The new draft of the Florida science standards is up and ready for public comment. Please head over there, read through the standards and give ’em some support!
You will be able to rate each benchmark and leave comments for the standards writers so that they can correct errors and make improvements. The public review stage will last until December 19, 2007. There will also be a concurrent review of the standards by an expert review board. All the comments will be reviewed and possibly incorporated into the standards if they are insightful. At some point in January 2008, the standards will go up for a vote before the State Board of Education. It’s important that you talk about these science standards with everyone you know. Talk to members of any science oriented group of which you are a member. Get the word out! The anti-science groups in Florida are coming out in force trying to remove evolution and water down the standards. We need to be out in force ourselves.
Be sure to read through other posts here on the FCS blog to see how this is playing out across the state. On the one hand, a few newspapers are insisting on playing up the inclusion of evolution in the standards and thus stirring up all the creationists. On the other hand, some newspapers are publishing editorials in support of evolution in the standards. Interesting times, indeed.
