Jason Glass, the Director of the Iowa Department of Education, announced last week that Iowa was one of 20 states that will lead the development of the “Next Generation Science Standards” which is part of the Common Core State Standards that is being managed by Achieve (read Bill Gates), which is a non-profit education reform organization.
Along with Iowa other state departments of education that will be involved are from Arizona, California, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, Washington and West Virginia.
Glass said, “I’m proud that Iowa is on the front lines of this ground-breaking effort to improve science education with the development of new standards. Raising the bar for science education fits with our goal to build a world-class education system in Iowa and to prepare every child to graduate ready for college and careers in a globally competitive context. It’s also crucial to Iowa’s economy, which depends on STEM-related fields.”
The framework for the standards has already been developed, and the jobs of the educrats that each state education department assigns to the state committees will write standards based off of that. To be considered each state had to submit a letter signed by the state education director and the chair of the state board of education.
Nothing about legislative approval? No surprise. Let’s be clear – “states” are not involved, unelected (in most cases) state education department heads and staff are. They will be advancing science standards, which are substandard, in an undemocratic fashion. No state legislature has voted on these standards, there has been no input given. What these standards are sure to do is to continue to widen the achievement gap between the United States and higher achieving countries.
As an Iowan being proud of this development is the last thing than comes to mind.
Originally posted at Truth in American Education
