For many years I have been concerned about the drift of the science reform movement and of the state and national standards that have, in effect, redefined science in postmodernist terms. I would like to brief you on two specific matters that are of immediate concern to many of us who disapprove of current trends in science education. After protest from the scientific community, this statement was removed from later printings of the document. . . . The scientific community was co-opted into eliminating the most outrageous statements in NSES and making it appear to be more balanced than in fact it really is.
Teachers focus inquiry predominantly on real phenomena . . .
It thus is very different from traditional laboratory-based science, in which students learn to systematically use methods and equipment appropriate toward ends determined by the curriculum. Inquiry to educators includes activities we would consider prescience, and even antiscience. Students explore features that make flight possible . . . The distinctions among a projectile, a glider, and powered flight are never made, or even suggested. There is no inquiry into lift, or Bernoulli's principle.