New science targets fall in nearly half the union.

Nearly half of the states in the U.S. fail or nearly fail when it comes to teaching statewide academic standards in science for primary and secondary grades.

The first comprehensive study of science academic standards since 2000, The State of State Science Standards 2005, sponsored and published by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, reviewed the quality of each state's K-12 science standards as the No Child Left Behind Act will mandate testing in this subject in 2008.

Fifteen states flunked and another seven had "D" grades. Nine states and Washington, D.C., only earned "C" grades based on how well the standards met criteria including if the standards had clear and fair expectations by grade level, and if the standards were organized in a sensible way, showing logical progression from grade to grade and easily navigated so teachers and parents could understand them.

The "A" states include California, Indiana, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York, South Carolina and Virginia.

Low-scoring states shared common pitfalls such as missing facts and concepts that are integral to physics, chemistry and biology and had an obsession with discovery learning, which is leaving children to uncover scientific concepts without guiding them to the underlying core of scientific knowledge.

And as in 2000, 12 states do an "awful job" addressing evolution, or in one case, explaining it, but they also do the same job addressing the rest of science, says lead author Paul R. Gross.