A new set of state science standards for South Carolina's public schools was approved by the South Carolina state board of education on May 11, 2021, and by the independent non-partisan Education Oversight Committee on June 14, 2021.
The previous standards were adopted in 2014 only after a high school standard addressing evolution was removed at the behest of the Education Oversight Committee, as NCSE previously reported. And the 2014 standards received the grade of F in "Making the Grade?" — the NCSE/TFNEF report on the treatment of climate change in state science standards across the country — for their "incomplete and piecemeal approach" to climate change.
In contrast, the treatment of evolution and climate change in the new standards is comparable to that of the Next Generation Science Standards. The state department of education described the adoption as "a huge success for students of South Carolina."
