-rise-acceleration-2/
You’ll find that the global climate has been warming steadily for more than 150 years. The Rhone Glacier actually receded less rapidly over the last 50 years than the 100 years before that. Glacier Bay has been steadily receding since the earliest explorations in the 1760’s. The sea level has been rising in a slow and steady straight line for 100+ years.
Anything change that occurred prior to ~1950 cannot reasonably be blamed on CO2, since human emissions only spiked upward in a major way after that. So, if you have a straight-line increase for 100+ or 150+ years, that is just natural warming and there is simply no additional variation left for humans cause.
You said that the RATE of change has increased. If you know anything about statistics, you appreciate that it is much much harder to prove mathematically that the rate or variance of a measurement is changing than it is to prove that the average value is changing. They can’t even convincingly prove that the average temperature is above what would be considered a natural amount, trying to prove that the rate or variability of temperature has fundamentally shifted is so much more difficult that it’s ludicrous to suggest it.
I appreciate your .com references but I assure you that you have been misinformed. Like I told Jim above, in the past carbon levels rose at a rate of 1ppm (part per million) in 500 years, the current rate is an increase of 2ppm in one year which is 1,000 times faster than before. Also you cherrypicked your data as well, 2010 was the hottest year on record, we also saw an addition of 30 billion tonnes of CO2 added to our atmosphere. We have seen a steady increase in the amount of fossil fuels burned, the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere and the global temperature. There is no explanation to this except human causes. We are warming our world at an unprecedented rate by adding more CO2 to our atmosphere than the carbon cycle can recycle. We are also seeing that these increases are coming from the northern hemisphere where most of the burning of fossil fuels happen. We are seeing hotter years, increased storms, and bleaching of coral reefs with acidification of the ocean. These are major problems that are human caused, not natural.
You cannot cite a wordpress blog focused your agenda as valid evidence of anything. Every article and link is self selected and inherently biased. Cite something else (and not a lot of people…)
Like I told Jim above, in the past carbon levels rose at a rate of 1ppm (part per million) in 500 years, the current rate is an increase of 2ppm in one year which is 1,000 times faster than before.
Heck, you can go further than that.
For the (paltry) last few million, CO2 has outright depleted, putting a large natural strain on evolutionary direction. That 2ppm/year, has lifted that pressure and we have seen a recent explosion of biomass and speciation, especially in the areas that need it most: The Sahel and the African/Amazon rainforests.
Fortunately, CO2 effect is a severely diminishing return in terms of temperatures (~1.1C/doubling, sans net feedbacks, which are not showing up in the data), so it is looking as if some decades down the road, we will break out of this ahead of the ecological game.
That is an optimistic scenario, yes, but it is looking very good. It’s not a game or experiment I would have entered into from card 1, perhaps, but there are 4 cards down now, like it or not, and it’s looking a lot like a pat hand. We got lucky.
Fossil Fuels are a temporary but essential phase in human development. UDCs utterly destroy their environments. DCs protect them. So, for now, let’s dig some coal, knock the U out of UDC and save us a whole bunch of trees and not-always-so-cute furry things. In the name of Gaia, let’s get cracking and let’s get fracking.
Megan: We are also seeing that these increases are coming from the northern hemisphere where most of the burning of fossil fuels happen.
%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.cnet.com%252Fnews%252Fhypnotic-nasa-video-makes-earths-carbon-dioxide-gorgeous%252F%3B770%3B383
This statement might seem defensible, given NASA’s computer simulation of global CO2 movement:
But when real observations from the OCO-2 satellite were published last year, the results were a bit different:
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/19dec_oco/
Simulations are not data.
@evenmjones CO2 is not depleting humans are adding about 29 billion tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere every year and about 43% stays there and causes this greenhouse gas effect. CO2 levels are the highest they’ve been in the last 15 million years. And since DC’s supposedly protect their environments why would wouldn’t we share green technologies with UDCs and help to lower global temperatures now before its far too late?
Juan, we know that most of the human produced CO2 is coming from the northern hemisphere because it takes the one to two years for the atmosphere to cycle CO2 from the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere and we see that the south pole is about two years behind in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere when compared to Alaska.
“For the (paltry) last few million, CO2 has outright depleted, putting a large natural strain on evolutionary direction. That 2ppm/year, has lifted that pressure and we have seen a recent explosion of biomass and speciation”
what studies do you base your “speciation” explosion on?
Honorable moderator:
From her answer I discern that Megan is unable to follow the link I left above, to wit:
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/19dec_oco/
Is there an easy way to simply insert the map here so she can actually look at the result of observations?
[done – mod ]
http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width/public/mainco2mappia18934.jpg
Well stated, little one. You have learned well, but it is from the evil force (the dark side). You must unlearn what you have learned.
Megan, Megan. Please read your sources critically (which is one of the Common Core standards) and evaluate whether or not claims made are substantiated with valid and reliable research.
Megan,
Climate, however measured, is not now changing at anything like historical rates of change.
You have been severely misinformed. That is to say, lied to, & bought the lie hook, line & sinker.
I have not been lied to, you have believed cherrypicked data that does not give the full picture of climate change. If you look at data you will see a steady increase in the burning of fossil fuels, CO2 increase and global temperatures. Like I have said in every other post climate is MOST DEFINITELY changing at a rate that is unprecedented in the past carbon levels rose at a rate of 1ppm (part per million) in 500 years, the current rate is an increase of 2ppm in one year which is 1,000 times faster than before. I encourage you to look at data on a global level, not 2007 in California and certain years from only the U.S. Look at data on global level and you will see that temperatures are increasing at a very fast rate and that humans are the cause of this increase.
@milodonharlani– Can you cite a single example in history where a landmass the size of the united states experience record snow – in record time- and temperatures above the average by roughly 20 degrees (i’ll go find if you really need me to) while the other side of said land mass experience one its lowest precipitation rates and record winter temperatures roughly 20 degrees ABOVE the average? If so, I will never bother you guys again and go buy a Ferrari. Now… add in the fact that Sao Paulo, in the opposing hemisphere also suffered from the same level of drought, if not more so. Please show that is a regular event in history and I will then accept your argument and not Megan, Megan’s.
Megan,
We have definitely increased CO2 and temps have increased. So what? You keep mentioning the term “on record”, as if that is a significant term, which it is not, It is only political. Do you not understand that the “temperature record” refers to the instrumental, or thermometer record which only goes back to around 1850, in the middle of the Little Ice Age? Much of the warming since that time occurred pre- 1950, before CO2 could have had any effect. What caused that warming? There are several periods in recorded human history which had warmer temps than we enjoy today…the Medieval warm period, The Roman and Minoan warm periods… in fact, there have been 342 warming events distinguishable in the Paleoclimate record. What caused all of those warming events?
There is not a single modern temperature data set which shows a clear CO2 signal, related to temps. Do you understand the significance of that fact?
@leland who says “Can you cite a single example in history where a landmass the size of the united states experience record snow – in record time- and temperatures above the average by roughly 20 degrees (i’ll go find if you really need me to) while the other side of said land mass experience one its lowest precipitation rates and record winter temperatures roughly 20 degrees ABOVE the average?”
First what is your point? Are you suggesting the uniform blanket of CO2 radiatively heats up the west coast by 20 degrees and cools the east by 20 degrees? There is no physics that could support such a silly notion. But that pattern is easily explained by advection of warm and cold air with air masses constrained by the jet stream and modulated by the position of the Pacific High pressure system, which is a function of the Hadley cell, El Nino/La Nina and interactions with the polar cell.
Maybe you are suggesting rising CO2 causes the wavy jet stream? Most climate scientists don’t think it does. Historical evidence would not support that suggestions either. SImilar patterns have been seen as the oceans undergo natural regime shits as in 1934 setting up the dust bowl, or 1977 or today. Read The worst North American drought year of the last millennium: 1934 by
Cook et al. (2014)
Here’s a picture from newspapers in 1977 trying to explain very similar temperature patterns (from Steve Goddard’s site). 1977 was a severe California drought year while Boston “record snow”.
http://landscapesandcycles.net/image/103477951.gif
Its all well documented natural variability.
The new climate standards ( and alarmists) are trying to turn students into natural climate change deniers.
Come, now Meg. Skeptics are subject to peer review like anyone else, moreso, even. If we cherryick, we get tromped on by a herd of academic elephants. And recently, we have been privileged to do most of that tromping, anyway.
18 out of the last 19 (and I think it’s 20, now) peer-review studies on carbon sensitivity have shown lower (sometimes much lower) TCS/ECS than the IPCC CMIP3\5 models.
If you put stock in consensus, the New Consensus is that the IPCC got it wrong.
If you look at data you will see a steady increase in the burning of fossil fuels, CO2 increase and global temperatures.
I agree completely.
Alan, the medieval times did experience unusual warming, that is true, but globally the world is hotter now than it was then. The warming during medieval times was seen only in certain regions, not globally. When coming out of the little ice age we saw warming from the sun which leveled off around 1940, since 1940 the sun and volcanic activity has actually been cooling the earth. There have been warming and cooling events all through out the past but on a global level the Earth is heating at a fast rate and since 1970 human produced CO2 is the main source to blame.
No, that is not true.
And, that you state it is “true” does not make it true.
Jim, climate change will cause places to be colder while others show to be warmer. Since the 1970s the world has been warming at a rate of about .2 degrees Celsius per decade. Weather is sporadic and will continue to impose dramatic ups and downs. We expect to see record lows even during global warming. During the last decade we have seen twice the amount of record highs compared to record lows. Hot days are increasing by the decade, as well as the global temperature.
“18 out of the last 19 (and I think it’s 20, now) peer-review studies on carbon sensitivity have shown lower (sometimes much lower) TCS/ECS than the IPCC CMIP3\5 models.”
yeah, that was the claim you made on YT and failed to back it up with evidence.
Here in BC the public schools are loaded with anti development environmentalist propaganda. Of course the teachers are mostly true believers but bring in the High Priests” from Wildsight to do the real brainwashing dirty work. We wrote letters protesting this and the BC government actually listened!
The carpetbagger radicals are out of the BC schools…………for now.
Is it possible to have a section here at WUWT dedicated to education of our children. Perhaps groups can be formed to suggest a proper curriculum and others can comment on the choices. For those who have homeschooled or former science, technology, engineering, and math instructors, perhaps you can lead the way. Perhaps this can be combined with the Khan Academy online school and we can point the way for a proper education in these disciplines. Any thoughts on this idea? Anybody interested???
Thanks for considering.
Glenn999 it is nice that your comment included a recognition of homeschooling. Recognition for and understanding of home educators is to be desired because it may be easy to misunderstand something that many do not have any direct experience of.
Home schoolers are a very diverse group and it grows yearly. 2013 figures from HSLDA state, “The new report concludes that approximately 1,770,000 students are homeschooled in the United States—3.4% of the school-age population.” But although it is very diverse, I think there are some basic concepts that can help people understand the legal, civil and social foundation for the decision to home educate.
1. Parents have the right, responsibility, and duty to raise and educate any children they have.
2. It should be understood that home schooling means that the curricula is chosen by the parents – otherwise it cannot be considered to be homeschooling, but a form of public school extension program.
3. Each state has required subjects and hours of instruction which have been determined by the voters. Laws are to be interpreted liberally.
4. It appears to be a pattern that the states with the most unsuccessful public schools are the ones that want to regulate and oversee homeschoolers most.
5. Home schoolers pay for the maintenance of the public schools through their property taxes. (Ours are several thousand a year.) The money for books, materials, tutors, field trips, etc. are additional expenses. Most home schoolers do not want any form of financial aid from taxes because these come with greater controls. Many single income homes, which is an additional cost which must be counted.
6. Reasons to home educate are very diverse. Some withdraw their child because they have been told their child needs to go on psychotropic medications. Some have slow and some have highly gifted children. Some are extreme new agers who do not want to vaccinate and some are traditional families who simply want to be a part of their own children’s lives while they can.
7. Studies show that home schooled children perform in the 80%, whereas public schools achieve 50% averages in standardized tests – such as the Iowa Assessment test. The tests will be changed to fit Common Core, but this should not be used against homeschoolers. Results are independent of educational level of the parent.
8. You can do it. You do not have to imitate a school classroom. Older kids can help with the younger.
9. Learning can be a self-organized, self-motivated, and highly individualized, even at a young age. Your teenagers can and will learn things you do not know how to do!
10. Digital Natives are AWESOME.
refs: https://www.hslda.org/docs/news/2013/201309030.asp
state requirements clickable map: http://www.hslda.org/hs/default.asp
They ain’t nobody but us visitahs heah.
===============
Further down the road that Prof Harry Messel (Oz, around the 1960’s) was critiquing with his comment about “that bastard thing called general science”
They should make any child that tries to discuss contradictory data or scientific theories to stand on a stool and wear a sign of shame around their necks.
Ecch. I liked the academic standards of the past, but not the discipline. Too much stick, not enough carrot. A disciplinary broken windows policy is necessary, but we could have lightened up on the chokeholds. Besides, an error is not a lie, and critical inquiry is to be encouraged (both ways).
Also, there is a much wider beneficial sweep now that ed-critics fail to account for. Sure, absolute standards are lower. But the overall literacy rate is hugely expanded, so what’d’ya expect?. And the internet has us both reading like the devil and writing.
Here is a 1931 8th grade exam from the State of West Virginia. I believe most would have a hard time passing this test today.
Even leaving out the questions related to West Virginia, I would probably fail.
But I can’t resist what came to mind from the first question on page 2, “Physiology and Hygiene”.
Q: How do we know that “toothpaste” was invented in West Virginia?
A: If it was invented anywhere else it would have been called “teethpaste”.
(Apologies in advance.8-)
hmm…. Just being challenging doesn’t make a good test. It would be interesting to see how this test was evaluated. Did they have a scoring rubric? Was each test scored by more than one person? A test that will determined whether I get into high school had better be thoughtfully considered.
I have to wonder if the test writers themselves bothered to validate this test on a student population. The second question, for example is completely unclear as to whether they are asking for a single country producing all the listed items, or for one country per item. As a teacher using state approved, published reading texts, I found it useful to personally take the unit tests before giving them to my students. There are surprising things there. Example: The question asking third graders to divide “taxi” into syllables..
Well Juan,
Remember this was 1931. I kinda doubt there was much administrative resource to spend on things like scoring rubrics or validation on a test population. Times were lean and mean. Compared to today, there wasn’t as much fat in the system, if you know what I mean… So they ended up with some mistakes, like the second question which was missing the word “as”.
Most of the kids would never go on to higher education.
It appears they were mainly interested in breadth and depth, which was important more for basic survival skills than anything else.
Enter Dewey. (Urgh!)
In an odd way I welcome this kind of initiative. It separates those that can think from those that cannot. I have taught my daughter to question what she hears at school. The fact that others don’t do so is simply not my problem. In fact, is to my daughter’s advantage. She will lead while others will follow.
It is unfortunate that science has come to this, but the environmental movement has destroyed the credibility of related sciences knowingly and willingly to push their agenda. Some have said that the environmental scientists have already won the battle because they have the ears of the politicos.
However, pretty much everyone on these forums knows why they really haven’t won anything. The reason is simple – their science is dead wrong.
The alarmists have been out in full force trying to ensure state textbook adoptions do no choose books that that suggest debating climate science or testing it hypotheses. Internet snipers like slandering sou suggest debating climate science is pseudo-science. As I wrote earlier some of the leaders in this push like Camille Parmesan have prevented replication of her own work, so it was not surprising to see her advocating blind acceptance of the dogma in schoolbooks.
These alarmists simply want to secure their influence arguing “From the scientific perspective, there are simply no longer “two sides” to the climate-change story: The debate is over. The jury is in, and humans are the culprit.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/08/the-ultimate-irony-camille-parmesan-argues-texas-textbooks-need-to-get-the-facts-straight-on-global-warming/
The debate is over. The jury is in, and it is still not possible to predict a chaotic system with a discrete simulation of limited resolution over longer period of times.
Scientists should now QUICKLY distance themselves from “climate scientists” lest they lose all reputation. It is NOT ENOUGH to stay silent about the absolute quackery that goes on in “climate science” if you other scientists do not want to be called collaborators of grant theft!
…grand theft. heh. Both work.
Grand Theft Climate.
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Grand Theft Climate
I like it.
Jim, your efforts and book are much appreciated. The ‘science is settled’ meme Parmesan, Mann, Trenberth, Schmidt, and Obummer are pushing will be the biggest blow to warmunism by AR6. Cause Ma Nature did not agree. The ‘pause’ will likely continue into the 2030’s ( just like ~1945-1975, thanks ocean cycles, stadium waves, sun cycles,…) and SLR is not accelerating. What remains open tactically is how quickly we can ‘break the back’ of this meme. We can all do our part.
The only good thing about brainwashing the children into thinking it is all man’s fault is that once it is broadly accepted that the injection of man’s pitiful aliquot of CO2 is net beneficial, with its great greening and gentle warming, then the coming generations can regard their role without guilt, or fear.
It’s a near dead cert; paleontology always shows the benefits of warming and the detriments of cooling.
How could they have gotten this so wrong, wrong, wrong? Beats me, me, me.
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How could they have gotten this so wrong, wrong, wrong?
Easy.
And even (to an extent) understandable.
“Influence”. Securing power and/or profit. Power to promote an ideological agenda and/or make a few bucks.
Neither is possible unless people are convinced somehow that a bad day is somehow everybody else’s fault…but “we” can fix it.
Outed. Now mothers can exclude them from family gatherings, as appropriate, to preserve family peace.
Professor Procrustes bashes in faces
And finds the brains fit all of his cases.
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Judging by the myth, Old Crusty must have gotten his start in the homogenization racket.
There are no problems at all with these standards; similar things were brought in in the UK, where I taught. The content is all sensible. At no point is it claimed in the standards that climate change is happening, nor that mankind is causing it. I usually introduced these points between standards (1) and (2). Indeed, all the other standards can used to show that the actions being proposed by most nations will have little or no impact.
It’s sort of like the question “when did you stop beating your wife?” Nothing wrong with that since at no time have I actually claimed that you do beat your wife.
Ever since she quit chess?
I sometimes wonder about those stats. I have been smacked, punched, lumped, blindsided, bit, klonked good by a can of Campbell’s soup (I was seeing chicken stars), and had knives thrown at me. All unilaterally.
Yet it never once occurred to me I was a target of abuse, and I certainly would not have indicated so on any survey.
The standards are tools to be used. You may have used the tools in a reasonable manner.
A scapel is a tool. Jack the Ripper used it in an unreasonable manner.
An axe is a tool. it is assumed that Lizzie borden used it in an unreasonable manner.
An circular saw is a tool. Fingers have been lost when that tool is used in an unthinking or lazy manner.
The common core standards can easily be used in an unreasonable, or lazy manner … it may be that they were crafted as such.
“Charlotte Thompson Iserbyt served as the head of policy at the Department of Education during the first administration of Ronald Reagan. While working there she discovered a long term strategic plan by the tax exempt foundations to transform America from a nation of rugged individualists and problem solvers to a country of servile, brainwashed minions who simply regurgitate whatever they’re told.”
The Miseducation of America – Part 1 (by Charlotte Iserbyt)
The Miseducation of America – Part 2 (by Charlotte Iserbyt)
Max Photon, she is an absolutely beautiful woman. Part 1 is excellent.
The nationalization of education under Common Core is, I believe, a system set in place at a federal level in order to implement policies considered or agreed to in UN treaties, such as the UN Convention on the Rights of a Child, Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and CEDAW.
It is not fun reading. The state is granted the highest authority for determining what is best for the child, not the parents, and educational goals include the elimination of gender differences and the state enforced right to “provide cultural experiences” to kids.
Thanks Zeke.
I just finished re-listening to Part 1, and it is indeed an awesome presentation by an awesome woman. (I’m going to make some tea and listen to Part 2.)
For any of you out there who have listened to and/or read the works of Rosa Koire, author of Behind the Green Mask, UN Agenda 21, definitely check out these two videos. Charlotte Iserbyt provides trememdous background for the understanding of Koire’s message
I have to think that these two videos strike at the roots of the climate alarmism and destruction of science that we see unfolding before our eyes.
I strongly encourage people to take the time to listen to Charlotte.
Well, after watching Part 2, I’d say it’s nonessential.
Part 1 has all of the meat and potatoes.
I wrote in ‘Arnie the Axemaker’ for a local school board election.
=======================
Max,
Thanks a bunch for the Iserbyt narratives! Most interesting and informative!
In Part 1, she pulled together many disparate threads I was aware of and made them ‘whole cloth’.
Will use this to good effect with the increasingly effective efforts to stop Common Core here in the Peoples Republic of Washington State,
Mac
Holy Roosevelt Elk!
Yet another denizen of the PNW on this globally distributed blog.
Not that we denizens are all of one opinion. See for instance Max v. Pamela.
Gotta love it!
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.
I am curious Mac, name one Math or ELA Common Core standard (you pick) you believe is evil propaganda waiting to be infused into the minds of children. Quote it. Then tell us how it is propaganda. As a heads up, I have not found a single one that can be described as propaganda.
Further, to give you a fair fighting chance at debate, I am also asking you to list all the Science standards you believe rise to the level of propaganda (and I believe that rarely, there are such standards in the new Science standards).
Bamboo and ivory snicker snack,
You could Euclid and win it back.
========================
Pamela, I personally am pleased that you are passionate about this. I hope we are not a minority.
Some of what sticks in my craw is the implication of certain precepts i.e.
“a fundamental change in the way humans use energy”. What exactly does that mean?
I hope that I am paranoid, but I “read that” as a fundamental way in which energy is made available to us = when the wind turbines are providing it, that is when you get it. That is exactly what people mean where I live to which I say, “I hope you won’t have to go to hospital”.
I realize that this is extremist – I think that is the larger fight we are waging.
Pamela,
Let’s stick to the topic at hand – the newly minted ‘Science Standards’. Odd, that you would try to change the topic…
Further, to give you a fair fighting chance at debate, have you read the PDF that Jim was kind enough to provide a link for? If you have been remiss, here it is: http://www-tc.pbs.org/teacherline/courses/common_documents/climate_literacy_booklet.pdf
When you’ve had a chance to digest that in its entirety, should you still want to pursue a debate that it isn’t slick packaged propaganda, we can pick this up then. If not, I understand.
Mac
Pamela, you don’t think that the science standards as given here is a propaganda document?!! Well, I’m a bit surprised at you, although I know that the majority of teachers (I put 6 kids though) are nice folks trying to do the best job they can, but most have no idea how they are being used. They think this is just how it is done. Some, I know, suffer this terrible knowledge and there is little they can do about it. They are subject of annual assessment and the like, and prospects for alternative work are poor. They need a groundswell of help from outside – they can’t buck the system.
Much of academia, of course, not only supports indoctrination of the young but the concomitant calumniation of all who refuse to accept the alleged consensus; for instance, at Scientia Salon, the “online magazine […] devoted to public discussions of themes drawing from philosophy and the natural and social sciences”, an allegedly scholarly article “Removing the Rubbish: Consensus, Causation, and Denial”—it even has footnotes, including a citation of Cook et al.—insists that sceptics of CAGW are rightly calumniated as anti-science deniers.
I posted a response to several people who attacked me as the uncivil proponent of pseudoscience but Scientia Salon’s moderators rejected it.
Citizens of this great world, let us not abandon hope. This indoctrination will be countered by the most formidable opposition ever imagined: The teenage mind.
Yeah, whatever.
Oh, yee of little faith.
Most of us got it. (:
“This indoctrination will be countered by the most formidable opposition ever imagined: The teenage mind.”
Unstoppable force, meet immovable object. I concur.
Teens suddenly grow antlers and want to lock horns with everything.
It is during this wonderful, crazy period that they need adult guidance and supervision to learn not to fight too aggressively and not to use any ad homs.
My daughter studies wolf biology in her spare time and she said that in wild wolf litters, the mother moderates the play if it gets too intense. Timing of these lessons are very important to future development.
Heh. I had to hold one or the other of them against a wall and explain things very slowly and in clear terms to them. So I know.
It’s always nice when “Wait until your dad gets home” has some currency. (:
If your still using “their” schools then you don’t know enough about how this game is played.
And please, don’t reply by giving me some bs about how you don’t have the time or can’t afford to raise and/or educate/inform your own kids or at least something of that nature that would keep them out of those institutions.
There’s an entire society of parents here in Ontario who home school, and I’ve had the chance to meet the kids, they’re totally fine without the Cath-o-holic and Pubic schools. Yeah, that’s right…..pubic!!!!
Might want to tone it down a bit, my hairs are on end reading this.
Change (peaceful) will be slow, like it or not.
The “kids” aren’t as naïve as us old farts believe them to be.
No, but when they realize that they have been taking showers in recycled urine, they will be pretty ticked off and rain down some pretty quick change, and it won’t be peaceful for you old farts.
Talk about ticked off… just wait until they get old enough to learn to think for themselves and realize just how deep that river of propaganda was, that ran through their education.
Ah, they’ll make jokes about that stuff. Same as we do now.
May I offer one more example of encouragement. Now, I’m going by memory here, which at my 61 years (most of which were spent in over exuberant consumption of alcohol), may be a tad wrong. But if I remember correctly it was Simon and Garfunkel (I think) who wrote a song (the name of which I don’t remember) that had, as part of the lyrics, the following: “When I think back at all the crap I learned in high school, it’s a wonder I can think at all.”
Someone may remember this song better than I. It was popular. And true. Let us have faith in human questioning; which does indeed start in adolescence. That is nature’s safeguard. Let’s win this fight.
I’ve always dropped kids off at school with the admonition to ‘Learn it all, remember what is important’.
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You always have a clever, thoughtful, and concise comment.
Best wishes to you.
Kodachrome…and yea I did learn a lot of crap in high school but my magical power was my huge salt shaker I brought with me everywhere
Couldn’t found on grooveshark – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLsDxvAErTU
They’ll tear my Leitz Wetzlar manual change slide projector from my cold dead fingers when it’s sunny days, hey.
===============
I hate to say this . . . but Power Point is Better.
If you want a fight, start at the Pentagon, where most of this has been substantiated and incorporated into their global threat assessments.
Is that so?
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/5592803/the-cias-global-cooling-files/
Do you have any more appeals to authority in your war chest?
When does not at least one side try to fight the last war using the wrong weapons?
Tom J
Here you go … Kodachrome
i think we already established what the scientific method is and people can think for themselves.
keep politics and hidden agendas out of classrooms at least up to 12th grade…thank you. We are not even trying to uphold that ethic
Then after 12th grade it is a free-for-all ?
An all-out brawl for funding.
Thankfully, I’ve never been put into that position, cus I might learn something about myself I would rather not know…….
Here in Mexico, after the 9th grade, to continue your education it takes 2500 pesos every 6 months. Most Mexicans can’t afford that, even though we think of Mexico as a socialist government. There are many Gringos that are contributing to further education beyond the 9th grade for the locals. I have contributed locally at open mike in Loa Barriles, Baja B.C.S….not a lot, as I am living totally on SSI…
There is a local environmental protest against a new gold mine near San Antonio because they think it will contaminate the water supply. Who Knows – they need the money…
We are talking about the hard sciences here not eco feminism or other political special interest studies.
Gee, just sayin, they are all into agenda 21 here in Mexico, but they have to pay extra for it…
Then we should also hold off teaching religion until college. Some have argued that’s brainwashing and child abuse when you threaten a 6 year old with banishment to hell, and just like when they find out Santa isn’t real, when they realize heaven isn’t either, they’re often pretty upset.
are we teaching religion in public school?
they are passing this off as science, not religion
I wouldn’t say “upset”, but it does hit hard.
Then you move on, (as if there was any other choice).
In this case Climate change is Santa. After you realize that maybe you can move on
Dare I say I was talking about heaven and death.
Of course I was only 7, and hadn’t been fed any fairy tails.
In a college setting, the effect is even worse.
Putting the cart before the horse. In science, you shouldn’t be taking global warming as the answer and prevention as the cure, before you first examine the evidence and determine if there actually is any warming. Hint: you wouldn’t go to the doctor and get penicilin before he/she had first checked if you had a bacterial infection.
If you want to teach climate science to students, first teach them science: examining evidence, creating theories, testing theories.
As it is, this is just indoctrination.
I forgot in my post, this key step: DISCARDING FALSIFIED THEORIES.
I think there is some warming, and, yes, attributable to CO2. But it is only lukewarming a la Arrhenius (1906). Henny and Cal had it right. The Neos? Not so much.
Straight out of the communist manifesto and mein kampf.
Out of a lot of other things, too, though.
Just because Hitler liked women and children and could be charming doesn’t mean that women, kids, and charm are always a Bad Thing.
This requirement may be on the books of a dozen states but even there will not gain much traction in the classroom. There is already too much material to cover in too short a time. There is push back across the nation against Common Core and Federal mandates on subjects and testing. Parents and teachers are tired of federal mandates that force teaching to a test as opposed to teaching students how to learn. The teachers unions are pushing back as well. Tom J’s comment is dead on. Even the slowest teenager can spot BS. Forcing this to be taught will backfire with today’s teenagers. We will read about exemplar Komsomol students in the news but it will be very superficial.
http://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Next-up-math-NY-Students-face-2nd-round-of-6216170.php
http://www.educationworld.com/a_news/leaked-exam-part-common-core-protest-1645360046
http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/education/item/20726-tennessee-to-replace-common-core-but-it-will-likely-be-back
http://www.wsj.com/articles/more-parents-opt-into-opt-out-1429893574
Plus here’s the “Climate Literacy” booklet each kid will get – I encourage you to download a copy.
http://www.pbs.org/teacherline/courses/common_documents/climate_literacy_booklet.pdf [10]
If you haven’t had a look at the linked PDF in Jim’s article, do it now. It is a real slick piece of determined propaganda.
Thanks, Mac.
I think I did not adequately expressed the importance of that.
Best
Not tonight. can’t read it mac. too much climate change scam for a friday night