It’s Standard Time Again for California’s Public Schools

The state commission asked to determine what California’s public school students should learn at various grade levels has unveiled drafts of its standards in two more subject areas: science and history-social science.

The proposed science standards emphasize fundamental knowledge as well as the use of the scientific method. And they treat high school chemistry and physical science as separate disciplines--rather than integrating the two, as is becoming increasingly common in many schools.

High schoolers, according to the panel, should know that viruses contain DNA or RNA and must use a cell’s chemical machinery to spread.

The history-social science standards incorporate topics from civics, geography and economic reasoning, beginning in the early grades.

Rather than expecting teachers to rely only on textbooks, the standards emphasize the use of biographies of Jefferson Davis, Ulysses S. Grant and others as a way to understand the Civil War. They also expect students to become familiar with speeches, such as the Gettysburg Address, to enliven the topic.

Though released only weeks ago, the draft science standards already have stirred considerable debate.

The Academic Standards Commission got off to a false start in writing them in November when it rejected the offer of a group led by Nobel Prize-winning scientists to do the work for free, awarding a contract to a competing panel. The two groups squabbled in public over their differing approaches. The Nobelists emphasized traditional scientific knowledge and the other coalition, which included more educators, placed more importance on making science fun and accessible for a wide range of students.

In the wake of that controversy, representatives of both groups were asked to work together, and Nobel Prize-winning chemist Glenn Seaborg was appointed to the standards commission to chair its science committee.

In writing its drafts, the commission conducted focus group sessions with parents, teachers, and business and community leaders. It also relied on experts, as well as academic standards now used in other states and countries. “Students and teachers deserve to know precisely what they are accountable for: mastery of fundamental content equal to or better than that to which students around the world have been consistently exposed,” Seaborg said. “To do anything less would be irresponsible.”

After public hearings, the learning guidelines will be revised by the Academic Standards Commission and submitted by Aug. 1 for approval to the State Board of Education, which will take its own crack at them.

Even then, the standards are but a step toward the eventual goal of creating a new state test that will cover these subjects--as well as math and language arts--in grades five, eight and 10. The commission finished its work in math and language arts last fall.

Following are excerpts. The complete draft standards can be viewed on the commission’s Web site: https://www.ca.gov/goldstandards

HISTORY, SOCIAL SCIENCE

Grade 5

Students analyze the important ideas that influenced the foundation of the American republic. Grade 8

Students analyze the multiple causes, key events and complex consequences of the Civil War. Grade 10

Students analyze patterns of global change in the era of Western nationalism and imperialism, in at least two of the following areas: Africa, Southeast Asia, China, India, Latin America and the Philippines.

SCIENCE

Grade 5

Earth Science: Geologic Features

Students classify rocks and minerals by their properties, and know the processes by which rocks form.

Students identify and distinguish igneous and sedimentary rocks by their properties, and describe some ways in which they form.

Students identify common rock-forming minerals (including quartz, calcite, feldspar, mica and hornblende) and ore minerals using a table of diagnostic properties.

Students identify the patterns of earthquake occurrence. Students know earthquakes are sudden motions along breaks in the crust called faults.

Students know earthquakes often come in groups. They know how to prepare for an earthquake and how to behave during and after earthquakes.

Students know that earthquakes and volcanoes occur in distinct distribution patterns on the Earth.

Grades 6-8

Physical Science: Chemical Reactions

Students know that atoms can combine to make molecules, and that chemical reactions are processes in which atoms and molecules are rearranged into different combinations.

Grades 9-12

Life Science: Cell Biology

Students compare and contrast the cellular structures of prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells.

Students analyze photosynthesis and cell respiration in terms of the cellular structures in which they occur, energy flow and chemical compounds involved (such as carbon dioxide, oxygen, glucose, water, ATP and NADH).

Students know that enzymes are proteins that serve as catalysts to increase the rate of biochemical reactions (by lowering activation energy) without altering the reaction equilibrium.

Students know that viruses contain DNA or RNA genomes and must use the biochemical machinery of a cell in order to be propagated.