Here you’ll find information about:
   - Minnesota’s science standards and why they matter
   - How the standards were developed
   - Why some people think – mistakenly – that the standards allow openings for Intelligent Design
   - A grade-by-grade summary of Minnesota’s science standards


     I have a personal interest in this - my own school district, Minnetonka, debated in December 2005 about whether or not Intelligent Design concepts should be taught in science classrooms. Five days before the Dover decision, our school board decided in a 5-2 vote that Minnetonka’s science standards, which emphasize a thorough understanding of evolutionary biology, align with the state standards, and that neither Minnesota’s nor Minnetonka’s standards allow or encourage the teaching of Intelligent Design/Creationism concepts to be taught in science classrooms.

What are the Minnesota Academic Standards?
     From the web site of the Minnesota Department of Education: “The Minnesota Department of Education is responsible for ensuring that Minnesota students receive instruction in the K-12 Minnesota Academic Standards. The state legislature enacts these standards, which the governor signs into law.”
     Public school districts in Minnesota are required by Minnesota law to teach the Minnesota Academic Standards, and to test students on their mastery of the contents. Local school boards can, and often do, develop academic standards which go above and beyond the state standards. But the state standards provide the framework for educating Minnesota students. The science standards were to have been fully implemented in every Minnesota school district by the 2005-06 school year.
     Among the graduation requirements for a high school diploma in Minnesota, students must have at least one credit of high school biology.

How The Minnesota Department of Education Works
     In Minnesota, the Commissioner of Education (currently Alice Seagren) is appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Legislature. The Minnesota Department of Education generally serves to publicize the Governor’s vision of education in the state, and to implement education policy as decided by the Minnesota Legislature.
     Governor Tim Pawlenty recently announced an initiative in science and math education, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math), saying, “We need to get our kids excited about STEM classes because the economic currency of the 21st century is math and science knowledge.”  
     In the past, Governor Pawlenty has been unclear about his position on including Intelligent Design in Minnesota classrooms; his first appointment for Commissioner of Education, Cheri Pierson Yecke was publicly supportive of Intelligent Design/Creationism. Dr. Yecke’s appointment was not confirmed, due at least in part to this stand. To Governor Pawlenty’s credit, he signed into law the current Minnesota Academic Standards for Science, which do not contain provisions for teaching Intelligent Design/Creationism.
    On the other hand, when several Minnetonka citizens spoke to officials at the Minnesota Department of Education in November and December 2005 to get clarification on whether or not the Minnesota standards allow or encourage teaching ID/Creationism, the reply was always the same: Minnesotans favor local control of school districts and the academic standards allow for this.

How the Science Standards Were Developed
     The current Minnesota state science standards were developed by about 65 citizens, educators and scientists who applied and/or were appointed to the science standards committee by then Commissioner of Education, Cheri Pierson Yecke in 2003. The committee began meeting in July of 2003 and finished its work in late November 2003, when it submitted the completed standards draft to the Commissioner. Four people from this committee of 60+ filed a “Minority Report” on December 7, 2003 with the Commissioner, saying they felt the proposed standards failed to require students to learn about “weaknesses” in the theory of evolution. 
       Evolution was the only topic in 23 pages of science standards to come under such scrutiny. And remember, the Minnesota standards agreed to by the larger committee already required students to be thoroughly versed in scientific inquiry, criticism and questioning.
     You can read the “Minority Report” on the web site of Intelligent Design Network.

Public Hearings on the Science Standards
     In January and February 2004, the Minnesota Legislature held public hearings around the state and at the Capitol so members of the public could comment on the proposed standards. The lead author of the “Minority Report,” Minnetonka School Board member Dave Eaton, argued that Intelligent Design and “the controversy about evolution” should be included in the state science standards to be taught in Minnesota public schools.
     Mr. Eaton was among those speaking at hearings in out state Minnesota and at the Capitol Education hearings, urging that the standards be changed to accommodate ID, creationism and other criticisms of evolution. Appearing with Mr. Eaton in opposition to the proposed standards were John Calvert, an attorney for Intelligent Design Network and Robert Frey, who believes dinosaurs and humans lived together and who connects the teaching of evolution to rising crime rates.

MN Legislature Adopts Standards as Originally Written 
     On May 16, 2004, the Minnesota Legislature voted to adopt the science standards as originally written by the full committee, rejecting the arguments they’d heard from ID and creationism proponents. Governor Pawlenty signed the unaltered standards into law.
     The standards do not contain provisions to teach Intelligent Design and they do not single out evolution for special critical attention, as noted in the December 2005 Fordham Foundation report. Their analysis of Minnesota's science standards  includes this conclusion: "...there is no evidence so far in Minnesota's standards of effort to weaken evolutionary biology."
     So the ID/Creationism proponents lost the battle in Minnesota, though not for lack of trying. See a summary of the standards process written by two MnCSE board members. 

News Reports: Minnesota Standards Say Teach ID 
     On May 17, 2004, the Discovery Institute of Seattle, the primary promoters of Intelligent Design, issued a press release.
      What a coincidence! - this was the day after the MN Legislature approved the science standards as written by the full committee, rejecting the arguments made by ID proponents. Was the Discovery Institute trying to spin the decision in their favor? It would seem so – the press release cuts and pastes from the actual standards, making it appear that evolution is singled out for special criticism. This quite simply is untrue – the full text of the passage in question reads as follows:

“The student will understand the nature of scientific ways of thinking and that scientific knowledge changes and accumulates over time.
1. The student will be able to distinguish among hypothesis, theory and law as scientific terms and how they are used to answer a specific question.
2. The student will be able to explain how scientific and technological innovations as well as new evidence can challenge portions of or entire accepted theories and models including but not limited to cell theory, atomic theory, theory of evolution, plate tectonic theory, germ theory of disease and big bang theory.
3. The student will recognize that in order to be valid, scientific knowledge must meet certain criteria including that it: be consistent with experimental, observational and inferential evidence about nature; follow rules of logic and reporting both methods and procedures; and, be falsifiable and open to criticism.
4. The student will explain how traditions of ethics, peer review, conflict and general consensus influences the conduct of science.
5. The student will recognize that some scientific ideas are incomplete, and opportunity exists in these areas for new advances.”

     Unfortunately, the misleading press release has been repeated so many times that news organizations are quoting each other about states which allow or encourage teaching ID in public school science classrooms. The Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune issued corrections after reading the Minnesota science standards in their entirety, but this misrepresentation is repeated nearly every time ID is in the news.  

   The point is, the Minnesota science standards make it clear that students are expected to think critically about all of science, not just about the theory of evolution, and they are to use scientific inquiry and scientific methodology to do so.


Evolution in the Standards 

     Because evolution is the foundational concept for all of biology and life science, you’d expect it to be woven throughout Minnesota’s science standards. And it is.
     And because scientific inquiry is the foundational concept for examining the natural world, you’d also expect that to be woven throughout our standards. And it is.

     You can see the entire science standards document, dated December 2003, at the Minnesota Department of Education site. (Scroll to the bottom of that page to download your own copy.) 

   For my grade-by-grade summary of the Minnesota Academic Standards for Science, please see the Standards Summary

Judy Budreau
September 2006