The museum is a monument to the failure of education.
o Bob Park, “What’s New,” May 25, 2007
[See full quote below the fold]
Quote of the Moment: Physicist Bob Park, on the Creationism Museum
May 25, 2007
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Bogus history, Creationism, Natural history, Science, Science and faith, Voodoo history | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Who was the first woman in the U.S. Senate?
May 25, 2007If you answered “Margaret Chase Smith, the Senator from Maine,” you’d be close, but not close enough. Can you tell when she served, even?
David Parker is back from his vacation; in merely noting that he’s back, he pointed to this article about the first woman to serve in the U.S. Senate. Having spent so much time prowling those halls, and having lived with so many people who are so steeped in Senate history, the information caught me a little off guard. 
Who is it, if it’s not Smith? Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Capturing history, Politics, U.S. Senate, Women's rights | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Utah voucher fight: Ball of confusion
May 25, 2007It’s not clear who will win in the bloody vouchers war going on in Utah — it’s only clear that, once again, public education, students and teachers, lose.
Utah’s legislature, a bastion of Republican conservatism in the last decade or so, passed a voucher bill in its just-ended regular session. Conservative legislature, conservative governor — a law authorizing vouchers is what should be expected these days, no? What the advocates of vouchers failed to take into account has made this quite a drama.
Utah’s voters don’t like vouchers much, but love their public schools a lot.
So, the Utah state board of education opposed the measure. A hint of graft in existing alternatives to public schools angered many citizens. Opponents pointed to, among other things, the possibility that vouchers would vacuum funding from public schools — Utah is already dead last in per-pupil spending in the U.S.
It’s turned into a real donneybrook. [Bloody details below the fold.] Read the rest of this entry »
16 Comments | Economics, Education, Education reform, Education spending, Elections, Politics, School vouchers | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 