Florida education commissioner Henry Mack defends science standards rewrite as critics fault treatment of evolution and climate

Florida Education Commissioner Henry Mack defended the state's proposed K-12 science standards on Tuesday, Oct. 27, telling critics at Lake Buena Vista High School in Orange County that evolution and climate science remain in the draft even where the words do not appear. The stop was the last on the Department of Education's public listening tour before the State Board of Education considers the standards in December.

The proposal is the state's first comprehensive rewrite of its science standards since 2008. Teachers, parents and scientists have objected to how the draft handles evolution and human-caused climate change, and to the sheer number of benchmarks teachers would be expected to cover, according to Central Florida Public Media reporting published by WUSF and WFSU.

What Mack said

Appearing with Senior Chancellor Paul Burns and Lake Buena Vista High Principal Maricarmen Aponte, Mack argued that the concepts critics say are missing are still embedded in the standards, even when familiar scientific terms are absent from individual benchmarks.

"It's my commitment that students are not going to walk away with anything other than" a robust, real and grounded understanding of scientific truth, Mack said, one that includes climate science and evolutionary biology.

He acknowledged that the word evolution appears in only a few units, and said the department is working to make evolutionary biology more explicit. At the same time, he said the state wants to avoid presenting evolution through random mutation and natural selection as "settled science." The term evolution is not defined anywhere in the proposed high school life science standards.

The evolution debate

Florida's current standards were adopted in 2008 after a statewide fight over whether evolution should be taught in public schools. They made evolution central to biology instruction, calling it "the fundamental concept underlying all of biology."

Joshua Garrett, a middle school teacher in Orange County Public Schools, told Mack that the current standards refer explicitly to the scientific theory of evolution, but the new middle school draft does not consistently name it. "The information is there, but the fact that it's not explicitly stated as what they're trying to say is a little troubling," Garrett said.

Garrett also objected to the removal of language on the nature of science, such as how theories are developed, how experiments are replicated and how a theory differs from a hypothesis.

When the draft was released at the start of October, participants in an online statewide session listed other terms they could not find, including gene flow, genetic drift, the origins of life, evidence of evolution, genetics and DNA transcription, Central Florida Public Media reported. Middle school standards still refer to natural selection. Robin Williams, a retired biology and environmental science teacher, said then, "Evolution is a fundamental underlying process unifying all of biology, to leave it out is ideology posing as biology."

Climate change and the 'word count' dispute

Climate change is not mentioned by name in the proposed standards, Central Florida Public Media reported when the draft was released. Earth science is reorganized around broader topics such as planet Earth and space, while the current standards include climate and Earth's systems among the concepts students study.

Mack had posted on social media a count of 47 instances of the word "climate" in the standards for grades 9 through 12. Stephana Ferrell, the parent of an incoming Orange County freshman, said that did not settle the question. "Counting a word is not the same as teaching a subject," Ferrell said. She also questioned the state's influence over classroom instruction, saying state policies may leave some teachers feeling constrained in what they can teach.

At an earlier listening session, a department official said it was not intentional that certain topics or words were left out, according to the Florida Phoenix.

The 'Book of Creation' remark

Several commenters, mostly at an earlier virtual listening session in October, questioned Mack's reference to the "Book of Creation" in a Department of Education Facebook post introducing the draft. The post said "science begins in wonder, not in ideology." Critics argued the language could open the door to religious ideas in science classrooms.

Mack said the phrase was a metaphor and that he stands by it. "I explicitly said that we are not attempting to smuggle any kind of ideology into the standards, religious or otherwise," he said.

When the draft was released, Mack's statement said the new standards would form students who "observe carefully, reason rigorously" and "treat the natural world as something given to be known, not invented."

Too many standards for the school year?

Teri O'Connor, an Orange County elementary science teacher with nearly two decades of experience, raised a practical objection: the draft contains more than 100 kindergarten standards to be taught in a 180-day school year, while science competes with other subjects for instruction time. "We need to teach the rigor of it and to critically think about each one, that's difficult," O'Connor said.

Burns said the department deliberately writes more standards than any single course is expected to teach, giving districts and schools flexibility in choosing what to emphasize. He also said the department may need to do better at encouraging students to question what they are taught. "I don't want students walking away blindly believing anything as fact without the ability to scrutinize it or question it," Burns said.

Supporters weigh in

Not every speaker was critical. Kathleen Murray, state education director for Citizens Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian organization, backed the rewrite and said students should question scientific theories and "be honest about the limits of what scientific models can actually prove."

Dania Victores of Polk County said the changes are "setting the foundation" for students in science. "Science advances through respectful disagreement," she said.

Some educators see opportunity in the rewrite's emphasis on hands-on work. Andrea Borowczak, director of the University of Central Florida's School of Teacher Education, said earlier this month, "The biggest thing for me when I look at the rewrite is that the rewrite is about doing science seriously," pointing to its focus on modeling, lab practice, data analysis and evidence.

How the draft was built

The department began reviewing the science standards in 2024, working with educators, school administrators, instructional coaches and higher education faculty. Its stated goals include making the standards easier to understand, improving how concepts build from grade to grade, maintaining rigor and emphasizing scientific reasoning.

The listening tour opened in Hillsborough County, and a virtual statewide session drew nearly 300 participants at its peak, most of them educators. The department has received nearly 1,800 public comments, has already made revisions in response and says the draft will continue to change before it goes to the board. Written comments are accepted through the department's standards review website.

The rewrite could also ripple into higher education. University faculty who train future teachers say they will compare the proposed standards with existing benchmarks and adjust teacher preparation programs to the state's timeline.

What's next

The science standards team will review the feedback gathered on the tour and refine the draft before the State Board of Education considers it in December. If the board adopts the standards, the state would then update instructional materials and train teachers, with implementation in classrooms expected to begin in the 2028-29 school year.

The final draft will show whether the department follows through on Mack's pledge to make evolutionary biology more explicit, and whether the word evolution gains a definition in the high school life science standards before the board votes.