Schafersman’s testimony on social studies standards, to Texas SBOE

January 13, 2010

Dr. Steve Schafersman will testify on proposed new standards for social studies in Texas public schools, at a hearing before the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) scheduled for today, January 13, 2009.

Schafersman is president of Texas Citizens for Science and its driving force.  He’ll also live blog much of the hearing at his blog, Evo-Sphere.  You should probably watch TFN Insider, the blog of the Texas Freedom Network, too.

Schafersman’s testimony was released in advance, and reprinted below.

Public Testimony of
Steven D. Schafersman

Texas State Board of Education Public Hearing
Austin, Texas; Wednesday, 2009 January 13

I am grateful for the opportunity to address you about Social Studies standards for which I am testifying as a private citizen. Tomorrow you will begin your work to adopt the new Social Studies TEKS. I closely read and evaluated the proposed Grade 8 Social Studies, High School U. S. History, U. S. Government, World History, and World Geography standards and found them to be quite satisfactory. The standards were extremely comprehensive, balanced, fair-minded, and honest. The members of the panels who wrote them did an outstanding job and I was very impressed by their knowledge and professionalism. I urge that you adopt these Social Studies standards without change.

My experience with this Board leads me to suspect that some of you don’t want to adopt these excellent standards–written by social studies curriculum experts and teachers–without change. After all, these standards were written by experts and some of you feel obliged to stand up to the experts. Some of you may want to change some of the standards to correspond to your own political and religious beliefs, such as the mistaken notions that the United States is a Christian nation, that we do not have a secular government, or that separation of church and state is a myth. Some of you may want to add more unnecessary information about Christian documents or Christian history in America. If some of you do wish to make such changes, I request that you restrain yourselves. Please resist the temptation to engage in the same behavior some of you exhibited last year when you perverted the Science standards and embarrassed the citizens of Texas by engaging in pseudoscientific anti-intellectual behavior. While the Texas State Board of Education has a long and proud history of anti-intellectualism, the economic conditions today demand that we stop that practice and return to professionalism and respect for academic achievement so that our children have a future in which they will use their minds to make a living in intellectual pursuits and not their limbs in a service economy.

During the adoption of the science standards, some Board members amended the Biology and Earth and Space Science standards by engaging in fast talking, omitting pertinent information about what was being changed, offering bogus “compromises” that were not really fair compromises, and referring to “experts” who were in fact pseudoscientists and not real experts at all. I hope to not witness the same behavior tomorrow but I am pessimistic. Two pseudo-historians, David Barton and Peter Marshall, were appointed as “experts” and there is plenty of evidence available that demonstrates that these two gentlemen are preachers and polemicists for their radical agendas, not legitimate history experts.

I urge the rational and conservative Board members–whom I hope still make up a majority of this Board–to resist proposed radical amendments that attempt to insert bogus histories of American exceptionalism, America’s presumed Christian heritage as the source of our liberties and Constitutional principles, and other historical myths perpetrated by the American Religious Right. I urge you to vote No to such radical amendments, not Abstain or your radical opponents will gain the same advantage that they enjoyed during the amendment process for the Science standards, where they were delighted when some of you abstained or did not vote since that made it easier for them to obtain majorities which allowed them to win several amendments that made changes detrimental to science education. Unlike last year, when you were prevented from consulting your legitimate Science experts during debate, please consult your genuine Social Studies experts, Texas Professors Kracht, Hodges, and de la Teja. Please try to avoid the same mistakes with the Social Studies adoption process that occurred with the Science standards adoption, so no one will be able to accuse you of being anti-intellectual.

2 Comments | Capitalism, Economics, Education, Education quality, Education reform, Politics, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Freedom Network, Voodoo history, War on Education | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Texas social studies standards: Crisis is now

January 6, 2010

How bad is it?  Washington Monthly features a solid, long story on what is going on in Austin this week and next in Texas social studies standards.  I wish that outstanding publication had a much greater circulation.

Even in Minnesota, P. Z. Myers is concerned:  “Be afraid” he warns his readers.  In comments there, a guy named BlackWolf puts it bluntly:

Once, a guy in a schoolbook storage room was the killer.

Now, the books themselves are becoming dangerous.

You can help.  You can testify next week.  You can send comments.  The Texas Freedom Network can help you be heard.

Please let the State Board of Education know that Texas, and the nation, needs good social studies standards.  As we noted last month, it’s time to stand up for education and social studies:

Make Your Voice Heard at January Public Hearing

The process of revising social studies curriculum standards for Texas public schools is moving into a critical stage. And a public hearing the board has scheduled for January may be the only opportunity for you to speak out against the far right’s efforts to corrupt standards for history, government and other social studies classes.

The final drafts of the proposed standards prepared by writing teams made up of teachers, academics and other community members are reflective of mainstream academic scholarship in the various subject areas. It is clear that members of these writing teams largely resisted intense political pressure from far right, rejecting attempts to remove key civil rights figures and make other politically motivated revisions. (See the Background section at the bottom of this e-mail for a more detailed account of the politicization of this curriculum process.)

But as with science and language arts, far-right SBOE members are already plotting to undo the work of the writing teams of social studies.

Take Action

The State Board of Education so far has scheduled only one public hearing on the proposed standards. That hearing is likely to occur either on January 13 or January 14 in Austin.

If you are interested in speaking at the hearing, please click here. TFN will help you register to speak before the board and be an effective voice against efforts to politicize our children’s classrooms.

This may be the only opportunity the board provides for Texans to speak out on the proposed standards. If we are to prevent far-right SBOE members from turning social studies classrooms into tools for promoting political agendas, then it’s critical that the board hears from people like you! Click here to sign up for more information on how to testify in January.

___________________________________________________

Background on Social Studies Review Process to Date

Earlier this year, TFN exposed and derailed several attempts by the far right to hijack the social studies curriculum revision process. Members of the state board – or their appointees to review panels and writing teams – tried at various times to:

  • Remove civil rights champions like César Chávez and Thurgood Marshall from the standards, calling them poor examples of citizenship
  • Turn Joseph McCarthy – who discredited himself and dishonored Congress with his infamous Red-baiting smear campaign in the 1950s – into an American hero
  • Rewrite history and portray America’s Founders as intending to establish a Christian nation with laws based on a fundamentalist reading of the Bible

Members of the writing teams largely rejected these fringe ideas in the final drafts of the standards they submitted to the board. Chávez and Marshall remain in the curriculum. The American history standards do not whitewash the damaging history of McCarthyism. And under the proposed standards students would still learn that the Founders created a nation in which all people are free to worship – or not – as they choose without coercion or interference by government.

We must ensure that the board adopts curriculum standards that reflect mainstream academic scholarship in social studies. This is vitally important because the results of this decision will be reflected in the next generation of social studies textbooks around the country.

Click here to let TFN know you are willing to testify at the state board.

2 Comments | Education, Education quality, History, Social Studies, State school boards, Texas, Texas Freedom Network | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Stand up for good history in Texas

December 17, 2009

Here’s an education and Texas issue I’ve not done justice to:  The Texas State Board of Education is working to gut social studies curricula in Texas, with a special vent on history, which they appear to think is not fundamentalist Christian enough, and economics, where they think “capitalism” is, somehow, a dirty word.

Do I exaggerate?   Very little, if at all.  Really.

There’s a lot to say.  I may have another post on it this week.  In the meantime, the indefatigable Texas Freedom Network works to organize for the hearing on the issue in January.  SBOE hopes it will be a quiet, non-confrontational meeting, and they will do whatever they can to prevent Texans from telling them to have good history standards that make great students.  So it’s important that you speak up — especially if you’re a Texan.  Here’s what TFN said in an e-mail alert:

Make Your Voice Heard at January Public Hearing

The process of revising social studies curriculum standards for Texas public schools is moving into a critical stage. And a public hearing the board has scheduled for January may be the only opportunity for you to speak out against the far right’s efforts to corrupt standards for history, government and other social studies classes.

The final drafts of the proposed standards prepared by writing teams made up of teachers, academics and other community members are reflective of mainstream academic scholarship in the various subject areas. It is clear that members of these writing teams largely resisted intense political pressure from far right, rejecting attempts to remove key civil rights figures and make other politically motivated revisions. (See the Background section at the bottom of this e-mail for a more detailed account of the politicization of this curriculum process.)

But as with science and language arts, far-right SBOE members are already plotting to undo the work of the writing teams of social studies.

Take Action

The State Board of Education so far has scheduled only one public hearing on the proposed standards. That hearing is likely to occur either on January 13 or January 14 in Austin.

If you are interested in speaking at the hearing, please click here. TFN will help you register to speak before the board and be an effective voice against efforts to politicize our children’s classrooms.

This may be the only opportunity the board provides for Texans to speak out on the proposed standards. If we are to prevent far-right SBOE members from turning social studies classrooms into tools for promoting political agendas, then it’s critical that the board hears from people like you! Click here to sign up for more information on how to testify in January.

___________________________________________________

Background on Social Studies Review Process to Date

Earlier this year, TFN exposed and derailed several attempts by the far right to hijack the social studies curriculum revision process. Members of the state board – or their appointees to review panels and writing teams – tried at various times to:

  • Remove civil rights champions like César Chávez and Thurgood Marshall from the standards, calling them poor examples of citizenship
  • Turn Joseph McCarthy – who discredited himself and dishonored Congress with his infamous Red-baiting smear campaign in the 1950s – into an American hero
  • Rewrite history and portray America’s Founders as intending to establish a Christian nation with laws based on a fundamentalist reading of the Bible

Members of the writing teams largely rejected these fringe ideas in the final drafts of the standards they submitted to the board. Chávez and Marshall remain in the curriculum. The American history standards do not whitewash the damaging history of McCarthyism. And under the proposed standards students would still learn that the Founders created a nation in which all people are free to worship – or not – as they choose without coercion or interference by government.

We must ensure that the board adopts curriculum standards that reflect mainstream academic scholarship in social studies. This is vitally important because the results of this decision will be reflected in the next generation of social studies textbooks around the country.

Click here to let TFN know you are willing to testify at the state board.

Spread the word even farther — help save history, in Texas:

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2 Comments | Curricula, Education, Education quality, Education reform, History, History Methods and Tools, knowledge | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Getting a great education that the tests can’t measure

December 11, 2009

As I sit with officials from the Texas Education Agency and the Dallas ISD discussing what goes on in our classrooms, I often reflect that the drive to testing frequently pushes education out of the classroom.

One of my favorite education blogs, the Living Classroom, comes out of a the West Seattle Community School where, many days — perhaps most days — education goes on in wonderful ways.  No test could ever capture the progress made.

Latest example:  This boy made this squid.  He had fun doing it.  He learned a lot.  Look at the excitement.

(Somebody get P. Z. Myers’ attention:  P. Z.!  Look at this squid!)

Asher and his amazing squid, The Living Classroom, West Seattle Community School

Asher and his amazing squid, The Living Classroom, West Seattle Community School

It’s pretty colorful, even for a squid, but I’ll wager the kid now knows more about squids than most Texas ninth grade biology students.  Of course, sewing squids is not among the list of Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills.  What Asher now knows . . . such learning would have to be smuggled into a Texas classroom.

When education is outlawed, only outlaws will have education.

2 Comments | Biology, Education, Education blogs, Education quality, Education success, Natural history, Science, Zoology | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Why more kids should study world history, harder

November 20, 2009

Jon Taplin explains why knowing world history is valuable. The sad thing is that, of course, the story that makes his reason doesn’t appear in the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills list for world history, nor in any other social studies course.

Now that the Texas State Board of Education has taken off the cloak of education and made it clear that social studies in Texas is considered a political free-fire zone, and that they plan to vitiate anything but the propaganda value for the Republican Party, Taplin’s piece has all the more poignance.

The Renaissance, and Florence, were more than just a minor question on the TAKS test.  Santayana’s Ghost weeps bitterly.

Why isn’t Jon Taplin’s blog required reading in more places, by more people in government and politics?  We know why the Texas State School Board doesn’t want anyone to read it — that alone should make people fight to see what Taplin says.

Promote this idea in your own study group:

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1 Comment | Education, Education quality, History, Renaissance, Santayana's ghost, Social Studies, State school boards, Taxes, Texas, Texas Freedom Network, War, War on Education, World history | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

News flash: Dallas 5th graders not ready for college? How about middle school?

October 23, 2009

It’s not so much of a “Duh!” moment as you might think.

Studies by the Dallas Independent School District indicate that about half of all Dallas fifth grades students are not on the development arc they need to be on to be ready for college upon graduation seven years later.  Half of fifth graders are not even ready for middle school.

As Dallas schools focus on getting all students ready for college, they face a daunting challenge uncovered by a new district tracking system: Almost half of fifth-graders are not even ready for middle school.

Roughly 52 percent of the fifth-graders were considered “on track for middle school” at the end of their elementary years in 2008-09, according to a Dallas Morning News analysis of data recently released by the school district.

That seriously impinges on my ability to teach them what they need to know when I get them.

Here’s the newspaper article from the Dallas Morning News.  Here’s school-by-school data.

I predict DISD will take hits for “failing” instead of getting plaudits for finding a root source of a much bigger problem that manifests later.  Stay tuned.

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Posted by Ed Darrell

Mid-year switch: Would you change jobs like this?

September 23, 2009

At NorLa, Wheeler writes “I’ve been traded.”

Not really, but it feels similar. Starting Monday I’ll be leaving seventh grade US History for the high school and Civics, Free Enterprise and World Geography.

I like the parish in which I teach. My principal, not so much. While she’s a micromanager and extremely disorganized, I’m very independent and CDO (that’s OCD in alphabetical order, like it should be). As a teacher, my only request from administrators is to be left the heck alone. I have the best test scores in the school, I have no discipline problems, I’m never absent, the students like me and their parents like me. With those credentials, I figured any sensible principal would be more than happy to leave me be and go worry about stuff that actually needs attention. Not so at my school. I actually had a written reprimand placed in my personnel file because I abbreviated the days of the week on my lesson plans. That’s just one example.

It’s a good read, about why a good teacher would abandon students and leave his principal in a fix, mid-year.

There’s a lot of wisdom there, for an administrator who cares to learn.  Go see.

1 Comment | Education, Education quality, Leadership, Teaching | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Nation’s best, but sub-par in Texas school ratings

September 18, 2009

In discussing the Broad Prize won yesterday by Aldine Independent School District (near Houston), William McKenzie, an editorial writer at the Dallas Morning News unintentionally summed up part of the problem with Texas’s testing-uber-alles school ratings, at the DMN’s blog site:

Like Brownsville last year, the state only recognized Aldine as an “acceptable” district, not a “recognized” or “exemplary” one. That could be for several reasons, but the best way to look at the difference between the state’s ranking and Aldine’s Broad Prize is that Aldine is showing substantial progress but still has a high mountain to climb before it’s on a par with suburban districts that do reach the exemplary level.

It doesn’t matter if your district has two of the top high schools in the nation on the Newsweek ratings, as Dallas ISD does.  It doesn’t matter if 85% of a high school’s kids go to great colleges with lots of scholarship money.  A school can get hammered by statistical flukes.

Too often teachers are pushed to focus on getting the subpar up to mediocre.  A school gets no additional credit, in state rankings, for championship performance in the top tier of its students — and so some of the best performing schools in Texas have rankings less than they should have.

It’s nice that Aldine ISD got the Broad Prize.  That prize recognizes outstanding achievement by students in many areas.  But it counts for absolutely nothing in the state’s rankings of schools and districts.

Remember, Texas is one of those states where International Baccalaureate programs come under fire for requiring kids to read “suspect” books, and study hard, and where AP-required course material is dismissed as wrong by members of the State Board of Education.

For teachers in Texas, daily floggings will continue until teacher morale improves enough to push scores up.  Or until someone in authority gets rid of the flogging (I was going to say “shoots the flogger,” but this is Texas; somebody might start shooting).

1 Comment | Education, Education assessment, Education quality, Education success, Testing, Texas | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Broad Prize winner: Aldine ISD, near Houston

September 17, 2009

Aldine ISD, in the Houston metroplex, won the Broad Prize for Urban Education.

Earlier Texas winners are Houston ISD and Brownsville ISD.

From the press release from the Broad Foundation:

WASHINGTON – The Aldine Independent School District (AISD) outside Houston won the 2009 Broad Prize for Urban Education, the largest education award in the country, and as a result will receive $1 million in college scholarships, The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation announced today.  Aldine, where four out of five students qualify for free and reduced-priced school lunch, has shown some of the most consistent student achievement gains nationally in the last decade and has been recognized as one of the top five most improved urban American school systems in four of the last six years.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan joined philanthropist Eli Broad and members of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. to announce the winner. Aldine ISD was selected by a bipartisan jury of eight prominent American leaders from government, education, business and civic sectors, including three former U.S. secretaries of education.

The $2 million Broad (rhymes with “road”) Prize is an annual award that honors the five large urban school districts that demonstrate the strongest student achievement and improvement while narrowing achievement gaps between income and ethnic groups. The money goes directly to graduating high school seniors for college scholarships.

“Aldine shows us that it’s possible for a district facing tough circumstances to get excellent results,” said Secretary Arne Duncan, who opened up the envelope and announced the winner. “We need to highlight the success of Aldine and districts like it so that others can follow their examples and lift up all students.”

As the winner of The Broad Prize, the Aldine Independent School District will receive $1 million in college scholarships for graduating seniors next spring. The four finalists—Broward County Public Schools in southern Florida; Gwinnett County Public Schools outside Atlanta; the Long Beach Unified School District in California; and the Socorro Independent School District in Texas—will each receive $250,000 in college scholarships. Long Beach won the 2003 Broad Prize, and this marked the third year that the former winner returned as a finalist. Broward is a two-time finalist for the award, while this was Gwinnett’s and Socorro’s first year in the running.

How does that sit with us in Dallas?  Gossip at the Dallas Morning News blog, DallasISD:

I don’t know if you all have noticed but talk of DISD winning the Broad Prize for Urban Education by 2010 is nearly non-existent. Superintendent Michael Hinojosa used to always refer to the district’s goal to obtain the award, and he gave himself five years to do it shortly after his arrival in 2005. DISD has obviously made academic gains, but not much is uttered anymore about the “Road to Broad,” the district’s nickname for the roadmap to its reform effort.

Which is to say in other words, Dallas is concentrating on getting performance up, while cleaning up a few nasty administrative messes.  On the teacher level, the work towards excellence doesn’t change much whether Dallas administrators talk about the Broad Prize or not.

Congratulations to Aldine.  Teachers there worked their butts off.

Can anyone find any correlation between Aldine’s winning the award and anything Texas has done as a state?  Did performance pay help out in any way?  Have poor science standards and the assault on social studies standards helped, or hurt Aldine’s performance?

Who really wins the award?

Aldine parent Carlos Deleon, who has had three children educated in the district, attributed its success to “the community, the parent involvement and, of course, most important, the good teachers.”

“When I hear they’re awarded more scholarships,” Deleon said of the students, “wow, that’s great. These kids work so hard.”

Broad Prize winners from the past:  2002, Houston ISD; 2003, Long Beach Unified School District, California; 2004, Garden Grove Unified School District, California; 2005, Norfolk Public Schools; 2006, Boston Public Schools; 2007, New York City Department of Education; 2008, Brownsville ISD (Texas)

Resources:

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Posted by Ed Darrell

Quote of the moment: John F. Kennedy, “We choose to go to the Moon”

July 24, 2009

John F. Kennedy at Rice University, Houston, Texas, Sept 12, 1962 - photo from NASA

John F. Kennedy at Rice University, Houston, Texas, Sept 12, 1962 – photo from NASA

There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

President John F. Kennedy, September 12, 1962, at Rice University, Houston, Texas

Why this speech in Houston?  There’s more here than just a speech in a football stadium.  Kennedy was working to save the space initiative, and to make America more secure.

In this quest, Kennedy lays out the reasons we need strong science research programs funded by our federal government, and strong science educational achievement in all of our schools.

From the White House History Association:

Race to the Moon

President John F. Kennedy (1961-1963) awoke on April 12, 1961, to the news that the Soviet Union had won the race to put a man into space. Kennedy immediately met with Vice President Lyndon Johnson in the White House to discuss the embarrassment of the Soviets beating America again. “Can we put a man on the moon before them?” Kennedy asked. A few weeks later, Kennedy challenged the nation to “commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth.”

Kennedy challenged Congress and the imaginations of all Americans a few weeks later, when on May 25, in a special Joint Session of Congress, he proposed a Moon exploration program.  In a speech outlining defense and foreign policy needs to make the U.S. secure and safe against threats from Soviet communism, or any other nation or faction, Kennedy spoke openly about the space race that had been waged since October 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union became the first nation on Earth to orbit an artificial satellite, Sputnik.

Kennedy told Congress in that part of the speech:

Finally, if we are to win the battle that is now going on around the world between freedom and tyranny, the dramatic achievements in space which occurred in recent weeks should have made clear to us all, as did the Sputnik in 1957, the impact of this adventure on the minds of men everywhere, who are attempting to make a determination of which road they should take. Since early in my term, our efforts in space have been under review. With the advice of the Vice President, who is Chairman of the National Space Council, we have examined where we are strong and where we are not, where we may succeed and where we may not. Now it is time to take longer strides–time for a great new American enterprise–time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on earth.

I believe we possess all the resources and talents necessary. But the facts of the matter are that we have never made the national decisions or marshalled the national resources required for such leadership. We have never specified long-range goals on an urgent time schedule, or managed our resources and our time so as to insure their fulfillment.

Recognizing the head start obtained by the Soviets with their large rocket engines, which gives them many months of leadtime, and recognizing the likelihood that they will exploit this lead for some time to come in still more impressive successes, we nevertheless are required to make new efforts on our own. For while we cannot guarantee that we shall one day be first, we can guarantee that any failure to make this effort will make us last. We take an additional risk by making it in full view of the world, but as shown by the feat of astronaut Shepard, this very risk enhances our stature when we are successful. But this is not merely a race. Space is open to us now; and our eagerness to share its meaning is not governed by the efforts of others. We go into space because whatever mankind must undertake, free men must fully share.

I therefore ask the Congress, above and beyond the increases I have earlier requested for space activities, to provide the funds which are needed to meet the following national goals:

First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. We propose to accelerate the development of the appropriate lunar space craft. We propose to develop alternate liquid and solid fuel boosters, much larger than any now being developed, until certain which is superior. We propose additional funds for other engine development and for unmanned explorations–explorations which are particularly important for one purpose which this nation will never overlook: the survival of the man who first makes this daring flight. But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon–if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.

(Here’s a link to an audio excerpt of that speech, from the Kennedy Library.)

The race was on.  The Soviet Union’s massive rocket engines gave them a decided advantage.  Kennedy’s challenge captured the imagination of Americans and America.  Necessary money flowed from Congress, but not in a completely free flow.  Some opposed the nation’s efforts in space exploration because they thought spending on space exploration detracted from the nation’s defense efforts.  Kennedy continued to stress the connection between space exploration and defense.  He was backed by successes — Navy Commander Alan Shepard, Jr., had successfully launched into space and returned safely; and on February 20, 1962, pilot Marine Capt. John Glenn orbited the Earth three times, catching the U.S. up almost to where the Soviet Union was in manned space exploration.

Kennedy understood that constant attention, constant selling of the space program would be necessary.  So in September 1962 he found himself in Houston, the newly-designated home of the manned space program, and he took the opportunity to cast the American goals in the space race as peaceful, good for all mankind, and definitely worth the massive costs.

Notice in how he casts putting a human on the Moon in league with other great achievements of civilization.  Kennedy was truly shooting for the stars.

Notice also how he relates space exploration to practical applications then in existence, such as communication, navigation of ships at sea, and weather forecasting.  This was years before geosynchronus satellites were used for everyday telephone conversations, years before quantum theory was harnessed for Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and digital personal, handheld telephones, and before the newly-invented printed circuits were miniaturized to make computer calculating a possibility in space — the Moon landing was done with slide rules and hand calculations.

Just over 14 months later Kennedy would die in Texas, in Dallas, on November 22, 1963.  On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed the Eagle Lunar Module on the Moon, at the Sea of Tranquility.  A few hours later, on July 21, they stepped out on the Moon.  From Kennedy’s speech to Congress, the task had taken 8 years, one month and 26 days.

More resources:

Tip of the old scrub brush for inspiration to “Anything You Ever Wanted to Know” at KERA-FM 90.1 in Dallas, on July 24, 2009.

Buzz Aldrin on the Moon, with Neil Armstrong, the U.S. flag, and the Eagle Lunar Module reflected in his helmet visor, July 21, 1969 - NASA photo via Wikimedia

Buzz Aldrin on the Moon, with Neil Armstrong, the U.S. flag, and the Eagle Lunar Module reflected in his helmet visor, July 21, 1969 – NASA photo via Wikimedia

Please share.

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29 Comments | Cold War, DBQ sources, Education, Education quality, Famous quotes, History, Invention, Moon, Science, Space exploration, Space Race | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Star-spangled voodoo history

July 16, 2009

Star-spangled Banner and the War of 1812 - The original Star-Spangled Banner, the flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the song that would become our national anthem, is among the most treasured artifacts in the collections of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.

Star-spangled Banner and the War of 1812 – The original Star-Spangled Banner, the flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the song that would become our national anthem, is among the most treasured artifacts in the collections of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.

(Hey, Dear Reader; this post got an update many months later — you may want to check it out for better links and more information.)

Every school kid learns the story of the “Star-Spangled Banner,” or should.

During the War of 1812, Georgetown lawyer Francis Scott Key, stood aboard a British ship in Baltimore Harbor to negotiate the release of his friend, Dr. William Beanes, who had been taken prisoner while the British stormed through Bladensburg, Maryland, after burning Washington, D.C.  Key witnessed the British shelling of Fort McHenry, the guardian of Baltimore’s harbor.  Inspired when he saw the U.S. flag still waving at dawn after a night of constant shelling, Key wrote a poem.

Key published the poem, suggested it might be put to the tune of “Anachreon in Heaven” (a tavern tune popular at the time) — and the popularity of the song grew until Congress designated it the national anthem in 1931.  In telling the story of the latest restoration of that garrison flag now housed at the Smithsonian Museum of American History, Smithsonian Magazine repeated the story in the July 2000 issue:  “Our Flag Was Still There.”

It’s a wonderful history with lots of splendid, interesting details (Dolley Madison fleeing the Executive Mansion clutching the Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington, the guy who had introduced Dolley to James Madison and then snubbed them after they were married; the British troops eating the White House dinner the Madisons left in their haste; the gigantic, 42 by 30 foot flag sewn by Mary Pickersgill, a Baltimore widow trying to support her family; the rag-tag Baltimore militia stopping cold “Wellington’s Invicibles;” the British massing of 50 boats and gunships; and much more).

It’s a grand and glorious history that stirs the patriotic embers of the most cynical Americans.

And it’s all true.

So it doesn’t deserve the voodoo history version, the bogus history created by some person preaching in a church (I gather from the “amens”) that is making the rounds of the internet, stripped of attribution so we cannot hunt down the fool who is at fault.

We got this in an e-mail yesterday; patriots save us, there must be a hundred repetitions that turn up on Google, not one correcting this horrible distortion of American history.

Horrible distortion of American history

(The full version is a mind-numbing 11 minutes plus.  Some people have put it on other sites.)

Why do I complain?

  1. It was the War of 1812, not the Revolutionary War — there were 15 states, not 13 colonies.
  2. There was no ultimatum to to Baltimore, nor to the U.S., as this fellow describes it.
  3. Key negotiated for the release of one man, Dr. Beanes.  There was no brig full of U.S. prisoners.
  4. It’s Fort McHenry, not “Henry.”  The fort was named after James McHenry, a physician who was one of the foreign-born signers of the Constitution, who had assisted Generals Washington and Lafayette during the American Revolution, and who had served as Secretary of War to Presidents Washington and Adams.
  5. Fort McHenry was a military institution, a fort defending Baltimore Harbor.  It was not a refuge for women and children.
  6. The nation would not have reverted to British rule had Fort McHenry fallen.
  7. There were 50 ships, not hundreds.  Most of them were rafts with guns on them.  Baltimore Harbor is an arm of Chesapeake Bay; Fort McHenry is not on the ocean.
  8. The battle started in daylight.
  9. Bogus quote:  George Washington never said “What sets the American Christian apart from all other people in this world is he will die on his feet before he will live on his knees.”  Tough words.  Spanish Civil War.  Not George Washington.  I particularly hate it when people make up stuff to put in the mouths of great men.  Washington left his diaries and considerably more — we don’t have to make up inspiring stuff, and when we do, we get it wrong.
  10. The battle was not over the flag; the British were trying to take Baltimore, one of America’s great ports.  At this point, they rather needed to since the Baltimore militia had stunned and stopped the ground troops east of the city.  There’s enough American bravery and pluck in this part of the story to merit no exaggerations.
  11. To the best of our knowledge, the British did not specifically target the flag.
  12. There were about 25 American casualties.  Bodies of the dead were not used to hold up the flag pole — a 42 by 30 foot flag has to be on a well-anchored pole, not held up by a few dead bodies stacked around it.

You can probably find even more inaccuracies (please note them in comments if you do).

The entire enterprise is voodoo history.  The name of Key is right; the flag is right; almost everything else is wrong.

Please help:  Can you find who wrote this piece of crap?  Can you learn who the narrator is, and where it was recorded?

I keep finding troubling notes with this on the internet: ‘My school kids are going to see this to get the real story.’  ‘Why are the libs suppressing the truth?’  ‘I didn’t know this true story before, and now I wonder why my teachers wouldn’t tell it.’

It’s voodoo history, folks.  It’s a hoax.  The real story is much better.

If Peter Marshall and David Barton gave a gosh darn about American history, they would muster their mighty “ministries” to correct the inaccuracies in this piece.  But they are silent.

Clearly, it’s not the glorious history of this nation they love.

More:

Please share that voodoo, as you do so well:

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46 Comments | Accuracy, Bogus history, Education, Education quality, Flag etiquette, Patriotism, Teaching, Texas Freedom Network, Voodoo history, War of 1812 | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Texas education: It should be about the kids, and education

July 14, 2009

Dallas Morning News columnist Jackie Floyd gets at the real issues week after week, stripping away the spin and silliness other reporters cover in the misaimed hope for objectivity.

And today her column looks at the social studies recommendations from a special review panel, released last week:  “Curriculum debate marred by ideologues.”

A lot of what the expert advisers have to say about the standards for teaching social studies to Texas kids is genuinely depressing stuff.

It’s depressing because, as you wade through the half-dozen point-by-point reports that will be used to advise the people deciding what your kids will learn, you might wonder whether the people who oversee our public schools care a lot less about education than they do about ideology.

You might even get the sense they care an awful lot less about helping the next generation of Texans lead meaningful, productive lives than about telling them how to vote.

It’s not a big surprise, since some members of the State Board of Education sometimes behave as if schooling children is simply a matter of making them memorize an encyclopedic list of political talking points.

She names names, though I doubt she had a chance to actually kick the butts that need kicking.

And it’s the board that appointed a panel of experts that includes a family-values activist from Aledo and a minister in Massachusetts who specializes in “Christian heritage.” It’s that awful, embarrassing fight over evolution all over again.

As a result, what is presumably supposed to be a sensible discussion about what children need to learn has been reduced to a self-serving bickering match over who gets to be commandant of the indoctrination camp.

“To have Cesar Chavez listed next to Ben Franklin is ludicrous,” snarls one of the panelists; another says kids must be drilled more about Roe vs. Wade, which he says has “arguably more impacted American life than any other Supreme Court decision in the 20th century.”

Another expert makes careful tallies over whether curriculum recommendations cite Latinos with the same frequency as black and white historical figures – as if classroom studies can be reduced to a racial quid pro quo of the number of times specific historical figures are mentioned.

It’s not all ideological flag-waving, of course – but a lot of it is. There’s a silly freedom-fries debate over whether to substitute the term “free enterprise system” for “capitalism,” of whether suggested teaching examples should exclude Carl Sagan or Neil Armstrong or the guy who invented canned milk; of whether there are too many women and minorities and not enough founding fathers; of whether religion and the rule of law should be taught with more or less vigor than civil liberties and colonial adventurism.

Best, she notices that there were a couple of real experts on the panel whose reports have gotten short shrift in the news, and whose reports will be give short shrift by the politically-driven education board.

Miraculously – or at least astonishingly – in one of the reports, I found that awareness candidly articulated.

Somehow, Dr. Lybeth Hodges, a Texas Woman’s University history professor and a last-minute panel appointee, did not see a need to draft a political manifesto. She just made (get this!) sensible, useful curriculum recommendations.

She pointed out items that might actually help kids learn more and be better prepared for tests, such as that specific grade-level curriculum doesn’t always match the dreaded TAKS tests.

She noted that there are more than 90 “student expectations” for fifth-graders, an unrealistic pipe dream given that “some sound like test questions I give my college freshmen.”

Hodges, unlike some other appointees, took the blessedly pragmatic view that constantly trying to balance dueling ideologies will only result in a bloated, unmanageable list of standards that few kids will find meaningful and retain.

“It should not be a political exercise,” she said briskly, when we spoke a few days ago.

“I never thought about the political aspect at all,” she said. “I thought we were being asked to do what is reasonable and helpful for teachers. … They have enough red tape as it is.”

As we talked, my head was gradually swaddled in a pleasurable sense of optimism: Here was one person, at least, more interested in getting something useful done than in endlessly re-enacting the same old tired-out culture battle.

Call me a starry-eyed dreamer, but American education isn’t supposed to be a tedious exercise in demagoguery.

“To me, teachers aren’t there to carry out indoctrination in our schools,” Hodges said. “These people are trying to open little minds.”

If we’re going to open them successfully, we need more big minds at the top.

Also, check out the comments on the newspaper’s education blog, on the report of Gail Lowe being appointed chair of the SBOE.   It’s instructive.

2 Comments | Bogus history, Education, Education quality, Education reform, Politics, Social Studies, State school boards, TEKS, Texas, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Perry to Texas Education: “Drop dead, but not as fast as before”

July 10, 2009

Texas Gov. Rick Perry named Gail Lowe, R-Lampasas, to chair the State Board of Education.

Texas senators rejected Perry’s earlier nomination of Don McLeroy, R-Beaumont, due to McLeroy’s divisive tactics on board issues.  The chair must come from one of the board’s 15 elected members.

Perry was thought to favor a radical conservative to push the anti-education wishes of hard-core Republicans in Texas, whose vote Perry hopes to have in a tough fight for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 2010.  U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison will try to oust Perry for the party’s nomination.  Some feared Perry would nominate Cynthia Dunbar, R-Richmond, who is even more radical than McLeroy.

In contrast, Lowe has been a relatively reliable vote against Texas teachers and science curricula, but she is not known to be as polarizing as McLeroy.  She has compromised on some issues, voting with educators and students.

Perry’s turning to Lowe indicates his disregard of education as an issue, and his writing off of the vote of Texas teachers and parents of students.  Perry could have named an experienced administrator and peace maker who could push the board to do its legally-mandated work on time, by nominating Bob Craig, R-Lubbock.  Perry’s turning to Lowe instead indicates that a working board is not among his priorities.

Lowe’s appointment to the chair probably is not so bad as a Dunbar appointment would have been.  But unless Ms. Lowe makes serious efforts to push for journeyman policy-making from board members, avoiding intentional controversies and simply resolving controversial issues that cannot be avoided, the SBOE will contined to be little more than political theatre in Austin, except when it actually rules on curricula and textbook issues.

Few expect the board to be a fountain of wisdom, or an example of education excellence over the next two years.

Perry’s action becomes not so bad as the potential slap in the face to Texas education that he might have delivered.  It’s the slap without a windup.  Texas students deserved a kiss instead.

Lowe will serve at least until the State Senate can act to approve or disapprove the nomination; the legislature will meet next in January 2011.  Lowe can serve for 17 months before the legislature meets.

Information:

Pre-nomination information:

Also at Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub:

3 Comments | Education, Education quality, Education reform, Politics, State school boards, Texas, Textbook Selection, Textbooks, War on Education | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

David Barton: Mediocre scientists who are Christian, good; great scientists, bad

July 9, 2009

I’m reviewing the reviews of Texas social studies curricula offered by the six people appointed by the Texas State Board of Education.  David Barton, a harsh partisan politician, religious bigot, pseudo-historian and questionable pedagogue, offers up this whopper, about fifth grade standards.:

In Grade 5 (b)(24)(A), there are certainly many more notable scientists than Carl Sagan – such as Wernher von Braun, Matthew Maury, Joseph Henry, Maria Mitchell, David Rittenhouse, etc.

Say what?  “More notable scientists than Carl Sagan . . . ?”  What is this about?

It’s about David Barton’s unholy bias against science, and in particular, good and great scientists like Carl Sagan who professed atheism, or any faith other than David Barton’s anti-science brand of fundamentalism.

David Barton doesn’t want any Texas child to grow up to be a great astronomer like Carl Sagan, if there is any chance that child will also be atheist, like Carl Sagan.  Given a choice between great science from an atheist, or mediocre science from a fundamentalist Christian, Barton chooses mediocrity.

Currently the fifth grade standards for social studies require students to appreciate the contributions of scientists.  Here is the standard Barton complains about:

(24) Science, technology, and society. The student understands the impact of science and technology on life in the United States. The student is expected to:

(A) describe the contributions of famous inventors and scientists such as Neil Armstrong, John J. Audubon, Benjamin Banneker, Clarence Birdseye, George Washington Carver, Thomas Edison, and Carl Sagan;
(B) identify how scientific discoveries and technological innovations such as the transcontinental railroad, the discovery of oil, and the rapid growth of technology industries have advanced the economic development of the United States;
(C) explain how scientific discoveries and technological innovations in the fields of medicine, communication, and transportation have benefited individuals and society in the United States;
(D) analyze environmental changes brought about by scientific discoveries and technological innovations such as air conditioning and fertilizers; and
(E) predict how future scientific discoveries and technological innovations could affect life in the United States.

Why doesn’t Barton like Carl Sagan?  In addition to Sagan’s being a great astronomer, he was a grand populizer of science, especially with his series for PBS, Cosmos.

But offensive to Barton was Sagain’s atheism.  Sagan wasn’t militant about it, but he did honestly answer people who asked that he found no evidence for the efficacy or truth of religion, nor for the existence of supernatural gods.

More than that, Sagan defended evolution theory.  Plus, he was Jewish.

Any one of those items might earn the David Barton Stamp of Snooty-nosed Disapproval, but together, they are about fatal.

Do the scientists Barton suggests in Sagan’s stead measure up? Barton named four:

Wernher von Braun, Matthew Maury, Joseph Henry, Maria Mitchell, David Rittenhouse

In the category of “Sagan Caliber,” only von Braun might stake a claim.  Wernher von Braun, you may recall, was the guy who ran the Nazi’s rocketry program.  After the war, it was considered a coup that the U.S. snagged him to work, first for the Air Force, and then for NASA.  Excuse me for worrying, but I wonder whether Barton likes von Braun for his rocketry, for his accommodation of anti-evolution views, or for his Nazi-supporting roots.  (No, I don’t trust Barton as far as I can hurl the Texas Republican Party Platform, which bore Barton’s fould stamp while he was vice chair of the group.)

So, apart from the fact that von Braun was largely an engineer, and Sagan was a brilliant astronomer with major contributions to our understanding of the cosmos, what about the chops of the other four people?  Why would Barton suggest lesser knowns and unknowns?

Matthew Maury once headed the U.S. Naval Observatory, in the 19th century.  He was famous for studying ocean currents, piggy-backing on the work of Ben Franklin and others.  Do a Google search, though, and you’ll begin to undrstand:  Maury is a favorite of creationists, a scientist who claimed to subjugate his science to the Bible.  Maury claimed his work on ocean currents was inspired at least in part by a verse in Psalms 8 which referred to “paths in the sea.”  Maury is not of the stature or achievement of Sagan, but Maury is politically correct to Barton.

Joseph Henry is too ignored, the first head of the Smithsonian Institution. Henry made his mark in research on magnetism and electricity.  But it’s not Henry’s science Barton recognizes.  Henry, as a largely unknown scientist today, is a mainstay of creationists’ list of scientists who made contributions to science despite their being creationists.  What?  Oh, this is inside baseball in the war to keep evolution in science texts.  In response to the (accurate) claim that creationists have not contributed anything of scientific value to biology since about William Paley in 1802, Barton and his fellow creationists will trot out a lengthy list of scientists who were at least nominally Christian, and claim that they were creationists, and that they made contributions to science.  The list misses the point that Henry, to pick one example, didn’t work in biology nor make a contribution to biology, nor is there much evidence that Henry was a creationist in the modern sense of denying science.  Henry is obscure enough that Barton can claim he was politically correct, to Barton’s taste, to be studied by school children without challenging Barton’s creationist ideas.

Maria Mitchell was an American astronomer, the second woman to discover a comet. While she was a Unitarian and a campaigner for women’s rights, or more accurately, because of that, I can’t figure how she passes muster as politically correct to David Barton.  Surely she deserves to be studied more in American history than she is — perhaps with field trips to the Maria Mitchell House National Historic Landmark.  It may be that Barton has mistaken Mitchell for another creationist scientist. While Mitchell’s life deseves more attention — her name would be an excellent addition to the list of woman scientists Texas children should study — she is not of the stature of Sagan.

David Rittenhouse, a surveyor and astronomer, and the first head of the U.S. Mint, is similarly confusing as part of Barton’s list.  Rittenhouse deserves more study, for his role in extending the Mason-Dixon line, if nothing else, but it is difficult to make a case that his contributions to science approach those of Carl Sagan.  Why is Rittenhouse listed by Barton?  If nothing else, it shows the level of contempt Barton holds for Sagan as “just another scientist.”  Barton urges the study of other scientists, any other scientists, rather than study of Sagan.

Barton just doesn’t like Sagan.  Why?  Other religionists give us the common dominionist or radical religionist view of Sagan:

Just what is the Secular Humanist worldview? First and foremost Secular Humanists are naturalists. A naturalist believes that nature is all that exists. “The Cosmos is all there is, or was, or ever will be.” This was the late Carl Sagan’s opening line on the television series “Cosmos.” Sagan was a noted astronomer and a proud secular humanist. Sagan maintained that the God of the Bible was nonexistent. (Imagine Sagan’s astonishment when he came face to face with his Maker.)

Sagan’s science, in Barton’s view, doesn’t leave enough room for Barton’s religion.  Sagan was outspoken about his opposition to superstition.  Sagan urged reason and the active use of his “Baloney-Detection Kit.” One of Sagan’s later popular books was titled Demon-haunted World:  Science as a candle in the dark.  Sagan argued for the use of reason and science to learn about our world, to use to build a framework for solving the world’s problems.

Barton prefers the dark to any light shed by Sagan, it appears.

More resources on the State Board of Education review of social studies curricula


5 Comments | Accuracy, Bad Quotes, Bogus history, Capitalism, Citizenship, Education, Education quality, History, Politics, Public education, Religion, Science, Science and faith, Separation of church and state, Social Studies, Texas, Textbook Selection, Textbooks, Voodoo history, Voodoo science, War on Education | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Rick Perry’s education dilemma

June 25, 2009

Betsy Oney teaches in Arlington, Texas.  She’s a frontline soldier in the fight to educate our kids.

She also reads the newspapers and pays attention to what is going on at the highest levels in Texas government.  From her view, she describes better than anyone else I’ve seen, the problem facing Texas Gov. Rick Perry right now, after the Texas State Senate rejected Perry’s nominee to head the State Board of Education, Don McLeroy.

Betsy’s views appeared as an opposite-editorial piece in the Fort Worth Star Telegram on June 7, 2009:

Texas governor in a dilemma over education board pick

By BETSY ONEY
Special to the Star-Telegram

Gov. Rick Perry is in something of a Catch-22.

It started two years ago when he appointed dentist Don McLeroy to chair the State Board of Education. McLeroy is described by his many supporters as a “good and decent man,” and of that we can be sure.

McLeroy’s appointment came after the 80th Legislature adjourned, so he had to be confirmed during this year’s session. The confirmation failed in the Senate.

McLeroy’s supporters blame that on the fact that he’s a Christian. Records show that this Senate, and the House Public Education Committee in a July 16 hearing, were concerned not that he’s Christian but that McLeroy politicized Texas children’s education and led the board and the Texas education system into the spotlight. And what Texans and Americans saw in that light was a fairly grotesque parade of a few people — a majority faction of the board led by McLeroy — who listened to ideology instead of experts and were intent on imposing an antiquated education system on Texas children.

From that same elected board, Perry now must decide on a new chairman who, like McLeroy, will serve without scrutiny until the next legislative session, in 2011.

Perry’s decision is his Catch-22.

He probably won’t consider a Democrat. That leaves nine Republican possibilities. Seven are the radical members responsible for politicizing children’s education. They voted in lock step on a range of issues that individually and collectively have been widely seen by educators and lawyers as anything from illegal to unconstitutional to damaging children. Nominating from that pool might yield a different management style than McLeroy offered, but the ideology, intent and backward direction would remain the same.

The two remaining Republicans are conservative, but not extremists. Both District 11’s Pat Hardy of Fort Worth and District 15’s Bob Craig of Lubbock are well-qualified and would lead Texas public education in the right direction. In contrast to the radical members, they would be responsive to the changing educational needs that the future demands as well as to the rich diversity of children in our population.

Although Hardy has been mentioned as a nominee by senators, she’s recommending Craig.

Craig, an attorney, is a logical choice. He’s served on the board since 2002 and before that served on the Lubbock school board for 14 years. Craig is a “good and decent man,” but in contrast to McLeroy, his voting record and conciliatory demeanor show him to be a rational, uniting public education supporter. He listens to educators and experts. He respects the opinions of others. He votes in the interest of all children.

It’s clear that Perry could not make a better choice than Bob Craig. The Catch-22 is that by appointing a nonextremist, Perry risks losing support from his biggest donors, the religious right.

These donors see benefit in turning public education into religious education at taxpayer expense. They see benefit in keeping critical thinking out of the classroom. Their money is essential in his campaign against Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison in the next gubernatorial primary election.

If Perry appoints from the pool of radical rights, the voting public will be alerted that he’s sacrificing our children’s education and Texas’ future for his own political interests. So he’ll lose votes.

Money and ideology vs. public’s interest and, ultimately, its confidence. What a dilemma! Stay tuned.

Betsy Oney of Fort Worth holds a master of education degree and is a master reading teacher (and English-as-a-second-language teacher) in the Arlington school district.
Can you tell Ms. Oney is literate?  She tosses out “Catch-22” expecting us to know that that means!  She has high expectations for her audience.
Oney’s discipline in Texas schools is one of those insulted by new standards brought down from some mountain by the Texas SBOE in the past year, ignoring the work of Ms. Oney’s colleagues and professionals in her field.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Robert Luhn via Glenn Branch.

3 Comments | Education, Education quality, Politics, State school boards, Texas, War on Education | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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