In a letter to the West Virginia Board of Education, the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) encourages the members of the Board to eliminate changes that were made to the Next Generation Content Standards and Objectives for Science in West Virginia Schools and revert back to the original published text. The West Virginia standards are based on the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), but changes were made to two performance expectations prior to adoption that do not reflect the intent of the original published NGSS document. The letter is below, and readers can download a copy as a pdf here.

January 13, 2015

West Virginia State Board of Education
1900 Kanawha Boulevard East
Charleston, WV 25305

Dear Members of the Board,

On behalf of the Board, Council, and 55,000 members of the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), we strongly encourage you to eliminate changes that were made to the Next Generation Content Standards and Objectives for Science in West Virginia Schools prior to adoption in December and revert back to the original published text.

While West Virginia standards are based on the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), changes made to two performance expectations do not reflect the intent of the original published NGSS document or the Framework for K-12 Science Education.

The first change focuses on S.6.ESS.6. The original NGSS text states, “Ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperatures over the past century,” but it was changed to read, “Ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise and fall in global temperatures over the past century.” Adding the words “and fall” to S.6.ESS.6 risks confusion among students between the concepts of weather and climate.

The second change focuses on S.9.ESS.14. The original NGSS text states, “Analyze geoscience data and the results from global climate models to make an evidence-based forecast of the current rate of global or regional climate change and associated future impacts to Earth systems.” This text was replaced with, “Analyze geoscience data and the predictions made by computer climate models to assess their creditability for predicting future impacts on the Earth System.” The original wording asks students to use data and models to forecast the rate of climate change and future impacts on the Earth System. The revised wording asks students to assess the credibility of computer climate models to predict future impacts on the Earth System. This substantially changes the intent of this learning goal.

We are pleased that West Virginia state leaders have been at the forefront of developing the NGSS, and we will continue to support West Virginia science teachers as they bring high-quality science to all students. NSTA supports the NGSS the way the writers wrote it because it reflects the best research in science and on how students learn science. It is our hope that you will reverse the changes indicated above so as not to compromise the work of so many science and education experts, including many science teachers in West Virginia.

Sincerely,

Dr. David L. Evans
Executive Director
National Science Teachers Association
1840 Wilson Boulevard
Arlington, VA 22201