Since 2009, American eighth graders have taken the National Assessment of Educational Progress Science Assessment to measure “their ability to engage in scientific inquiry and to conduct scientific investigations in real-world contexts.”
In 2024, the average score on the NAEP Science Assessment decreased by four points from 2019.
Even worse, the Nation’s Report Card notes that there was a “lower percentage of eighth graders at or above NAEP Proficient and higher percentage below NAEP Basic in science compared to 2019” and a “decline in average scores and scores for middle- and lower-performing students in all three science content areas compared to 2019.”
That is not good; in fact, it is an indictment of the totally broken public education system that has become derelict in its duty of properly educating students in science because too much time and effort is spent indoctrinating American students with climate change propaganda.
The infusion of climate alarmism into the public school curriculum has occurred in earnest for more than a decade, beginning with the 2013 launch of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).
Billed as a “new set of voluntary, rigorous, and internationally benchmarked standards for K-12 science education,” the NGSS claimed the new standards were “grounded in a sound, evidence-based foundation of current scientific research-including research on the ways students learn science effectively-and identify the science all K-12 students should know.”
Although the NGSS has not been universally adopted, nearly all states have implemented new science standards based on their framework since their release in 2013.
According to a report titled “Climate Change in the Next Generation Science Standards (K-12)” conducted by the University of Maryland’s Learning Sciences Research Team, “Science teachers have stated that standards, like the NGSS, are one of the main reasons for teaching climate change.”
The authors note that “Standards explicitly addressing climate change are present at the middle and high school levels. These standards use the terms ‘global temperatures,’ ‘changes in climate,’ or ‘climate change.’ One middle school standard addresses the cause of rising global temperatures (MS-ESS3-5). At the high school level, standards introduce the constructs of evidence for climate change (HS-ESS3-1), climate modeling (HS-ESS2-4, HS-ESS35), and geoengineering (HS-ESS3-4).”
“Also of importance are standards that are proximally related to climate change. Proximal standards are those that are considered “close” to the climate change topic, but are not explicitly related to climate change. These proximal standards are present at all grade levels from K-12,” the report states.
In other words, the NGSS, which almost all public schools use as a foundation for their specific science standards, are politically infused and designed to introduce the concept of climate change to students starting in kindergarten.
Some states have taken climate propaganda in the classroom much further.
For instance, in 2020, New Jersey “became the first state in the nation to include climate change across content areas. These standards are designed to prepare students to understand how and why climate change happens, the impact it has on our local and global communities and to act in informed and sustainable ways.”
New Jersey school districts are encouraged to “develop interdisciplinary units focused on climate change that include authentic learning experiences, integrate a range of perspectives and are action oriented.”
Moreover, “districts may want to consider how they can design interdisciplinary climate change units that incorporate relevant ELA and mathematics standards.”
This is madness.
American students are woefully deficient in core subject areas like math, reading, writing, and science. As such, precious classroom time should be exclusively dedicated to ensuring that U.S. students can at least meet the basic level of competence in said subjects instead of becoming experts in the pseudo-science of climate alarmism.
