Letters to the Editor: Grades K-12 Iowa science standards to be changed

The Iowa Department of Education quietly released a draft of the new K-12 Iowa Academic Science Standards (IASS) for public review on Jan. 3, 2025, with a deadline for comment coming quickly on Feb. 3.

We encourage the public to respond loudly. While the proposed revision shares many commonalities with the current IASS adopted in 2015, it removes key concepts of species evolution and climate change. The proposed revision also has structural problems that can impede science teachers’ use of the standards, grammatical errors and errors in the science that will impact educators’ and students’ science knowledge. Unfortunately, there is no document that summarizes and provides a rationale for the changes.

Here are a few examples of the changes made:

• The word “evolution” has been scrubbed from K-12 life science standards (LS4 K-12).
• The phrases “human impacts” and “climate change” have been scrubbed (MS-ESS-3-5; HS-ESS-3-5)
• The Science and Engineering Practices were altered to eliminate engineering to become just “practices of scientists.” Inconsistently, the phrase “science and engineering practices” appears periodically in the document.

We encourage you to call for the wording in the IASS 2015 dealing with evolution and climate change to be retained. You can let the DOE know what you think of the proposed standards by submitting comments online by Feb. 3 and commenting virtually or in person at one of the remaining public forums.

Birgitta Meade, Science Teacher and Science Education Instructor, Decorah

Melissa Koch, Author & Educator, Teachers, Schools & Society, 6th Edition, McGraw-Hill

Grassley not done yet

Chuck Grassley has a complex legacy.  He has represented Iowa in Washington, D.C., since 1975. In his half century working for the federal government, he has become a multi-millionaire. For someone who claims to work on behalf of Iowans, Chuck Grassley’s never-ending time as a swamp-loving insider has done the opposite. Over his decades in D.C., he has aided and abetted all of the giant multi-international ag corporations in their greed and profit driven consolidation and concentration of everything that produces our food as it squeezes the people and life out of rural America.

Grassley has contributed as much as anyone to making Iowa farmers serfs on their own land. Turning Iowa’s rural landscape into a black desert and our rivers into sewers. He’s proud that he visits every Iowa county every year where he’s had a comfortable front seat view witnessing the relentless boarding up of main street businesses in hundreds of Iowa towns and cities. The pleas from rural life whistle blowers ignored. Instead, Grassley and Republicans have used their positions to masterfully seed and harvest a bumper crop of government distrust, anger and resentment from good rural people rather than actually do the hard work.

Grassley sought his fame by blocking Medicare from negotiating lower drug prices, strongly opposing health insurance provided by the popular Affordable Care Act and leading the effort to stack the Supreme Court with MAGA activist judges that replaced a women’s right to choose when to be pregnant with government-mandated pregnancy.  He has worked hard to bring home the bacon in the farm bill safety net that has contributed to our $36 trillion national debt.

Grassley is not done cementing his legacy. In the days ahead he has the responsibility to decide on Trump’s axe grinding, unqualified nominees to lead the Justice and Defense departments, FBI and CIA. Grassley knows that Trump is deeply flawed and his wrecking ball nominees will make Americans less safe.  

You would think that by the time you’re 91 years old you would be able to freely speak your mind and stand up to bullies.  For Chuck Grassley that won’t be easy.  Since being captured by the Trump Cult, any shred of his “independent” voice or Iowa sensibility has evaporated. So, I’m not holding my breath, because as the sun sets, Grassley works for Grassley and always has.

Joe Bolkcom, Former state senator, Des Moines

Imagine President Carter

For his recent funeral in the Washington National Cathedral, Jimmy Carter’s family (maybe Carter himself?) chose one of his favorite songs, John Lennon’s “Imagine.”

I didn’t imagine the firestorm of condemnation from some journalists and religious leaders who imagined atheistic humanism’s assault on America.

Could it be that President Carter imagined something different? Like relegating religion to an important element of culture — but not the catalyst for genocide it has so often been?

I prefer to imagine that President Carter heard peace as the theme of that song. Peace not as a dormant situation, but peace achieved through battles for adequate nutrition, health care, decent housing, a chance for an education, fair elections and freedom of expression without the fear of reprisal. Did he imagine peace as a result of satisfying humanitarian needs? Carter must have imagined those things — because he worked for them to the very end.

At the dawn of our nation’s 249th year and 47th presidency, what good will we imagine — and work to achieve?  

Karen Heidman, Sioux City

Predictions for 2025

With permission from The Prairie Progressive (online at www.theprairieprogressive.com), here are some of Prairie Dog’s predictions for Iowa in 2025.

Caitlin Clark announces her retirement from professional basketball. “I need a break from all the attention,” says Clark after becoming the first female monk at the New Melleray monastery in Dubuque.  She denies that a deal is in the works for her to endorse Trappist caskets crafted at the monastery.

The University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics announces its annexation of the city of Iowa City.  The latest expansion is approved by the Board of Regents, on the condition that no ideological agenda is included in the new city charter.

Gov. Kim Reynolds submits a new plan to the federal government to address childhood hunger in Iowa: each low-income child will be provided with a bow and three arrows.  According to Department of Human Services director Kelly Garcia, the plan will build self-sufficiency, reduce obesity, and honor the sacred traditions of the state’s original hunter-gatherers.

Loosened gaming regulations in Iowa allow gamblers to bet on the number of wrecks on I-380, the number of quarterbacks leaving the Hawkeye football team, and how much money Dan Kehl will spend to block a casino in Cedar Rapids.

Newly appointed Lieutenant Governor Chris Cournoyer puts her Scott County home on the market. The lease requires the next owner to claim that Representative Marionette Miller-Meeks lives there.

Having won Johnson County by a single vote, Nikki Haley moves to Coralville to prepare for the 2028 Republican caucuses. 

In response to a recommendation by the Board of Regents, the University of Iowa changes the name of its College of Liberal Arts to the College of Liberty and Freedom Arts.

Although quick to support honored Iowa institutions like meatpacking plants, ethanol, and the caucuses, Senator Grassley remains silent as Donald Trump sues the Selzer poll and Des Moines Register.

The Satanic Temple’s booth is the surprise hit of the Iowa State Fair. Thousands enjoy deep-fried devil’s food cake on a stick and tattoo decals of the First Amendment while visiting the Butter Satan.

Gov. Reynolds proposes a ban on “ambiguously-gendered names” for children born in Iowa. Her proposal exempts Kim, Chris and Kelly. The only Republican to object is House Speaker Pat Grassley.

Planned Parenthood and the Emma Goldman Clinic merge into a non-profit travel agency as they send women to neighboring states for health care no longer available in Iowa.

On the off-chance that Iowa will matter, Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez schedule vacations at Lake Okoboji.

More Iowans gradually realize that the state’s new flat income tax shifts the burden to the middle class while cutting revenue for education and other basic services. No prediction is available as to how they will vote in 2026.

Dave Leshtz, Iowa City

Bets on the 2025 session

Here’s a thought. With Republicans in complete control at the Statehouse, and committed to lowering taxes and smaller government, and having a concept of a plan to accomplish both, it should be a slam dunk to wrap up the legislative session in a few weeks, shut the doors and go home — saving taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Here’s a bet. The Republicans will drag the session out as always, arguing about petty issues and collecting their available per diems right down to the last cent.

Jim Walters, Iowa City