Santa Fe Reporter dug deeper into the benefits & challenges of adopting Next Generation Science Standards. We support NGSS for New Mexico students. Do you?
NGSS in action is featured: Willow Gersh’s 4th grade class at El Camino Real Academy in Santa Fe during an inquiry science lesson with support from Gwen Perea Warniment, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) Foundation K-12 program director.
Sanitized Science
Why Are New Mexico schools teaching outdated science while new standards sit on the shelf?
March 29, 2017, By Matt Grubs
A few weeks ago, in a cherry-wood-paneled committee room on the third floor of the Roundhouse, Lesley Galyas stood up and said what a lot of people seemed to be thinking.
New Mexico knows what it needs to do to give kids a better chance when it comes to science achievement, but there’s something in the way.
Galyas joined the cabinet agency that oversees education in the state in 2012 and started updating a roadmap for science instruction that had not changed here since 2003. The former head of the New Mexico Public Education Department’s Math and Science Bureau was floored by how it it ended.
“Toward the end of my tenure at the Public Education Department, I was tasked to edit and change some of the language in the standards to make them politically sanitized,” Galyas announced as she rose to support a bill to enshrine the Next Generation Science Standards in state law.
By the time she spoke to the House Education Committee at the beginning of February, Galyas had left the job. New Mexico still hasn’t updated the standards.
For four years, New Mexico Education Secretary Hanna Skandera has had on her desk a unanimous recommendation from a hand-picked panel of math and science experts. They want the state to join a growing list of others that have adopted the nationally vetted Next Generation Science Standards. It’s been two years since Skandera convened a focus group of 85 teachers, professors and school administrators to review new standards. That group also recommended NGSS adoption….
Read the Full Article
Sanitized Science
Why Are New Mexico schools teaching outdated science while new standards sit on the shelf?
March 29, 2017, 12:00 am
By Matt Grubs
A few weeks ago, in a cherry-wood-paneled committee room on the third floor of the Roundhouse, Lesley Galyas stood up and said what a lot of people seemed to be thinking.
New Mexico knows what it needs to do to give kids a better chance when it comes to science achievement, but there’s something in the way.
Galyas joined the cabinet agency that oversees education in the state in 2012 and started updating a roadmap for science instruction that had not changed here since 2003. The former head of the New Mexico Public Education Department’s Math and Science Bureau was floored by how it it ended.
“Toward the end of my tenure at the Public Education Department, I was tasked to edit and change some of the language in the standards to make them politically sanitized,” Galyas announced as she rose to support a bill to enshrine the Next Generation Science Standards in state law.
By the time she spoke to the House Education Committee at the beginning of February, Galyas had left the job. New Mexico still hasn’t updated the standards.
For four years, New Mexico Education Secretary Hanna Skandera has had on her desk a unanimous recommendation from a hand-picked panel of math and science experts. They want the state to join a growing list of others that have adopted the nationally vetted Next Generation Science Standards. It’s been two years since Skandera convened a focus group of 85 teachers, professors and school administrators to review new standards. That group also recommended NGSS adoption.
– See more at: http://www.sfreporter.com/santafe/article-13213-sanitized-science.html#sthash.oebPePAL.dpuf
Sanitized Science
Why Are New Mexico schools teaching outdated science while new standards sit on the shelf?
March 29, 2017
By Matt Grubs
A few weeks ago, in a cherry-wood-paneled committee room on the third floor of the Roundhouse, Lesley Galyas stood up and said what a lot of people seemed to be thinking.
New Mexico knows what it needs to do to give kids a better chance when it comes to science achievement, but there’s something in the way.
Galyas joined the cabinet agency that oversees education in the state in 2012 and started updating a roadmap for science instruction that had not changed here since 2003. The former head of the New Mexico Public Education Department’s Math and Science Bureau was floored by how it it ended.
“Toward the end of my tenure at the Public Education Department, I was tasked to edit and change some of the language in the standards to make them politically sanitized,” Galyas announced as she rose to support a bill to enshrine the Next Generation Science Standards in state law.
By the time she spoke to the House Education Committee at the beginning of February, Galyas had left the job. New Mexico still hasn’t updated the standards.
For four years, New Mexico Education Secretary Hanna Skandera has had on her desk a unanimous recommendation from a hand-picked panel of math and science experts. They want the state to join a growing list of others that have adopted the nationally vetted Next Generation Science Standards. It’s been two years since Skandera convened a focus group of 85 teachers, professors and school administrators to review new standards. That group also recommended NGSS adoption.
