The number of school boards officially objecting to the state's proposed new science standards is likely to double by the time the state Board of Education makes a decision Feb. 19, Wayne Blanton (left), executive director of the Florida School Boards Association, told The Gradebook. But the association as a whole isn't likely to take a stand, he said.

To date, seven of Florida's 67 school boards – all of them in culturally conservative North Florida - have passed opposition resolutions, according to the Florida Citizens for Science, which has been methodically searching board minutes and newspaper archives ever since it was reported that Taylor County Superintendent Oscar Howard said at a Jan. 8 public hearing that the Taylor board and 11 others had put their objections in writing. (Howard told The Gradebook he wasn't sure which ones had done so.)

Blanton said he expects the number to rise as high as 12 or 14. "It just shows the nature of Florida," he said. "This is a huge and diverse state. We have some very conservative boards … and some very liberal boards."

To date, nobody has asked the association as a whole to take a stand, Blanton said, and association rules – which require a two-thirds vote by members to adopt a statewide or legislative issue - make it unlikely. Blanton said he talked to the association's executive committee about the issue last weekend, and "they looked at me and said we probably can't do a two-thirds vote."

Blanton also said he did not think any organized group was leading the charge in North Florida. There is a lot of speculation (see this post, for example) that a coordinated effort is underway, given the almost identical wording in many of the resolutions. But "I think one board did it, another looked at it" and then it grew, Blanton said. "I think it fed its own flames."

- Ron Matus, state education reporter