Science standards do address scientific literacy: A reply to Zucker and Noyce

Andrew Zucker and Pendred Noyce’s criticism of the Next Generation Science Standards ignores what the standards actually say.

In their article, “Lessons from the pandemic about science education,” Andrew Zucker and Pendred Noyce stress the importance of students making sense of the world around them, noting that students need to be engaged and informed and “able to distinguish scientific knowledge from misinformation.” In particular, they use the COVID-19 pandemic as a call to change the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). We agree with their emphasis on the importance of science literacy; however, we argue that they misrepresent the NGSS and conflate curriculum with standards.

The authors hook readers in their opening paragraph by making the startling claim that, under the NGSS, students can graduate high school without ever having “been asked to read science-related books or articles in the popular press. Nor, for that matter, will they have been taught how to find reliable sources of information about science or how to evaluate and reject scientific misinformation.” According to Zucker and Noyce, the NGSS suggests that students should always be doing hands-on science where they “conduct experiments, test claims and otherwise ‘do science’ in every class.” They follow this by stating that sometimes it is appropriate to also read and discuss scientific articles, among other scientific activities.

If these statements about the NGSS were true, this would be a damning critique. However, the authors have either missed or chosen to ignore the science and engineering practices in the NGSS. These practices specifically broaden the scope of “doing science” to include developing models, asking questions, critiquing evidence, and evaluating scientific information from a variety of sources.

The NGSS expects students at each grade level to have an increasingly sophisticated understanding of how to do exactly what the authors say is missing. In fact, one of the recommendations that Zucker and Noyce make is that the NGSS should be modified to emphasize media literacy, and they provide an example from the Massachusetts standards. Ironically, however, that example is taken directly from the NGSS.

Further, the authors imply that the NGSS ignores the nature and history of science. As evidence, they point to National Science Teaching Association (NSTA) critiques during the development process and nature of science position statements provided after the standards were published. Notably, the NGSS writers responded to this criticism during the revision process before publication, and the NSTA now strongly supports the NGSS.

Zucker and Noyce do not acknowledge that the nature of science is referenced on every standards page in the NGSS document. Nor do they acknowledge the Engineering, Technology, and Society section of the standards, which emphasizes societal connections. Furthermore, their frustration for not having a single name of a scientist shows why name-dropping is problematic. Both names they suggested were white males, a missed opportunity to emphasize a lens of equity while designing curriculum to support the NGSS.

Mischaracterizing the NGSS does not move science education forward.

Zucker and Noyce say that a systemic flaw in the NGSS is “its commitment to preparing students for college and careers, without attending to the civic purposes of K-12 education.” Zucker and Noyce also call for modifications to the NGSS by eliminating some of the “more technical performance expectations.” This call to eliminate performance expectations shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the NGSS, and it would compromise the strength of the document, a coherency developed by focusing on a smaller number of concepts with increasing sophistication.

The claim that NGSS ignores the civic purpose of science education contradicts the vision of science education described in both the NGSS and the Framework for K-12 Science Education. The NGSS introduction states that the standards were designed to “give local educators the flexibility to design classroom learning experiences that stimulate students’ interests in science and prepares them for college, careers, and citizenship” (NGSS Lead States, 2013, p. 1). The first page of the Framework, a document intended to be used in tandem with the NGSS, describes the vision of quality science education as one where “all students . . . possess sufficient knowledge of science and engineering to engage in public discussions on related issues [and] are careful consumers of scientific and technological information related to their everyday lives” (National Research Council, 2012, p. 1).

We agree with the authors’ identification of important aspects of scientific literacy — identifying junk science, using nature of science perspectives, understanding public health, appreciating the role of science organizations, and teaching through local priorities. However, mischaracterizing the NGSS does not move science education forward. Instead, we believe that it is best to address these issues in strong, locally responsive, standards-based curricula.

Related: Science standards: The authors respond

References

National Research Council. (2012). A framework for K-12 science education: Practices, crosscutting concepts, and core ideas. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

NGSS Lead States. (2013). Next Generation Science Standards: For states, by states. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.