Looking up to Finland

May 30, 2007

Commenter Bernarda sent a link to a Washington Post story by Robert Kaiser about Finland, a nation who redesigned its education system with rather dramatic, beneficial results. Among other things, the Finns treat teachers as valuable members of society, with high pay, great support, and heavy training.

Finland is a leading example of the northern European view that a successful, competitive society should provide basic social services to all its citizens at affordable prices or at no cost at all. This isn’t controversial in Finland; it is taken for granted. For a patriotic American like me, the Finns present a difficult challenge: If we Americans are so rich and so smart, why can’t we treat our citizens as well as the Finns do?

Why not? Why can’t we treat our citizens as well as the Finns? Their system boosts their economy and leads to great social progress — which part of that do we not want?

5 Comments | Classroom size, Creativity, Economics, Education quality, Education reform, Education spending, Education success, Free market economics, Freedom - Economic, Freedom - Political, Politics, Public education, School vouchers, Socialism, Teacher Pay, Teaching | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Who was the first woman in the U.S. Senate?

May 25, 2007

If you answered “Margaret Chase Smith, the Senator from Maine,” you’d be close, but not close enough. Can you tell when she served, even?

David Parker is back from his vacation; in merely noting that he’s back, he pointed to this article about the first woman to serve in the U.S. Senate. Having spent so much time prowling those halls, and having lived with so many people who are so steeped in Senate history, the information caught me a little off guard. Rebecca Latimer Felton, the first woman to serve in the U.S. Senate

Who is it, if it’s not Smith? Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a Comment » | Capturing history, Politics, U.S. Senate, Women's rights | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Utah voucher fight: Ball of confusion

May 25, 2007

It’s not clear who will win in the bloody vouchers war going on in Utah — it’s only clear that, once again, public education, students and teachers, lose.

Utah’s legislature, a bastion of Republican conservatism in the last decade or so, passed a voucher bill in its just-ended regular session. Conservative legislature, conservative governor — a law authorizing vouchers is what should be expected these days, no? What the advocates of vouchers failed to take into account has made this quite a drama.

Utah’s voters don’t like vouchers much, but love their public schools a lot.

So, the Utah state board of education opposed the measure. A hint of graft in existing alternatives to public schools angered many citizens. Opponents pointed to, among other things, the possibility that vouchers would vacuum funding from public schools — Utah is already dead last in per-pupil spending in the U.S.

It’s turned into a real donneybrook. [Bloody details below the fold.] Read the rest of this entry »

16 Comments | Economics, Education, Education reform, Education spending, Elections, Politics, School vouchers | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Mining the Internet Archive: Tobacco, history and controversy

May 22, 2007

European Union rules require member states to do something about indoor air pollution. European states are banning smoking in public places. Gone soon will be days when we can joke about Britons and their Player’s cigarettes, or the French and their Galois habits.

Every once in a while as I recount the great Tobacco/Health Wars, my kids remind me that they never saw a cigarette commercial on television. Once, we caught a showing of past ads, and I was truck nostalgic by Fred Flintstone’s testimony for Winston cigarettes — the kids gasped: “Fred Flintstone used to smoke!”

Everybody smoked, once upon a time, it seemed. 1940s and 1950s magazines have ads in which doctors and athletes claim cigarette smoking is either unharmful, sheer pleasure, or even health promoting. Got a cigarette cough? Switch to menthol cigarettes! Mouth burns? Try a filter cigarette.

Today, kids wonder why Virginia did so well selling tobacco to Britain — who in their right mind would have smoked? they ask.

The Internet Archive has an abundance of film material on tobacco. The films come from the University of California – San Francisco: Read the rest of this entry »

3 Comments | Business Ethics, Current History, Dissent, Economics, First Amendment, Free market economics, Freedom - Economic, Geography - Physical, History, History Revisionism, History video sources, Hoaxes, Movies, On-line education, Politics, Public health, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Brownback parody, or Brownback lunacy?

May 20, 2007

Okay, I think this site is a parody, a hoax, on U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback‘s presidential campaign.

But it’s difficult to tell, especially when stuff like this voodoo history is on Brownback’s official campaign site. Alvin Reed thinks Brownback understands “the creator” better than other candidates because he was Secretary of Agriculture in Kansas, and that made Brownback ‘closer to the soil?’

Brownback is one of the three Republicans who confessed to supporting creationism, so he has no chance of my vote in any case. All the same, I’d prefer lunatics stay out of the presidential campaign.

I have written the Brownback campaign asking them for an explanation of the heliocentrism stuff. If they are not savvy enough to have a disavowal of the Blogs4Brownback out, and the sites are not part of the campaign, he’s going to get toasted quickly.

But if the site is affiliated with him, he deserves to get toasted more quickly — already there are serious posters there defending Brownback. Someone needs to tell them Jesus died to take away their sins, not their brains ©.

More commentary from experts:

3 Comments | Bogus history, Campaigns, Creationism, Hoaxes, Intelligent Design, Politics, Voodoo history, Weblogs | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Creationism outbreak at national school boards group

May 19, 2007

Oops – this almost escaped my notice — according to the New York Times (in a May 19 story that will soon go behind the proprietary veil, so hurry if you want to read it):

The National Association of State Boards of Education [NASBE] will elect officers in July, and for one office, president-elect, there is only one candidate: a member of the Kansas school board who supported its efforts against the teaching of evolution.

Scientists who have been active in the nation’s evolution debate say they want to thwart his candidacy, but it is not clear that they can.

The candidate is Kenneth R. Willard, a Kansas Republican who voted with the conservative majority in 2005 when the school board changed the state’s science standards to allow inclusion of intelligent design, an ideological cousin of creationism. Voters later replaced that majority, but Mr. Willard, an insurance executive from Hutchinson, retained his seat. If he becomes president-elect of the national group, he will take office in January 2009.

I suppose a flat Earth advocate, a communist economist, or someone who is convinced the Moon landings were hoaxes, could head up such an education organization and not bother the rest of us with his particular brand of lunacy.

But is it likely?

Mr. Willard, who is in his fourth year on the 16-member national board, said in a telephone interview yesterday that issues like the teaching of evolution were best left to the states.

“We don’t set curriculum standards or anything like that,” Mr. Willard said of the national organization, adding that it handled issues like advising state boards on how to deal with governance concerns or influxes of immigrant students or ways to raise academic achievement among members of disadvantaged groups.

He said, though, that he personally thought students should be taught about challenges to the theory of evolution, like intelligent design. And while he said he had not heard of a possible challenge to his candidacy, Mr. Willard added that he was not surprised by it.

“Some people are mindless about their attacks on anyone questioning anything Darwin might have said,” Mr. Willard said.

There is no credible scientific challenge to the theory of evolution as an explanation for the complexity and diversity of life on earth. Courts have repeatedly ruled that creationism and intelligent design are religious doctrines, not scientific theories.

NASBE is the organization that offended the Texas State Board of Education by advocating that gay high school students should not be bullied. Is Willard’s nomination a sop to get Texas back in the fold?

Tip of the old scrub brush to Christian Leftist.

Almost immediate update: Pharyngula is already on the thing.

Another update: Panda’s Thumb is in the fray, too.

1 Comment | Creationism, Education, Intelligent Design, Politics | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Voting machine soap opera: Fire, faulty machines, new election?

May 19, 2007

City elections in Aurora, Texas, may need to be re-run after spectacular failures of two of three Diebold voting machines, and a fire that damaged the impounded units after 38 votes were completely erased and Diebold technicians were unable to hack results out of their own machines. Do you even need to be told the fire’s cause is undetermined?

Is your local government considering voting machines with no paper back up?

The voting machines don’t work even when there isn’t a great partisan prize at stake; the first explanation from the Justice Department for mess-ups in personnel there is that dismissed people were not aggressively enough pursuing a campaign against minority voting; a federal conviction of a campaign worker in Wisconsin turns out to have been a bogus case created by a U.S. attorney appointed to bring exactly such bogus cases . . .

How great must the assault on the Constitution and rights of Americans be, before there is a general clamor for justice, and change?

Leave a Comment » | Civil Rights, Current History, Elections, Ethics, Justice, Law, Politics | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

News blackout on Gonzales?

May 18, 2007

Gonzalez gone? Who noticed?

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, the subject of the lead editorial in the New York Times Thursday morning and on the front pages of newspapers nationwide, was the keynote speaker at a luncheon honoring civil rights leader Whitney Young, for the Boy Scouts, in Dallas, Wednesday, May 17.

But who knew? News media did not cover the speech – were they barred? – nor did anyone involved make any fuss. There was no press release from the Justice Department, no press release from the Circle 10 Council, B.S.A., no speech text . . .

One would think it would be news simply that the nation’s attorney general was speaking at an event honoring Whitney Young. One would think that any speech by Alberto Gonzales would get coverage by at least the major local news outlets. Heck, the luncheon was MCed by a local television weather guy – his own station didn’t bother to cover it?

If an embattled attorney general speaks up for civil rights and youth development, but no one is there to listen, does it matter?

Did I miss the coverage of the speech? Why the news blackout, and who asked for it?

New information, May 19:  One of the purposes of Gonzales’ trip to Texas was the annual meeting with U.S. attorneys, in San Antonio.  That meeting was off-the-record, private, etc., etc.  See this report at Think Progress.

Leave a Comment » | History, Journalism, Politics | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Green light bulbs, and World Net Daily trying to make a hoax

May 18, 2007

World Net Daily’s inaccuracies and blatant, fact-bending bias would be the source of much great humor, if so many gullible conservatives did not take the thing seriously.

Recently WND featured a story about the impossibility of changing light bulbs to save energy, alleging that doing so might turn one’s home into a toxic waste dump that costs $2,000 per bulb to clean up. Was anyone suckered in by the story?

According to Snopes.com, both Fox News and the Financial Post also got suckered, probably from the WND story.

Chiefly, that these news outlets got suckered is evidence they need better copy editors and fact checkers. Time for such news organizations to raise the pay of their “morgue” keepers and librarians, to get the facts straight. Read the rest of this entry »

5 Comments | Accuracy, Environmental protection, Hoaxes, Journalism, Politics, Science | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

GOP war on science victim: Rachel Carson

May 14, 2007

Some people do things that are so stupid that one wonders how they manage to shave or put make-up on the next morning, having to look at their own face.

Mugshot of Utah Rep. Rob Bishop

Mugshot of Utah Rep. Rob Bishop

53 Republican representatives voted against naming the post office in Springdale, Pennsylvania, after Rachel Carson, the scientist who wrote Silent Spring, generally considered one of the most important or most influential scientists of the 20th century. No kidding. Springdale is Carson’s hometown.

2007 is the centennial of Carson’s birth — her birthday was May 27. (The bill, H.R. 1434, passed, 334-53.)

Why did the Wacky 53 vote against the honor for Carson, who got the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980? In an earnest ritual of voodoo science, they claim that bans on DDT kill millions, and that DDT is harmless. No, I’m not making this up — here’s the story from the Salt Lake Tribune, which covers territory represented by Rep. Rob Bishop and Rep. Chris Cannon, both R-Utah:

They contend that Carson’s actions – which led to a ban on the chemical DDT used to kill pests – actually has caused more deaths because of malaria and other diseases spread by insects. DDT, Carson wrote, was detrimental to the environment and to humans. Some scientists say DDT led to the California condor’s near-extinction.

Read the rest of this entry »

15 Comments | Accuracy, Citizenship, DDT, Environmental protection, Ethics, Malaria, Politics, Rachel Carson, Science, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Carnival still in town? We didn’t miss it?

May 13, 2007

History Carnival 52 was up on May 1 at Clioweb. What sort of a fog have I been in? Check out especially this post at Food History, demonstrating several uses of critical thinking tools as they might analyze the bizarre idea that most meat in Middle Ages Europe was rancid, thereby leading to a rise in the use of spices. Spices don’t make up for stomach cramps, for example. There must be some sort of critical thinking exercise in there for a world history class.

Carnival of the Liberals 38 came online earlier this week, at This Is So Queer. With fires raging in the hills around Burbank — documented with eerily beautiful photography — a fire of war in Iraq, and a fire around the Second Amendment, posts collected at the carnival offer fuel for intellectual fires on big issues.

Moton HS historical markerAnd, the venerable Carnival of Education, issue 118, was up earlier at NYC Educator, with good posts on laptops in school, parenting, administering, enduring, and everything else related to education. (Click on the photo for a larger image — it’s the historical marker at the former Robert R. Moton High School, in Prince Edward County, Virginia — where one of the most poignant of the cases against school segregation began, Davis vs. Prince Edwards County Schools — part of the Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education case decided in 1954. Photo from Virginia Commonwealth University.)

Carnival of Homeschooling 71 lolls, at On The Company Porch.

And, of course, if you wish to nominate a post for the next Fiesta de Tejas!, scheduled for June 2, just use this button:


Blog Carnival submission form - fiesta de tejas!

Have a good Mother’s Day — call all the mothers you know. Why be picky?

2 Comments | Education, Education blogs, Education reform, History, History blogs, Homeschooling, Pedagogy, Politics, Public education, Teaching, Technology, Weblogs | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Baylor’s Beckwith returns to the Catholic Church

May 7, 2007

Dr. Francis Beckwith, the Baylor University professor whose writings formed much of the justification for claims that intelligent design could be taught as science in public schools (prior to the Dover decision), announced he is returning to the Catholic Church and resigning as president of the Evangelical Theological Society.

Beckwith explains his faith switch at Right Reason. Contrast comments there with the snarky, uncharitable posts from the “evangelical” side, with Constructive Curmudgeon as an example. If this is the way ID advocates (such as Doug Groothuis) treat someone who merely changes sect, what would they do to someone who became rational on science?

Beckwith’s road at Baylor has not been a smooth one. One wishes him well when brickbats are already flying his direction, for silly reasons.

Educators and scientists, including especially those of faith traditions, may wish he had left the church of intelligent design instead. Perhaps he has, or will, if the attacks from fundamentalists keep up — similar to the way such attacks on Charles Darwin encouraged him to distance himself from the church.

How does this alter the Texas biology textbook fight discussion?

4 Comments | Intelligent Design, Law, Politics, Religious Freedom, Science and faith, Texas, Textbook Selection | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Fiesta de Tejas #2 – Cinco de Mayo edition

May 6, 2007

Welcome back! The Midway here at the Fiesta offers eclecticism beyond your wildest expectations, all about Texas. No sonnets, no haiku, no limericks. No faux movie themes. Nothing but Texas posts.

This is an unintentional Cinco de Mayo edition. I’m late, and I apologize to everyone who dropped by on May 2 and was disappointed.

Cinco de Mayo celebrates one of the greatest victories of the U.S. Civil War, a battle fought by neither Confederate nor Union soldiers, nor even on U.S. soil — and a battle generally omitted from Civil War accounts in U.S. history books. On May 5, 1862, the loyal Army of Mexico defeated an invading army of French and French Foreign Legionnaires, using smarter battle tactics and superb discipline. Union Gen. Phillip Sheridan rushed arms to the Mexicans to complete the expulsion of the French. Mexican patriots in this way frustrated Napoleon III’s plans to supply the Confederate States of America, giving vital time to the Union forces to muster a large army and manufacture the weapons and other machines used to defeat the South. Here is a biased account from a group in San Marcos, Texas.

Such a history is politically incorrect in an age when people think U.S. citizens should stay in the U.S., Mexican citizens should stay in Mexico, and that our fates are not intertwined in North America as they were in the 1860s. Perhaps that is why the events celebrated by Cinco de Mayo are ignored, officially.

But such disputes are what history writing and discussion is all about.

What else might we learn, politically incorrect or otherwise, from a carnival of Texas history and Texana? Let’s see, in no particular order.

Texas stuff

P. M. Summer offers a straight ahead view of a classic Texas Stetson hat, at Pop’s! Hat! History, Texas, heritage, nostalgia and a twinge of eccentricity, all rolled into one.
P. M. Summers' Stetson, from his father.

Politics and law: The Lege is still in session, and unfortunately Molly Ivins has not risen that we know of. Making sense of the Texas Legislature is an art generally beyond my ken. Others make a good stab, though. Capitol Annex explains the odd bill proposed to make it legal for kids to show their religion in public schools. It’s an odd bill because it grants no new rights, nothing in it is not already legal under state and federal laws, unless there is a hidden clause for proselytizing. Can you find such a clause? The bill has been delayed — stay tuned to see whether it passes, and in what form.

Here’s another view of the bill from South Texas Chisme.

Over at Kissmybigbluebutt, we get the modern lowdown on another Texas tradition, the unconcealed carry. Check the date — there is no such thing as “May Fool’s,” right?

Grits for Breakfast found a bright spot at the Texas Youth Commission, the bunch that runs the “camps” for youth offenders where allegations of abuse have mushroomed in the past year, and which has been forced to release many kids. This is about the only bright spot in this long, sad saga (see this post, and follow links, from DallasSouthBlog, for example).

Education: TexasEd is a site by a Texas home schooler, but which spends a lot of time looking at education policy in Texas, generally — a good site during a legislative session, as demonstrated by this short post on attempts by private schools to get the state to pay for athletic championship series by private schools.

Run, Rick! Run! — Pink Dome found this photo of Texas Gov. Rick Perry. In the red shirt.

Preventing abuse of the Texas flag: It’s nice to discover another group concerned about flag etiquette. I’m pleased to refer questions about Texas flag etiquette to another blog — The Daily Flag. (I also note some history posts from this site, below.)

Real story, real immigrant, real lawyer: Dallas is a wilderness? Perhaps to an immigrant, it may appear unfriendly. Wilderness in the City featured a short story about a lawyer getting a favorable result in an immigration case. Check your stereotypes at the courtroom door.

SMU professors stood up for science, but the “conference” on intelligent design proceeded anyway. Texas physician and blogger Dr. Zach attended and reported on the events. This will figure into the textbook adoption process in Texas, for biology text books, mark my words. At Goosing the Antithesis, Dr. Zack covered the event in a series of posts: Michael Behe, Lee Strobel, Jay Richards, Stephen Meyer, Q&A session, and Dr. Zach’s final thoughts.

Texas defined, perhaps ambiguously: Georgia O’Keefe meets the Beverly Hillbillies, at Chatoyance. (I’m assuming the photo was taken in Texas.)

Texas history

Kay Bell is at it again at Don’t Mess With Taxes. Her San Jacinto Day post on April 21, “Texas Triumphant,” lays out the story of the battle that won Texas independence from Mexico — the Texians lost the Battle of the Alamo, remember, and then surrendered and were slaughtered at Goliad. San Jacinto was the place Sam Houston got the drop on Santa Anna and the larger force, the great Army of Mexico. It was the place, Kay might say, where “Don’t Mess With Texas” first got meaning. In past years, Texas seriously celebrated the day, before Texas high school history standards downplayed the Texas Revolution.

The Daily Flag has a series on the Battle of San Jacinto, with several photos of this year’s re-enactment. Here is the last of the series, with links to the others.

Is it fair to point to a podcast? Let’s see if anyone complains. Over at The Texana Review, Ed Blackburn has a podcast interview with William Keller, the director of the Houston History Project. This couples two of my favorite causes, local history, and pushing technology. If you haven’t listened to podcasts, it’s time to start — do it here and now. Especially if you’re a high school teacher of history, economics, geography, government or some other topic, you need to be using podcasts. No, not just listening to them — using them. What do you think all those iPods are for?

While you’re at The Texana Review, you may want to check out Blackburn’s podcasts on the history of the Texas Rangers, focusing on Joaquin Jackson’s book, One Ranger: A Memoir. Even 7th grade students can get interested in the history of the Rangers.

Kicks on Route 66: One of my favorite blogs is Route 66 News, because it’s well done, tightly focused on Route 66, current and informative. Not every post interests me, but I always find something. Here Route 66 News talks about a photo shoot at the famous Cadillac Ranch in West Texas, to promote seatbelt use in Texas — a photo shoot sent awry by a hungry llama. This is Texas — no, no one could make this stuff up if it weren’t true.

There were complaints (well, at least one) that we didn’t cover Janis Joplin enough in the last carnival. Well, I didn’t find much new out in blogdom this time, either — so I may as well include my own post here, noting the creation of a self-guided Janis Joplin tour of Port Arthur, Texas, her home town. Texas music continues to be under-covered by blogs. I’m probably missing some good ones, but there could be a lot more, especially with an eye to what could be used in a Texas history classroom. (Hint: Send me notes on good posts you find!)

And this one just under the wire: Tom Michael lives near that far west Texas town of Marfa, city of lights, so to speak, and near the some-might-think-oddly-named Texas city of Alpine. He’s been guest blogging on a blog out of North Carolina called MisterSugar, and he has a post that captures the Texas spirit amazingly well, showing Texas pride bordering on hubris, love of religion beyond the point of rationality, willingness to change, and just old Texas orneriness: “Texas.”

That’ll wrap it up for this edition of the Fiesta de Tejas!, a blog carnival of Texas history and Texana. Please send nominations for posts for the next Fiesta to me, or better, to the Blog Carnival site set up for the purpose: Nominate a blog post to the Fiesta de Tejas! (that’s http://blogcarnival.com/bc/submit_1298.html)

We still need a logo.

I’d be happy to turn hosting opportunities over to anyone who’d like to take a stab.

The next edition is planned for June 2, 2007, with entries due at midnight your time on May 31, 2007. Remember you may nominate the posts of others — please do!


Blog Carnival submission form - fiesta de tejas!



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5 Comments | Education, Education blogs, Fiesta de Tejas!, Flag etiquette, Politics, Texas history, Texas Lege, Texas Music, Weblogs | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Global warming effects: More nasty bugs

May 1, 2007

This news can fit into curricula in several ways, in several courses: Insects have already evolved in response to climate shifts due to global warming.

The Boston Globe has a series on global warming, and a recent article detailed how mosquitoes on the Maine frontier have already changed their breeding seasons in response to warming weather.

A mosquito that can barely fly is one of only five known species that scientists say have already evolved because of global warming. The unobtrusive mosquito’s story illustrates a sobering consequence of climate change: The species best suited to adapting may not be the ones people want to survive.

Such news enhances biology studies of genetics and insects, geography studies of climate, animal dispersal patterns and disease and pest ranges (a subject more technically known as biogeography), and the articles lend urgency to studies of how governments react to natural crises, a topic suitable for government classes, economics, and U.S. and world history.

Global Warming illustration Click on the thumbnail to see four examples of genetic change credited to global warming. (Graphic by David Butler of the Boston Globe staff.) Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment | Current History, Disasters, Economics, Education, Environmental protection, Evolution, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, History, Lesson plans, Natural history, Politics, Science, Teaching, Travel | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Quote of the moment: Education beats incarceration

May 1, 2007

From an editorial in the Ogden, Utah, Standard-Examiner:

Inmates who receive a degree while in prison have very low recidivism rates. Utah State University’s prison-degree program for inmates underscores that success. In the past 20 years, 91 inmates have received degrees from USU. … not one of the graduates has re-offended.

The editorial urges the Utah Legislature to continue the program.  Without legislative action, the program ends in the autumn.

Tip of the old scrub brush to LaVarr Webb’s Utah Policy Daily, May 1, 2007.

Leave a Comment » | Education, Politics | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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