Now it’s gone big time, with NPR’s Morning Edition and Pharyngula on the bandwagon, remember you saw the Large Hadron Collider Rap second here at Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub.
You saw it first at Tommaso Dorigo’s A Quantum Diaries Survivor.
Geography teachers, have you figured out how to use this in your classrooms yet?
Related NPR stories:
2 Comments | 
Education, Geography - Economic, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, Globalization, Physics, Research, Science, Teaching, Technology, Travel | Tagged: CERN, Education, Entertainment, Large Hadron Collider, Particle Physics, Physics, Rap, Science | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
There were other good things to note on Labor Day 2008, and schools were out anyway.
Remember that September 1, 1939, Adolf Hitler’s soldiers crossed into Poland, claiming that Poland had somehow threatened Germany’s security.
And so began World War II in Europe. Read about it in the coverage from the New York Times, then.
Front page of the New York Times, Sept. 1, 1939
Europeans have not forgotten. So we might understand why Europe gets jumpy when a big nation’s army rolls across the borders of a smaller nation, claiming the smaller nation provoked them.
1 Comment | 1941-1945, Education, History, Politics, Santayana's ghost, World War II | Tagged: 1939, History, Poland, Politics, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Scientists at the University of Texas at Austin showed off their petawatt LASER last week (alas, couldn’t make the open house myself).
LASER project manager Todd Ditmire summed it up: “Big LASERs are cool.”
The $15 million laser creates a beam that is brighter than the surface of the sun. The pulses of light can reach 1 quadrillion watts (a petawatt) but last just one-tenth of a trillionth of a second.
Scientists such as Todd Ditmire, a UT physics researcher, will use the laser to heat substances to incredibly high temperatures for incredibly short periods of time, approximating the conditions at the center of a star. It’s also expected to help the U.S. Department of Energy in its ambitious research effort to create a laser-based controlled fusion energy source, which might one day be the ultimate clean energy source for the country.
With such pride showing, it might be a good time to note that this project is the result of pure science research funding with federal assistance. If we could have a science debate among presidential candidates, the Texas Petawatt LASER should be front and center evidence for the value and fun of expanding federal support for science. Texas’s U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison participated in the dedication ceremony. Maybe she noticed.
Congratulations, UT. Don’t point that thing this way!
Read about it here:
Leave a Comment » | Education, McCain 2008, Obama 2008, Politics, Science, Science Debate 2008, Technology, Texas | Tagged: Petawatt LASER, Science, Science Debate 2008, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Burro:
Burro
Burrow:
If you can click to this site, you should know the difference. Do you?
8 Comments | Education, Education assessment, Humor, Politics, Science, Words | Tagged: Education, Education Policy, Humor, Lexicography, Politics, school boards, Science, Words | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
We celebrate Banned Books Week September 27 through October 4 this year. Well, maybe it’s more accurate to say we celebrate the books that get banned, and the idea that freedom and liberty require that we not ban books.
Banned Books Week image from Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver
Banned Books Week has been noted every year since 1982 in a long-running campaign from the American Library Association. Why?
Because ideas matter. The right to express ideas, and the right to be able to read ideas, are at the foundation of our liberties.
Again in 2007, books most frequently targeted for banning include And Tango Makes Three, a delightful children’s story about two penguins taking care of an orphaned egg (too much like homosexuality), and Mark Twain’s powerful, essentially-American novel that makes the case against racism, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (ironically, because complainants claim to find the book racist).
People who ask that these books be pulled from the shelves often fail to recognize the irony — why should we ban a book about caring for orphans, or the book that makes the case against racism?
The Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver sponsors an annual Banned Books Week essay contest for Colorado teens, in conjunction with the Colorado Freedom of Expression Foundation.
How will your school and local public library commemorate Banned Books Week? Which banned books will you read, and urge others to read?
Which banned books are on your reading lists for classroom use? Does that strike a little too close to home? Then you need to get informed, and get active.
3 Comments | Bill of Rights, Books, Censorship, Education, First Amendment, Free press, Free speech, Freedom of the Press, History, Libraries, Literature, Politics, Racism | Tagged: And Tango Makes Three, Banned Books Week, Books, First Amendment, Libraries, Mark Twain, Politics | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Texas school districts are not compelled to offer classes studying the Bible under a new law, according to a ruling from the Texas State Attorney General, Greg Abbott.
State Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, proposed a bill to require the classes, in the 2007 legislative session. Though the bill passed, it was amended several times and in the final form the language was ambiguous as to whether districts would be required to offer the class.
Earlier this year the State Board of Education refused to issue standards for a Bible class, and so the AG’s ruling took on additional urgency: School districts are left to their own devices on creating a Bible class that would pass scrutiny under the 1st Amendment. Several districts in Texas have offered such classes, but when challenged on constitutional grounds, the classes have been modified to avoid advocacy of religion. Most of Texas’s more than 200 school districts are anxious to avoid going to court over courses that they are required to offer.
Now we know the Bible classes are not required.
But if a district does offer the classes, neither the SBOE nor the Attorney General has provided guidance to school districts on how to keep the classes legal. In the absence of clear guidance, individual districts offer Bible classes at their own peril. The districts would bear all litigation costs.
“Local school boards can now breathe a sigh of relief,” Miller said. “The State Board of Education threw them under the bus last month by refusing to adopt the clear, specific standards schools need to give the Bible the respect it deserves and help them stay out of court. Now, schools won’t be required to maneuver through a legal minefield without a map.”
After reading Abbott’s opinion, however, Jonathan Saenz of the Free Market Foundation said it was clear “Texas schools are required to have some type of instruction in the Bible, which is the Hebrew Scriptures and New Testament.”
“Schools are not required to offer a particular type of course in order to meet the requirement of having some type of instruction in the Bible, but they have to offer something,” Saenz said.
The Free Market Foundation promotes families, churches and freedom.
Abbott’s office referred inquires to the last sentence in the opinion summary:
“If a school district or charter school chooses to offer a course authorized by section 28.011 and fewer than fifteen students at a campus register to enroll in the course, the district or charter school is not required to provide the course at that campus for that semester, but that does not mean that the school is not required to comply with the curriculum requirements in subsection 28.002 (a)(2).”
According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Bible classes are not popular among Texas teenagers anyway. Maybe the students have more common sense and a greater drive to achieve in education than do the state legislators.
Most Texas high schools offer studies on parts of the Bible, in either in Advanced Placement literature and history courses, or in regular academic English courses. Rep. Warren Chisum and the state legislature appear to have ignored this offering.
Controversy is expected to continue.
Resources:
3 Comments | Education, Politics, Public education, Religion, Texas, Texas Lege | Tagged: Bible Study, Compulsory Education, public schools, Religion, Schools, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Taylor Mali is one of my usual suspects for inspiring teachers. He does a great job, with just a tinge of profanity (appropriately placed, many teachers argue – if they ask for it, you have to give it to them).
This year’s inspiration for Dallas teachers comes from Dalton Sherman, a fifth grader at Charles Rice Learning Center. Here’s a YouTube video of the presentation about 20,000 of us watched last Wednesday, a small point that redeemed the annual “convocation” exercise, for 2008:
Sherman’s presentation rescued what had been shaping up as another day of rah-rah imprecations to teachers who badly wanted, and in my case needed, to be spending time putting classrooms together.
(By the way, at the start of his presentation, you can see several people leap to their feet in the first row — Mom, Dad, and older brother. Nice built-in cheering section.)
Staff at DISD headquarters put the speech together for Dalton to memorize, and he worked over the summer to get it down. This background is wonderfully encouraging.
First, it makes a statement that DISD officials learn from mistakes. Last year the keynote was given by a speaker out of central casting’s “classic motivational speaker” reserves. As one teacher described it to me before the fete last Wednesday, “It was a real beating.”
Second, DISD’s planning ahead to pull this off suggests someone is looking a little bit down the road. This was a four or five month exercise for a less-than-10 minute presentation. It’s nice to know someone’s looking ahead at all.
Third, the cynical teachers gave Dalton Sherman a warm standing ovation. That it was delivered by a 10-year-old kids from DISD made a strong symbol. But the content was what hooked the teachers. Superintendent Michael Hinojosa provided a death-by-PowerPoint presentation leading up to the speech, one that was probably not designed solely as contrasting lead in. In other words, Dalton Sherman’s speech demonstrated as nothing else the district has done lately that someone downtown understands that the teachers count, the foot soldiers in our war on ignorance and jihad for progress.
The kids came back Monday, bless ’em. School’s in session, to anyone paying attention.
Resources:
27 Comments | Education, Education success, First day, Politics, Public education, Teaching, Texas | Tagged: Dallas, Dallas ISD, Education, Entertainment, First Day of School, Politics, Teaching | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Frank Rich, in Sunday’s New York Times:
We don’t have the time or resources to go off on more quixotic military missions or to indulge in culture wars. (In China, they’re too busy exploiting scientific advances for competitive advantage to reopen settled debates about Darwin.) Americans must band together for change before the new century leaves us completely behind.
It’s an aside in a longer piece of advice to Obama on issues for the rest of the campaign. It’s a Sputnik statement for this century, for anyone with the brains to pay attention.
Leave a Comment » | China, Creationism, Darwin, Economics, Education, Science, War on Education, War on Science | Tagged: Creationism, Economics, Education, Evolution, Foreigh Affairs, Science, Trade | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
From comments at the website of the New York Times today, on the story, “A Teacher on the Front Line as Faith and Science Clash”:
I teach biology and I would like to add a story in encouragement to other biology teachers. About 15 years ago I was teaching a botany course to college sophomores and started discussing the evolution of land plants. Expressions began to harden. Students stopped taking notes. So I stopped and asked if my discussion of evolution was bothering them. Many nodded and one said, “Why do teachers act like evolution is a fact?” At the time I had little experience and had assumed they had a working knowledge of evolution from previous classes at college as well as from high school biology. They did not. I didn’t have much time left that day, but I did explain some of the lines of evidence that support evolution.
The next day, one of my students came in and slammed a stack of books onto her table. She said, “I am so mad! I am so angry!” She looked near tears. She said, “My parents never let me even hear the word, evolution! They said it was all lies! I went to the library last night and got out books about it!” (and here she held up Origin of Species) Then she said, “It makes so much SENSE! I am so angry I never got to learn about it before!”
Now I teach a class entirely about evolution and I think of her often. She still gives me inspiration to keep on trying to open up minds.— Bio prof, Ohio
Related resources:
14 Comments | Accuracy, Biology, Creationism, Dissent, Education, Ethics, Evolution, Newspapers, Religion, Science, Teaching | Tagged: Accuracy, Biology, Creationism, Dissent, Education, Ethics, Evolution, Honesty, Newspapers, Religion, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Read it, and consider these questions:
It takes a good paper like the Times to lay it on the line:
The Dover decision in December of that year [2005] dealt a blow to “intelligent design,” which posits that life is too complex to be explained by evolution alone, and has been widely promoted by religious advocates since the Supreme Court’s 1987 ban on creationism in public schools. The federal judge in the case called the doctrine “creationism re-labeled,” and found the Dover school board had violated the constitutional separation of church and state by requiring teachers to mention it. The school district paid $1 million in legal costs.
That hasn’t slowed the Texas State Board of Education’s rush to get the state entangled in litigation over putting religious dogma in place of science. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) is already embroiled in one suit, brought by the science-promoting science curriculum expert they fired for noting in an e-mail that science historian Barbara Forrest was speaking in a public event in Austin. TEA may well lose this case, and their side is not helped when State Board Chairman Don McLeroy cavorts with creationists in a session teaching illegal classroom tactics to teachers. Clearly Texas education officials are not reading the newspapers, the court decisions, or the science books.
Here’s one of the charts accompanied the article. While you read it, consider these items: The top 10% of science students in China outnumber all the science students in the U.S.; the U.S. last year graduated more engineers from foreign countries than from the U.S.; the largest portion were from China. China graduated several times the number of engineers the U.S. did, and almost all of them were from China.
Copyright 2008 by the New York Times
Can we afford to dumb down any part of our science curriculum, for any reason? Is it unfair to consider creationism advocates, including intelligent design advocates, as “surrender monkeys in the trade and education wars with China?”
Update: 10:00 p.m. Central, this story is the most e-mailed from the New York Times site today; list below the fold.
5 Comments | Biology, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Darwin, Education, Education quality, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Politics, Public education, Religion, Science, Separation of church and state, State school boards, Teaching, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Education Agency (TEA), Texas Freedom Network, Voodoo science, War on Education, War on Science | Tagged: Creationism, Don McLeroy, Education, Evolution, Politics, Religion, Science, Texas, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
In the summer of my 8th year, after my uncle, Roland Christian*, sent me his collection of “official” state maps from his latest cross-country drive, several of us kids tried to collect maps of all 50 states. Considering we were in Burley, Idaho, it’s amazing that we could accumulate 36 different states, just by our badgering local gasoline stations for the free ones. We got on our bicycles and visited the stations, one after the other.
Free educational materials: A memory from a distant past.
I haven’t seen a free map from a gas station in years, maybe two decades. My love of geography, my love of chasing odd city names, strange routes, great sights, and history, was spurred by that map collection, I’m sure.
Today, though oil companies have gotten out of the tourism and driving promotion business, state tourism offices, or state road departments typically issue free maps. How to find them all?
To the rescue comes Less Than a Shoestring, with a list of the places to ask in each state, to get a free road map of the state. These maps are great helps for students doing a “project” on a different state. For the history class on your own state, if your school offers such a course, I think such maps are indispensable.
We teach Texas state history and geography in 7th grade. When I taught that course, one of the best classroom aids I had was a collection of the official map of Texas — a year old, but I got a couple dozen copies from the state’s tourism promotion group. They were anxious to get rid of the old maps, and I was very happy to have them.
Here’s something curious: The site, Less Than a Shoestring, doesn’t list a place to get a map from the District of Columbia — Washington, D.C. You’d think that a town that depends so much on tourism would have an office to promote tourism that would pass out maps to make tourists’ trips easier. Is this just an indication of the great dysfunction of the D.C. government, or did we miss finding the site? Let me know in comments.
Tip of the old scrub brush to the Business Blog @ Capital Active.
____________________________
* Uncle Roland was a minister for the 7th-Day Adventists, and he traveled to preach around the country. Stuck in a small Idaho town for my first nine years, I thought Roland was a great world traveler. He always stopped to spend a night when he was within a state or two — he was a minister trying to travel on a shoestring, after all — and with his wonderful, deep, preacher’s voice, he had wonderful stories to tell. I miss him still, more than two decades after his death. Which of your nieces and nephews can you influence as Roland did?
1 Comment | Education, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, History, Landmarks, Manipulables (i.e., Maps, Toys, Travel | Tagged: Education, geography, History, Maps, Teaching, Tourism, Travel | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Here’s the post from über creationist Ken Ham’s site, in its entirety:
A Texas Riddle
Last week, AiG speaker Mike Riddle did a series of talks in Brenham, Texas. On the first day, Mike did four different sessions for 1st–6th graders. He usually speaks to young people on topics like “The Riddle of the Dinosaurs,” AiG’s well-known “7C’s of History,” and fossils.
On the next day, Mike did four special sessions for teachers. Each presentation was geared to help instructors be better prepared to teach origins in the public schools. In addition to speaking on what creationists believe, he spoke on understanding presuppositions and assumptions in the origins debate–and using critical thinking skills. Mike also had the opportunity to meet with the Chairman of the Texas State School Board, Don McLeroy (a biblical creationist), and gave presentations to an open audience at the Brenham High School auditorium.
Mike and Don McLeroy (Chairman, Texas State School Board)
“Special sessions for teachers?” Oy vey.
1. I’ll wager, if those were real, public school teachers, they were given continuing education credits for attending. That would be illegal, especially if Riddle did not preface his presentations with a legal disclaimer that what he urges is contrary to Texas science standards and contrary to the Constitution. Want to wager whether he did?
2. What’s McLeroy doing there? Doesn’t he know he’s supposed to maintain antiseptic separation from such controversial stuff? They fire people from the TEA for attending sessions that are legal and support the Texas standards. What sort of Quisling action is this on McLeroy’s part?
3. Is Rick Perry watching? The state’s legal fees will rise dramatically as a result of this kind of bad judgment at the SBOE. Can Texas taxpayers afford this?
4. Why does Don McLeroy hate Texas’s smarter, college-bound children so?
It takes a particular form of chutzpah to stand idly by while qualified science teachers are fired from the state’s education agency for promoting science, and then go cavort with creationists. It may not be cowardice exactly, but courage is its antonym.
4 Comments | Education, Ethics, History, Politics, Religion, Science, State school boards, Teaching, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Education Agency (TEA), Voodoo science | Tagged: Bad Judgment, Creationism, education standards, Evolution, Ken Ham, Politics, Religion, Science, Texas, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
It’s state fair time!
Which state fair has the most fried foods? Which state fair has the oddest fried foods? You can make nominations in comments.
State fairs drive local economies, sometimes, and occasionally a bit of history gets made there. Certainly they are places where culture and history are on display.
Minnesota’s State Fair is so good even Teddy Roosevelt visited — it’s been an almost annual event since 1859. I’ll bet Roosevelt had a good time, though I wonder if the Fair served him a bag of their famous mini-donuts — 388,000 bags of donuts served last year (do they rival corny dogs?).
Then Vice President Theodore Roosevelt tell Americans our foreign policy should be to “speak softly, and carry a big stick!” September 3, 1901. President William McKinley was shot on September 6, and died just over a week later; Roosevelt was sworn in as president on September 14.
Corny dog, called a Pronto Pup, at the Minnesota State Fair. Pronto Pups are wan copies of Fletcher’s Corny Dogs, from the Texas State Fair. Image from Travel.Garden.Eat
4 Comments | Education, Famous quotes, Food history, Geography - Economic, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, History, Quotes, Theodore Roosevelt | Tagged: Corny Dog, Culture, Education, Entertainment, food, geography, History, Minnesota State Fair, State Fair, Teddy Roosevelt | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Beloit College’s Mindset list is an annual event, now. The college puts together a list of things entering college freshman have never done without, trying to help faculty understand what freshman are thinking, and not thinking.
This year’s list, for the entering class of 2012, holds a few jolts for anyone over the age of 30. One last minute change was required, however, when Bret Favre left the Green Bay Packers for the New York Jets.
Here’s the list, and it continues below the fold:
Students entering college for the first time this fall were generally born in 1990.
- For these students, Sammy Davis Jr., Jim Henson, Ryan White, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Freddy Krueger have always been dead.
- Harry Potter could be a classmate, playing on their Quidditch team.
- Since they were in diapers, karaoke machines have been annoying people at parties.
- They have always been looking for Carmen Sandiego.
- GPS satellite navigation systems have always been available.
- Coke and Pepsi have always used recycled plastic bottles.
- Shampoo and conditioner have always been available in the same bottle.
- Gas stations have never fixed flats, but most serve cappuccino.
- Their parents may have dropped them in shock when they heard George Bush announce “tax revenue increases.”
- Electronic filing of tax returns has always been an option.
- Girls in head scarves have always been part of the school fashion scene.
- All have had a relative — or known about a friend’s relative — who died comfortably at home with Hospice.
- As a precursor to “whatever,” they have recognized that some people “just don’t get it.”
- Universal Studios has always offered an alternative to Mickey in Orlando.
- Grandma has always had wheels on her walker.
- Martha Stewart Living has always been setting the style.
- Haagen-Dazs ice cream has always come in quarts.
- Club Med resorts have always been places to take the whole family.
- WWW has never stood for World Wide Wrestling.
- Films have never been X rated, only NC-17.
- The Warsaw Pact is as hazy for them as the League of Nations was for their parents. Read the rest of this entry »
1 Comment | College, Education, History, Politics, Science, Teaching, Technology | Tagged: Colleges that Change Lives, Entertainment, Generation Gap, History, Mindset List, Politics, Science, Students, Technology | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Louisiana’s state legislature — the legislature that the Supreme Court slapped down in 1987 for trying to introduce religion into science classes in Edwards v. Aguillard — rushed through a bill drafted by the deaf-to-the-law Discovery Institute which purports on its face to make it legal for Louisiana science teachers to teach creationism, intelligent design, tarot card reading, UFO-ism, or any other crank science that the teacher feels compelled to offer.
A Louisiana alligator used by c design proponetsist Denyse O'Leary to illustrate a blog post about Louisiana's litigation bait law on creationism in schools. Without any appreciation of th irony, or as a subtle warning, we can't say. (photo from The Advocate?)
Louisiana’s Gov. Bobby Jindal, R-Mars, rushed to sign the brain-sucker into law, in his ambitious quest to get John McCain to name him as the nominee for vice president. It appears on the surface that Jindal’s national political aspirations will have to wait, but the law he signed requires Louisiana’s school districts to be ready when the students come back in the next few weeks, to do whatever it is they are going to do about creationism and other crank science.
Discovery Institute minions have been hawking creationism wares, and other creationists have offered to put Genesis into the science curriculum — but the law does not authorize those actions or wares itself. Instead, it passes the judgment to local school boards, sort of.
“Sort of.” Words that make a litigator’s heart flutter when talking about to-be-implemented laws! You’d think that, with all the money the Discovery Institute spends to entice legislators and school board members to poke their noses into matters they do not know, DI could spend a few thousands of dollars to get a competent legislative law drafter to draft a workable law. The cheapskates always pay more, Click and Clack say, and here’s another case to prove the point. It would have been difficult to intentionally write a law better intended to get local school boards sued.
A few of us noted the law does not indemnify local school districts against lawsuits if they goof and put religion into science classes. This is important, because the law requires local school districts to step up to the line and have a policy in place by the start of this school year. Which means, if the district doesn’t have the policy written out now, they’re late.
Tony Whitson at Curricublog spent time this summer pondering exactly how the law works, what it requires, and who it requires to act. His analysis — that the law is litigation bait just waiting to snare a local school board, a real “Dover Trap” — is cool, hard, and chilling. Go read it at his blog.
Whitson recommends that the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education get an opinion from the state’s attorney general. This will not comply with the impossible and punishing deadline the legislature established, but it’s a much wiser stewardship of local monies, to try to avoid litigation. Tony wrote:
Taking stock of the situation: To summarize where things now stand, in light of everything above:
The law is by no means so benign as its promoters pretend. It will unleash all manner of chaotic mischief. On the other hand, there is a method to this madness, making it predictable that the perpetrators’ strategy will be to insinuate Exploring Evolution into the state’s (and then other states’) public schools.
BESE and the school districts cannot comply with the statute, which commands that
The State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and each city, parish, or other local public school board shall adopt and promulgate the rules and regulations necessary to implement the provisions of this Section prior to the beginning of the 2008-2009 school year.
There are legal requirements (public notice, etc.) for adopting administrative rules for implementing legislation that make it impossible for that to be done by every state and district school board before the new school year begins.
So what can BESE do?
My suggestion is that BESE, at it’s meeting Tuesday, should move to request an opinion from the State Attorney General. They should ask him for an opion advising them, the district Boards of Education, and individual school principals, as to who will be responsible for the costs of defending against litigation for unconstitutional state promotion of religion in the use of supplemental materials. Presumably, if there’s a suit brought directly against BESE itself because of the substance of a text they have approved, then they would be defended by the AG’s office, on behalf of the state (like when the AG hired Wendell Bird as as special assistant for defending the state’s “Balanced Treatment” law). But will the AG commit his office to defending every district, every school, and every teacher whose use of “supplemental materials” is challenged for violation of the First Amendment?
Louisiana’s legislature set a trap for Louisiana science teachers and local school boards — whether intentionally or not is immaterial. Rather than authorize specific material for the curriculum, the new creationism law requires school boards to analyze materials to supplement the science curriculum. The law passes the buck to the local school boards.
So, Louisiana school board members now must become expert on science, and Constitutional law.
Rule of thumb: It costs a school board about $1 million every time they goof and put religion into science classrooms, in litigation costs alone. Louisiana’s legislature didn’t appropriate any money to compensate the school boards.
This law promises to entangle science educators and curriculum, and ensnare local school boards – all of which helps dumb down science achievement and prevent U.S. kids from getting the education they need to compete in a global economy. Alas.
3 Comments | Creationism, Education, Education success, Evolution, First day, History, Intelligent Design, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Science, Teaching, Voodoo science | Tagged: Creationism, Education, Evolution, History, Intelligent Design, Louisiana, Politics, Science, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
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Ed Darrell on Texas's Colorado River
Come on in, the water's fine. Come often: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 