And last month, the West Virginia Board of Education announced that it was among the first 13 states and the District of Columbia to adopt the “Next Generation Science Standards,” which it said would “equip students with the critical thinking and analytical skills they need to be successful in college and to compete for today’s most rewarding jobs.”
But before the standards were adopted, board members quietly made some changes that science educators say substantially weaken the current state of climate science and introduce far more doubt than is warranted.
The board’s decision has come under fire and at a meeting scheduled for Wednesday the board will reconsider its action. The board could decide to go back to the original language of the curriculum, to do nothing or to drop the new standards altogether.
The changes go far beyond mere tweaks and have importance beyond the boundaries of West Virginia, said Minda Berbeco, programs and policy director for the National Center for Science Education, based in Oakland, Calif.
“They are taking the standards, they are calling it the next-generation science standards, and they are changing the composition of the science to match their own personal views,” she said. “That defeats the purpose of having standards developed by scientific advisory boards.”
