SBE to Fordham: NGSS highly vetted by CA experts
As one of the State Board's liaisons to the NGSS work, I've been very engaged with the development and review process up until now.
In the earlier stages, while NGSS was going through multiple rounds of public review and revisions, CDE had a group of 80 scientists, educators, and business leaders in CA review and comment on those initial drafts.
To review the final set of NGSS the CDE commissioned a group of 25 Californians to serve on a Science Expert Panel. These included Bruce Alperts, editor of Science magazine and faculty at UCSF and Helen Quinn, chair of the National Research Council's development of the recommended Framework for new science standards. The group also included outstanding scientists and faculty members from CA four year universities, leaders in science related businesses, and respected science educators at some of the highest performing CA K-12 schools.
I attended all six days of meetings of the SEP to observe, listen, and ask questions. I was impressed by their work and their thinking.
It is important to note that Fordham had only six reviewers of the NGSS, and all of them were higher ed faculty from various states. I compare that to the caliber and number of CA scientists, faculty members, and K-12 educators I have observed analyze and discuss the NGSS standards and comment on their merit compared to CA's existing science standards.
It is also important to consider that Fordham's "rubric" for evaluating the NGSS against CA's existing science standards is a rubric based upon their particular values: lots of content and fact (and memorization) valued over student understanding of scientific methodology to make discoveries and of engineering design to solve problems and
In the earlier stages, while NGSS was going through multiple rounds of public review and revisions, CDE had a group of 80 scientists, educators, and business leaders in CA review and comment on those initial drafts.
To review the final set of NGSS the CDE commissioned a group of 25 Californians to serve on a Science Expert Panel. These included Bruce Alperts, editor of Science magazine and faculty at UCSF and Helen Quinn, chair of the National Research Council's development of the recommended Framework for new science standards. The group also included outstanding scientists and faculty members from CA four year universities, leaders in science related businesses, and respected science educators at some of the highest performing CA K-12 schools.
I attended all six days of meetings of the SEP to observe, listen, and ask questions. I was impressed by their work and their thinking.
It is important to note that Fordham had only six reviewers of the NGSS, and all of them were higher ed faculty from various states. I compare that to the caliber and number of CA scientists, faculty members, and K-12 educators I have observed analyze and discuss the NGSS standards and comment on their merit compared to CA's existing science standards.
It is also important to consider that Fordham's "rubric" for evaluating the NGSS against CA's existing science standards is a rubric based upon their particular values: lots of content and fact (and memorization) valued over student understanding of scientific methodology to make discoveries and of engineering design to solve problems and