How do we create/maintain a reality-based education system?

[Trakar]

http://www.slate.com/articles/healt..._undermining_the_charter_movement.single.html

When public-school students enrolled in Texas’ largest charter program open their biology workbooks, they will read that the fossil record is “sketchy.” That evolution is “dogma” and an “unproved theory” with no experimental basis. They will be told that leading scientists dispute the mechanisms of evolution and the age of the Earth. These are all lies.

The more than 17,000 students in the Responsive Education Solutions charter system will learn in their history classes that some residents of the Philippines were “pagans in various levels of civilization.” They’ll read in a history textbook that feminism forced women to turn to the government as a “surrogate husband.”

Responsive Ed has a secular veneer and is funded by public money, but it has been connected from its inception to the creationist movement and to far-right fundamentalists who seek to undermine the separation of church and state...

If some groups wish to teach this stuff in their own private schools, they are the students they graduate will have to deal with the consequences, but this should not be the way our public schools are run.

 

[theprestige]

http://www.slate.com/articles/healt..._undermining_the_charter_movement.single.html



If some groups wish to teach this stuff in their own private schools, they are the students they graduate will have to deal with the consequences, but this should not be the way our public schools are run.

I think part of the problem is thinking of them as "our" public schools, instead of "their" public schools. You live in Texas, have at it. It's your state, your government, your public schools. Get in there and fight for something better. You live anywhere else, find something closer to home to fight for. Try to avoid finding excuses to intrude the federal government into other people's lives.

 

[tyr_13]

I'll do that as soon as Texas cedes the right for it's citizens to vote in federal elections. Until that time it is very much my business that their publicly funded schools are raising a generation of idiots through lies. I prefer the old fashion idiot through peer pressure.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I think part of the problem is thinking of them as "our" public schools, instead of "their" public schools. You live in Texas, have at it. It's your state, your government, your public schools. Get in there and fight for something better. You live anywhere else, find something closer to home to fight for. Try to avoid finding excuses to intrude the federal government into other people's lives.

Texas has undue sway over what gets printed in public school textbooks, though. Unlike other states where textbooks are chosen and purchased on the local school district level, Texas does it on the state level-- 48 million or so students altogether. The textbook publishing companies are far more strongly motivated to cater to the whims of Texas than anybody else. More rational places may simply find there are no textbooks available that don't have some strain of Texas-specific madness in them.

When it comes to school textbooks, it's Texas that's being the big government bully to the small locality victims.

 

[theprestige]

I'll do that as soon as Texas cedes the right for it's citizens to vote in federal elections. Until that time it is very much my business that their publicly funded schools are raising a generation of idiots through lies. I prefer the old fashion idiot through peer pressure.

I don't see federal elections as being the common bond that entitles you to intrude on the internal affairs of another state.

What is it that you see in federal elections, that leads you to the conclusion quoted above?

 

[jj]

I continue to argue that for every child who isn't "special needs" out there, they should be required to write a coherent, grammatically decent essay describing accurately what the theory of evolution is, what it says, what the most common misconceptions about it are, and summarize some of the evidence.

Note, I didn't say that they have to believe it, but being able to write that essay should be an absolute, minimum, irrevocable requirement for graduating high school with a standard high school diploma.

Period, no ifs, ands or buts.

 

[theprestige]

I continue to argue that for every child who isn't "special needs" out there, they should be required to write a coherent, grammatically decent essay describing accurately what the theory of evolution is, what it says, what the most common misconceptions about it are, and summarize some of the evidence.

Note, I didn't say that they have to believe it, but being able to write that essay should be an absolute, minimum, irrevocable requirement for graduating high school with a standard high school diploma.

Period, no ifs, ands or buts.

I'm convinced. Let us know when your argument convinces your local school district to adopt such a policy.















Also, purely as a matter of rhetorical aesthetics, you may want to consider following the clause "[p]eriod", with a period, instead of with a comma followed by one or more additional clauses. Otherwise you end up undermining the sense of finality you're trying to convey.

 

[Corsair 115]

Texas has undue sway over what gets printed in public school textbooks, though. Unlike other states where textbooks are chosen and purchased on the local school district level, Texas does it on the state level-- 48 million or so students altogether. The textbook publishing companies are far more strongly motivated to cater to the whims of Texas than anybody else. More rational places may simply find there are no textbooks available that don't have some strain of Texas-specific madness in them.

This is one area where the move to electronic books can help. If the day comes where paper textbooks are replaced by electronic ones in the form of PDFs opened and read on laptops, then Texas loses its influence. It's a relatively simple matter to create multiple versions of a book in PDF form and then distribute them, and of course with an electronic format there are no printing costs.

 

[Trakar]

I think part of the problem is thinking of them as "our" public schools, instead of "their" public schools. You live in Texas, have at it. It's your state, your government, your public schools. Get in there and fight for something better. You live anywhere else, find something closer to home to fight for. Try to avoid finding excuses to intrude the federal government into other people's lives.

That's the trouble with federalist republics, they tend to be federalist in how they manage their republics. Seems like a pretty good system most of the time.

 

[Manopolus]

This is one area where the move to electronic books can help. If the day comes where paper textbooks are replaced by electronic ones in the form of PDFs opened and read on laptops, then Texas loses its influence. It's a relatively simple matter to create multiple versions of a book in PDF form and then distribute them, and of course with an electronic format there are no printing costs.

Computer screens are just plain harder to read than actual paper. An e-reader is OK up to a point, but I sincerely believe that important things (e.g. textbooks, as opposed to crap like advertising) should still be printed on paper for ease of use.

Admittedly, I may be biased, having studied in a field involving the printing industry (and having had no luck getting a job in it, due to large portions of it dying out or outsourcing elsewhere), but a paper book really is the most comfortable reading medium.

 

[fuelair]

http://www.slate.com/articles/healt..._undermining_the_charter_movement.single.html



If some groups wish to teach this stuff in their own private schools, they are the students they graduate will have to deal with the consequences, but this should not be the way our public schools are run.

Certain localities run by ignorant primitives would disagree with you at torch or gunpoint. I am personally pro: their discorporation, but am unfortunately not in charge.

 

[fuelair]

For those new to the US who are unaware of this: I am a retired teacher of many years and was certified in K-12 Science, Biology, Chemistry. Physics and Media (library sci.) (Florida and Tennessee) and have been in multiple textbook evaluations (NOT SELECTION - that's higher up) so I really do know this - re the stupid Texas thing.......

 

[fishbob]

I don't see federal elections as being the common bond that entitles you to intrude on the internal affairs of another state.

What is it that you see in federal elections, that leads you to the conclusion quoted above?

If you take a look at the roster of current Texas senators and congressmen, you would not have to ask.

 

[tyr_13]

I don't see federal elections as being the common bond that entitles you to intrude on the internal affairs of another state.

What is it that you see in federal elections, that leads you to the conclusion quoted above?

Federal decisions in the federal government made by people elected in federal elections.

There is a compelling governmental interest in having an informed and educated electorate. If one of the most populated states in the nation teaches abject lies and stupidity to their next generation of voters, they will (and ARE!) elect adversarial morons that gum up the works.

I eagerly await what will likely be the perfect solution fallacy in response.

 

[Alferd_Packer]

Texas has undue sway over what gets printed in public school textbooks, though. Unlike other states where textbooks are chosen and purchased on the local school district level, Texas does it on the state level-- 48 million or so students altogether. The textbook publishing companies are far more strongly motivated to cater to the whims of Texas than anybody else. More rational places may simply find there are no textbooks available that don't have some strain of Texas-specific madness in them.

When it comes to school textbooks, it's Texas that's being the big government bully to the small locality victims.

It is my understanding the with modern publishing methods, that claim is no longer as applicable as it may have once been.

 

[AlBell]

I'll do that as soon as Texas cedes the right for it's citizens to vote in federal elections. Until that time it is very much my business that their publicly funded schools are raising a generation of idiots through lies. I prefer the old fashion idiot through peer pressure.

The new Common Core fed initiate must impress you (and trakar) then?

 

[newyorkguy]

...If some groups wish to teach this stuff in their own private schools, they are the students they graduate will have to deal with the consequences...

Their students we'll all have to deal with.

 

[tyr_13]

The new Common Core fed initiate must impress you (and trakar) then?

The idea, yes. The implementation? No. I've also had some pizza I didn't like, which hasn't caused me to abandon the idea that pizza tastes good.

Any reason you chose to bold my sarcasm?

 

[AlBell]

The idea, yes. The implementation? No. I've also had some pizza I didn't like, which hasn't caused me to abandon the idea that pizza tastes good.

Any reason you chose to bold my sarcasm?

Yes, I didn't read it as sarcasm.

 

[Trakar]

Computer screens are just plain harder to read than actual paper. An e-reader is OK up to a point, but I sincerely believe that important things (e.g. textbooks, as opposed to crap like advertising) should still be printed on paper for ease of use.

Admittedly, I may be biased, having studied in a field involving the printing industry (and having had no luck getting a job in it, due to large portions of it dying out or outsourcing elsewhere), but a paper book really is the most comfortable reading medium.

There was a time, maybe a decade ago, when I strongly agreed with you, but after the improvements in both technology, and my own experience in using such for everything from casual reading to in-depth research and reference, ebooks and readers have become my strongly preferred method of consuming the "printed" word.