Ohio House Bill 597 dead, for now
The authors of House Bill 597, the anti-common core science distorting bill introduced in the Ohio legislature, is dead for now. According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer (via NCSE), the bill won’t be debated or voted on this term. However, according to the bill’s author, Republican State Representative Andy Thompson, the issue will be revived in the next term of the Legislature. I’ll note that the Bill’s co-author, Republican Speaker Pro Tem Max Huffman, will be term-limited out of the Legislature and thus won’t be around to shepherd it.
As I argued previously on the Thumb, the Bill also enshrines a distorted representation of science education, focusing students on memorizing facts rather than learning the processes of science (see here and here and here). I’ll be interested to see if that same distortion appears when the issue is revived, if it is in fact revived.