One Small Victory: W.Va. state school board moves back toward original climate change standards

[n2doc]

After widespread criticism from teachers, professors and others, the West Virginia Board of Education voted Wednesday to withdraw a set of science education standards containing controversial modifications to the teaching of climate change.

The new version, which will be open for a 30-day public comment period, doesn’t contain the alterations to the three standards on climate change the board earlier approved.

Clayton Burch, executive director of the state’s Office of Early Learning and interim associate state superintendent, said the version will be up for a board vote in March. The standards will go into effect for the 2016-17 school year.

After previously defending the changes as a way to foster student debate and critical thinking on the topic, the Department of Education recommended at Wednesday’s meeting going back on the alterations.

- See more at: http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20150114/GZ01/150119623#sthash.yz70IUrY.dpuf

[callous taoboy]

1. “Peer-review is really what makes science work.”

“One of the things we did as scientists is, we depended on peer-review,” White said. “Peer-review is really what makes science work.”

The peer-reviewed science overwhelmingly shows that human greenhouse gas emissions are a major driver of global warming. The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has released dire reports about climate change impacts with a more than 95 percent certainty that humans are the main cause.

This denial of what constitutes science is of major concern to me. Texas, my home state, at least got rid of one of the biggest anti-science assholes, Don McLeroy, a couple of years ago, but our SBOE is still full of ignorant people lacking a basic understanding of science.