Here in Kentucky, students have to accept a preordained party line

In a stunning development that caught many by surprise, the West Virginia Board of Education has added an interesting feature into its new adoption of standards for science. WSAZ-3 reports that in West Virginia:

“…students will be allowed to use scientific models to draw their own conclusions about climate change.”

The new West Virginia policy involves a modification of standard “boiler plate” language in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Those are the very same standards that Kentucky adopted verbatim in 2013 by executive fiat when Governor Beshear over-rode the vote of the Kentucky legislature’s Administrative Regulations Review Subcommittee and directed full adoption of the NGSS despite a negative vote from that committee.

Thanks to the bias built in to the NGSS, here in Kentucky our students probably won’t get to practice real, inquisitive science about climate. After all, NGSS’ standard “ESS3.D: Global Climate Change,” specifically declares that “Human activities, such as the release of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, are major factors in the current rise in Earth’s mean surface temperature (global warming).” That absolute declaration leaves no opening for inquiry and question.

Meanwhile, in West Virginia, they might just have a little better grasp on how real science works and how their students should be introduced to important, but controversial and highly politicized, subjects.