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Advanced Placement, Curricula, DBQ sources, Education, History, Lesson plans, Teaching, Technology, Technology in the classroom | Tagged: Course Planning Material, Education, HippoCampus, Lesson plans, Teachers' Resources, Teaching, Technology, Technology in the classroom | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Tim Ritz cartoon, for Americans United
Texas Freedom Network’s Insider blog reports that embattled chairman Don McLeroy is working to create a panel of experts to review studies curricula. The experts he has proposed so far are all well-known cranks in academia, people who bring their axes to grind on the minds of innocent children.
This panel is a bold insult to Texas’s community of economists, historians, and other practitioners of fields of social studies, not to mention educators. A more qualified panel of experts could be assembled in the coffee break rooms of the history departments at most of Texas’s lesser known state colleges and universities.
Why does Don McLeroy hate Texas so?
I’ve been buried in teaching, grading, planning and the other affairs of the life of a teacher, and had not paid much attention to the movement on this issue (“movement” because I cannot call it “progress”). My students passed the state tests by comfortable margins, more than 90% of them; this news from SBOE makes me despair even in the face of the news that our achievements are substantial in all categories.
The panel lacks knowledge and experience in economics, geography and history. The panel is grotesquely unbalanced — at least two of the panel members remind me of Ezra Taft Benson, who was Secretary of Agriculture for Dwight Eisenhower. When he resigned from that post, he complained that Eisenhower was too cozy with communism. Barton and Quist lean well to the right of Ezra Taft Benson. Quist has complained of socialist and Marxist leanings of Reagan administration education policy and policy makers.
Samuel Morse sent the first telegraphic message on May 24, 1844: “What hath God wrought?”
Sitting here on the morning of May 27, 2009, I wonder what rot hath Don.
Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Bogus history, Curricula, Economics, Education, Education assessment, Education quality, Geography - Economic, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, History, Hoaxes, Politics, Social Studies, State school boards, TAKS, TEKS, Texas, Texas Freedom Network, Voodoo history, War on Education, War on the Constitution | Tagged: Bogus history, Christian nation, Corruption, Don McLeroy, Economics, Education, geography, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Right Wing, Voodoo history, War on Education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Molly Ivins’ untimely passing becomes acutely painful when the Texas Lege comes down to the last days of a session. Who can make sense of it without Molly?
We thought a couple weeks ago that Gov. Rick Perry’s nomination of creationist wedge politician Don McLeroy was dead, when the Senate Nominations Committee took testimony and failed to report the nomination, to chair the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE).
Then last week, in one of those surprise moves that even the Texas legislators responsible often cannot explain, the nomination rose from the dead and stumbled, zombie-like, to the Senate floor for a vote this week — maybe as soon as today, Tuesday, May 26.
The Houston Chronicle reports that all 12 Senate Democrats will vote against the nomination, dooming it (according to The Lonesome Mongoose, via Pharyngula).
The Bryan dentist has presided over a contentious 15-member State Board of Education that fought over curriculum standards for science earlier this year and English language arts and reading last year. Critics faulted McLeroy for applying his strong religious beliefs in shaping new science standards. McLeroy believes in creationism and that the Earth is about 6,000 years old.
“This particular State Board of Education under the leadership of Dr. McLeroy has been divisive. It’s been dysfunctional, and it has been embarrassing to the point of having commentary on this in the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal,” said Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, chair of the Senate Democratic Caucus.
McLeroy’s leadership, she said, had made Texas “the laughing stock of the nation.”
It takes 11 votes to block a gubernatorial nomination. Van de Putte said all 12 Senate Democrats plan to vote against McLeroy
Don’t count your dead nominations before the silver stakes are driven. Stay tuned. Maybe you should call your Texas senator again on Tuesday. Pray, cross your fingers, hope, and pass the ammunition.
If the nomination fails, it is still foggy as Donora, Pennsylvania on its worst days as to who will head the group. The chairman must come from one of the 15 elected members. Most people who might win Rick Perry’s selection are creationists. If Perry is wise, he’ll try to choose someone who is a capable administrator, wise chairman of hearings, and who lacks the desire to annoy key players in education, like administrators, teachers, parents, Texas college presidents and professors, and state legislators. Alas for Texas, Winston Churchill is not a member of the SBOE, nor is Mitt Romney.
The Senate rarely blocks a governor’s appointment.
There is speculation in the Capitol and within the Texas Education Agency that Gov. Rick Perry might elevate Cynthia Dunbar, R-Richmond, to lead the board. Like McLeroy, Dunbar also holds strong Christian beliefs and recently authored a book that advocates more religion in the public square.
“We believe that Texans deserve better than divisive, destructive, extreme leadership,” Shapleigh said. “If the governor chooses to appoint someone more extreme and more divisive, we’ll have to deal with that at the appropriate time.”
McLeroy’s tenure as chairman of SBOE is one of those waves we were warned about in 1983 lin the Excellence in Education Report, which warned of a “rising tide of mediocrity.” The divisions and crude politics, heavy-handed destruction of statutory and regulatory procedures, at best distracts from the drive for better education, but more often leans toward the worst, sabatoging the work of students, teachers, parents, administrators and legislatures.
Do you pray? Pray that Texas education be delivered safely and intact from this time of trial. Whether you pray or not, call your Texas legislator and tell her or him to straighten out the SBOE.
Resources:
3 Comments | Creationism, Darwin, Education, Education quality, Education reform, Evolution, State school boards, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Freedom Network, Texas Lege, Textbooks, War on Education | Tagged: Creationism, Don McLeroy, Education, Evolution, Science Standards, Texas Lege, Texas State School Board, Textbooks | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Texans, the information on finding your state representative and state senator are below — call them, today.
In a surprise move, the Senate has moved the nomination of Don McLeroy to the floor for an up-and-down vote.
McLeroy has ushered in a new era of bitter, partisan and divisive politics to the State Board of Education. In the past year he has insulted English teachers, citizens of Hispanic descent, unnecessarily gutted a good mathematics text from the approved list (just to show he can do it), and done his best to butcher science education standards for Texas. He suspended work on new social studies curricula because, in part, he doesn’t like the term “capitalism,” insisting on “free enterprise” instead, contrary to almost all scholarly writing on the topic.
The man is a menace to education. He uses wedge political issues to divide educators from parents, parents from schools, schools from the community, students from teachers, and education from propaganda.
I quote the entirety of the post from Texas Freedom Network’s Insider blog, below, to explain:
UPDATE: Click here to see video of the committee vote.
In a surprise meeting on the Senate floor, the Senate Nominations Committee in Austin has just approved the appointment of Don McLeroy as chairman of the Texas State Board of Education. It appears that McLeroy’s supporters plan to bring his confirmation to the full Senate early next week. Confirmation will require a two-thirds vote.
Committee Chairman Mike Jackson, R-La Porte, had said he would not bring up McLeroy’s confirmation for a vote in committee unless he thought there were enough votes to get it in the full Senate. We don’t know at this point whether opposition from nearly all Democrats and some Republicans has softened, but the signs are alarming.
If you haven’t done so already, it’s critical that you contact your senator and tell him or her that you oppose McLeroy’s confirmation. You can find the name and contact information for your senator here.
Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller has released the following statement:
“If the Texas Senate genuinely cares about quality public education, they will reject as state board chairman a man who apparently agrees that parents who want to teach their kids about evolution are monsters. And we’ll see whether senators really want a chairman who presides over a board that is so focused on ‘culture war’ battles that it has made Texas look like an educational backwater to the rest of the country.”
Gov. Perry appointed McLeroy board chairman in July 2007. Since then, the board has turned debates over language arts and science curriculum standards in “culture war” battlegrounds. Chairman McLeroy has also endorsed a book that says parents who want to teach children about evolution are “monsters” and calls clergy who see no conflict between faith and science “morons.” This spring McLeroy led other creationists on the state board in adopting new science curriculum standards that call the scientific consensus on evolution into question and no longer include references to scientific estimates of the age of the universe.
1 Comment | Creationism, Education, Evolution, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Science, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Freedom Network, Texas Lege, Textbooks | Tagged: Creationism, Don McLeroy, Education, Education reform, Evolution, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Science, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Freedom Network, Texas Legislature, Texas State Board of Education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Evolution 2009 kicks off Wednesday, September 2, 2009 at the University of Nebraska atKearney.
In honor of Darwin’s birth bicentennial and the sesquicentennial of his most famous work, the program is dedicated to evolution in different fields of biology.
High school instructors can get in for $75. World class scientists like Jack Horner, Brad Davidson, Shannon Williamson and Randy Moore will present — along with world class evolution and legal evidence expert, Nick Matzke.
The main hotel will be the Ramada Inn in Kearney, where I spent a cold, snowy night in November 1979 after a kindly truck driver from Consolidated Freightways rescued me from certain hypothermia a few miles out of town, where my car had spun into nearly six feet of snow.
Now, can I find some excuse to get to the conference?
I predict: For the 21st consecutive year since the field of intelligent design was proposed, there will be no new research supporting intelligent design, even in the poster sessions. This is a science conference, and intelligent design supporters will quietly boycott the entire affair.
1 Comment | Creationism, Education, Evolution, History, Intelligent Design, Science | Tagged: Creationism, Education, Evolution 2009, Intelligent Design, Jack Horner, Nick Matzke, Science, University of Nebraska at Kearney | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
[Google Video version is not showing or playing for reasons I don’t know; fortunately the National Archives (NARA) has uploaded a version to YouTube]
“A Challenge to Democracy,” by the War Relocation Board. This film defends the relocation of 100,000 Japanese Americans during World War II.
Japanese-descended American citizens harvesting crops they grew during internment during World War II. Screen capture from “Challege to Democracy.”
“These people are not under suspicion,” the narrator says. “They are not prisoners, they are not internees. They are merely dislocated people, the unwounded casualties of war.”
According to the Internet Archive, the film is a 1944 production. That site has the film available for download in several formats. The film is collected in the Prelinger Archives. On my computer, some of the Internet Archive versions offer better quality than the Google Video version above.
I originally found the film at a school site in Washington, Mr. Talmadge’s Wikispace site, apparently for his classes in the history of the State of Washington. That site has a very useful series of links to good sites on the internet for information about the Japanese internment. There are several other topics noted there, too, including the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Whitman Massacre in Oregon, and the Nez Perce Retreat. I’d love to see Mr. Talmadge’s plan for the year.
What do your students do to display their work on the internet?
5 Comments | Citizenship, History, History images, History video sources, Japanese American internment, Justice, Propaganda, Public education, Social Studies, Teaching, Technology in the classroom, World War II | Tagged: Citizenship, Education, History, History Films, history video, Japanese American internment, Justice, Korematsu, Propaganda, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
In Austin, the Texas Lege stumbles on. No man’s life, liberty, etc.
Steve Schafersman writing at his new blog, Geo.Sphere, gives details probably available nowhere else on bills to overhaul Texas education again, again.
House Bill 3 and Senate Bill 3, the two identical bills being considered in the Legislature now that will change Texas education laws for student assessment, tracking, documentation, and accountability, also affect high school graduation requirements. Unfortunately, anti-education lobbyists have been very successful and the HB3-SB3 bill as currently written delays the implementation of the 4×4 high school curriculum for many years. This will have a very deleterious effect on Texas science and math education, college readiness, allow continuation of the senior-year math and science layoff, and remove the need for a variety of 12th-grade capstone science and math courses.
Yes, you need to call your Texas representatives. Schafersman gives the numbers. Drop by his new blog, get details, get on the phone.
Of course you know, Schafersman is also the head of Texas Citizens for Science.
Leave a Comment » | Education, Education assessment, Education quality, Science, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Lege | Tagged: Education, education standards, Science, Texas, Texas Lege | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Wired takes a different view of the California case in which an AP history teacher was found to have violated a student’s rights with comments about creationists — at least, different from the view I’ve articulated here. It’s worth a look — and it shows that this case needs to be evaluated more carefully and closely. Alexis Madrigal wrote at Wired’s website:
The teacher got into hot water because the creationism statement came outside the context of his AP European History class. In making the statement during a discussion of another teacher’s views on evolution, the court could not find any “legitimate secular purpose in [the] statement.”
However, Judge Selna found a second statement that Corbett made about creationism did not violate the student’s First Amendment rights, although it’s an equally pointed critique.
“Contrast that with creationists,” Corbett told his class. “They never try to disprove creationism. They’re all running around trying to prove it. That’s deduction. It’s not science. Scientifically, it’s nonsense.”
That statement was OK because it came in the context of a discussion of the history of ideas and religion. Thus, its primary purpose wasn’t just to express “affirmative disapproval” of religion, but rather to make the point that “generally accepted scientific principles do not logically lead to the theory of creationism.” One might expect that if creationism came up in the context of evolutionary biology, it would be similarly OK to say, “Scientifically, it’s nonsense.”
The nuanced decision prompted the judge to append an afterword. Selna explains his thinking a basic right is at issue, namely, “to be free of a government that directly expresses approval of religion.” Just as the government shouldn’t promote religion, he writes, the government shouldn’t actively disapprove of religion either.
It seems to me, still, that the instructor was well within legal bounds. For example, we would not ask a biology instructor to pay deference to the Christian Science view that disease is caused by falling away from God (sin), and not by germs, and consequently that prayer is effective therapy. As a pragmatic matter, Christian Scientists don’t demand that everybody else bow to their view; but in a legal suit, the evidence of Pasteur’s work and subsequent work on how microbes cause disease would trump any claim that Pasteur was “not religiously neutral.”
We still await word on whether the district and teacher will appeal the decision.
2 Comments | Creationism, Education, Evolution, First Amendment, Science, Separation of church and state, Teachers, Teaching | Tagged: AP History, Creationism, Education, Evolution, First Amendment, Separation of church and state, Teaching | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Poster by Ricardo Levins Morales. Updated March 2015 – click image to purchase a copy of the poster from Mr. Morales.
Nice poster, great thought — you can’t measure everything about a student with a test, nor with a battery of tests. Texas testing in core areas finished up last week, Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate testing runs this week.
Not everything that can be counted, counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
– Albert Einstein
I especially thought of this quote one day last week while reading the questions to a kid with Downs syndrome who, as best I could measure from just watching reactions working problems, has a great flair for mathematics, and again when I discovered a geographic genius in the special education group. (My classes say universally the tests were easy — and for some reason I find that terrifying.)
Did Einstein say it? I found the poster at Learning is More Than a Score; it can be purchased from the Northland Poster Collective. Neither suggests where we might verify that Albert actually said it, though Bob Murphy at More Than a Score said he understands it may have been on the wall in Einstein’s office. The artist is Ricardo Levins Morales (see more at Ricardo Levins Morales Galleries).
Readers, can you help? Did Einstein say that? When and where?
Update March 2015: Quote Investigator urges that we attribute the quote to William Bruce Cameron, in a 1963 book.
8 Comments | Albert Einstein, Art, Education, Education assessment, History, Posters, Testing | Tagged: Education, Einstein, Famous quotes, History, Quotes, Ricard Levins Morales, Testing | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Bug Girl put this up, and you can watch it there and comment on it there in a lively and informative discussion, but it’s just too good not to show here:
Teachers, show it to your colleagues, and especially to your librarians and your administrators.
Students, show it to your teachers.
And, go thou and do likewise.
.
.
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Oh, and note that Bug Girl’s post was a year ago.
Other stuff to see:
4 Comments | Education, Learning, Pedagogy, Teaching, Technology, Technology in the classroom | Tagged: Classroom technology, Classrooms, Education, Learning, Teaching, Technology, video | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Are you out near Conroe on Sunday? April 26 is the third (and last) day of Texas Forest Expo 2009 at the Conroe Convention Center.
It’s free. It’s kid friendly ( a great place to take Cub Scouts or a group of Boy Scouts working on the Forestry merit badge). I’d be there if I could.
Get your name on the mailing list for notice for next year’s expo.
Leave a Comment » | Biology, Botany, Education, Natural history, Natural resources, Science, Texas, Texas history | Tagged: Biology, Botany, Education, Environmental protection, Forests, Science, Texas, Texas Forest Expo 2009 | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Another press release, FYI. I’ve added some links in for your convenience. Remember, teachers of social studies, social studies is next on the SBOE chopping block — with rumors that SBOE is disbanding the expert panels rather than simply ignore the recommendations. Will they expunge slavery and Native Americans from the history books? Will they rewrite the Vietnam War? Consider Senate Bill 2275, and call your legislator:
PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
Texas Citizens for Science
2009 April 13Contact:
Steven D. Schafersman, Ph.D.
432.352.2265
tcs@texscience. orgTexas Citizens for Science strongly supports Senate Bill 2275 which transfers authority for curriculum standards and textbook adoption from the State Board of Education (SBOE) to the Texas Commissioner of Education.
For decades, members of the SBOE have censored, qualified, distorted, damaged, manipulated, and rejected curriculum standards and textbooks. All of this was done for political, ideological, and religious reasons, never for educational or pedagogical reasons. In the past, this activity was done secretly, behind closed doors, but now it is being done publicly in full view of the public and press. Recently, inaccurate, censored, and pedagogically- inferior English Language Arts and Science curriculum standards have been written by the SBOE using their power of amendment. This year, the Social Studies standards will be attacked by some SBOE members for non-educational reasons that support their political and ideological agendas.
For textbooks, in the past the SBOE chair would secretly “negotiate” with publishers to make them change the content of their textbooks under the implied threat of being rejected; publishers readily submitted to save multimillion dollar textbook contracts with the state. In numerous instances, textbook content was replaced by watered-down, inferior, and often misleading, inaccurate, and incomplete information. This activity continues today, albeit more openly with both press and public attention. Science textbooks censorship by the SBOE has occurred sinc the 1960s, as has censorship of social studies and other textbooks.
Dr. Steven Schafersman, President of Texas Citizens for Science, says this:
“The Texas State Board of Education has been an embarrassment and a disgrace to Texas for many decades. This Board’s activities that censor and corrupt the accuracy and reliability of specific topics in mainstream Science, Social Studies, and Health Education are well-known to educators throughout the United States as well as in Texas. All educators are aware of the negative and damaging influence the Texas State Board of Education has on textbooks used in Texas and other states.”
“Texas Citizens for Science has opposed the State Board of Education since 1980 in our effort to defend the accuracy and reliability of science education in Texas. We have repeatedly had to defend Biology and Earth Science textbooks from the Board’s predatory efforts to damage their content about such subjects as evolution, the origin of life, the age of the Earth and Universe, the true nature of the fossil record, and several other scientific topics.”
“Although largely successful in the past, only this past month TCS was unable to prevent the State Board of Education from amending the excellent science standards produced by science teachers, professors, and scientists. The State Board’s subsequent amendments created several flawed standards that, while not overtly unscientific, were confusing, unnecessary, poorly-written, and opened the door to insertion of pseudoscientific information, including bogus arguments supporting Intelligent Design Creationism. Among others things the Board accomplished during this exercise in pseudoscience was to remove the e-word and the ancient age of the universe from the standards. These accomplishments were petty, disgraceful, and clear proof of their anti-scientific and pro-Fundamentalist bias. A modern, technologically- advanced state such as Texas does not need such anti-science activity from a state board.”
Texas Citizens for Science urges the Senate Education Committee to approve SB 2275 and send it to the full Senate, the House, and then hopefully signed into law.
Resources:
Leave a Comment » | Curricula, Economics, Education, Education quality, Evolution, Geography - Economic, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, History, Science, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Education Agency (TEA), Texas Freedom Network, Texas history, Texas Lege | Tagged: Curriculum Standards, Education, Evolution, SB 2275, state board of education, Texas, Texas Legislature | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
So, if you’re not giving away distressed Black Sabbath t-shirts, how can you be sure you’re reaching the teenaged boys in your classroom?
Ms. Peña, a Disney researcher with a background in the casino industry, zeroed in on a ratty rock ’n’ roll T-shirt. Black Sabbath?
“Wearing it makes me feel like I’m going to an R-rated movie,” said Dean, a shy redhead whose parents asked that he be identified only by first name.
Jackpot.
Ms. Peña and her team of anthropologists have spent 18 months peering inside the heads of incommunicative boys in search of just that kind of psychological nugget. Disney is relying on her insights to create new entertainment for boys 6 to 14, a group that Disney used to own way back in the days of “Davy Crockett” but that has wandered in the age of more girl-friendly Disney fare like “Hannah Montana.”
What if you could make algebra 2 or world history feel like going to an R-rated movie?
1 Comment | Anthropology, Classroom management, Education, Education success, Mathematics, Research, Teaching | Tagged: Anthropology, Classroom management, Education, Effective teaching, Gender Differences, Motivation, Teaching, Young Boys | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
From image maker Colin Purrington: Texans' fondness for Biblical literalism indirectly ruins science education for the rest of the country. Texas is the nation's biggest consumer of textbooks, so authors will often write their books "for" the Texas State Board of Education, which usually has at least one delusional freakazoid who believes that fossils are the result of the Great Flood. On the State School Board!! I kid you not. Really amazing, and sad.
Another brilliant creation of Colin Purrington’s Evolution Outreach project.
2 Comments | Biology, Darwin, Education, Science, State school boards, TEKS, Texas | Tagged: Biology, Darwin, Education, Evolution, Science, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
If you thought for a moment that public schools are not engrained in the psyche and culture of the nation, take a look at the fight in Sacramento, California, over proposed closings of a few schools. From the Sacramento Bee.
Even when schools fail, they can form the heart of a community.
2 Comments | Education, Education reform, Education spending | Tagged: California, Closing Schools, Education, Education spending, Failing Schools, Sacramento | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Ed Darrell on Texas's Colorado River
Come on in, the water's fine. Come often: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 