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By Kimberly Beltran
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Despite strong criticism of new national science standards by an influential education think tank, the California State Board of Education appears poised to adopt the new curriculum goals even though some believe the state’s existing standards are better.
Hailed as one of the biggest advances in K-12 science curriculum in more than a decade, the Next Generation Science Standards were developed over the past two years by a consortium of states in a process similar to that which produced the common core standards in math and English language arts now being introduced into California schools.
But last month, the New York-based education policy group Fordham Institute gave the new standards just a passing grade of ‘C,’ two marks below the ‘A’ California’s existing science standards received from Fordham last year in a similar analysis.
It is likely, however, that board members will give weight to the fact that the NGSS have been analyzed by a large contingent of state experts and publicly vetted along the way. They are also being recommended for adoption by the