Frankie looks out on the life he’s living. Film image by Peter H. Reynolds
Is your bus coming?
Will you get on it?
Or will you be late to that “meeting?”
A powerful tale written by Peter H. Reynolds. Animation and Direction by John Lechner and Peter H. Reynolds. Executive Producer, Gary Goldberger.
What can you do to let that kid out? Will you?
(Just who the hell is Peter H. Reynolds? Why isn’t he more famous?)
1 Comment | 
Education, Philosiphy, Religion, War on Education | Tagged: Education, Peter H. Reynolds, Philosophy | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
You need to see these slides, from Will Richardson.
First, teachers should send a copy of this to their evaluators, principals, and all other admins up to the superintendent. Sure, it’s possible they’ll fire you for telling the truth. But if every teacher in your district did it, they might look at the slides and ponder: What in the hell do our evaluations and test scores have to do with this new future that is already upon us, and around us, and washing away the foundations of what the state legislature claims we must be doing?
Will Richardson
Second, this is a model presentation. Notice how few of the slides are cluttered with words. Notice those slides with words are easy to read, easy to grasp, and complement and are complemented by a lot of great images. (One of my students got a less-than-A grade on a PowerPoint presentation in another class, and brought me the evaluation: “Not enough text,” was one of the criticisms he’d gotten. That teacher is considered a model by too many administrators.) It’s not a perfect presentation. Garr Reynolds would have a lot to say about it. I’ll wager Richardson’s is better than any other presentation you’ve seen this week, in the content, the depth of information, and the way it’s packaged. (Would have loved to have seen the presentation . . .) That is particularly true if you’ve been the victim of teacher professional development sessions in the past week.
There are a lot of slides, partly because so few of them are cluttered by text. (Don’t know how long the presentation went.) This presentation would win a case against almost every other slide presentation I’ve ever seen from any law firm, who pay tens of thousands to lawyers to make slide presentations that defy understanding. The world would be ever so much better were lawyers required to watch this, and compare it with their last presentation.
Third (related to and justifying the first), you need to realize how things have changed in the past year, past five years, past decade, and how we as a society and nation failed to account for those changes, or keep up with them, especially in our public AND private elementary and secondary schools. Richardson understands the changes, and has some great leads on answers.
This presentation appears to have been a hit. It seems a few people asked Will Richardson for copies (@WillRich45, www.willrichardson.com), which is why it’s on Slideshare.
Richardson highlights the importance of these thoughts at his blog:
If the recent iPad debacle in Los Angeles teaches us anything it’s that no amount of money and technology will change anything without a modern vision of what teaching and learning looks like when every student and every teacher has access to the Internet. As many of us have been saying for far too long, our strategy to deal with the continuing explosion of technology and connections can’t be to simply layer devices on top of the traditional curriculum and engage in digital delivery. Unfortunately, far too few develop a vision that sees that differently.
* * * * *
Please note: Technology is integrated throughout these initiatives in ways that serve the vision, not the other way around. This isn’t “let’s give everyone an iPad filled with a lot of textbook and personalized learning apps aimed at improving test scores and then figure out how to manage it.” This is about having important conversations around complex, difficult questions:
- What will schools look like in the future?
- What kinds of spaces do we need to support instruction and collaborative work in 5-10 years?
- How will technology transform curriculum, instruction, and assessment?
And how does it work at your school, teachers? Students?
We missed the revolution. The kids are ahead of us.
Can we catch up?
More:
1 Comment | Classroom management, Education, Education reform, Teachers, Teaching, Teaching Resources, Technology in the classroom, War on Education, War on Teachers | Tagged: Classroom technology, Education, Garr Reynolds, Leadership, Technology, Will Richardson | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Diane Ravitch gets much better e-mail than I do; Ravitch said (images added here):
This came in my private email:
Woman teaching geometry from Euclid’s Elements. Wikipedia image
As many of you know, I just retired from teaching, having spent most of my career in first grade. Over the last few years, my teaching had become gradually more restricted. Instead of running a center-based day, I was required to run scheduled periods of Fundations, Writing Workshop, Reading Workshop, and (this year) of Envision math. To encourage me to retire, my district had made a financial offer that was difficult to refuse. Almost simultaneously, my daughter had announced that she was pregnant with twins. The decision became easier and easier. As the pressures in New York State increased, I decided what I wanted to do after retire: support families, fight the tests, tutor children to learn DESPITE the tests. That would mean running workshops for parents about curriculum. But that’s not what I want to write about tonight. I want to tell you about my last few weeks of teaching, and about my last good lesson.
The district isn’t replacing me next year due to shrinking numbers. Once I announced my retirement, the vultures began to circle – teachers seeking furniture, leveled books, left over supplies. (All of a sudden, my hoarding had value!) Gradually, my room became emptier and emptier. You’d have thought that my teaching would have suffered, but — I LOVED IT, AND SO DID THE KIDS!!! Painting, gluing, research, math projects; WE ALL RELISHED THE CHANGE! It was a very special time – though teary, for some. I’m not sure why my retiring should result in so many sad children (since I wouldn’t have been their teacher the following year), but there you have it.
Joseph Highmore’s illustration of Pamela teaching her children (1743–45); in volume four of Samuel Richardson’s novel, Pamela, Pamela endorses much of Locke’s educational program, while at the same time claiming a valuable new role for mothers: educator.
Driving to school on my last full day, I thought about what I could teach that day in my empty classroom. All I had was art paper, scotch tape, and crayons. The kids had already taken home their markers. I thought about how I could say good-bye. I wanted to help them gain some perspective. I wanted them to know they had each other. (I’d already told them they could email.) I thought about how our paths had crossed and come together so arbitrarily, but how being together in this class had changed all our lives. And then I knew what I’d do!
I gave each child one piece of 12″ x18″ paper. I told them that each child was to draw a path across the paper. It could be straight across or curved or jagged – whatever. We agreed that the paths would be about a fist wide, and had to be drawn in purple. The rest of the paper was to be decorated with whatever else they thought might have been on their paths this year.
Everyone did as I requested after a few false starts. Some of the drawings were quite thoughtful and charming. I then told the kids that we were now going to connect our paths together. I was having a small get together that night, and I told the children we needed something on the wall. Immediately, some of the kids became excited, and tried to put their papers together. I suggested that the kids get on the floor and connect their paths like a puzzle, assemble their work on the floor, and that we’d move it to the wall later. I’d never done this activity before, and had no idea how it would turn out. Over the course of the next half hour, I kept telling myself: Remember, it’s process over product.
As the kids worked, I gradually stepped back. The children were making decisions about which paths connected, which looked best together, which should be moved to a different spot. There were no arguments, even though there were differences of opinion. I handed the kids scotch tape dispensers as needed. I mentioned to one little boy that it was great that there were no fights. He said to me, “Well, remember when I invented a game for the playground and then we all had a fight because I wanted to make all the rules? Remember how you explained to me how a true leader doesn’t make all the rules, but helps others to join in? Well – maybe that’s what we’ve all been doing.”
I was absolutely floored.
That’s when I knew how much I’d miss teaching. That feeling of molding a group and helping them become better together than singly – that’s amazing.
Empty first grade classroom. From A Day in First Grade blog.
Leave a Comment » | Education, Lesson plans, Teachers, Teaching, War on Education | Tagged: Diane Ravitch, Education, First Grade, Lesson plans, Teaching, War on Education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
This is the first of five parts needed to document and lay the background for what unfortunately promises to be a pitched public relations battle, if not a serious battle to rescue a California school from being crushed by a corporation making a hostile takeover of a school using California’s “parent trigger” law. Follow-ups may be needed.
Diane Ravitch in Dallas, April 28, 2010 – Copyright 2010 Ed Darrell (you may use freely, with attribution)
If you’ve followed education issues, you know Dr. Diane Ravitch is a professor of education at Columbia, one of the most respected schools of education in the world. Her work on education reform was popular with the Reagan administration in the period after the Report of the Commission on Excellence in Education in 1983, and particularly with education reformers at the time I was tapped to work at the Department of Education, in the old Office of Educational Research and Improvement. Dr. Ravitch was appointed to head that arm of Education in the administration of George H. W. Bush, but after I had left government for the private sector.
More recently, Dr. Ravitch has looked hard to find evidence that the testing regimes imposed by the “No Child Left Behind” Act (NCLB) actually produce benefits to the education of students.
Finding no such evidence, Dr. Ravitch has called for an end to unproven methods of destruction of schools and school systems in pursuit of foggy, unattainable goals.
Recently, big-dollar guys have backed efforts to kick out teachers and trained educators from schools, and in particular with “parent-trigger” laws, which allow a group of parents to petition for the removal of professionals at a school, and for a group of parents to then take over the management of that school.
Oddly, the first places these laws have been applied is against teachers in schools where parental involvement has been historically abysmal. A closer look shows that in these cases professional organizers, well-financed by businessmen who fancy themselves education reformers, did the load-carrying to get the petitions signed, and to get the educators ousted.
One of the schools where this process is moving is Weigand Avenue Elementary School in Watts, that troubled, poverty-ridden section of Los Angeles more famous for riots and gangs than educational attainment.
Dr. Ravitch wrote on her blog on May 25:
Parent Revolution Force Out Excellent Principal
The billionaire-funded Parent Revolution flexed its muscle and got enough parent signatures to force the resignation of a highly effective principal.
Please read the story.
This is the principal who was ousted by Parent Revolution:
“Third-grade teacher Kate Lewis said Irma Cobian is the best principal she’s had in nine years at Weigand Avenue Elementary School in Watts.
“Joseph Shamel called Cobian a “godsend” who has used her mastery of special education to show him how to craft effective learning plans for his students.
“Los Angeles Unified Supt. John Deasy praised a plan developed by Cobian and her team to turn around the struggling campus — where most students test below grade level in reading and math — calling it a “well-organized program for accelerated student achievement.” He thanked Cobian for her commitment and hard work.”
21 of the school’s 22 teachers have requested transfers because of Cobian’s ouster.
Parent Revolution is a malevolent organization funded by Walton, Gates, and Broad.
There is a special place in hell reserved for everyone who administers and funds this revolting organization that destroys schools and fine educators like Irma Cobian.
Dr. Ravitch has a good sense of justice, and injustice in my opinion. This situation got her thinking, and she had more comments later.
Earlier today, I posted an article that appeared in the Los Angeles Times about Parent Revolution forcing the ouster of an excellent principal, Irma Cobian.
I keep thinking about it. I think about the way her staff admired and respected her, how 21 of 22 teachers requested a transfer when she was targeted by the phony Parent Revolution.
Ben Austin is loathsome. He ruined the life and career of a dedicated educator. She was devoted to the children, he is devoted to the equally culpable foundations that fund his Frankenstein organization–Walton, Gates, and Broad. His biggest funder is the reactionary Walton Family Foundation [line added here], which spends $160 million every year to advance privatization.
Ben Austin is Walton’s useful idiot. He prattles on about his liberal credentials, but actions speak louder than words.
Here is my lifelong wish for him.
Ben, every day when you wake up, you should think of Irma Cobian. When you look in the mirror, think Irma Cobian. Your last thought every night should be Irma Cobian.
Ben, you ruined the life of a good person for filthy lucre. Never forget her. She should be on your conscience–if you have one–forever.
W. Edwards Deming,Wikipedia image. Oddly, few, if any, education reform efforts work to incorporate any of Deming’s rules for running high-efficiency, highly-productive, championship-quality organizations; its as if there is a different agenda being pursued.
Ravitch makes a good point. Organizational turnarounds rarely work when they start with mass firings. It didn’t work in the French Revolution, it didn’t work in Russian in 1917. Management experts like W. Edwards Deming, the most famous of the tough-reorganization management consultants in the drive for high quality organizations, bluntly warn that such efforts generally are destructive — the people fired are not the problem, nor do they have the authority to fix the problems, most often. People on the front line know the problems better than anyone else, and can provide the leadership to turn organizations around, however — and for those reasons, you don’t get rid of them, if your goal is to effect an organizational turnaround.
Mr. Austin should have a framed photo of Mrs. Cobian on his desk so he must see her, every day.
Mr. Austin disagrees.
See part 2.
This series, on the dustup between Prof. Diane Ravitch and Ben Austin in California:
More, different views, and resources:
6 Comments | Education, Education quality, Education reform, History, No Child Left Behind Act, Teachers, Teaching, War on Education, War on Teachers | Tagged: Ben Austin, Diane Ravitch, Education, Education reform, History, Irma Cobian, Los Angeles, NCLB, War on Education, War on Teachers, Weigand Avenue Elementary School | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
From the Truman National Security Project, a video featuring testimony from veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan especially, questioning whether Mitt Romney has what it takes to be Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. armed forces:
This is rather the opposite of “swift boating,” isn’t it? An established organization active on national security issues, with a distinguished staff and board of directors, working on a shoe-string, with identified spokesmen.
The Truman Project’s blog lays out the case for President Obama’s election with respect to his initiatives on behalf of veterans. As much as I would prefer to see those positive achievements emphasized, campaigns don’t really allow much time for careful, thoughtful explanation.
Will there be any effect from this advertisement? What do you think?
More:
1 Comment | History, National Security, veterans, War on Education | Tagged: 2012 Campaigns, 2012 Elections, Commander-in-Chief, foreign affairs, History, Iraq, National Security, Politics, Truman National Security Project, veterans | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Diane Ravitch, who once had the ear of education officials in Washington and would again, if they have a heart, brains, and a love for the U.S. defended teachers and teaching in a way that is guaranteed to make conservatives and education critics squirm
Cordial relations with Randi Weingarten may not rest well with our teacher friends in New York — but listen to what Dr. Diane Ravitch said at this meeting of the American Federation of Teachers.
If you care about education, if you care about your children and grandchildren, if you care about the future of our nation, you need to listen to this.
AFT HQ description:
Diane Ravitch, education activist and historian, rallied an enthusiastic audience at the AFT 2012 Convention with her sharp criticism of education “reform” that threatens public schools.
It’s all true.
More Resources and News:
Leave a Comment » | Education, Education reform, Junk science, Labor and unions, Testing, Voodoo science, War on Education | Tagged: American Federation of Teachers, Diane Ravitch, Education, Education reform, Labor and unions, Testing, War on Education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
News from the National Center for Science Education — I get e-mail, and it’s probably best to pass it along quickly, unedited, except for links in the text of the article, and the photo of Zack Kopplin, which I added:
VOUCHERS FOR CREATIONISM IN LOUISIANA?
Louisiana is about to spend almost twelve million dollars to fund the teaching of creationism, charges Zack Kopplin, famous for organizing the effort to repeal the so-called Louisiana Science Education Act. In Kopplin’s sights now is a controversial new voucher program in the state that uses public school funds to pay for tuition and certain fees at private schools for students who attend low-performing public schools and whose family income is below 250% of the federal poverty level. When the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education considered a set of accountability guidelines for such private schools at its July 24, 2012, meeting, Kopplin testified that of the roughly 6600 spaces available for students under the program, 1350 will be filled, as the Lafayette Independent Weekly(July 26, 2012) described it, “at private Christian schools that teach creationism and peg evolution as ‘false science.’”
Zack Kopplin, brave teen fighting for good science education in Louisiana
According to the Alexandria Town Talk (July 25, 2012), “A number of the schools on the voucher list teach creationism, a doctrine that holds that God created all life out of nothing, and either don’t mention the theory of evolution or teach that it is false science. State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education [BESE] policy on teaching science requires that public schools teach what is in textbooks but they can supplement with BESE-approved material to promote ‘critical thinking’ on alternatives to evolution.” Superintendent of Education John C. White told the newspaper that BESE had approved the curriculum for all of the schools. “Not teaching evolution could show up in the required state testing for students receiving vouchers, he said, and there could be repercussions ‘if a school shows a fundamental disregard’ for conducting the test.”
Writing earlier in the New Orleans Times-Picayune (July 18, 2012) about Kopplin’s research on the private schools expected to receive new students through the voucher program, columnist James Gill commented, “It is impossible to prepare fully for such a massive reform as going voucher, and some undeserving private schools are bound to receive an OK from harried state officials. But a religious takeover on this scale cannot be accidental. Of the schools on Zack Kopplin’s list, one believes that scientists are ‘sinful men,’ and declares its view ‘on the age of the earth and other issues is that any theory that goes against God’s word is in error.’ Another avers that evolution is ‘extremely damaging to children individually and to society as a whole.’ A third tells students to write an essay explaining how ‘the complexity of a cell shows it must be purposefully designed.’ And so it goes.”
The creationist instructional material used by such schools include textbooks from Bob Jones University Press and A Beka Books — which were described by the University of California system in the ACSI v. Stearns case as “inappropriate for use as primary texts in college preparatory science courses due to their characterizations of religious doctrine as scientific evidence, scientific inaccuracies, failure to encourage critical thinking, and overall un-scientific approach” — and Accelerated Christian Education. A textbook from ACE that argued against evolution on the grounds that the Loch Ness monster not only exists but also is a living plesiosaur (incorrectly described as a dinosaur) understandably attracted the attention of The Scotsman (June 25, 2012) and was widely ridiculed nationally and internationally.
The voucher program is presently under legal challenge from the Louisiana Association of Educators and the Louisiana Federation of Teachers along with a number of local school boards. But the issue of the state’s funding the teaching of creationism is not part of the challenge. Rather, as the New Orleans Times-Picayune (July 10, 2012) explained, “Two key issues are at play in the voucher suit: whether providing private schools with money from the Minimum Foundation Program violates the [Louisiana state] constitution by redirecting those funds from public schools, and whether a last-minute vote setting the new MFP formula in place received enough support in the state House to carry the force of law.” The state will be allowed to implement the voucher program while the challenge works its way through the court system, the newspaper reported.
For the article in the Lafayette Independent Weekly, visit:
http://www.theind.com/news/11055-kopplin-state-paying-116m-to-schools-teaching-creationismFor the article in the Alexandria Town Talk, visit:
http://www.thetowntalk.com/article/20120725/NEWS01/120725003/Louisiana-vouchers-going-mainly-church-affiliated-schoolsFor James Gill’s column in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, visit:
http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2012/07/vouchers_are_a_creationists_be.htmlFor NCSE’s collection of material from ACSI v. Stearns, visit:
http://ncse.com/creationism/legal/acsi-v-stearnsFor the article in The Scotsman, visit:
http://www.scotsman.com/news/odd/loch-ness-monster-cited-by-us-schools-as-evidence-that-evolution-is-myth-1-2373903For the article on the challenge to the voucher program in the New
Orleans Times-Picayune, visit:
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/07/judge_denies_injunction_in_vou.htmlAnd for NCSE’s previous coverage of events in Louisiana, visit:
http://ncse.com/news/louisiana
With all the troubles Louisiana has, with rebuilding from storms, a dysfunctional food distribution system, a dysfunctional health care distribution system, clean up from the Gulf oil spill of 2010, and erosion problems especially in the Gulf bordering parishes, why is Louisiana wasting time and brain power on creationism?
2 Comments | Creationism, Education, Evolution, History, National Center for Science Education, Politics, Vouchers, War on Education, War on Science | Tagged: Creationism, Education, Evolution, History, Louisiana, National Center for Science Education, NewOrleans Times-Picayune, Politics, Science, Zack Kopplin | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
We’re talking past each other now over at Right Reason, on a thread that started out lamenting Baylor’s initial decision to deny Dr. Francis Beckwith tenure last year, but quickly changed once news got out that Beckwith’s appeal of the decision was successful.
I noted that Beckwith’s getting tenure denies ID advocates of an argument that Beckwith is being persecuted for his ID views (wholly apart from the fact that there is zero indication his views on this issue had anything to do with his tenure discussions). Of course, I was wrong there — ID advocates have since continued to claim persecution where none exists. Never let the facts get in the way of a creationism rant, is the first rule of creationism.
Discussion has since turned to the legality of teaching intelligent design in a public school science class. This is well settled law — it’s not legal, not so long as there remains no undisproven science to back ID or any other form of creationism.
Background: The Supreme Court affirmed the law in a 1987 case from Louisiana, Edwards v. Aguillard (482 U.S. 578), affirming a district court’s grant of summary judgment against a state law requiring schools to teach creationism whenever evolution was covered in the curriculum. Summary judgment was issued by the district court because the issues were not materially different from those in an earlier case in Arkansas, McLean vs. Arkansas (529 F. Supp. 1255, 1266 (ED Ark. 1982)). There the court held, after trial, that there is no science in creationism that would allow it to be discussed as science in a classroom, and further that creationism is based in scripture and the advocates of creationism have religious reasons only to make such laws. (During depositions, each creationism advocate was asked, under oath, whether they knew of research that supports creationism; each answered “no.” Then they were asked where creationism comes from, and each answered that it comes from scripture. It is often noted how the testimony changes from creationists, when under oath.)
Especially after the Arkansas trial, it was clear that in order to get creationism into the textbooks, creationists would have to hit the laboratories and the field to do some science to back their claims. Oddly, they have staunchly avoided doing any such work, instead claiming victimhood, usually on religious grounds. To the extent ID differs from all other forms of creationism, the applicability of the law to ID was affirmed late last year in the Pennsylvania case, Kitzmiller v. Dover. (Please go read that case!)
1 Comment | Bill of Rights, Biology, Education, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Religion, Religious Freedom, Science, Textbook Selection, Voodoo science, War on Education, War on Science | Tagged: Bill of Rights, Biology, Bogus history, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Education, Francis Beckwith, Intelligent Design, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, Science, Textbook Selection, Voodoo science, War on Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Highly disturbing news from the Southern Poverty Law Center:
Alabama Public Television Apparently Heading Far Right
Posted in Extremist Propaganda
by Mark Potok on June 18, 2012
Lord help us. Alabama Public Television (APT), a voice of reason in a state that often seems to have very little, is apparently succumbing to the crazies.
Last week, the two top executives of the network were summarily fired by the Alabama Educational Television Commission, APT’s governing body, after they resisted an effort by a new commissioner to air DVDs produced by a far-right theocrat who has been roundly condemned by historians. In the days that followed, three members of a foundation set up to raise money for APT also resigned.
The videos were produced by David Barton, an evangelical propagandist who claims falsely that America was founded as a Christian nation and has also become Glenn Beck’s unofficial — and completely untrained — “historian.” The DVDs were suggested by commissioner Rodney Herring, an Opelika-based chiropractor who was appointed to the panel last year and elected its secretary in January.
Immediately after meeting in executive session June 12, commissioners ordered APT Executive Director Allan Pizzato and his deputy, Pauline Howland, to clear out their desks and leave APT’s Birmingham headquarters. Pizzato had been APT executive director for 12 years; Howland was his deputy director and the network’s chief financial officer.
Pizzato would not comment on the reasons for the firing, other than to say commissioners were seeking to go in “a new direction.” But Howland, in an interview with Current.org, a news service of the American University’s School of Communication, said that Pizzato and his staff had “grave concerns” about airing the videos, which strongly advocate a religious interpretation of the past that historians say is simply wrong. She said she was “baffled” by the firings but recalled Pizatto asking his staff for advice on how to respond to Herring’s proposal.
Commission Chairman Ferris Stephens disputed Current’s report in an interview with The Associated Press, but gave no specifics. Herring, for his part, claimed that disagreement over the Barton DVDs played an “at best minimal” role in the firings, which he described as part of an overall restructuring effort. “We believe it to be a positive change,” wrote another commissioner, conservative talk radio host J. Holland, in response to AP’s queries about the firings. “Simple as that.”
As simple as that? Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I don’t believe it.
Stephens told the AP that Barton’s videos had been discussed in the last meeting before the one that produced the firings last week. He said there was another item related to Barton’s organization, WallBuilders, on the agenda for last week’s meeting, but that the commission didn’t get to that item before adjourning. Herring, for his part, denied knowing that Pizzato and Howland had any opinion at all about the DVDs, although Howland told Current that Pizzato had made it clear that he thought the films were “inappropriate” for APT.
Why is it that Pizzato and Howland were fired just as the matter seemed to be coming to a head? Why won’t Stephens and the other commissioners cough up the real reason for the firings, if it wasn’t what seems obvious? When the AP story ran last week, Herring was quoted saying the station may indeed broadcast some of the Barton videos. In fact, he said the commission had consulted attorneys about that possibility. That’s a funny thing to do if you’re just deciding whether to show a film on public television, not making controversial personnel decisions.
The sad truth is, this kind of extremism is getting to be par for the course in Alabama. We passed the immigrant-bashing H.B. 56 and, when legal problems with it came up, our legislators responded by actually making the draconian bill even worse. Last month, the same legislature, after the John Birch Society warned hysterically about a United Nations global sustainability plan, actually passed a law saying that property here cannot be confiscated as part of Agenda 21 — even though that entirely voluntary plan does not and could not require that. One of our current congressmen even claimed a few years back that he knew of 17 “socialists” in the U.S. Congress — although, like Joe McCarthy, he declined to name them.
Why does Rodney Herring want to show Barton’s videos? He isn’t saying. But what Barton has to say should make Alabamians’ hair stand on end.
Barton doesn’t only not believe in global warming — he thinks reducing carbon dioxide emissions would actually devastate the planet. Barton fought to have the names of Martin Luther King Jr. and labor activist Cesar Chavez removed from public school textbooks. He says God set the borders of nations, so immigration reform is unnecessary. He argues that homosexuality should be regulated because gay people “die decades earlier than heterosexuals” and more than half of all gays have had more than 500 sex partners — both falsehoods.
It isn’t only liberals who dislike Barton. Derek Davis, director of the J.M. Dawson Institute on Church-State Studies at Baylor University, says “a lot of what he presents is a distortion of the truth.” J. Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee, says his writings are “laced with exaggerations, half-truths and misstatements of fact.” Mark Lilla, a scholar who has taught at University of Chicago and Columbia University, says Barton’s work is “schlock history written by [a] religious propagandist” and uses “selective quotations out of context.”
But none of this apparently came up when the commissioners, in their great wisdom, decided to fire Allan Pizzato and Pauline Howland. Instead, it looks like Barton’s backers succeeded, by a reported 5-2 vote, in silencing their own eminently sensible executives, and then refusing to come clean with the public about their action.
Once again, Alabama will be the poorer. Lord help us.
Supporters of Alabama Public Television set up a website to provide information on the fight to save APT.
David Barton is, of course, the voodoo history promoter from Texas, former vice-chairman of the Texas Republican Party who led the party into a variety of anti-education policies. Barton’s organization to spread his bogus history claims is Wallbuilders.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Ellie.
More:
2 Comments | Bogus history, Education, Public Broadcasting, Voodoo history, War on Education, War on Science, War on Smart | Tagged: Alabama Public Television, Bogus history, David Barton, Education, Extremism, History, Politics, Public Broadcasting, Southern Poverty Law Center, WallBuilders, War on Education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Nessie replica in Scotland. Or, a replica of what that drunk guy claimed he saw. Based on a sketch the police wouldn’t use. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Dave Does the Blog agreed, and pointed the way to Slacktivist, a blog on issues of faith and lack of faith, who also agree that creationists ought to change their tune: The Loch Ness Monster doesn’t belong in science textbooks, especially as a claim against evolution theory.
We soaked this idea a bit here at the bathtub a couple of days ago.
Slacktivist points out that the Nessie claim is taught in schools funded with public money. Your tax dollars at work, parents, teachers and politicians, teaching your children that Nessie is real.
What constitutes real science evidence, for creationism? Looking west as Nessie marches up 6th Avenue on a sunny early afternoon. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
What about monsters under the bed? Does the text claim they contradict evolution, too?
Leave a Comment » | Creationism, Darwin, Education, Science, War on Education | Tagged: Accelerated Christian Education, Darwin, Education, Evolution, Loch Ness Monster, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
What would Jesus do in a case like this?
In order to question evolution theory, a publisher claiming to be Christian, publishing books to be used in nominally Christian schools that get charter school funds, claims that the Loch Ness Monster is real. Why?
[Loch Ness Monster = dinosaur] + [Alive with humans] = [Falsification of evolution theory]
Like Dave Barry, we could not make this stuff up. It’s too lunatic for fiction.
Here’s the story, from Scotsman.com (not “true Scotsman,” of course) (links added):
Loch Ness monster cited by US schools as evidence that evolution is myth
The Loch Ness monster: Used as evidence that evolution is myth*
By CLAIRE MCKIN
Published on Monday 25 June 2012 14:05THOUSANDS of American school pupils are to be taught that the Loch Ness monster is real – in an attempt by religious teachers to disprove Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Pupils attending privately-run Christian schools in the southern state of Louisiana will learn from textbooks next year, which claim Scotland’s most famous mythological beast is a living creature.
Thousands of children are to receive publicly-funded vouchers enabling them to attend the schools – which follow a strict fundamentalist curriculum.
The Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) programme teaches controversial religious beliefs, aimed at disproving evolution and proving creationism.
Youngsters will be told that if it can be proved that dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time as man, then Darwinism is fatally flawed.
Critics have slammed the content of the religious course books, labelling them “bizarre” and accusing them of promoting radical religious and political ideas.
One ACE textbook called Biology 1099, Accelerated Christian Education Inc reads: “Are dinosaurs alive today? Scientists are becoming more convinced of their existence.
“Have you heard of the Loch Ness Monster in Scotland? ‘Nessie’ for short has been recorded on sonar from a small submarine, described by eyewitnesses, and photographed by others. Nessie appears to be a plesiosaur.”
Another claim taught is that a Japanese whaling boat once caught a dinosaur.
One former pupil, Jonny Scaramanga, 27, who went through the ACE programme as a child, but now campaigns against Christian fundamentalism, said the Nessie claim was presented as “evidence” that evolution could not have happened.
He added: “The reason for that is they’re saying if Noah’s flood only happened 4,000 years ago, which they believe literally happened, then possibly a sea monster survived.
“If it was millions of years ago then that would be ridiculous. That’s their logic. It’s a common thing among creationists to believe in sea monsters.”
Private religious schools, including the Eternity Christian Academy in Westlake, Louisiana, which follows the ACE curriculum, have already been cleared to receive the state voucher money transferred from public school funding, thanks to a bill pushed through by Republican state governor Bobby Jindal, a Hindu convert to Catholicism.
Boston-based researcher and writer Bruce Wilson, who specialises in the American political religious right, said: “One of these texts from Bob Jones University Press claims that dinosaurs were fire-breathing dragons. It has little to do with science as we currently understand. It’s more like medieval scholasticism.”
Mr Wilson believes that such fundamentalist Christian teaching is going on in at least 13 American states.
He added: “There’s a lot of public funding going to private schools, probably around 200,000 pupils are receiving this education.
“The majority of parents now home schooling their kids are Christian fundamentalists too. I don’t believe they should be publicly funded, I don’t believe the schools who use these texts should be publicly funded.”
And you wonder why kids turn out like they do?
Christians, you may disagree with evolution theory, or Darwin’s findings and the work of 10,000 other scientists, but do you want to perpetrate bald-faced hoaxes to defend your disagreement? Call on the publisher to change the book. Spreading falsehoods is the wrong way to go about getting at the truth.
_____________
* Yes, that’s the photo that’s been debunked a dozen times, a dozen ways. Whatever it is a photograph of, it is not the Loch Ness Monster.
More, and Related articles
12 Comments | Accuracy, Creationism, Darwin, Education, Evolution, Religion, Science, War on Education | Tagged: Accelerated Christian Education, Accuracy, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Education, Evolution, Loch Ness Monster, Religion, Science, War on Education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Romney campaign chairman John Sununu danced a little bit trying to qualify Mitt Romney’s attack on first responders and teachers — Sununu said some cities have smaller populations than they once did, and they need fewer teachers.
But Sununu continued to attack all teachers, all cops, and all firefighters.
Sununu’s position, opposed to all government workers, remains relatively consistent over the past three decades. Sununu remains one of the crabbiest people ever to hold high office and great power (U.S. Senator, White House chief of staff). We probably should take him at his word now.
ThinkProgress.com quotes Sununu:
SUNUNU: Let me respond as a taxpayer, not as a representative of the Romney campaign. There are municipalities, there are states where there is flight of population. And as the population goes down, you need fewer teachers. As technology contributes to community security and dealing with issues that firefighters have to deal with, you would hope that you can, as a taxpayer, see the benefits of the efficiency and personnel that you get out of that.
JANSING: But even if there’s movement to the suburbs, teachers and policemen are needed somewhere.
SUNUNU: But I’m going to tell you there are places where just pumping money in to add to the public payroll is not what the taxpayers of this country want.
JANSING: Do you think that taxpayers of this country want to hear fewer firefighters, fewer teachers, fewer police officers, from a strategic standpoint?
SUNUNU: If there’s fewer kids in the classrooms, the taxpayers really do want to hear there will be fewer teachers. […] You have a lot of places where that is happening. You have a very mobile country now where things are changing. You have cities in this country in which the school population peaked ten, 15 years ago. And, yet the number of teachers that may have maintained has not changed. I think this is a real issue. And people ought to stop jumping on it as a gaffe and understand there’s wisdom in the comment.
Nationwide, the number of students is increasing, and even with the dip for the recent massive Republican recession, population continues to grow. My school is not representative of the entire nation, but we had a 25% increase in student population, with a 10% decrease in faculty. Class sizes rose dramatically (I had as many as 36 students in a room designed for 22).
That’s more common than decreasing student populations.
I’m not sure we can accuse Sununu of not being in touch with what goes on in the U.S. He maintains his anti-government, do-more-with-less positions despite knowing better.
Yes, I think his explanation is dissembling.
But be warned: The War on American Exceptionalism should not come as a surprise; Romney’s campaign is making it clear that they prefer to do damage to U.S. institutions like law enforcement and education.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Jennsmom.
19 Comments | 2012 Campaigns, Education, War on Education | Tagged: Education, Election 2012, John E. Sununu, Mitt Romney, Teaching, War on Education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
You didn’t think it was working already?
This story appeared in the Los Angeles Times, which is why Republicans discourage newspaper publishing, and why they discourage programs to teach people to read well and remember history.
In South Carolina, a discrepancy on federal spending
Campaigning Republicans draw cheers with their calls for cuts to government programs. But the state benefits from such programs to a greater extent than many others.
By Alana Semuels, Los Angeles Times
January 14, 2012, 7:55 p.m.
Reporting from Beaufort, S.C.—
When Rick Santorum stood in front of voters at a yacht club in this small town and pledged to slash government spending, especially entitlement programs, Nancy Garvin knew she had found her candidate.
Garvin, 54, said she was sick of seeing government squander money through agencies that don’t do anything, and wants expenditures cut “in half.”
Washington is throwing money away through a lot of wasteful spending,” she said, sitting at a picnic table beneath trees draped in graying Spanish moss.
But Garvin, whose husband, a carpenter, has been out of work for four years, depends on the very government she wants to see cut back. She collects disability insurance — it is what she and her husband have survived on as he’s looked for work. Her mother is on Social Security. Garvin herself used to work as a nurse at a hospital where many patients paid for services through Medicaid, another program using federal money.
Garvin’s views are similar to those of many Republican voters in this conservative state, where candidates pledging to cut government spending were met with resounding applause last week, and where former Gov. Mark Sanford tried to refuse federal stimulus funding on principle.
South Carolina and its residents benefit from government spending, more so than many other states. For every dollar the state pays in federal taxes, it receives $1.35 in federal government benefits. By contrast, California receives only 78 cents for every dollar it pays in taxes.
“We get more back from the federal government than we send in terms of revenue,” said Doug Woodward, an economics professor at the University of South Carolina. “But I’m not sure that a lot of voters would even care if they heard that. When they say they want to see less spending in the state, they’re referring to entitlement programs.”
Much of the money spent in South Carolina goes to the programs that make up a big chunk of the federal budget — defense, Social Security and Medicaid. The state has seven military bases, and received $7 billion in Defense Department spending in 2010. One in five residents in South Carolina receives Social Security benefits — compared with just 13% in California. As an aging state, South Carolina will be more dependent on federal programs such as Social Security in the coming decade, according to AARP.
“People want to see lower government spending, especially on the Republican side,” said Karen Kedrowski, a politics professor at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C. “But when they’re asked specifically about high-dollar items, including Social Security and defense, they are not willing to accept significant cuts.”
Kedrowski’s university recently polled South Carolina Republicans to ask about reducing the deficit by making cuts to government programs: 73% of voters said they weren’t willing to have their current Social Security or Medicare benefits reduced to address budget concerns. More than half said they weren’t willing to cut defense spending either.
It’s not just wealthy Republican voters in the Palmetto State who say they eschew entitlement programs, Kedrowski said.
“There’s also a disproportionate number of low-income people who vote Republican because they respond to the populist messages, even when it is against their economic interests to do so,” she said.
Sheila Barton, 56, runs a floral shop in Pickens, a town that Rick Perry visited recently to stroll down Main Street and shake hands with store owners and residents.
“Americans don’t want a government that’s playing a bigger role in their lives,” Perry had said at a speech earlier that morning. “No one’s ever come up to me and said, ‘We sure need to have more government in our lives.'”
Barton agrees — in principle.
“There’s a lot of things that are wasteful,” she said, but when pressed to name some, she said she couldn’t really think of any off the top of her head. Defense spending should be increased, she said, and people who have paid into Social Security should receive their benefits. And local government programs need more funding, she said — she’s currently a guardian for local children through the court system.
There is some evidence that South Carolina’s opposition to government spending might further strangle the state’s already weak economy — if it leads to cuts in Social Security. Roberto Gallardo of the Southern Rural Development Center says that economies in many small towns in South Carolina are increasingly dependent on Social Security payments.
The percentage of total personal income in South Carolina coming from Social Security’s Old-Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance programs was 7.6% in 2009, up from 3.8% in 1970. South Carolina ranks eighth in the nation on the group’s Social Security Dependency Index, which measures how reliant local economies are on Social Security payments for job creation and consumer spending. Neighboring North Carolina ranked 23rd.
That means candidates have to walk a fine line here — promising to cut government to alleviate voters’ fears, while still preserving the programs that require most of the spending. How else to appeal to such voters as Clifton Anderson of Camden, who went to see Rick Santorum speak in a diner in Ridgeway?
“His ideas of downsizing government are most important to me,” said Anderson, about Santorum. He continued, in the next breath: “I also like his idea about strengthening defense.”
Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times
2 Comments | 2012 Campaigns, 2012 Elections, Education, Government, How do we know what we know, Rampant stupidity, War on Education, War on Smart | Tagged: 2012 Campaign, Campaigns, Education, Government Spending, How do we know what we know, Politics, Rampant stupidity, South Carolina, War on Education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
"Attacking Teachers Attacks My Future" sign carried by students supporting teachers at the Wisconsin Capitol Building, February 16, 2011. Photo by BlueRobot, Ron Chandenais
Of one thing I feel sure—history will not be kind to those who gleefully attacked teachers, sought to fire them based on inaccurate measures, and worked zealously to reduce their status and compensation. It will not admire the effort to insert business values into the work of educating children and shaping their minds, dreams, and character. It will not forgive those who forgot the civic, democratic purposes of our schools nor those who chipped away at the public square. Nor will it speak well of those who put the quest for gain over the needs of children. Nor will it lionize those who worshipped data and believed passionately in carrots and sticks. Those who will live forever in the minds of future generations are the ones who stood up against the powerful on behalf of children, who demanded that every child receive the best possible education, the education that the most fortunate parents would want for their own children.
Now is a time to speak and act. Now is a time to think about how we will one day be judged. Not by test scores, not by data, but by the consequences of our actions.
— Diane Ravitch, writing at Bridging Differences, a blog of EdWeek, June 28, 2011
See more photos from Ron Chandenais, here.
10 Comments | Education, Education reform, Quotes, Teacher Pay, Teachers, War on Education | Tagged: Diane Ravitch, Education, Education reform, Quotes, Teacher Pay, Teachers, War on Education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Rick Santorum in Iowa, Huffington Post image
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum’s reluctant grip on reality appeared to be vanishing fast in a stop in Iowa, Thursday. He said America’s schools are for indoctrination of students, and he doesn’t like the current round of indoctrination.
Geeze, this ought to be in The Onion. Is Santorum really this disconnected from America and life? Are there actually people out there who don’t look around for the guys in the white clothes with straight jackets and nets when they hear him say this stuff?
I don’t generally cite to The Huffington Post, but when the warning claxons go off, you ought to see if there’s danger before dismissing them as error:
Rick Santorum woos voters in Orange City, Iowa - Des Moines Register photo
During a stop in Iowa on Thursday, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum said that “schools indoctrinate our children,” the Des Moines Register reports.
“You wonder why young people can vote and flock for a guy like Barack Obama and say, if you look at the surveys, that socialism is better than capitalism — well, that’s because they don’t understand America,” he explained, according to the Register. “I said ‘indoctrination’ and I meant it,” he said.
What survey does he have that claims any group in America, other than the Tea Party or the American Communist Party, say socialism is better than capitalism? Since curricula in every state teach the opposite, the existence of such a poll would be powerful evidence of critical thinking powers in students that most teachers would not attest to.
Maybe more important, perhaps we should worry about just what all those thousands of nice Baptist ladies are teaching our kids in Texas, eh? Not to mention the Lutheran ladies in Iowa. Santorum is sniping at teachers, but if you look at the demographics, it makes little sense. Teachers are, like the rest of America, about 90% Christian, God-fearing, flag-waving American patriots.
Well, nothing Santorum says makes much sense, does it? Santorum lent support to the War on Education.
Santorum argued that the country’s education system is leaving students with an insufficient grasp of history. His remarks come with the widely-anticipated Ames Straw poll — a table-setter event for next year’s Iowa caucuses — less than two weeks away.
What in the hell do the schools in Ames, Iowa, look like, that Santorum can say that stuff about them?
By the way, if people learned history accurately in high school, Rick Santorum wouldn’t stand a chance in any election today. But I digress.
The Des Moines Register article adds the details that Santorum made note of recent testing that shows American kids don’t know enough about American history — always the case, by the way — and that a college prof from Kansas said he gives his students the test required of immigrants applying for citizenship, and most can’t pass the test.
I’m game: Let’s give the test to Santorum. If he doesn’t pass, though, we can’t deport him. We have no vehicles capable of getting to Mars.
HP offers information that may explain Santorum’s insanity: The same article notes he’s touring Iowa in two vans with his seven children. In this heat?
Does the Iowa division of child protective services know about this? How about the division that worries about children torturing their parents?
14 Comments | 2012 Campaigns, 2012 Elections, Campaigns, Capitalism, Education, Education quality, War on Education | Tagged: 2012 Campaign, 2012 Elections, Capitalism, Education, History, Iowa Caucuses, Rick Santorum, Socialism, War on Education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
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Ed Darrell on Texas's Colorado River
Come on in, the water's fine. Come often: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 