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The Missing Page 7 From the October 2015 proposed Utah “SEEd”/NGSS standards

In several discussions and papers, a reference has been made to the admission from the State Office of Education that "most SEEd standards remain based on the Next Generation Science Standards."^{1 2} However, this admission from the Utah Office of Education or USOE has been removed from their web page. As a result, a copy of what USOE posted on their website has been reposed here. You will find the comment on page 7 (pdf page 9). The page title is “DESCRIPTION OF REVISION.” A little below half way down the page is a bullet point “Political Motivations,” the comment is found there.

More Details

The document from USOE that contained the quote was presented to the Utah State Board of Education members for their October board meetings and available to the public through the State Board of Education website. When the state posted the standards on their science page (http://www.schools.utah.gov/curr/science) the additional information about changes etc. that was offered to the State Board members was stripped out and evidently not referenced or made available to the public any more.

The big difference between the April and the October drafts is that no longer is the USOE falsely casting the Utah SEEd standards as Utah grown, Utah values effort³, but they are admitting that they are trying to adopt the NGSS. The NGSS is a set of performance standards for what school students should be taught in grades K-12. It is simply a national standard for science and the complement⁴ to the national Common Core State Standards (CCSS) which Utah adopted and which invited so much protest. Why such subterfuge when present the April draft of the SEEd standards? Almost certainly it is because USOE officials gave assurances through multiple representatives on multiple occasions (after the heat they received in the way the “Common Core” with all of its baggage was slipped in) that Utah would not adopt further national standards. See Youtube Utah's Science⁵

Summary:

Page 7 documentation can now be found here. The October draft of the “Utah SEEd” standards remain in character and precept simply the National Next Generation Science Standards. The only NGSS performance standard that was dropped from the October draft had to do with a standard on sensory organs and the brain. Two standards were added from Utah's existing Science Standards.

As the October draft of the “Utah SEEd” standards are transparently just the NGSS, essentially all of the reasons^{6 7} for rejecting the national NGSS standards from the April revision remain with the October version. A de facto adoption of the NGSS, though it may contain minor changes, will almost certainly produce a curriculum of all NGSS, complete with its materialistic mantra, as teachers and districts seek NGSS compatible material for textbooks and lesson plans, etc. Any standards founded on NGSS should be rejected so that Utah can develop true Utah standards in character and values. Please respond to the online survey (https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SEEdReview) but also call and email the Governer, Board members, as well as Ricky Scott, the State Science Specialist, and Brad Smith the State Superintendent Now!