Politics Trump Physics

Despite the good faith efforts of three representatives to improve the bills on high school science assessment and graduation requirements, today’s events in the Florida House of Representatives demonstrated how difficult it can be to get education policy right in a challenging legislative environment. 

Representative Fresen, the sponsor of the graduation requirements bill HB 1293, had introduced an amendment to add physics to the list of subjects that could be used toward graduation (the list had already included biology, chemistry and a course called “Agriscience Foundations 1” – more on that later). However, the amendment also included a section on end-of-course testing which triggered a complaint that the amendment violated House rules prohibiting a floor amendment from making too large a change in a bill. Fresen withdrew the amendment, leaving the original bill (mentioning only biology, chemistry and Agriscience Foundations 1) for a final floor vote tomorrow. 
 
Representative Mayfield, the sponsor of the biology-only end-of-course testing bill (HB 543) attempted to merge the content of Representative Fresen’s graduation requirements bill (including a mention of physics) into her own bill, but was forced to withdraw the amendment because of the threat of a similar rules challenge. Her original bill will also come up for a floor vote tomorrow. 
 
Finally, Representative Kiar argued for an amendment that would have terminated all high school FCAT’s (both the 11th grade science FCAT and the 10th grade FCAT on reading and math) and replaced them with a comprehensive end-of-course testing program in all subjects, including science. Kiar pointed out that even Jeb Bush lieutenant Patricia Levesque agreed during a committee hearing that a comprehensive end-of-course testing program is the best way to go in high school. However, Kiar’s amendment was ruled out of order. 
 
So despite the good faith efforts of Representatives Fresen, Mayfield and Kiar, we are left withup or down floor votes on the biology-only end-of-course testing bill and a graduation requirements bill that mentions only biology and chemistry, with no mention of Earth/space science or physics. 
 
Oh yes – the graduation requirements bill up for a House floor vote tomorrow does specify that “Agriscience Foundations 1” should be considered an “upper level science course” for the purposes of high school graduation. This provision was added in a House committee. 
 
So we have Agriscience Foundations, but no specific mention of Earth/space science or physics. In a state with a tanking budget this bodes poorly for high school curriculum in these latter areas if somehow the Senate finds a way to approve this. 
 
But the best news remains: Commissioner Smith has made a commitment to work with college and university science content faculty to improve this situation. This is such an important development that all of today’s difficulties in the House pale in comparison. 

Thanks to Paul Cottle, Paul Ruscher and Michael Fauerbach for this report