Freshman Rep. Syme led move in House Ed to delete climate change from school science standards

Freshman Rep. Scott Syme, R-Caldwell, led a move in the House Education Committee this morning to delete references to climate change and human impact on the environment from a new set of science standards for the state’s schools, Idaho EdNews reports. Syme said he thought the deleted portions “didn’t seem to me to present both sides of the picture.”

After the meeting, Syme told EdNews reporter Clark Corbin that he decided he needed to take a closer look at the science standards after receiving many emails “from all over the state” urging support for them; Syme, a real estate broker and decorated Army veteran, said he suspected the emails were a coordinated effort from an organization. He said he thought the rules as proposed, developed by the state Department of Education, a state Board of Education subcommittee and a team of some of the state’s most top science teachers and vetted through public hearings before being temporarily enacted by the state board earlier this year, presented “mainly the adverse impacts and didn’t discuss what positive impact they can have on the environment.”

Syme said, “What I’m looking for is to have the public say, ‘Yeah, maybe we can see there was a one-sided presentation on the negative side and, hey, let’s talk about this and both sides of the issue.’”

Rep. Paul Amador, R-Coeur d’Alene, moved to approve the standards as submitted; Syme made a substitute motion to delete the climate change parts. That carried on a voice vote, with just the panel’s three Democrats asking to be recorded as voting “no.”

State schools Superintendent Sherri Ybarra told Syme she could live with the changes, and said rewritten language could refer to either “the rise or the fall” of global temperatures, Corbin reported. Last year, legislators quietly rejected a different slate of proposed standards after a legislator also raised objections to language addressing human impact on the environment. You can read Corbin’s full report here , including the sections that were deleted from the standards.

Amador said he supported the original standards because he wants to remove politics from education policy and trusted the Idaho teachers who developed the standards. “While I appreciate teaching both sides, I think this was a very transparent process where we relied on our highly qualified educators,” Amador told the committee.

House Assistant Minority Leader Ilana Rubel, D-Boise, blasted the vote in a statement, saying, “It is deeply disappointing that the Idaho Legislature not only continues to deny basic scientific facts, but now insists that we misinform our youth as well. School should be a place where facts are shared, not suppressed.”

It’s unclear what will happen next. The Senate Education Committee hasn’t yet taken up the science standards rule.