Wyoming has the best legislature Big Coal and Big Oil's money can buy. The Republican dominated legislature is so afraid of offending the state's Coal and Oil Barrons that they're planning to dumb down the state schools science curriculum so it won't displease them.
Wyoming first state to block new science standards
By LEAH TODD
Wyoming is the first state to block a new set of national science standards, but a week after Gov. Matt Mead signed off on the change, education advocates are still digesting what the action means for the state.
Some say the provision, which came through a last-minute budget footnote, blocks the state from considering any part of the Next Generation Science Standards, a set of K-12 standards developed by national science education groups and representatives from 26 states.
Climate controversy
One of lawmakers' big concerns with the Next Generation Science Standards is an expectation that students will understand humans have significantly altered the Earth's biosphere. In other words, the standards say global warming is real.
That's a problem for some Wyoming lawmakers.
"[The standards] handle global warming as settled science," said Rep. Matt Teeters, a Republican from Lingle who was one of the footnote's authors. "There's all kind of social implications involved in that that I don't think would be good for Wyoming."
Teeters said teaching global warming as fact would wreck Wyoming's economy, as the state is the nation's largest energy exporter, and cause other unwanted political ramifications.
Micheli, the state board of education chairman, agreed.
"I don't accept, personally, that [climate change] is a fact," Micheli said. "[The standards are] very prejudiced in my opinion against fossil-fuel development."
Before the budget footnote passed, a committee of about 30 science specialists unanimously recommended the state board of education adopt the Next Generation Science Standards.
The board did not adopt the standards.
Instead, board members asked the committee to revise the standards to present climate change as a theory, instead of a fact, and to present the benefits mineral extraction has brought Wyoming, Micheli said.
Its sad that in Wyoming even a craven ignoramus like Micheli can become the Chairman of the State Board of Education.
Wyoming's legislature and Micheli know the what kind of book-learning them young'uns need! The kind of education that won't upset Gregory Boyce the CEO of Peabody Energy.