March 31, 2010
No Recess Today, from Flickr files of BamaWester
Trends to less recess only get more complicated.
David Elkind of Tufts wrote in the New York Times about the trend to getting recess coaches. It’s probably much better than killing recess altogether, but still problematic, don’t you think? Elkind said:
We have to adapt to childhood as it is today, not as we knew it or would like it to be. The question isn’t whether recess coaches are good or bad — they seem to be with us to stay — but whether they help students form the age-old bonds of childhood. To the extent that the coaches focus on play, give children freedom of choice about what they want to do, and stay out of the way as much as possible, they are likely a good influence.
In any case, recess coaching is a vastly better solution than eliminating recess in favor of more academics. Not only does recess aid personal development, but studies have found that children who are most physically fit tend to score highest on tests of reading, math and science.
Earlier at Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub:
Other sources:
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Posted by Ed Darrell
March 19, 2010
Tony Whitson from Curricublog made the killing observation:
BookTV [C-SPAN] this weekend has Steve Forbes talking about his new book,
“How Capitalism Will Save Us.”
With these new Social Studies TEKS, TX students won’t know what such a
book is about.
Small bit of humor from a truly sad situation. One of the leaders of the Texas State Soviet of Education defended the evisceration and defenestration of social studies standards saying they didn’t need to listen to liberal college professors.
In economics, the professor was a conservative, well-respected economics professor from Texas A&M University, one of the most conservative state universities in the nation (with a Corps of Cadets numbering in the thousands and tradition deeper than Palo Duro Canyon and broader than the Gulf of Mexico). Calling these people “liberal” is tantamount to complaining about the communism espoused by Ronald Reagan and Dwight Eisenhower — that is, it demonstrates a divorce from reality and rationality.
In the grand scheme of things it’s not a huge problem, but it’s more than a trifle. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to fully comprehend market economics in the U.S. without understanding what capitalism is, and how it works. Teachers will be left to find their own materials to explain “free enterprise” and, if the students ever make it into a real economics course in college, they will discover “free enterprise” is a quaint, political term that is not discussed in serious economics circles. Texas students will, once again, be pushed to the hindmost by Don McLeroy’s odd views of America and what he doesn’t want Americans to know.
For example, look at the Council for Economic Education — while “capitalism” is not the only word they use for market-based economies, you’ll have a tougher time finding any definition of “free enterprise.” Or, more telling, look at the Advanced Placement courses, or the International Baccalaureate courses. AP and IB courses are the most academically rigorous courses offered in American high schools. The Texas TEKS step away from such rigor, however (while the Texas Education Agency rides Texas schools to add rigor — go figure). IB courses talk a lot about enterprise, but they don’t censor “capitalism,” nor do they pretend it’s not an important concept.
At the very conservative and very good Library of Economics and Liberty (which every social studies teacher should have bookmarked and should use extensively), a search for “free enterprise” produces 77 entries (today). “Capitalism” produces almost ten times as much, with more than 750 listings.
Which phrase do you think is more useful in studying American economics, history and politics?
Teachers will deal with it. It’s one more hurdle to overcome on the path to trying to educate Texas students. It’s one more roadblock to their learning what they need to keep the freedom in America.
Capitalism - Warren Buffett - BusinessWeek image
Free Enterprise - Bernie Madoff
The real difference? Literature on capitalism frequently address the issue of moral investments, and the need for some regulation to bolster the Invisible Hand in producing discipline to steer markets from immoral and harmful investments. The essential history politics economic question of the 20th and 21st centuries is, can economic freedom exist without political freedom, and which one is more crucial to the other? We know from every period of chaos in history when governments did not function well, but bandits did, that free enterprise can exist without either political freedom or economic freedom. I think of it like this:
Capitalism
|
Free Enterprise
|
| Adam Smith |
Blackbeard the Pirate |
| Warren Buffett |
Bernie Madoff |
| Investing |
Spending |
| Building institutions |
Taking profits |
| Retail |
Robbery |
| Wholesale |
Extortion |
| Save for a rainy day |
debt-equity swap |
| Antitrust enforcement to keep markets fair |
Don’t get caught, hope for acquittal |
| Milton Friedman |
P. T. Barnum |
| Ludwig von Mises |
Charles Ponzi |
| Friedrich von Hayek |
Richard Cheney, “deficits don’t matter” |
| Paul Krugman |
Kato Kaelin |
| Stockholders |
Victims and suckers |
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Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Business, Business Ethics, Capitalism, Economics, Education, Education reform, Freedom - Economic, History, Rampant stupidity, Social Studies, State school boards, TEKS, Texas | Tagged: Capitalism, Economics, Free Enterprise, Rampant stupidity, Social Studies, Texas, Texas State Board of Education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
March 10, 2010
A couple of months can make a big difference. Can.
A difference which way?
Two months ago the Texas State Board of Education suspended its revamping of social studies standards — the efforts to grind the standards into a right-wing crutch were so controversial that hearings, discussion and amending proposed standards took up more time than allotted. SBOE delayed final votes until March 10.
Today.
Last week Texas voted in primary elections. Several board members’ terms are up. Two incumbents lost primary challenges, Don McLeroy, the Boss Tweed of the right wing cultural war ring, and Geraldine Miller, a long-term veteran from Dallas, whose very conservative views cast her as a moderate among SBOE members. Both are Republicans.
How will those primary losses affect them and their work on the board?
In addition, other members of the culture war ring are retiring, including Cynthia Dunbar. Will the lame ducks be content to vote up the changes urged by history and economic professionals and professional educators, or will they do as McLeroy suggested they need to do earlier, and fight against the recommendations of experts?
How will the lame ducks walk and quack?
Stakes are high. New York Times Magazine featured the culture wars on the cover on Valentine’s Day (you should read the article). Texas Monthly weighed in against the culture wars, too — a surprise to many Texans.
Cynicism is difficult to swim against. I expect McLeroy to try as best he can to make social studies standards a monument to right wing bigotry and craziness. We’ve already seen SBOE vote to delete a wonderful children’s book from even being mentioned because the text author shares a name with a guy who wrote a book on socialism earlier.
Most of us watching from outside of Austin (somebody has to stay back and grade the papers and teach to the test . . .) expect embarrassments. On English and science standards before, the culture war ring tactics were to make a flurry of last-minute, unprinted and undiscussed, unannounced amendments apparently conspired to gut the standards of accuracy (which would not make the right wing political statements they want) and, too often, rigor. Moderates on the board have not had the support mechanisms to combat these tactics successfully — secret e-mail and telephone-available friends standing by to lend advice and language on amendments. In at least two votes opponents of the culture war voted with the ring, not knowing that innocent-sounding amendments came loaded.
In a test of the No True Scotsman argument, religious people will be praying for Texas kids and Texas education. Meanwhile, culture warriors at SBOE will work to frustrate those prayers.
Oy.
Thomas Jefferson toyed with the idea of amendment the U.S. Constitution to provide a formal role for the federal government in guaranteeing education, which he regarded as the cornerstone of freedom and a free, democratic-style republic. Instead, American primary and secondary education are governed by more than 15,000 locally-elected school boards with no guidance from the national government on what should be taught. Alone among the industrial and free nations of the world, the U.S. has no mechanism for rigorous national standards on what should be taught.
For well over a century a combined commitment to educating kids better than their parents helped keep standards high and achievement rising. Public education got the nation through two world wars, and created a workforce that could perform without peer on Earth in producing a vibrant and strong economy.
That shared commitment to quality education now appears lost. Instead we have culture warriors hammering teachers and administrators, insisting that inaccurate views of Jefferson and history be taught to children, perhaps to prevent them from ever understanding what the drive for education meant to freedom, but surely to end Jeffersonian-style influences in the future.
Texas’s SBOE may make the case today that states cannot be trusted with our children’s future, and that we need a national body to create academic rigor to preserve our freedom. Or they will do the right thing.
Voters last week expressed their views that SBOE can’t be trusted to do the right thing. We’re only waiting to see how hard McLeroy is willing to work to put his thumb in the eye of Big Tex.
More:
- Steve Schafersman will live blog the meeting today at http://www.texasobserver.org/stevenschafersman/ . Social studies agenda doesn’t start until 11:00 a.m. Central
- Curricublog from Tony Whitson discusses Texas’s sorry standards, and how the right spins them. Watch this blog generally for good and incisive comments from the meeting; Tony often follows the webcasts, and his writings are always, always informative.
- Texas Freedom Network gives you the background; watch TFN’s blog, TFN Insider, for more timely updates (heck, head over there now and learn a lot about today’s meeting). When you read the New York Times piece, you noted incisive comments by Kathy Miller — she’s the director of TFN. TFN is the tape that has held together the good parts of education standards so far, against the swords of the culture warriors. TFN’s blog will probably be updated through the meeting.
- National Center for Science Education is the always stalwart, working-for-the-good organization on Texas education standards — alas, we’re talking social studies now
- Paul Burka’s story on the culture war, at Texas Monthly
- Fox News’s Shannon Bream cites Jay Sekulow of the Pat Robertson forces urging more cultural war before the will of Texas voters can change things.
- McLeroy won the first annual UpChucky Award from NCSE
- The new, online newspaper, Texas Tribune, covers SBOE very well; watch that space
- Kelly Shackleford’s religious issues group will live blog at their site
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
1 Comment | Cargo Cults, Economics, Education, Education quality, Education reform, Government, History, History Revisionism, Rampant stupidity, Social Studies, State school boards, Texas, Texas Freedom Network, Voodoo history, War on Education | Tagged: Culture Wars, Don McLeroy, Economics, Education, Education reform, Government, History, Rampant stupidity, Social Studies, Texas, Texas State Board of Education, War on Education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
March 4, 2010
Were I to advise Diane Ravitch right now, I’d tell her to change all her computer passwords and redouble the security on her servers. Why? After what happened to the scientists who study global warming, I expect many of the same wackoes are working right now to get her e-mails, knowing that the mere act of stealing them will be enough to indict her change of heart on education in America.
It’s much the same mob crowd in both cases. [I’m hopeful it’s not a mob.]
Dr. Ravitch thinks big thoughts about education. She stands in the vanguard of those people who are both academically astute in education, and who can make a case that appeals to policy makers. Working under Checker Finn at the old Office of Educational Research and Improvement, we quickly got familiar with Ravitch’s works and views. Finn and Ravitch, good friends and like-minded in education issues, were the running backs and sticky-handed receivers for any conservative education quarterback, back in the Day.
Finn was Assistant Secretary of Education for Research under Bill Bennett. Ravitch succeeded Finn, under Lamar Alexander. While Bennett and Alexander took troubling turns to the right, and Finn stayed much where he was, Ravitch has been looking hard at what’s working in schools today.
Ravitch doesn’t like the conservative revolution’s results in education. She’s changed her views. Says one of the better stories about her changing views, in The New York Times:
Once outspoken about the power of standardized testing, charter schools and free markets to improve schools, Dr. Ravitch is now caustically critical. She underwent an intellectual crisis, she says, discovering that these strategies, which she now calls faddish trends, were undermining public education. She resigned last year from the boards of two conservative research groups.
“School reform today is like a freight train, and I’m out on the tracks saying, ‘You’re going the wrong way!’ ” Dr. Ravitch said in an interview.
This is big stuff, and good news to teachers who, since I was at Education in 1987, have been telling policy makers the same things Ravitch is saying now.
David Gardner and Milton Goldberg wrote in the report of the Excellence in Education Commission in 1983 that America faces a “rising tide of mediocrity” because of bad decisions. That’s true of much education reform today, too.
Gardner and Goldberg also said that, had a foreign nation done that damage to us, we’d regard it as an act of war.
Maybe Ravitch’s turn can help mediate an end to the Right’s War on Education and pogroms against teachers.
Here in Texas the conservatives on the Texas State Board of Education didn’t like Ravitch’s views when she was in the conservative camp, so Texas has started, finally, to vote out commissioners who don’t get it, who prefer a state of war on Texas’s children to promoting public education
Let’s hope more people listen to Ravitch now.
More:
Be sure to listen to the NPR interview from Morning Edition, yesterday (you can read it, too).
And, in next Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, a story about how to build a better teacher; do you know the difference between testing and teaching?
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
2 Comments | Education, Education assessment, Education quality, Education reform, Education spending, Education success, History, No Child Left Behind Act, Teachers, Teaching, TEKS, Testing | Tagged: Diane Ravitch, Education, Education reform, History, NCLB, Testing | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
January 15, 2010
News reports in Texas this morning said that several of the right-wing, gut-education-standards changes proposed to social studies standards had failed in voting on Thursday, January 14. But, much more was to be done, and the SBOE adjourned early last night to continue voting today.
In a pattern familiar to education advocates in Texas, board member Don McLeroy (R-Pluto) today proposed a long series of amendments, apparently off-the-cuff, but probably written up in earlier strategy sessions. These last-minute amendments tend to pass having missed any serious scrutiny.
Will he be able to ruin Texas education for the next decade? I cannot follow the live webcasts; Steve Schafersman is working to stop the amendments, rather than merely blog about them. We probably won’t know the extent of the damage for weeks. McLeroy cherishes his role as a Port-au-Prince-style earthquake to Texas education. (Pure coincidence, I’m sure — Ed Brayton summarizes McLeroy’s politics today.)
Watch that space, and other news sources. I may provide updates here, as I can get information.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
1 Comment | Education, Education blogs, Education quality, Education reform, Political Smear, Politics, Religion, TEKS, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Freedom Network, War on Education | Tagged: Economics, Education, Education reform, geography, History, Politics, Religion, State Board of Educaiton, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Freedom Network, War on Education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
January 13, 2010
In a post titled “The Battle Joined,” the Texas Freedom Network repeated for us the press release from their Tuesday press conference at the Texas Education Agency, about the hearings on social studies standards, graduation requirements and other issues in Austin this week.
Watch that space (see also this explanatory piece) and this space, and your non-faux news outlets.
The Texas Freedom Network sent out the following press release after our press conference this morning at the Texas Education Agency:
The state’s leading religious liberties group today joined with clergy and scholars in calling on the State Board of Education to approve new curriculum standards that don’t undermine religious freedom in Texas social studies classrooms.
“Curriculum writers have drafted proposed standards that rightly acknowledge the influence of faith on the Founders and in our nation’s history,” Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller said today. “But those writers also respected religious freedom by rejecting political pressure to portray the United States as favoring one faith over all others. Doing otherwise would aid the teaching of bad history and promote something that is fundamentally un-American.”
Miller spoke in advance of a Wednesday public hearing on proposed new social studies curriculum standards. Teachers, academics and community members from around the state have spent the last year crafting the new standards. Publishers will use the standards to write new textbooks scheduled for adoption by Texas in 2011. The state board will debate the standards drafts on Thursday and has scheduled a final vote in March.
Derek Davis, dean of humanities and the graduate school and director of the Center for Religious Liberty at Mary Hardin-Baylor University, a Baptist institution in Belton, called on the board to respect the work of teachers and other experts who helped write the new standards.
“Religious liberty stands as one of our nation’s bedrock principles,” Davis said. “Yet it seems always under siege by those who fail to appreciate the astute thinking of the founding fathers that caused them to write into the Constitution the principle that guarantees religious liberty: the separation of church and state. This distinctly American value continues to set our nation apart from those embroiled in religious conflict in the rest of the world.”
Miller and Davis were joined at a press conference by the Rev. Marcus McFaul of Highland Park Baptist Church in Austin and Steven Green, a professor of law and of history and director of the Willamette Center for Religion at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon.
“The instruction of religious faith, discipleship, and a life of service and piety is the responsibility of each faith community, whether church, synagogue or mosque,” Rev. McFaul said. “It is the responsibility of parents and parishes, not public schools. We all note – as the curriculum writers did – the role and influence of religion in American history, but not to advance, promote or seek advantage for any particular religion’s point of view.”
The state board has revised curriculum standards for language arts and science over the past two years. In both cases the board either threw out or heavily revised standards crafted by curriculum writing teams that included teachers, curriculum specialists and academic experts. Last year, for example, creationists on the state board pushed through science standards that call into question long-established scientific evidence for evolution.
“This is not a good way to make sound education policy,” Miller said of the board’s habit of rejecting the work of teachers and experts. “It’s past time that state board members stop playing politics with the education of Texas children, respect the hard work teachers and other experts have put into writing standards, and acknowledge that experts – not politicians – know best what our children need to learn.”
Educate somebody else on this issue:
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3 Comments | Education, Education blogs, Education quality, Education reform, Social Studies, State school boards, Texas, Texas Education Agency (TEA), Texas Freedom Network, Voodoo history, War on Education | Tagged: Education, SBOE, Social Studies, Texas, Texas Freedom Network, War on Education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
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.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
2 Comments | Capitalism, Economics, Education, Education quality, Education reform, Politics, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Freedom Network, Voodoo history, War on Education | Tagged: Don McLeroy, Economics, Education, education standards, geography, History, SBOE, Social Studies, TEKS, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Freedom Network, Texas State Board of Education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
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:
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
2 Comments | Curricula, Education, Education quality, Education reform, History, History Methods and Tools, knowledge | Tagged: Capitalism, Curricula, Economics, Education, Education reform, History, Social Studies, state board of education, Texas, Texas Freedom Network, Textbooks, War on Education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
October 5, 2009
Encore post from 2007:
America woke up on October 4, 1957.
Sputnik model, at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum (Wikimedia image)
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) launched the world’s first artificial satellite into orbit. After successfully putting the shiny ball into orbit, the Soviets trumpeted the news that Sputnik traced the skies over the entire planet, to the shock of most people in the U.S. (Photo of the model in the Smithsonian’s Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C.)
New Scientist magazine’s website provides significant details about how awake America became, including very good coverage of the Moon landings that were nearly a direct result of Sputnik’s launch — without Sputnik, the U.S. probably wouldn’t have jump started its own space program so, with the creation of NASA and the drive for manned space flight, and without the space race President John F. Kennedy probably wouldn’t have made his dramatic 1961 proposal to put humans on the Moon inside a decade.
Sputnik really did change the world.
Much of the progress to the 1969 Moon landing could not have occurred without the reform of education and science prompted by the Soviets’ triumph. With apathetic parents and the No Child Left Behind Act vexing U.S. education and educators from both sides, more than nostalgia makes one misty-eyed for the National Defense Education Act (NDEA), a direct product of Sputnik-inspired national ambition. Coupled with the GI Bill for veterans of World War II and Korea, NDEA drove U.S. education to be the envy of the world, best in overall achievement (and also drove creationists to try to block such improvements).
(Today NDEA gets little more than a footnote in real history — Wikipedia’s entry is short and frustrating, the U.S. Department of Education gives little more. Educators, you have got to tell your history.)
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) lists 1957 as among the dozen dates students need to know in U.S. history, for Sputnik. It is the only date Texas officials list for U.S. history that is really an accomplishment by another nation. (The first time I encountered this requirement was in a meeting of social studies teachers gearing up for classes starting the following week. The standards mention the years, but not the events; I asked what the event was in 1957 that we were supposed to teach, noting that if it was the Little Rock school integration attempt, there were probably other more memorable events in civil rights. No one mentioned Sputnik. It was more than two weeks before I got confirmation through our district that Sputnik was the historic event intended. Ouch, ouch, ouch!)
Sputnik was big enough news to drive Elvis Presley off the radio, at least briefly, in southern Idaho. My older brothers headed out after dinner to catch a glimpse of the satellite crossing the sky. In those darker times — literally — rural skies offered a couple of meteoroids before anyone spotted Sputnik. But there it was, slowly painting a path across our skies, over the potato fields, over the Snake River, over America.
Sputnik’s launch changed our lives, mostly for the better.
Resources:
Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy provides a series of links teachers can rely on for good information, especially if you’re composing a lesson plan quickly.
New Scientist’s broad range of coverage of the space race, up to the current drive to go to Mars, is well worth bookmarking.
Google’s anniversary logo, in use today only, gets you to a good compilation of sources.
Fifty nano-satellites launched in honor of the 50th anniversary of Sputnik.
NASA’s history of the event. You can listen to a .wav recording of the telemetry signal from the satellite there, too.
How will you mark the anniversary?
[More links below the fold.]
More resources:
Also see at Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub:
Help spread the news:
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
4 Comments | 1957, Cold War, Education, Education reform, Space exploration, Space Race, Technology, Turning Points | Tagged: Cold War, Education, History, Space exploration, Space Race, Sputnik, Technology | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
July 19, 2009
On the one hand, you hope he’s got a good copy of the original cast recording of “Man of La Mancha,” with the late Richard Kiley singing the importance of dreaming the impossible dream. On the other hand, you hope it’s not an impossible situation at all.
Mathematics Professor Lorenzo Sadun declared his candidacy for the Texas State Board of Education seat representing District 10. He’ll be running against incumbent Cynthia Dunbar in a district that has a history of electing people with little or no education background and a commitment to scorched Earth conservative policies — if Dunbar chooses to run again. Dunbar has not announced her intentions.
Sadun is professor of mathematics at the University of Texas, in Austin.
Mathematics Prof. Lorenzo Sadun, University of Texas - Daily Texan photo by Mike Paschal
In the 2006 election, there was no Democratic nominee. Dunbar ran against a Libertarian and won approximately 70 percent of the vote. The 2010 primary election is scheduled for March, and Sadun declared last week that he will seek the Democratic nomination.
The Place 10 seat-holder may become very influential. With the board almost evenly split, a negative or positive vote can greatly affect educational policy and standards.
If Sadun is elected, he will be the only scientist on the board. He said that even though he may encounter opposition from members of the board, he will find a common ground with his colleagues and will pursue agreement without sacrificing the quality of education for Texas students.
“Despite my taking a fairly hard line, I am a conciliator,” Sadun said. “I have not met a person who knew so much I couldn’t teach them something, and I’ve never met someone who knew so little that they couldn’t teach me something.”
District 10 includes 14 counties surrounding Travis County to the east of the county, and the northern part of Travis County. Travis, home to the Texas state capital Austin and one of Texas’s five supercounties, was split in education board districts to limit the influence of its highly-educated, more liberal voter population.
District 10, Texas State Board of Education
Burnt Orange Report wrote that Dunbar will face opposition if she chooses to run again.
Events in District 10 offer a sign of hope that the era ended when apathy from candidates and voters allowe anti-public education forces to dominate the Texas State Board of Education. And if Sadun were to win, it would be the first time a working scientist was elected to SBOE.
Who knows? Sadun could succeed — but if he wins a seat on the SBOE, it’s not likely he’d sing that other song Richard Kiley made famous, “Stranger in Paradise.” He’s no stranger to quality education, and SBOE isn’t paradise.
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27 Comments | Campaigns, Education, Education reform, Elections, History, Politics, State school boards, Texas | Tagged: Campaign, Education, Elections, Politics, Texas, Texas State Board of Education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
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.
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2 Comments | Bogus history, Education, Education quality, Education reform, Politics, Social Studies, State school boards, TEKS, Texas, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
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:
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3 Comments | Education, Education quality, Education reform, Politics, State school boards, Texas, Textbook Selection, Textbooks, War on Education | Tagged: Don McLeroy, Education, Gail Lowe, Gov. Rick Perry, Politics, Texas, Texas State Board of Education, War on Education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
June 17, 2009
(This issue has moved a bit since I first drafted this post — watch for updates.)
Ain’t it the way?
46 of the 50 states agreed to work for common education standards through a project of the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers. Texas is one of four states not agreeing. News comes from a report in the venerable Education Week (and to me directly via e-mail from Steve Schafersman at Texas Citizens for Science).
National standards for education are prohibited in the U.S. by law and tradition. Education standards traditionally have been set by each of the more than 15,000 local school districts. After the 1957 Sputnik education cleanup, and after the 1983 report of the Excellence in Education Commission, the nation has seen a drive to get at least state-wide standards, though a jealous regard for federalism still prevents national standards.
Almost all other industrialized nations have a set of national standards set by the national government, against which progress may be measured. All the industrialized nations who score higher than U.S. students in international education comparisons, have standards mandated by a national group.
So if it’s an internationally recognized way of improving education, as part of their continuing war on education, and their war on science and evolution theory, the Texas State Board of Education takes the Neanderthal stance, avoiding cooperation with the 92% of the states working to improve American education.
You couldn’t make up villains like this.
Article below the fold.
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1 Comment | Education, Education assessment, Education reform, TAKS, TEKS, Testing, Texas Citizens for Science | Tagged: Education, Education assessment, Education reform, National Standards, TAKS, TEKS, Testing, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
June 9, 2009
No, Harold Levy doesn’t get it all right. He’s a former chancellor of schools in New York City, so even if he did manage to get most what he says right, there would be enough people on the other side of some issue to say he did not, that if I compliment him too effusively, someone will say I’m wrong.
Among the greater products of the United States of America — and Canada, let’s face it — is the grand array of nearly 4,000 colleges and universities that set the pace for education in the world. Our greatest export is education, the idea that education almost by itself can solve many great and vexing issues, the idea that education is a great democratic institution, and the education systems themselves, the methods of education used no matter how little backed by research.
Higher education makes up the better part of what we get right.
In an opposite-editorial page piece in the New York Times today Levy proposes some significant but eminently doable changes in how we work education in high schools and colleges. Maybe surprising to some, he has good things to say about the University of Phoenix and their $278 million advertising campaign, about high-pressure tactics to reduce truants, and about the GI Bill.
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Leave a Comment » | College, College-ready, Education, Education quality, Education reform, Education spending, GI Bill, Globalization, Government, Higher education, History | Tagged: Educaiton Reform, Education, GI Bill, Globalization, Harold O. Levy, Higher education, International Competition, Truancy | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
May 26, 2009
Molly Ivins’ untimely passing becomes acutely painful when the Texas Lege comes down to the last days of a session. Who can make sense of it without Molly?
We thought a couple weeks ago that Gov. Rick Perry’s nomination of creationist wedge politician Don McLeroy was dead, when the Senate Nominations Committee took testimony and failed to report the nomination, to chair the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE).
Then last week, in one of those surprise moves that even the Texas legislators responsible often cannot explain, the nomination rose from the dead and stumbled, zombie-like, to the Senate floor for a vote this week — maybe as soon as today, Tuesday, May 26.
The Houston Chronicle reports that all 12 Senate Democrats will vote against the nomination, dooming it (according to The Lonesome Mongoose, via Pharyngula).
The Bryan dentist has presided over a contentious 15-member State Board of Education that fought over curriculum standards for science earlier this year and English language arts and reading last year. Critics faulted McLeroy for applying his strong religious beliefs in shaping new science standards. McLeroy believes in creationism and that the Earth is about 6,000 years old.
“This particular State Board of Education under the leadership of Dr. McLeroy has been divisive. It’s been dysfunctional, and it has been embarrassing to the point of having commentary on this in the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal,” said Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, chair of the Senate Democratic Caucus.
McLeroy’s leadership, she said, had made Texas “the laughing stock of the nation.”
It takes 11 votes to block a gubernatorial nomination. Van de Putte said all 12 Senate Democrats plan to vote against McLeroy
Don’t count your dead nominations before the silver stakes are driven. Stay tuned. Maybe you should call your Texas senator again on Tuesday. Pray, cross your fingers, hope, and pass the ammunition.
If the nomination fails, it is still foggy as Donora, Pennsylvania on its worst days as to who will head the group. The chairman must come from one of the 15 elected members. Most people who might win Rick Perry’s selection are creationists. If Perry is wise, he’ll try to choose someone who is a capable administrator, wise chairman of hearings, and who lacks the desire to annoy key players in education, like administrators, teachers, parents, Texas college presidents and professors, and state legislators. Alas for Texas, Winston Churchill is not a member of the SBOE, nor is Mitt Romney.
The Senate rarely blocks a governor’s appointment.
There is speculation in the Capitol and within the Texas Education Agency that Gov. Rick Perry might elevate Cynthia Dunbar, R-Richmond, to lead the board. Like McLeroy, Dunbar also holds strong Christian beliefs and recently authored a book that advocates more religion in the public square.
“We believe that Texans deserve better than divisive, destructive, extreme leadership,” Shapleigh said. “If the governor chooses to appoint someone more extreme and more divisive, we’ll have to deal with that at the appropriate time.”
McLeroy’s tenure as chairman of SBOE is one of those waves we were warned about in 1983 lin the Excellence in Education Report, which warned of a “rising tide of mediocrity.” The divisions and crude politics, heavy-handed destruction of statutory and regulatory procedures, at best distracts from the drive for better education, but more often leans toward the worst, sabatoging the work of students, teachers, parents, administrators and legislatures.
Do you pray? Pray that Texas education be delivered safely and intact from this time of trial. Whether you pray or not, call your Texas legislator and tell her or him to straighten out the SBOE.
Resources:
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3 Comments | Creationism, Darwin, Education, Education quality, Education reform, Evolution, State school boards, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Freedom Network, Texas Lege, Textbooks, War on Education | Tagged: Creationism, Don McLeroy, Education, Evolution, Science Standards, Texas Lege, Texas State School Board, Textbooks | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 