Attack on Idaho science standards is attack on progress

In Michael Lewis’s latest book “The Fifth Risk,” he highlights that any attack on established science and scientific findings constitutes a tremendous risk to American culture, society, our safety, progress, prosperity and very way of life.

In like manner, attempts to undermine Idaho’s recently adopted science content standards are just such an attack. This misinformed questioning of the science standards carries the same threat and potential consequences to Idaho and to America as the undermining of basic science documented by Lewis.

Make no mistake, these next-generation standards reflect the best of what is thought and known about what constitutes and develops expertise in foundational ways of knowing, doing and thinking in the area of science (just as the Idaho content standards do for reading, writing, math and other subjects). Our current standards work toward deep understanding and application of expertise in ways that no previous American standards have.

It’s also important to note that countries who outperform the United States in educational achievement in science (and other areas) are those that have been guided by precisely the kind of next-generation standards that we have wisely adopted in Idaho, which put such standards into law well before us, and which have developed ways to teach in powerful ways that meet these standards.

Broadsides against Idaho’s standards ignore educational science, research and understanding of educational policy and practice.

Our standards represent a paradigm shift supported by the last 70 years of cognitive science and research from across the learning sciences that supports moving away from teaching information and toward teaching that promotes learning how to learn, solving complex problems, knowing and thinking like experts and applying what is learned.

The researcher Martin Haberman called this the movement away from a pedagogy of poverty (because it particularly oppresses students who are marginalized in any way, e.g. living in poverty, in rural areas, suffering from disability) to a pedagogy of empowerment, that positions and assists learners to take on the mindsets and activities of actual experts. This is the only way of teaching that helps learners to overcome challenges and actualize their full potential.

Here’s another important point. Ongoing research by David Autor and Brendan Price shows that the only kinds of jobs that are growing are those that require the capacity to frame problems, inquire and make meaning — jobs that require nonroutine analytic, interpersonal and communication skills. These are exactly the kinds of skills that Idaho’s standards are designed to cultivate in students.

We have been wise to adopt standards that reflect the consensus of expert thinking from across research domains. We have been visionary in supporting teachers to learn new ways of teaching for transformation through innovative programs like the Idaho Coaching Network and joint ventures between the State Department of Education and the Boise State Writing Project and other groups.

I urge that we double down on leveraging the great progress we have made by defending the Idaho State Science Standards and to continue supporting our state’s science teachers to enact them.

This story was originally published January 24, 2020 at 1:41 PM.