Miami, Florida. Photo by Denys Kostyuchenko on Unsplash.
"Florida's proposed new academic standards for science downplay evolution, ignore 'climate change' and represent a step backwards for public education, according to several experts who’ve reviewed them," the Orlando Sentinel (September 30, 2026) reported — and NCSE's Deputy Director Glenn Branch was among the experts quoted.
The proposed standards, which would replace the current standards, adopted in 2008, were released for public comment on September 25, 2026, on the state department of education's website. Three meetings for public comment — two in-person and one online — were scheduled, although two have already been held.
Bertha Vazquez, a former middle school science teacher in Miami and now the director of the Teacher Institute for Evolutionary Science, told the Sentinel that Florida would be "moving backward" with the proposed standards. "If it's not broken, why the hell are we fixing it?" Vazquez, a recipient of NCSE’s Friend of Darwin award, asked. "We had smash bang good standards" with regard to evolution.
The current standards received a D for their treatment of climate change in "Making the Grade?" — the 2020 study by NCSE and the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund. The proposed standards omit the phrases "climate change" and "global warming," which NCSE's Branch found ironic because "Florida is particularly vulnerable to the disruptive effects of climate change."
In addition to the failings with regard to evolution and climate change, Branch told the Sentinel that the proposed standards are "a mile wide and an inch deep," with close to 1000 benchmarks in high school science for teachers to cover — many of them amounting to trivia or definitions. "This is an old-fashioned approach," he summarized.
Oddly, the proposed standards, unlike the vast majority of state science standards in use today, including the Next Generation Science Standards, are not based on the National Research Council's 2012 A Framework for K-12 Science Education. It is unclear who made the decision to ignore the Framework and on what basis.
A follow-up story in the Orlando Sentinel (October 1, 2026) described parents and teachers who attended the online meeting as "gobsmacked." Robin Williams, a retired science teacher, decried the downplaying of evolution: "Evolution is a fundamental underlying process unifying all of biology. To leave it out is ideology posing as biology."
Similarly, Brad Dupke, an earth science teacher, observed that the proposed standards would expect him to teach about fossils, requiring him to teach about both evolution and climate change. "We need to call a spade a spade instead of trying to dance around what it is. I can't teach geologic history of the Earth without being able to say how the climate changed."
"In addition to complaints about the state's proposed handling of evolution and climate change, several speakers said the standards were too numerous and lacked rigor," the Sentinel reported. Mindy Pearson, a former middle school science teacher, described the proposed standards as an "encyclopedia of scientific facts" rather than a framework for teaching.
The way in which the department is receiving comments was also criticized. "Instead of a single document, the department initially posted each standard on a separate page, requiring clicking through hundreds of pages to view all the standards." The standards are now compiled into three documents, but reviewing them still requires the reviewer to click hundreds of times.
Only one further meeting for public comment — to be held in DeFuniak Springs, Florida, population 6000 — remains. Comments will be accepted online on the state department of education's website through October 2026. Then the state board of education is scheduled to vote whether to accept the proposed standards in December 2026.
