The complete “Geologic Column” does not exist anywhere on Earth.

BUILT BY CORRELATION, L. Don Leet (Harvard) & Sheldon Judson (Princeton), "Because we cannot find sedimentary rocks representing all of earth time neatly in one convenient area, we must piece together the rock sequence from locality to locality. This process of tying one rock sequence in one place to another in some other place is known as correlation, from the Latin for 'together' plus 'relate.'"
Physical Geology p.181.

Putman & Bassett, "A rock that had an early form of an organism was clearly older than rocks containing later forms. Furthermore, all rocks that had the early form, no matter how far apart those rocks were geographically, would have to be the same age … fossil successions made it possible to say that the Cambrian rocks are older than the Ordovician rocks. In this way our geologic time table came into being....Without the theory of evolution and the interdisciplinary science of paleontology, it could not exist." Geology p.544

Our Students should also know this about the “Geologic Column” which also shows the circular reasoning between the evolutionary paradigm and the Geologic Column.

This set of performance standards is not intrinsically an issue, except in the framework of the materialistic “Molecules to Organisms” paradigm which has become ingrained in our schools. “Molecules to Organisms” is simply a shorthand of expressing the Darwinian paradigm, or in other words, the idea that the complex arose from simple through undirected processes of simply matter and energy. Science has NOT demonstrated a “Molecules to Organisms” scenario such as is cast by the “Utah SEEd” / NGSS standards. For example:

7.4.3
Develop and use a model to describe why genetic mutations may result in harmful, beneficial, or neutral effects to the structure and function of the organism.

Emphasize the conceptual idea that changes to traits can happen. Specific changes of genes at the molecular level, mechanisms for protein synthesis or specific types of mutations will be introduced at the high school level.

Genetic mutation and inheritance has been demonstrated. In particular environments these mutations, on vary rare occasions, result in a beneficial mutation. The emergence of a different protein from minor variations of other existing proteins may explain some of the diversity we see in life. However, it has been found that the normally assumed mutation / natural selection mechanism is an insufficient explanation for a significant portion of the proteins and the genes that code for those proteins. As you can see from the standard's text, this is where they are headed and intend to further promote in later grade levels. An article available in Trends in Genetics 2009 report ² that “10-20% of genes lack recognizable homologs in other species.” In other words, 10 – 20% of genes in species don't have evidence of ancestry.

This is further discussed in an article available in Nature Reviews Genetics 2011 ³. It said,

[E]very evolutionary lineage harbors orphan genes that lack homologues in other lineages and whose evolutionary origin is only poorly understood. Orphan genes might arise from duplication and rearrangement processes followed by fast divergence; however, de novo evolution out of non-coding genomic regions is emerging as an important additional mechanism.

This sudden appearance of genetic material “de novo,” or out of nothing, lacks credibility in the light of several other studies. In the journal Nature in 2012 it was reported ⁴ that the ENCODE Project revealed that by their analysis, 80 percent of the human genome has a “biochemical function.” The lead researcher also expressed his thoughts that this percentage of functionality could move to a statistical 100 percent. This level of functionality in a genome removes most all of the opportunity for non coding regions of the cell to be the incubators for the “de novo” or out of nothing sudden emergence of proteins.

Darwin said that:

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ [or in this case protein] existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case.
Origin of the Species p348

We am not saying that we should not teach evolution in our schools. What I am saying is that we should teach the evidence for and also the evidence against the theory.

This section has a few improvements but only minor modifications in character from its counter part section in the April draft. Not withstanding the changes, there still exist a lack of objectivity and it still includes the widely disproved segment on embryology.

Performance standard 7.5.3, is written a little more tentative, which is good as living things don't come with a pedigree from the AKC that traces genealogy all the way back to its alleged parents that have now become part of a rock for verification of their assumption. However, the standard still does not consider or encourage exploration of evidence that speaks to the contrary. 7.5.3 could be written as this:

Evolutionary theory predicts the common ancestry of all life, as slight variations in offspring produce divergence, which variation over long periods of time has created the vast and widely varied types of life and the increasingly complex organisms we see today:

Critically analyze the currently available fossil data for evidence in support and also evidence that could potentially falsify the evolutionary predicted pattern of gradual and increasing diversification in organisms, and patterns of a gradual but increasingly complex forms of life.

Other performance standards in this section could similarly be adapted.

As evidence in support of evolutionary theory is continually promoted and is not in need of another champion, I present here data widely available that speaks in contradiction to the theory.

The fossil record does not show the gradual branching tree that is usually shown in our science classes. When considering actual fossil data, the animal phyla or the basic body plans of life, 23 are living today (and are in the fossil record). The Cambrian is the first real “blossoming of animal life.” In just the Cambrian environment, according to main stream science reports, there existed 23 phyla. Furthermore, there was not significant variation from that number at any time in the fossil record since that first vast explosion of life in the Cambrian, according to reports. An excellent and broad collection of main stream scientific literature which challenges to the predicted pattern of evolutionary theory is available in the end notes of chapter 2 of the book Darwin's Doubt by Dr. Stephen C. Meyer.

When the Cambrian fossils in southern China, near the town of Chengjiang, were discovered, there was discussions that the number of basic body plans (the phyla) must be over 100. This uncomfortable number was whittled down by expanding the definition of some phyla and regrouping to avoid an even more embarrassing comparison than what we have today. Even with the regrouping, the numbers show that the fossil record does not support the gradual branching pattern of Darwin’s Tree of Life.

Chinese Paleontologist J. Y. Chen, has had a notable role in excavating the relatively new discovery of the Chengjiang. He has also published numerous scientific papers about the fossil find. In his evaluation of the fossil evidence that was found he said:

The Chinese fossils turn Darwin's tree of life “upside down.”
(Darwin's Doubt by Stephen C. Meyer page 52)

You can view him explaining this in his own words⁶ at this link here.

More details on Scientist J. Y. Chen⁷ start here.

Furthermore, even vertebrate fish with binocular camera type eyes were found in Cambrian explosion of animal life such as the one discussed in the journal Nature here ⁸.

The assumed evidence for the gradual evolution of fish from vastly different simple forms of life is essentially missing. The same is true for many of the other complex and varied creatures known to exist in the Cambrian.

Standard 7.5.4 itself remains fundamentally the same.

7.5.4 Analyze displays of pictorial data to compare patterns in the embryological development across multiple species to identify similarities and differences not evident in the fully formed anatomy.

This is essentially Haeckel's “Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny,” argument that has been discredited for many years. It does not belong in our curriculum. For just one example, Erich Blechschmidt commented in his 1977 book The Beginnings of Human Life.

"The so-called basic law of biogenetics [Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny] is wrong. No buts or ifs can mitigate this fact. It is not even a tiny bit correct or correct in a different form, making it valid in a certain percentage. It is totally wrong."⁹

Use of our student's science time should be for science not social engineering