Utah Science Standards Changes
Short Summary of Changes Made to the Proposed Science Standards for Utah: the Differences Between
The Word-for-Word NGSS April Draft
and
October Science Standards Draft.
One new standard was written (6.3.4). Two standards originating from the current Utah Standards were added (7.2.4 & 8.1.2). Some existing NGSS standards went through a thesaurus translation but generally without change in character. Some NGSS standards remain word-for-word. Six standards were formed by combining two or more of the previous NGSS standards. Most of the previously duplicated standards were removed. Only one NGSS standard (MS-LS1-8) is not represented. The October draft for science standards is comprised of 59 standards the balance of the proposal is then composed of 95% NGSS content1.
USOE admits that they seek to generally adopt the National Next Generation Science Standards2
Contrary to assurances given by USOE Officials3 that Utah public education would not adopt national standards beyond what has already been adopted with the “Common Core State Standard,” that is exactly what they are intending to do.
More details can be found at http://www.sciencefreedom.org/
- - - - - - - -
2USOE now admits in the materials distributed to the board members related to the October draft of the (UT SEEd) Standards October, for their October 8-9, 2015 meeting that “Most SEEd standards remain based on the Next Generation Science Standards.” A similar statement is found in the footnotes of the introduction pages to each grade level of the standards released for the 30-day public review. ( http://www.schools.utah.gov/CURR/science/Revision/SEEdStandardsDraft.aspx ). As we have seen in this text, “most” means that essentially all of the NGSS standard concepts are found in the October draft of the “Utah SEEd” with little added or altered.
3Youtube “Utah's Deceptive Science Standards Adoption” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQGN31POb_Y