Burro:
Burro
Burrow:
If you can click to this site, you should know the difference. Do you?
What’s the difference between a burro and a burrow?
August 30, 2008
8 Comments | 
Education, Education assessment, Humor, Politics, Science, Words | Tagged: Education, Education Policy, Humor, Lexicography, Politics, school boards, Science, Words | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Top 10 reasons McCain chose Sarah Palin as a running-mate
August 30, 2008We old-line campaigners and politicos watched with great interest the news of Sen. John McCain’s choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his vice president ticket-mate. McCain’s choice offers glimpses of what is going on inside McCain’s campaign, and McCain’s head.
Python's Michael Palin and friend
Here are the top 10 reasons McCain chose Sarah Palin, in count-down order:
10. Michael Palin is not a U.S. citizen, it turns out.
9. Those pesky science fans will shut up and stop clamoring for a science debate, just to avoid hearing one more fool claim that intelligent design deserves time in classes.
8. Thought she was Nana Mouskouri.
Nana Mouskouri
7. Hillary already pledged to support Obama.
Buy your mukluks at MuklukStore.com
6. Two words: Mukluk.
5. Didn’t want to risk getting a religious nut, so Mitt Romney was out.
4. Harriett Myers was unavailable.
3. Impressed by the education plank in her campaign for mayor of Wassila, Alaska.
"No one expects the Spanish Inquisition" - Michael Palin models the robe Sarah Palin will be asked to wear, with Terry Jones, Carol Cleveland and Terry Gilliam - Monty Python publicity image
2. She didn’t object to wearing Michael Palin’s gown during government investigations of non-fundamentalist Christians.
. . . and the number one reason . . .
1. Britney Spears turned him down.
Britney Spears in 2003. U.S. Navy photo (no kidding)
Your turn: Surely there are other, better reasons. Tell us what they are in comments.
________
Update: Serious commentary on Gov. Palin’s qualifications, here.
33 Comments | Elections, Humor, McCain 2008, Politics | Tagged: Britney Spears, Humor, McCain 2008, Michael Palin, Politics, Sarah Palin, Spanish Inquisition | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Ready for Banned Books Week?
August 30, 2008We 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
McCain sticks it to the PUMAs
August 29, 2008Ya gotta feel for the die-hard PUMAs, the people who were so much for Hillary Clinton that they couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Obama, so they defected to George Bush’s party and hope to sign on with John McCain. (PUMA is an acronym: “Party Unity My [mild profanity dealing with gluteal muscles]”)
“That will show Obama he can’t trample a good woman in an election race,” they were muttering until about 11:00 a.m. Central Time today.
Then, John McCain picked one of those classic Republican women office holders, one who is female in gender only, who looks at the good politics and wisdom of genuine feminism and instead does her best to act like Attila the Hun with a streak of intolerance, though occasionally acting rational enough to hold on to the few rational conservatives who vote. John McCain is so certain of their support that he can spit on their issues and kick dust in their faces. Or worse.
McCain's boys and former supporter of Hillary Clinton?
McCain must figure the PUMAs will only love him more for it.
Gov. Sarah Palin, R-Alaska. That’s about as far from Hillary Clinton as Vladimir Putin is from Harry Truman.
What will the PUMAs do? Maybe they should follow Hillary’s example, and endorse Obama.
What do you think?
11 Comments | Barack Obama, Elections, Ethics, McCain 2008, Obama 2008, Politics, Women's rights | Tagged: Election 2008, Ethics, McCain, Obama, Politics, PUMAs, Sarah Palin | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Texas AG rules: Bible classes not required
August 29, 2008Texas 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
“Do you believe in me?” 5th grader Dalton Sherman inspires Dallas teachers
August 26, 2008Update, September 19, 2008: Dalton was scheduled to appear on Ellen Degeneres’s program on Thursday, September 18; did you see it? What do you think?
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
Read this: Teaching science is hard, made harder by religious claptrap
August 24, 2008Read it, and consider these questions:
- Would your local paper have the guts to report on this issue, for your local schools? (The Times went to Florida; heaven knows few Florida papers could cover the issue in Florida so well.)
- What is your local school board doing to support science education, especially for evolution, in your town? Or is your local school board making it harder for teachers to do their jobs?
- What is your state education authority doing to support science education, especially in evolution, in your state? Or is your state school board working to make it harder for teachers to do their jobs, and working to dumb down America’s kids?
- Do your school authorities know that they bet against your students when they short evolution, because knowledge about evolution is required for 25% of the AP biology test, and is useful for boosting scores on the SAT and ACT?
- Does your state science test test evolution?
- Do your school authorities understand they are throwing away taxpayer dollars when they encourage the teaching of voodoo science, like intelligent design?
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
Biden, aye!
August 23, 2008Joe Biden it is. I’ve known Biden and watched him since my first turn staffing the Senate, 34 years ago. Day in and day out, he’s a good man. More, he will make a great vice president.
Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., at a Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Iraq (September 11, 2007) - Wikimedia photo
One of the things that has always distinguished Biden to me is his dedication to his family. Shortly after he was elected to the Senate, his wife and infant daughter were killed in a car-train accident, which also injured is two sons, Beau and Hunt. Biden informed Senate leaders he would not leave his children at such a time, and that he’d resign his election. Majority Leader Mike Mansfield and several others worked to persuade Biden to find some way to serve. By the time I joined Mansfield’s office in 1974, Mansfield was glad to have persuaded Biden, since his expertise and cool judgment were needed in the latter days of the Watergate Constitutional crises.
Bill Bradley tells the story, touchingly, in his book Time Present, Time Past, about how Arkansas Sen. John L. McClellan told Biden the best thing he could do would be to serve in the Senate and work hard — McClellan having lost his wife to spinal meningitis while driving back to Arkansas on business, and then one son to the same disease (in Africa, a few years later), and two more sons in an auto crash and an airplane crash.
Biden resolved the problem by commuting every day, from Wilmington, Delaware, to Washington, D.C. Not moving to the capital kept Biden grounded, in a way most senators cannot be.
Beau Briden today is Delaware’s attorney general, and a Captain in the National Guard, deploying to Iraq in October 2008. Hunt is an attorney working in Washington, D.C. Biden remarried in 1977. He and his wife, Jill, have a daughter, Ashley.
Ear worm: For several years while I staffed the Senate, Biden led off the roll call votes. I cannot hear his name without hearing in my head the Clerk of the Senate calling the roll for votes, “Sen. Biden,” and when Biden offered his assent the clerk would quickly intone, “Biden, ‘aye.'” When my phone beeped and I saw it was Biden, I still heard the Clerk’s voice, “Biden, aye.”
Great pick on Obama’s part.
You should check out:
- Teri Gross’s interview of Sen. Biden on “Fresh Air” from WHYY-FM in Philadelphia, broadcast February 7, 2006. Check out other interviews and stories linked from, there.
- “3 reasons Biden is good for Obama,” from In One Ear, and Out the Other (August 22, 2008 – a prescient post, no?)
- Watch Blue Ollie — he’s off to Springfield with his camera. Update: Blue Ollie’s report from Springfield – lots of pictures (not his own, drat).
1 Comment | Barack Obama, Campaigns, Government, History, Obama 2008, Politics, Presidents, U.S. Senate | Tagged: Elections 2008, Joe Biden, Obama 2008, Politics | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
The pencil with which science is writ
August 22, 2008Did the cartoonist specifically have Texas and State Board of Education Chairman Don McLeroy in mind?
Cartoon from Thomas Kondenkandeth; was he thinking specifically of Texas?
Found it at the German language version of the Seed Magazine science blogs, Hintern Mond gleich links, “Bissige Wissenschafts-Cartoons.”
Leave a Comment » | Cartoons, Political cartoons, Politics, Science, Texas | Tagged: Cartoons, Political cartoons, Politics, Science, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
A Texas riddle indeed: Why is McLeroy hanging with creationists?
August 21, 2008Here’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
Climate change skeptics, your Freudian slip is showing
August 21, 2008Is the climate change debate about science, or politics?
Anthony Watts’s blog settled the question yesterday. Watts has been conducting surveys of U.S. weather reporting stations in a months-long campaign to make a case that data have been skewed by inappropriate sitings of the measuring equipment. Other posts on the blog celebrate every release of information that might be construed as contrary to warming or contrary to human effects on climate, or denigrating any release that supports a claim of change or that human activities cause the change.
The U.S. Climate Change Science Program released a draft report for public comment several weeks ago. Watts criticized the report for a tone he interpreted as advocacy instead of science. Since comments on the report are wide open, as required under the Administrative Procedures Act, comments like Watts’ can be submitted to the agency, and they must be answered. Watts’ invitation to people who disagree with any part of the report is a good encouragement for people to take a part in this important debate about public policy.
But then, yesterday, Watts posted the smoking gun showing political pushing of the science from the White House, unintentionally, I’m sure. In fact, Watts hailed the thing, with a headline claiming that the report was being “pulled.”
Reading through Watts’s post it is difficult to figure out what happened that prompted the headline — it’s hidden away in his quote of the attack-dog propaganda site at National Review On-line, Watts said:
Chris Horner writes on NRO Planet Gore:
…the U.S. Chamber pointed out that a preponderance of the 21 reports that had purportedly been “synthesized” had not actually been produced yet. Sure, that sequence sounds odd in the real world, but is reminiscent of the IPCC, to which the USP appealed as the authority for certain otherwise unsupported claims (though the IPCC openly admits that it, too, performs no scientific research). This is a point we also made in our comments. I’m informed that NOAA has now agreed to publish the underlying documents first and then put out their desired USP. The Chamber should have a release out soon.
Did you catch that? It’s in the line, “NOAA has now agreed.” So what is the document at NOAA referred to?
Oh, it’s not a document from NOAA. It is a memorandum from the anti-climate change science group set up by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, from William Kovacs, an employee of the U.S. Chamber.
A few days ago I received a call from the administration informing me that, while they will not withdraw the notice for comments, it will in the next several weeks file another Federal Register notice providing for comment when all of the synthesis reports are public.
It seems to me that the APA rules and procedures are quite clear. Comments must be accepted, and generally they must be commented upon. Comments to the effect that not all the material backing the report was available are fair game, must be answered by the agency, and if true, might make a case for more careful scrutiny of any regulation coming from the report.
What did NOAA do? Nothing that we can see. Instead, what’s got Watts happy is a note from a hardball political group that they’ve heard from the White House, suggesting there will be political philandering with the science report.
Good scientists have significant science findings that would mitigate or contradict findings expressed in the draft report. Pointing those studies out to NOAA and the Climate Change Science Program would be the way to make a solid case.
The skeptics’ asking the White House to politically kill the report, and then celebrating a missive from a lobbying group that claims the report has been killed contrary to the law under the Administrative Procedures Act, doesn’t suggest that science is the concern of the skeptics — at least, that’s not the message I get.
In the wake of the news of one probably illegally suppressed report, it’s probably not wise to celebrate the suppression of another, legal or not.
______________________________
Update: As of Thursday afternoon (August 21), Watt’s Up With That? has changed the headline from “pulled” to “hold.”
The same criticisms apply from above, still.
1 Comment | Climate change, Global warming, History, Politics, Science | Tagged: Climate change, Global warming, Meteorology, Politics, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Darkest political skullduggery: Coup d’etat in the U.S.
August 20, 2008Here’s a story you won’t read in your U.S. history text: Sore from losing the White House, conservatives try to use an economic “crisis” as an excuse to seize the White House and oust the sitting president.
It might make a good movie — but it hasn’t yet. It actually happened.
Maj. Gen. Smedley D. Butler, "The Fighting Quaker" - twice winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor
The American Liberty League tried to persuade double-Medal of Honor winner Major Gen. Smedley Darlington Butler to do one more military campaign to save the nation — from Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in 1933. The story was told in a book that quoted extensively from hearings before the U.S. House of Representatives’ Un-American Activities Committee, the group that would become infamous for harassing leftists before the House finally choked it to death. Of course, since no one would believe such a plot, the book is out of print. The American Liberty League was quite the opposite of leftist – they favored the fascists.
Oh, the wonder of the intertubes! You can download the book, Jules Archer’s The Plot to Seize the White House, at a site called Information Clearinghouse, “News you won’t find on CNN.”
None of the plotters faced any other official investigation beyond the hearings in Congress.
Had the plot succeeded how different would World War II have been?
Tip of the old scrub brush to Progressive Gold’s del.icio.us feeds.
1 Comment | Elections, FDR, Franklin Roosevelt, History, New Deal, Politics, Presidents | Tagged: Elections, fascism, FDR, History, New Deal, Politics, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Beloit College Mindset list: No caller ID? No GPS?
August 19, 2008Beloit 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
Ladies’ choice: Happy birthday, women’s suffrage!
August 18, 2008Ouch! Almost missed it: Today is the anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, on August 18, 1920. Tennessee was the 36th state to ratify, pushing the total to three-fourths of the 48 states. (12 more states ratified later, including North Carolina in 1971, and Mississippi in 1984.)
The Amendment reads:
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
One of the better moves our nation ever made, in my opinion. Abigail Adams was right; John should have listened to her.
Abigail Adams who urged the vote for women in the late 18th century; portrait by Benjamin Blythe, 1766 (Wikimedia and Millsaps College)
And “Vox Day” and Ann Coulter are both idiots.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Reed Cartwright at De Rerum Natura.
1 Comment | Citizenship, Civil Rights, Elections, Politics, U.S. Constitution, Voting Rights Act, Women's rights | Tagged: 19th Amendment, Civil Rights, History, Politics, U.S. Constitution, Voting Rights, Women's Suffrage | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Alligator bait: Louisiana science teachers, and school boards
August 18, 2008Louisiana’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
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 