Superintendent of Public Instruction Diane Douglas

Religion, and how it’s taught in public schools, was at the heart of a controversy at the Arizona State Board of Education meeting yesterday. The board voted on a new set of science, history, and social science standards for K through 12 education. KNAU’s Melissa Sevigny reports.

The new Arizona Science Standards, meant to guide K-12 science curriculum, have been plagued with controversy for their treatment of evolution. The Arizona Department of Education spent more than a year convening committees to hammer out language everyone can agree on. The latest version will be presented to the Board of Education on Monday—but in an unexpected move, the Superintendent of Public Instruction has already decided not to recommend it. KNAU’s Melissa Sevigny reports.

An association of British science teachers sent a letter of rebuke to the Arizona Department of Education for its controversial attitude toward evolution. KNAU’s Melissa Sevigny reports.

The standards for teaching Science, and History, to Arizona schoolkids are undergoing their first revisions in more than a decade. A committee of 100 educators, parents and community members hammered out the Science document in a year-long process. But the Department of Education made unexpected last-minute changes, shifting from big ideas to vocabulary words and watering down the concept of evolution. KNAU’s Melissa Sevigny reports, some experts are alarmed.