Texas State Historical Association moves; new home at the University of North Texas

January 12, 2008

110 years was enough.

The Texas State Historical Association will move to Denton, Texas, and a new association with the powerful history department at the University of North Texas, after 110 years in Austin in a home on the campus of the University of Texas.

Holly K. Hacker wrote the details for a story in The Dallas Morning News for January 12, 2008:

The association’s president said UNT is a logical choice. Among its selling points, UNT has the state’s biggest program in Texas history and a university press that publishes many books on Texas subjects. The association also has four fellows and a former president from UNT.

“We felt that UNT not only made the best offer in terms of what it could give us, but it was also the best fit on a day-in, day-out basis,” said Frank de la Teja, president of the association.

The group publishes a scholarly journal called Southwestern Historical Quarterly. And anyone who’s ever Googled the Battle of the Alamo, Juneteenth or some other Texas subject is probably familiar with the association’s Handbook of Texas Online, a comprehensive encyclopedia that averages 4 million page views a month.

Details are still being worked out, but UNT hopes the association will move to campus in the fall, said Michael Monticino, associate dean of UNT’s College of Arts and Sciences. He said the university is poised to pay for renovations, worth about half a million dollars, and to contribute about $200,000 a year for other expenses.

The move may be good news for history teachers closer to Denton, including those in Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington, Irving, Tyler and Abilene. Chiefly the move indicates how Texas’s higher education quality has spread out well beyond Austin and College Station, homes of the first branches of the University of Texas and Texas A&M University, respectively.

Full story below the fold (as insurance against the whims of electronic archivists at the Dallas Morning News).

TSHA’s annual meeting will be in Corpus Christi, March 5 through 8, 2008. Educators can register for as little as $35.00.

Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment | Education, Higher education, History, Texas, Texas history | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Carnivalia: Education, Liberals (liberal education?)

January 3, 2008

A couple of carnivals I recommend: At So You Want to Teach? the Carnival of Education #152

Horace Mann Elementary, Duncan, Oklahoma

And once you’re stocked once again with notions of a liberal education, go check out the Carnival of the Liberals #54 at Neural Gourmet.

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

Class sizes swell, teacher incentives shrink

January 1, 2008

Lisa Schencker writes about Utah’s problems in The Salt Lake Tribune, but you can find exactly the same story in every state in the union, plus Guam and Puerto Rico:

The two Utah men don’t know each other, but they have at least one thing in common.
Ben Johnson is a first-year math teacher at Alta High School. He loves his job, but it’s exhausting and pays well below what he could make elsewhere with his bachelor’s degree in mathematics.
Marc Elgort is a University of Utah graduate student who researches cell metabolism at the Huntsman Cancer Institute. He tried teaching but found it stressful, all-consuming and riddled with bureaucratic frustrations.
Both men’s stories reveal different shades of the same problem: retaining and attracting teachers in Utah, especially in math and science. Utah schools were 173 teachers short – including nearly 20 science and math teachers – on the first day of school in 2007, according to a recent report by David Sperry, a University of Utah professor of educational leadership and policy and Scholar-in-Residence with the Utah System of Higher Education. State education leaders worry Utah’s students and economy could fall behind other states and nations if something isn’t done soon.

Utah voters rejected an ill-thought-out voucher plan in November, but the Utah legislature had no plan B — so Utah’s classrooms are still crowded, there’s not enough money to provide merit increases to teachers who need them, teaching is a grind instead of a calling, and that means it will take a lot more money to get the teachers the students deserve — money the legislature hasn’t appropriated and probably won’t when they get back to the issue early next month, for the legislature’s 30-day budget session.

At some point we will have to stop working for education reform, and start working at education rescue, if these conditions are not changed.

Don’t smirk if you’re not from Utah. I can find a school in your state, probably in your town, with the same problems:

Johnson, like 8 percent of new teachers hired to work in Utah schools this year, came from out of state. Several Utah school districts recruit from elsewhere because Utah colleges and universities trained about 1,200 fewer teachers than schools needed this school year, according to Sperry’s report.
Johnson made most of his contacts at a job fair in Michigan.
“Every person that found out I was a math teacher pulled me aside,” Johnson said. “You could see how desperate they were.”
He said he interviewed with several school districts and received an offer from each one. He ultimately chose Jordan.
That’s where the easy part ended.
On a recent school day about three months into his career, Johnson invited juniors to the board to work with polynomials.
“Let’s take a look at a couple of things first. What do you see that we can cancel right away?” Johnson asked of one problem.
Several groups of students chatted and laughed among themselves.
“Guys, listen up,” Johnson said. It was one of many times he had to remind students to pay attention.
“It’s really tough,” Johnson said earlier. “I have to be really firm. They’re talking all the time.”

Holding on to the dream: Johnson said classroom management has so far been his biggest challenge – his largest class has 37 students. Utah has some of the largest class sizes in the nation.
“There’s no way I can keep an eye on every single student,” Johnson said.

Utah appropriated a cool half-billion dollars to encouraging teachers in shortage areas, like math, in schools that desperately need them. What does that look like on the ground?

Johnson also puts a tremendous amount of time into teaching. As a new teacher, he is building curricula for several of his courses with help from the district.
“Just building that curriculum takes hours and hours outside of the classroom,” Johnson said. “So does correcting papers.”
Johnson said he has about 180 students. If he gives one assignment or test per class a week, and it takes him five minutes to correct each one, that’s another 15 hours of work.
Johnson makes just over $30,000 a year and estimates he works about 65 hours a week. That boils down to about $13 an hour for the weeks school is in session.
“My wife and I get by, and that’s all I can expect,” Johnson said.

Schencker’s story lists ten bills in the Utah legislative hopper designed to hammer at the problems.

5 Comments | Education, Education quality, Education reform, Science, Teacher Pay, Teaching | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Waco Tribune gets it: Science is golden

December 31, 2007

The Waco Tribune offered its editorial support to science, and evolution theory, today.

Texas education officials should be wary of efforts to insert faith-based religious beliefs into science classrooms.

* * * * *

Neither science nor evolution precludes a belief in God, but religion is not science and should not be taught in science classrooms.

Those are the opening and closing paragraphs. In between, the authors scold the Texas Education Agency for firing its science curriculum director rather than stand up for science, and cautions the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board against approving a course granting graduate degrees in creationism education.

Support for evolution and good science scoreboard so far: Over a hundred Texas biology professors, Texas Citizens for Science, Dallas Morning News, Waco Tribune . . . it’s a cinch more support will come from newspapers and scientists. I wonder whether the local chambers of commerce will catch on?

5 Comments | Creationism, Education, Education quality, Evolution, Politics, Public education, Religion, Science, Science and faith, Separation of church and state, TAKS, TEKS, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Freedom Network, Textbook Selection | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Can we keep up with the Russians Indians, Chinese, Europeans, Japanese, Saudis?

December 29, 2007

Sputnik’s launch by the Soviet Union just over 50 years ago prompted a review of American science, foreign policy, technology and industry. It also prompted a review of the foundations of those practices — education.

Over the next four years, with the leadership of the National Science Foundation, Americans revamped education in each locality, beefing up academic standards, adding new arts classes, new science classes, new humanities classes especially in history and geography (1957-58 was the International Geophysical Year) and bringing up to date course curricula and textbooks, especially in sciences.

On the wave of those higher standards, higher expectations and updated information, America entered an era of achievement in science and technology whose benefits we continue to enjoy today.

We were in the worst of the Cold War in 1957. We had an enemy that, though not really formal in a declared war sense, was well known: The Soviet Union and “godless communism.” Some of the activities our nation engaged in were silly — adding “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance smoked out no atheists or communists, but did produce renewed harassment of Jehovah’s Witnesses and anyone else opposed to such oaths — and some of the activities were destructive — Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s excessive and ultimately phony zeal in exposing communists led to detractive hearings, misplaced fears of fellow citizens and serious political discussion, and violations of Americans’ civil rights that finally prompted even conservative Republicans to censure his action. The challenges were real. As Winston Churchill pointed out, the Soviet Union had drawn an “Iron Curtain” across eastern Europe. They had maintained a large army, gained leadership in military aviation capabilities, stolen our atomic and H-bomb secrets, and on October 4, 1957, beaten the U.S. into space with a successful launch of an artificial satellite. The roots of destruction of the Soviet Empire were sown much earlier, but they had barely rooted by this time, and no one in 1957 could see that the U.S. would ultimately triumph in the Cold War.

That was important. Because though the seeds of the destruction of Soviet communism were germinating, to grow, they would need nourishment from the actions of the U.S. over the next 30 years.

Sen. John F. Kennedy and Counsel Robert F. Kennedy, McClellan Committee hearing, 1957

Sen. John F. Kennedy and Counsel Robert F. Kennedy, McClellan Committee hearing, 1957; photo by Douglas Jones for LOOK Magazine, in Library of Congress collections

Photo from the Kennedy Library: “PX 65-105:185 Hearing of the Select Committee to Investigate Improper Activities in Labor-Management Relations (“McClellan Commitee”). Chief Counsel Robert F. Kennedy and Senator John F. Kennedy question a witness, May, 1957. Washington, D. C., United States Capitol. Photograph by Douglas Jones for LOOK Magazine, in the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LOOK Magazine Collection.”

Fourteen days after the Soviet Union orbited Sputnik, a young veteran of World War II, Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kennedy, spoke at the University of Florida. Read the rest of this entry »

4 Comments | 1957, Cold War, Education, Forgotten speeches, History, International law, Santayana's ghost, Science, Space Race, Technology | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Horace Mann schools – how many?

December 29, 2007

Education majors know he had something to do with creating modern public education. Ed.D.s probably know more about Horace Mann‘s actual life, actions and philosophy. Local school boards know enough to name a school after him from time to time.

But has anyone actually kept count? How many schools in the U.S. — or anywhere else — are named after Horace Mann? Is there a registry somewhere? We know of a few:

Antioch College continues to operate in accordance with the egalitarian and humanitarian values of Horace Mann. A monument including his statue stands in lands belonging to the college in Yellow Springs, Ohio with his quote and college motto “Be Ashamed to Die Until You Have Won Some Victory for Humanity.”

There are a number of schools in the U.S. named for Mann, including ones in Arkansas, Washington, D.C., Boston, Charleston, West Virginia, Marstons Mills, Massachusetts, Salem, Massachusetts, Redmond, Washington, Fargo, North Dakota, St. Louis, Missouri, Chicago, North Bergen, New Jersey and the Horace Mann School in Riverdale, New York. The University of Northern Colorado named the gates to their campus in his dedication, a gift of the Class of 1910.[9]

Horace Mann Arts & Science Magnet Middle School, Little Rock, Ark

If you know of a Horace Mann school, would you comment? Tell us about it, where it is, and how long it’s been there.

And if you know of a list of the schools, let us know.

16 Comments | Education, Heroes, History | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

151st Carnival of Education

December 28, 2007

Two good reasons to check out the 151st Carnival of Education:

  1. There are several important posts, a couple that are fun — I’ll wager you find no fewer than five relevant to your job as a teacher.
  2. Hosting the venerated carnival this week is Elementary Historyteacher at History is Elementary — a blog you should be reading regularly apart from the carnivals.

Horace Mann School, Winnetka, Ill (1899-1940) - Winnetka Historical Soc

Leave a Comment » | Education, Education blogs, History | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Texas’ creationism controversy begins to pinch

December 28, 2007

Ouch!

From the Philadelphia Daily News, an opinion article by a Temple University staff member who teaches math and science education:

Textbook lesson in creationism

By GLORIA C. ENDRES

JUST mentioning a controversial name in an office e-mail can cost you your job in a narrow-minded place like Texas. The Texas Education Agency oversees instructional material and textbooks for the state’s public schools. Recently, Christine Comer, director of science curriculums for the agency, dared to forward an e-mail to colleagues informing them that author and activist Barbara Forrest was to give a talk on her book “Inside Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design.”

For this simple communication, Comer was rebuked in a way that forced her to resign. According to the TEA, she had committed, among other fatuous charges, the unforgivable transgression of taking sides in the creation science/ evolution debate.

Score one for the flat-earthers.

Score one for building a reputation for Texas, TEA!

Is that the reputation we want?

4 Comments | Creationism, Education, Religion, Science, State school boards, Texas | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Houston Chronicle against creationism, period

December 28, 2007

Today the Houston Chronicle’s editorial page spoke up. They don’t like creationism in any form.

Texas schools must have the best science and technology instruction possible to make the state competitive in a 21st century economy. A science class that teaches children that the Earth is 6,000 years old and that species did not evolve from species now extinct is not worthy of the name.

Churches and other private institutions are proper places for the discussion of religious beliefs. Public school science classes are not.

Where are the Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, El Paso, Lubbock, Abilene, Beaumont and Waco papers? Is anyone tracking?

8 Comments | Creationism, Education, Education quality, Intelligent Design, Politics, Religion, Science, TEKS, Texas | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Dallas Morning News against creationism program

December 28, 2007

The lead editorial in Thursday’s edition of The Dallas Morning News endorsed science and questioned why a graduate program in creation science should be tolerated by Texas, and specifically by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB). It’s an issue discussed here earlier.

In the first part, “Be vigilant on how they intersect in our schools,” the paper’s editorial board is clear that the application from the Institute for Creation Research to teach graduate education courses in creationism is vexing, and should be rejected:

It’s troubling, then, that the Dallas-based Institute for Creation Research, which professes Genesis as scientifically reliable, recently won a state advisory panel’s approval for its online master’s degree program in science education. Investigators found that despite its creationism component – which is not the same thing as “intelligent design” – the institute’s graduate program offered enough real science to pass academic muster. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board will vote on the recommendation in January.

We hate to second-guess the three academic investigators – including Gloria White, managing director of the University of Texas at Austin’s Dana Research Center for Mathematics and Science Education – but, still, the coordinating board had better give this case a long, hard look.

The board’s job is to certify institutions as competent to teach science in Texas schools. Despite the institute including mainstream science in its programs, it’s hard to see how a school that rejects so many fundamental principles of science can be trusted to produce teachers who faithfully teach the state’s curriculum.

Keven Ann Willey, the editorial page editor at the News, herds a lot of conservative cats on a strong editorial board that probably reflects the business community in Dallas; several members of that board probably argued that there must be recognition and condemnation of the “persecution of Christians” who are required to learn evolution and other science ideas that conflict with various Christian cults. And so the editorial has an odd, second part, “Faith is, by nature, based on the unprovable,” which calls for respect for religious views by science — without saying how that might possibly apply to a science class in a public school.

Faith maintains its unique quality because it is based on things we cannot prove in this life. By reducing it to an empirical science, it ceases to be faith. Yet, no matter how many linkages scientists uncover to show that man evolved from pond slime, they will never do better than those who rely on faith in answering the ultimate question about a greater being behind our existence.

As the debate rages, it’s worth noting that the world’s great religions agree on the need for science. And even the agnostic Albert Einstein conceded that science can’t answer everything: “My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality.”

It’s demeaning for the faithful to tout belief as science. But equally so, the advocates of science should be respectful enough to admit that faith is all that remains when science fails to provide the answers we seek.

So, the Dallas Morning News supports the rational view that the ICR’s application to train teachers to violate the Constitution is a bad idea. But they warn scientists to play nice.

Remember, scientists in Texas this year published great research and supported a bond issue to put $3 billion into research to fight cancer. In contrast, IDists and creationists tried to sneak a creationist graduate school into existence, fired the science curriculum director at the state agency charged by law with defending evolution in the curriculum for defending evolution in the curriculum (Gov. Perry is still missing in action, so no word from any Republican to slow this war on science), tried to sneak Baylor University’s name onto an intelligence design public relations site (in the engineering school, of course, not in biology), and tried to pass off a religious rally at Southern Methodist University as a science conference.

Play nice? Sure. But this is politics, not playground, and since the game is hardball, we’re going to play hardball. DMN, you are right in the first half of your editorial: When you’re right, don’t back down. Our children and our economy need your support.

Read the rest of this entry »

3 Comments | Creationism, Education, Education quality, First Amendment, Government, Graduate study, Higher education, History, Teaching | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Texas Ed chairman responds: Don’t limit science classes to evolution

December 21, 2007

I hope he doesn’t mean it.

Maybe he had a staffer draft it for him, and he is really not familiar with the issue (though he’s been on the Texas State Board of Education for several years, through at least two rounds of biology textbook selections) — but it’s difficult for me not to see a declaration of war on evolution in science classes in the letter to the editor Texas State Board of Education Chair Don McLeroy sent to the Dallas Morning News:

Science education has to have an open mind

Re: “Teaching of evolution to go under microscope – With science director out, sides set to fight over state’s curriculum,” Thursday news story.

Don McLeroy, chair of Texas SBOE; photo from EdWeek

What do you teach in science class? You teach science. What do you teach in Sunday school class? You teach your faith.

Thus, in your story it is important to remember that some of my quoted comments were made in a 2005 Sunday school class. The story does accurately represent that I am a Christian and that my faith in God is something that I take very seriously. My Christian convictions are shared by many people.

Given these religious convictions, I would like to clarify any impression one may make from the article about my motivation for questioning evolution. My focus is on the empirical evidence and the scientific interpretations of that evidence. In science class, there is no place for dogma and “sacred cows;” no subject should be “untouchable” as to its scientific merits or shortcomings. My motivation is good science and a well-trained, scientifically literate student.

What can stop science is an irrefutable preconception. Anytime you attempt to limit possible explanations in science, it is then that you get your science stopper. In science class, it is important to remember that the consensus of a conviction does not determine whether it is true or false. In science class, you teach science.

Don McLeroy, chair, State Board of Education, College Station
(Letter printed in the Dallas Morning News, December 21, 2007, page 24A; photo, Associated Press file photo, 2004)

My concerns, below.

These are the encouraging parts of Chairman McLeroy’s letter: “What do you teach in science class? You teach science.” And this closing sentence: “In science class, you teach science.”

Most of the three paragraphs in between those sentences is laced with the code language of creationism and intelligent design partisans who aim to strike evolution from schools by watering down the curriculum and preventing students from learning the power and majesty of the science theory derived from observing creation, by limiting time to teach evolution as state standards require so that it cannot be taught adequately, and by raising false claims against evolution such as alleged weaknesses in the theory.

No, we don’t teach dogma in science classes. Dogma, of course, is a reference to religious material. “Dogma” is what the Discovery Institute calls evolution theory.

Evolution is one of the great ideas of western civilization. It unites disparate parts of science related to biology, such as botany, zoology, mycology, nuclear physics, chemistry, geology, paleontology and archeology, into a larger framework that helps scientists understand nature. This knowledge in this framework can then be applied to serious matters such as increasing crop yields and the “green revolution” of Norman Borlaug, in order to feed humanity (a task we still have yet to achieve), or to figuring out the causes and treatments, and perhaps cures for diabetes.

In Texas, we use evolution to fight the cotton boll weevil and imported fire ants, to make the Rio Grande Valley productive with citrus fruit, and to treat and cure cancer and other diseases. We use corroborating sciences, such as geology, to find and extract coal, petroleum and natural gas.

Am I being dogmatic when I say Texas kids need to know that? None of that science rests solely on a proclamation by any religious sect. All of that science is based on observations of nature and experiments in laboratories. Evolution theory is based on extensive observations in nature and millions of experimental procedures, not one of which has succeeded in finding any of the alleged weaknesses in the theory.

If Chairman McLeroy would stipulate that he is not referring to evolution when he says public school science classes are “no place for dogma,” this letter is good news.

But I’ve listened to the chairman too many times, in too many forums, to think he has changed his position.

So his letter should be taken, I believe, as a declaration of war against science in Texas school science classrooms.

I’m willing to be persuaded otherwise, Chairman McLeroy, but you’ll need to catch up on the science and modify those views expressed in the paper today to start persuading.

An olive branch: Dr. McLeroy, I will be pleased to sit down with you and other commissioners to explain how and why evolution is important to know especially for people who do not “believe” in it. I would be happy to explain why I and other educators, like former Education Sec. Bill Bennett, believe we have a duty to teach evolution and teach it well, and why that is consistent with a faith-respecting view of education. Even better, I would be pleased to arrange visits for you with some of Texas’s leading “evolutionists” so you can become familiar with their work, and why evolution is important to the economy and future of Texas.

Update:  Welcome readers from Thoughts in a Haystack, and from Pharyngula.  Please feel free to leave a comment, and nose around to see what else is here on evolution and Texas education.

90 Comments | Biology, Education, Education quality, Evolution, Religion, Science, State school boards, Texas, Voodoo science | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Quote of the moment: “A rising tide of mediocrity”

December 21, 2007

“Our nation is at risk. The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity. If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament. History is not kind to idlers.”

Those warnings, grim and intentionally provocative, were issued last week by the 18-member National Commission on Excellence in Education in a 36-page report called A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform. Headed by University of Utah President David P. Gardner, the NCEE was set up 20 months ago by Secretary of Education Terrel Bell to examine U.S. educational quality.

– Ellie McGrath, “To Stem ‘A Tide of Mediocrity,'” Time, May 9, 1983.

2 Comments | Education, Education quality, Famous quotes, Historic documents, History, Quotes | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Texas Citizens for Science: Report on creationist certification

December 20, 2007

To provide a little greater access, below the fold I reproduce the complete report from the Texas Citizens for Science on the Institution for Creation Research’s bid to get approval from Texas to grant graduate degrees from the ICR’s Irving, Texas, campus.

If you are tracking this issue, you should also see these posts and sites:

The TCS report is also available at the TCS website.

Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment | Biography, Creationism, Education, Education quality, Higher education, Religion, Science, Science and faith, Texas, War on Science | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Creationism for profit

December 20, 2007

It’s not God driving the creationists to grant degrees in Texas; it’s Mammon.

See the press release from the Texas Citizens for Science, below:

TEXAS CITIZENS FOR SCIENCE


PRESS RELEASE

For immediate release

10:00 a.m., Thursday, December 20, 2007


CONTACT: Steven D. Schafersman, Ph.D.,

President, Texas Citizens for Science

432-352-2265


tcs@texscience.org


http://www.texscience.org/


TITLE: The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) wants the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) to Give ICR Certification to Grant Graduate Degrees in Science Education in Texas for Monetary Reasons


In a major report on the ICR’s quest for official certification by the THECB, Texas Citizens for Science (TCS) believes it has identified the major motivation for the rapid, incompetent, and–until now–stealthy process of the ICR site evaluation and approval by two committees of the THECB. ICR is on-track to make millions of dollars by charging Protestant Fundamentalist students from many foreign countries tuition at its new on-line distance education graduate school. ICR says:


“The graduate school of ICR also offers resident Master of Science degrees in astronomy and geophysics, biology, and geology. These degree programs are currently being developed for web-based, distance education platforms to accommodate a growing number of students who desire quality advanced science instruction from a thoroughly biblical perspective.”


The certification to award Master’s Degrees in Science Education will apply to distance degree programs as well as on-site classroom study. In fact, ICR’s Henry Morris Center in Dallas has only a single equipped classroom. ICR, therefore, intends to sell its Young Earth Creationism graduate program to students from all over the United States and foreign countries who would be interested in obtaining a science master’s degree that is legal, authentic, and fully-certified by the State of Texas. With Web-based distance education so powerful and available today, he potential market contains thousands of individuals, and ICR is on-track to make many millions of dollars.


In the Report on the ICR, TCS President Steven Schafersman writes, “The only thing better than offering distance education courses for thousands of Protestant Fundamentalist students in India, China, Africa, and South America is being able to give them certified and legitimate Masters of Science degrees from the United States. And the only thing better than that is charging each of those thousands of Protestant Fundamentalist students all over the world many thousands of dollars for tuition. With a fat Texas-certified Master’s Degree in Science Education thrown in, every student will get super-extra “value added” for their money. ICR stands to earn tens of millions of dollars

from tuition fees if they can award real Masters of Science degrees to thousands of distance students over the world. Likewise, they will lose those millions of dollars if THECB certification is not granted on January 24, 2008, in Austin.”


The financial motivation for the so-far successful progress of the ICR to obtaining its official Texas certification to award legal and authentic master’s degrees in science has not been uncovered until now.


The Report is now available at

http://www.texscience.org/reviews/icr-thecb-certification.htm

									


				

				 1 Comment				|  Biology, Creationism, Education, Evolution, Higher education, Junk science, Religion, Science, Voodoo science				 | Tagged: , , , , 				 |  Permalink

 Posted by Ed Darrell				

			

			

		
			

				
Evolution on display in Austin

				December 20, 2007



				

					

Header for evolution display at Texas Memorial Museum


No, unfortunately, not at either the State Board of Education/Texas Education Agency nor the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.


At a better place, perhaps.  A permanent exhibit on evolution, “Explore Evolution, opened October 1 at the Texas Memorial Museum at the University of Texas.  The exhibit, funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation, explains evolution for students.  It appears essentially the same at six different museums in the Midwest:


    

  1. Museum of Natural History at the University of Michigan
    2. 

  2. Kansas Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center
    3. 

  3. The Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History
    4. 

  4. Science Museum of Minnesota
    5. 

  5. University of Nebraska State Museum, and
    6. 

  6. Texas Memorial Museum at the University of Texas.
    7. 



 												Explore Evolution permanent exhibit opens Sept. 10 at NU State Museum


Lincoln, Neb., Sept. 7, 2005 — Using cutting edge research, a new exhibit at the University of Nebraska State Museum gives a modern shine to Charles Darwin’s 146-year-old theory on evolution. The permanent exhibit, Explore Evolution, which opens to the public Sept. 10, was developed by a consortium of six partner museums led by the NU State Museum and prominently features the work of two UNL scientists.


The project is made possible by a $2.8 million, three-year grant from the National Science Foundation’s Informal Science Education program and consists of nearly identical permanent exhibit galleries at six partner museums in the Midwest and South — regions where evolution education is controversial. Other components of the project include a Web site, inquiry-based activities for middle-school children in the form of a book titled “Virus and the Whale, Exploring Evolution in Creatures Small and Large,” and collaborations with five statewide 4-H programs.


“Interested 4-H’ers will have the opportunity to explore exciting scientific concepts and cutting-edge research methods,” said Bradley Barker, UNL 4-H.


Priscilla Grew, director of the museum, said the exhibit is a big win for Nebraska.


“By funding the Explore Evolution project, the National Science Foundation has elevated UNL’s State Museum into a national leadership position in museum science education,” she said. “Evolution has been called the cornerstone of modern biology. The scientific understanding of evolution is fundamental to advances in modern medicine, agriculture and biotechnology. It is essential both to scientific research on the biodiversity of today’s world, and to the scientific interpretation of the fossil record through geologic time.”


The museum exhibit features seven current research projects, each presenting a major discovery about the evolution of life by a leading scientist or team of researchers. Through graphics and interactive displays, museum patrons explore evolution in organisms ranging form the smallest to the largest.


UNL’s contributions to the project are significant. While the exhibit galleries were built by the Science Museum of Minnesota, a team from UNL played major roles in the creation of the artwork and content. Judy Diamond, professor at the NU State Museum, wrote the original grant request for the project and is the team leader on the project. Research from two UNL scientists — virologist Charles Wood and geologist Sherilyn Fritz — is featured in two of the seven sections of the exhibit.


Wood’s research takes him to central Africa to study how the HIV/AIDS virus is transported from mothers to their infants. Wood’s research showcases the virus and how it evolves rapidly in newborns, with new strains being produced that are resistant to the infant’s immune system.


Fritz, working with Edward Theriot from University of Texas at Austin, used core samples from Yellowstone Lake to investigate the evolution of an organism called a diatom. Sampling tracks the diatom’s evolution from the lake’s formation 14,000 years ago and shows how diatoms — which are good barometers of climate change — developed within the first 4,000 years of the lake.


Other scientific endeavors featured in Explore Evolution include Cameron Currie’s work on farmer ants and their coevolving partners; Kenneth Kaneshiro on sexual selection among Hawaiian flies; Rosemary and Peter Grant on Galapagos finches; Svante Paabo on the genetic ties between humans and chimps; and Philip Gingerich on fossil discoveries of walking whales.


 Read the rest of this entry »

									


				

				 3 Comments				|  Biology, Education, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Science, Texas history, Travel				 | Tagged: , , , , 				 |  Permalink

 Posted by Ed Darrell				

			

			

		
		

			
« Previous Entries

			
Next Entries »