Education Week - October 25, 2017 - 6

After Backlash, N.M. Reverses Course on Science Standards
Evolution, climate
change in question
By Stephen Sawchuk
New Mexico officials abruptly
reversed course on new science
expectations for K-12 students
after howls of protest greeted its
draft standards, which included
language that seemed designed to
appease skeptics of climate change
and evolution.
Unveiled in September, the standards had virtually no defenders at
their public airing, held last week
in Santa Fe. Speaker after speaker
urged the state to scratch the draft
and instead to adopt in full the Next
Generation Science Standards,
which are shared expectations in
use in 18 states and the District of
Columbia.
New Mexico's standards are
loosely based on the NGSS' performance expectations, but do not
include some key features, such as
engineering and science practices
meant to be woven into each lesson. And some of the state's diversions from the NGSS text were
eyebrow-raising.
But late on Oct. 17, the state education department said the final
version would no longer omit the
words "rise" or "change" from two
standards related to global temper-

ature and human activity, or excise
a standard referencing the Earth's
age of 4.6 billion years.
The state will also restore the
word "evolution" in a standard dealing with that topic; the initial draft
asked students to construct an explanation based on evidence that
"biological diversity" is "influenced
by" factors such as genetic variations in species.
Other controversial elements remain, however, including one that
requires teachers to "describe the
benefits associated with technologies related to energy production."
The state plans to release the final
set of standards by early November.

Districts in Opposition
The topics of climate change and
evolution may be controversial
among laypeople, but they are not
scientifically: There is overwhelming
agreement among scientists and geologists that the Earth is billions of
years old, that evolution is the primary biological process explaining
the diversity of life on the planet,
and that the temperature of the
Earth is rising partly due to human
activity.
Before New Mexico's sudden reversal, more than 60 scientists associated with the Los Alamos National
Laboratory took out a full-page ad
in a local newspaper to criticize the
draft. Protesters staged demonstra-

6 | EDUCATION WEEK | October 25, 2017 | www.edweek.org

tions in front of the education department over the previous weekend and during the hearing. And at
least five large school districts-in
Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Los Alamos,
Las Cruces, and Taos-had written
letters or passed resolutions opposing the draft standards.
The newly announced revisions
could tamp down the largest concerns, but are unlikely to address
all of them. Ellen Loehman, a
spokeswoman for the New Mexico
Science Teachers' Association, said
she feared even the revised standards would be "impotent" unless
the state includes all of the NGSS'
other components.
"Without that, you can relegate
science to being taught as a textbook class," she said. "I'm going to
hold my breath."

Political Changes?
Several New Mexico newspapers
have tried, via open-records laws, to
investigate who pressed for the controversial text in the first place, and
have come up empty-handed.
Education Secretary-Designate
Christopher Ruszkowski said the
original draft reflected feedback
from constituents. "These are real
New Mexicans-parents, school
board members, science teachers.
I'm serving as the broker and facilitator between those 89 school
districts," he said. "But again I've

also said, as a former social studies
teacher, that democracy does belong
to those who show up, and I think
you're seeing we're being incredibly
responsive to those voices as well."
At least one former education department employee offers another
explanation: politics.
Lesley Galyas spent four years as
the agency's bureau chief for math
and science, during which time she
worked to overhaul an outdated set of
science standards from 2003. Knowledgeable about the NGSS, she hoped
to secure New Mexico's adoption of
them, too.
But by 2016, she said, senior officials at the department-with the
knowledge of former education secretary Hanna Skandera and Ruszkowski, then a deputy secretary-
repeatedly asked for revisions to the
standards on evolution and human
contributions to climate change,
among other things, that they felt
were controversial. The changes
were made on paper rather than
electronic drafts, she said.
Galyas said she did not know
whether businesses or religious
groups were behind the requests.
But she knew one thing.
"I did tell them this would backfire. I even told them, 'You're wasting your time, because the teachers
are going to reject them; the science
community is going to reject them,'"
said Galyas, now a teacher in New
Mexico.

Ruszkowski disputed parts of her
account. "I would say no to that
question," he said, when asked
whether the drafting process might
have circumvented open-records
laws.
Skandera did not reply to detailed
questions via email from Education
Week about Galyas' account.

'Responsible Treatment'
For advocates like Glenn Branch,
the situation illustrates the latest
tactic of creationists and climatechange skeptics: getting topics
struck from standards, rather than
promoting alternative theories like
"intelligent design."
That's why specificity in the standards is crucial for students, he said.
"Regardless of teachers' personal
opinions, they're more likely to
teach in accordance with scientific
consensus if state and local communities recognize it," said Branch,
the deputy director of the National
Center for Science Education. "The
state sends a message by having a
responsible treatment of those topics in science."
The NGSS, crafted by a consortia
of states, puts a heavier emphasis
on having students learn by "doing"
science. West Virginia and Wyoming
softened language in the NGSS on
global climate change, while South
Dakota also deleted the standards'
reference to the age of the Earth.

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Education Week - October 25, 2017

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