Chuck Norris’s brain waves could be picked up on a transistor radio — nobody knows because he doesn’t think.This must be a television advertising spot, but I hope it’s not rated as a public service spot, since it encourages stupidity and illegal school board actions.
(Is it my imagination, or is Norris using the same bottle of orange hair dye that Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-Mars, used in the last 65 years of his life?)
The U.S. was not “founded on Biblical principles.” For Texas, teaching this would lead students astray of the state’s Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS).
The Supreme Court has never ruled that it’s legal to teach with the Bible as a textbook. In obiter dicta in religion in the schools cases, the Court has noted that a non-sectarian, fair teaching of the Bible as literature, or as it relates to history, should be part of a full and complete education. Specifically, the Court has never ruled that a course such as the one Norris proposes would be legal; instead, the Court has held consistently that course content that appears to be religious indoctrination as this course, is illegal, a violation of students’ religious rights and and over-reach by government. School boards may not endorse one faith over another.
Religion has played a big role in U.S. history. No student needs to be converted to Christianity in order to study that role. Nor does the role of Christianity need to be exaggerated.
Good Bible curricula exist, open to inspection, passed by religious scholars, approved by First Amendment and education lawyers. See the materials from the Bible Literacy Project, for a good example. NCBCPS’s curriculum, the one Norris promotes, is not that approved, educationally valuable curriculum.
Some people would say the Texas State Board of Education is “troubled,” or maybe even (that journalistic clichéd kiss of death) “besieged.”
The agency it oversees, the Texas Education Agency (TEA), has a director whose term is expired, the agency has taken hits from almost every daily newspaper in Texas for cheating scandals on the state achievement tests which have been roundly ignored by the agency. The legislature voted to eliminate the Board’s showpiece tests, substituting tests that will have TEA personnel scrambling to make ready, and the legislators didn’t send enough money to buy all the textbooks the agency is obligated to purchase under the Texas Constitution. Meanwhile, Texas kids fall farther behind kids in other states. One member of the board is on the lam after refusing to answer a subpoena to a grand jury investigating whether he actually resides in the district he represents as required by law (he keeps a cot near his office in the district, but spends most time at his farm, outside his district — the farm where he claims residency for homestead purposes under Texas property tax law). Statistics out last week show Texas leads the nation in pregnancies among kids of school age, and a study shows that abstinence-only programs, pushed by TEA, are to blame for high out-of-wedlock-teen pregnancy rates.
But that’s just “business as usual” for the top education agency in Texas for most of the last decade or so. Many Texans might have been disappointed, but none were surprised when Gov. Rick Perry appointed Bryan, Texas, dentist Don McLeroy to be chairman of the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE).
McLeroy’s politics sometimes appear to the right of General William Tecumseh Sherman’s education policies for the state of Georgia in 1864. McLeroy stared at Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg and a letter from four other Texas Nobel winners in biological sciences, all of them urging high academic standards for Texas students, and McLeroy voted instead against including evolution in textbooks, in 2003, and for including language pushing intelligent design. Someone, often alleged to be McLeroy, then telephoned publishers and warned them to tone down evolution and play up intelligent design in a fit of sore losership (no investigation was ever conducted). A “great quote” at McLeroy’s website explains (from Paul Johnson, End of Intellectuals):
The belief seems to be spreading that intellectuals are no wiser as mentors, or worthier as exemplars, than the witch doctors or priests of old. I share that scepticism.
To counter the notion that “evangelical Christian” is synonymous with “conservative enough to make Attila the Hun blush,” the editor of Sojourners magazine speaks out in favor of helping the poor, protecting the environment, and generally not being so crabby about life. If you’re in the North Texas area next Tuesday, you can hear the message first hand.
Jim Wallis will speak in Dallas, at Wilshire Baptist Church, on July 24, at 7:00 p.m., part of the Faith and Freedom Speaker Series of the Texas Freedom Network. Wallis speaks forcefully for faithful people who do not share the crabby views of the religious right. This is a great opportunity for Dallas to hear a voice of goodwill from faith — some call it a prophetic voice. The TFN website says:
Rev. Wallis has boldly proclaimed that the monologue of the religious right in this country is over. In his evening lecture, he will explain how to renew the values of love, justice and community in Texas.
The Dallas organizing committee meets on July 12, 7:00 p.m., at Wilshire Baptist Church, 4316 Abrams Road, (see map in the sidebar). Please come!
Pre-speech discussions among the organizers have suggested follow-up events to discuss Rev. Wallis’s ideas, and to fan the flames of freedom of faith in North Texas. In short, this will be a good networking event, too.
Who is Rev. Wallis?
Rev. Jim Wallis is a bestselling author, public theologian, preacher, speaker, activist, and international commentator on ethics and public life. His latest book, God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It, was on The New York Times bestseller list for four months. He is president and executive director of Sojourners/Call to Renewal, where he is editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine — whose print and electronic publication reaches more than 250,000 people — and also convenes a national network of churches, faith-based organizations, and individuals working to overcome poverty in America.
Mark your calendars: July 24, Jim Wallis speaks (that’s NEXT TUESDAY). To get to Wilshire Baptist Church, from Central Expressway take Mockingbird Lane east to Abrams Road, turn left onto Abrams, and the church is about one block farther, on the right. It’s big, it has a lot of space and a good deal of parking.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
The Texas Freedom Network has sponsored high-level criticism of Bible study class curricula; their critiques forced changes in the curriculum used in Odessa, but the modified curriculum does not pass Constitutional, academic or Bible study muster, according to a careful report from Southern Methodist University (in Dallas) Bible study professor Mark Chancey. TFN has several reports and press releases on the general issue:
In the continuing religious freedom/education drama in Texas, the school district in Odessa, Texas, approved a Bible study course using a curriculum indicted by the Texas Freedom Network’s expert-in-Bible-studies advisors as religious indoctrination rather than academically rigorous study. Citizens in Odessa sued the district to have that action declared unconstitutional.
The case is being readied for trial, with motions from plaintiffs and defendants flying back and forth. I should be watching it carefully, and I probably should be offering close coverage here for teachers, parents and administrators in Texas.
This would be a good topic for a civics class project, too, it seems to me. You may want to capture documents as they come out for DBQ exercises in the coming school year.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Steve Schafersman dutifully follows events at the Texas Education Agency, particularly with regard to textbook selection, and particularly with regard to biology textbooks. As head and chief instigator and chief bottle washer for the Texas Citizens for Science, he still gets little notoriety for the good work he does — all volunteer.
Shafersman says important stuff to know. So, when he sends along an editorial from the Fort-Worth Star-Telegram pointing out ethical and legal lapses at the agency which appear to be the work of the chief lawyer of the agency, one should read it. That lawyer, by the way, is probably in line to be the next head of the agency.
TEA has suffered from politicized leadership the last few years. Since Mike Moses left the agency, Texas education has drifted, and lack of leadership from TEA has not helped. Controversies over silly things are almost invited; serious issues, like cheating on the state’s graduation test, go unstudied and unremedied. I take the liberty of publishing the full editorial, below the fold — please read it, especially if you’re in Texas. Since Texas influences education so heavily, especially in textbook selection, everybody who has a kid in U.S. schools, who did have a kid in U.S. schools, who was educated in U.S. schools, or lives in a state that has schools, has a dog in this fight. Read the rest of this entry »
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
This is a little test of reading comprehension for the Texas State Board of Education.
So if you’re not one of those people, you can click to the next post. Of course, if you’re reading this, it’s unlikely that you are a board member, but a Texas parent can dream, can’t he?
Here’s the point: When you review biology texts for adoption next time, someone will testify that the books you review have errors in them because they carry copies of Ernst Haeckel’s drawings of embryoes, and those drawings are “known to be fakes.”
But that’s not exactly accurate: Not since 1923 has any book carried the Haeckel drawings, except to point out that they are fakes.
P. Z. Myers at Pharyngula has a post today that lays out the details, “Return of the Son of the Bride of Haeckel,” as he Fisks another Chicken-Little-sky-is-falling press release from the Discovery Institute.
So, in short: When that first person testifies to you, saying the Haeckel drawings are in some book, ask that person if they’ve read Dr. Pat Frank’s account of searching for that book, and whether they can explain why they think the Texas State Board of Education would be so stupid as to buy that claim, since it hasn’t been accurate in 84 years, since 1923 (older than all of the members of the SBOE, at least).
Then politely thank the witness for their concern, go to the next witness, and don’t ever, ever, ever claim that you think the current textbook publishers need to “get their act together” or whatever language you want to use, to get rid of the Haeckel drawings.
The drawings are gone, long gone, and you know better.
Back to our regular programming: Did you know that it’s not true that Millard Fillmore put the first bathtub in the White House?
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
The Juneteenth edition of Fiesta de Tejas! could use a few more posts about Texas history, Texas culture, Texas food, Texas travel, Texas dinosaurs, Texas wildflowers, Texasmusic (heck, we’re in the middle of the Kerrville Folk Festival, aren’t we?), and other things Texas. Nominations are due today, for publication Saturday, June 2. You may submit posts here.
Molly Ivins’ ghost works overtime (link not safe for work, or school), but ghosts have reduced influence in the land of the living. Exactly how great a tragedy that Ivins died just as the Texas Lege was coming into session and the Bush Administration scandals began their geometric expansion, will never be fully comprehended.
But we can catch glimpses.
Would you believe Warren Chisum cutting off debate on a free speech bill?The Burnt Orange Report makes a commendable effort to channel Ivins, and it’s well worth the read. One of the reasons Texas produces great writers, and great humorists, is the simple fact that there are so many unbelievable stories happening in Texas all the time, stories so breathtaking in their inanity (usually) that the only rational response is laughter.
Chisum and his friends got an idea from somewhere that kids in Texas have a difficult time expressing their Christian faith. Chisum, it appears, has not been in a Texas school room since at least 1900, or he’d know better — but he is a powerful legislator and so his particular flights from reality often end up written out as legislation.
It’s unusual, I know, that in a state where millions of kids don’t have a prayer of getting health care because they don’t have a prayer of getting health insurance, and where kids from poorer school districts have little more than a prayer of getting an equal education, the legislature focuses on the prayer part of the deficits, instead of fixing anything else fixable.
It’s not that the kids don’t pray — it’s that few in the state legislature listen. The kids don’t need a bill to make it legal to do what they already do that is already legal; the kids need a bill that would make the Lege pay attention and do something about the problems.
Blogging has been limited lately; there is much to blog about. Is there enough time to catch up?
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Nobody makes Georgia-shaped burgers. And contrary to popular belief, Wendy’s burgers are not really shaped like Colorado, or Wyoming.
So, what do you think? Should we have an internet carnival of Texas history and things Texan? If you think it’s a good idea, leave a comment saying so. If you have something to contribute, send it along to Fiesta Texana!, e-mail me at edarrell[AT]sbcglobal.net. Let’s see what happens.
(We could also use a logo — something with an armadillo, or a pepper, or a cowboy hat, sideoats grama grass, or surprise us! No pay, of course — just glory.)
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Her assistant Betsy Moon says she may be able to go home Monday. She adds that those close to Ivins are “not sure what’s going to happen, but she’s very sick.”
The 62-year-old columnist had taken an earlier break from her syndicated column, but resumed writing earlier this month.
Last October she had suggested this headline to an E&P interviewer: “Molly Ivins Still Not Dead.”
Ivins’ column carries a strong defense of traditional American liberalism, the love for education, home, family and a good story. Fiercely dedicated to getting the story right when she was a beat reporter (I encountered her when she covered the Rocky Mountain area for the New York Times), Ivins contributed some of the best stories on politics over the past three decades that I have read her work.
Williams College Prof. Mark Taylor has another facet to the question of whether we teach about religion in schools, in an opposite-editorial page article in the December 21 New York Times titled “The Devoted Student” (subscription required after December 28, 2006). Taylor wrote:
Today, professors invite harassment or worse by including “unacceptable” books on their syllabuses or by studying religious ideas and practices in ways deemed improper by religiously correct students.
Distinguished scholars at several major universities in the United States have been condemned, even subjected to death threats, for proposing psychological, sociological or anthropological interpretations of religious texts in their classes and published writings. In the most egregious cases, defenders of the faith insist that only true believers are qualified to teach their religious tradition.
So, on one hand we get religious fanatics who want the Bible taught as a faith document in high schools. On the other hand, the students at whom those classes are aimed want it taught only one way, their way, when they get it. There is no thought of actually learning beyond what the fanatics want to learn.
Alan Bloom was wrong: THIS is the closing of the American mind.
Taylor ends his piece with a warning:
Until recently, many influential analysts argued that religion, a vestige of an earlier stage of human development, would wither away as people became more sophisticated and rational. Obviously, things have not turned out that way. Indeed, the 21st century will be dominated by religion in ways that were inconceivable just a few years ago. Religious conflict will be less a matter of struggles between belief and unbelief than of clashes between believers who make room for doubt and those who do not.
The warning signs are clear: unless we establish a genuine dialogue within and among all kinds of belief, ranging from religious fundamentalism to secular dogmatism, the conflicts of the future will probably be even more deadly.
Or, until that account is unsuspended by the forces supporting Donald Trump: Follow @FillmoreWhite, the account of the Millard Fillmore White House Library
We've been soaking in the Bathtub for several months, long enough that some of the links we've used have gone to the Great Internet in the Sky.
If you find a dead link, please leave a comment to that post, and tell us what link has expired.
Thanks!
Retired teacher of law, economics, history, AP government, psychology and science. Former speechwriter, press guy and legislative aide in U.S. Senate. Former Department of Education. Former airline real estate, telecom towers, Big 6 (that old!) consultant. Lab and field research in air pollution control.
My blog, Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, is a continuing experiment to test how to use blogs to improve and speed up learning processes for students, perhaps by making some of the courses actually interesting. It is a blog for teachers, to see if we can use blogs. It is for people interested in social studies and social studies education, to see if we can learn to get it right. It's a blog for science fans, to promote good science and good science policy. It's a blog for people interested in good government and how to achieve it.
BS in Mass Communication, University of Utah
Graduate study in Rhetoric and Speech Communication, University of Arizona
JD from the National Law Center, George Washington University
Posted by Ed Darrell 
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 