The legislature rejected Governor Brown’s proposal to eliminate the state mandate requiring a second year of high school science. On June 27, the legislature passed the education trailer bills (AB 1476 and SB 1016). The bills contained no language to modify the high school science graduation requirement as proposed by Governor Brown in his January and May budget proposals. Our most sincere thanks goes out to all of you who contacted their legislators and let them know that diminishing the high school science graduation requirements was a step in the wrong direction for California’s future. (more…)

The California Legislature has successfully protected the existing funding mechanism for the second year science class graduation requirement. The state budget vote that occurred today did not include this issue.

Because the issue remains fluid, and until such time as the governor signs the budget and the anticipated education trailer bill (expected early next week) CSTA urges you to continue to bring awareness around this issue by sharing this information broadly and signing the petition to Save Science. (more…)

by Dean Gilbert

Science education is about more than a body of knowledge, about more than the accumulation of facts and formulas. It is about how we understand the world around us, how we learn to be problem solvers, and about developing skills essential in a changing world. Not only skills of science and engineering, but skills of an engaged, thoughtful, and efficacious citizenry.

Governor Brown’s proposal to eliminate the second year laboratory science high school graduation requirement, as a means of saving 250 million dollars annually, will have devastating consequences for our schools and the nation.  It contradicts every message being sent across the airwaves, at every level of government and industry, that science education is critical to the future economy of the United States. (more…)

On June 7, CSTA president Rick Pomeroy was a featured guest on KQED’s Forum which addressed Governor Brown’s proposal to eliminate the second year science graduation requirement.