Gah.

[pyrephox]

As someone who is planning to go into education in South Carolina, the ongoing attempt to push intelligent design into our classrooms is of intense interest to me. And, of course, you know my opinion of intelligent design's validity. So, when I read this story from our local paper, it makes me wish to weep.

"A lawmaker pushing to give teachers alternatives to evolution won’t identify the people he has asked to advise a state panel.

State Sen. Mike Fair has invited two experts to advise the school reform oversight agency, which is evaluating the standards for teaching the origins of life.

Fair said he promised the two advisers he would protect their identities to minimize scrutiny of their views and credentials prior to their appearance before an EOC subcommittee next week..."

Now why, I must wonder, if these to are experts in their fields, would they wish to MINIMIZE scrutiny of their credentials? If they have good credentials, relevant to the science of evolution and the practice of public education, then they should be proclaiming them loudly and proudly. Credentials sell opinions...unless, of course, you don't have any.

"Fair has emerged as the leading voice to modify lesson guidelines for high school biology by advocating for the inclusion of language that gives teachers more leeway in discussing alternatives to Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Fair insists he is not advocating teachers present lessons about creationism, which draws on the Bible to explain the origins of life, or “intelligent design,” a relatively new theory challenging evolution because it cannot fully explain some of life’s mysteries."

...then what /is/ he proposing? What 'alternatives' does he wish to teach? The world sprung from the loins of the Great Mother Goddess (God, if I were a teacher who did not value my job, I would /love/ to teach that as an 'alternative')? For that matter...

It's not Darwin's theory! Darwin was one of the /original/ theorists, and certainly the father of evolutionary biology, but the theory of evolution has gone far, far beyond his work. It has been adapted for new evidence, expanded, revised through experimentation and study, and held up through decades of intense scrutiny by brilliant minds of many different disciplines. Evolution, in some form or fashion, is the /only/ theory we have that adequately explains what we see in the world around us. "God did it" is not an explanation. It tells us nothing about our world, it gives us no areas for exploration, and it helps not at all with the development of new technologies and knowledges. It's not a bloody alternative, no matter how you phrase it, or what kind of mealy-mouthed pretty psuedo-scientific language that you put it in.

Damn it all.

Comments

[cpip.livejournal.com]

Two possibilities: (1) he doesn't have them yet, or (2) he's got two random teachers who share whatever views he wants, and who don't stack up to the opposition. (Or, I suppose, he just doesn't want to let the media go attack-doggy on them; but really, that shouldn't be too much of a problem.)

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

Also, the 'experts' in the Dover trial had their arguments pretty much torn all into pieces when people had a chance to actually look at what they'd written before questioning them.

[amethystjade.livejournal.com]

Teach the Norse one! The earth is made out of a dead giant! Teach it right before lunch!

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

With graphic pictures and sound effects?

[bimmer1200.livejournal.com]

I think the whole creationism/ID is just a symptom of a larger problem. Primary and secondary education are a monopoly at this point. Government run, but a monopoly nonetheless. Christian parents are feeling that their viewpoint is marginalized, that they are being cut out of the discourse, that schools are trying to not just teach their children reading, writing and arithmitic, but values that are contrary to their own. And they don't have any choice in it. The average person cannot afford to send their children to private school. Hell, they can't even choose the school in their city or county they want in many cases. Look at the case you pointed to in an earlier entry; that only adds fuel to that fire.

Little wonder that they react by trying to get their viewpoint heard, by hook or crook. And the truth is, as long as we're funding schools with their tax dollars, those parents have every right to try to push their viewpoint. You have two (or more) competing viewpoints. There's no coherent way to present them both, there's a winner and a loser. And to add insult to injury the loser has to not only pay for the winner's viewpoint being promulgated, by doing so, she is unable to pay to present her own. Is it any wonder the fight is so bitter and so much resentment occurs.

The problem with public education is the public part of that. Our system of schools is broken, and we need some changes or these type of battles are going to continue to occur to the consternation of all sides.

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

You cannot run universal public education at a profit. Allow me to repeat: you cannot run universal public eduation at a profit. You put money in, you get educated people out (assuming that people are actually allowed to do their jobs). You don't get money out. Government 'monopoly' is the only way to ensure that every child has a chance to be educated, and educated children is a large enough public good that yes, I fully support every income in America being taxed in order to fund that public good, whether they've got children or not, and I have yet to see any privatization scheme that does not ultimately screw poor kids even harder than they're already being screwed.

Also, the principles of the physical world are not /values/. They are not subjective, they are not of the mind or the soul. They can be measured. You can design experiments, make predictions, and larger generalizations from the data you gather. It's not a 'viewpoing', it's not an 'opinion'. We're not even talking psychology, here. We're talking basic biochemistry, genetics, biology, and zoology. It's not religion. It's a collection of observed data. To debate it, you go out, you gather /other/ data, you make /new/ hypotheses, and if the hypotheses hold up under rigorous, repeated tests, then new facts are discovered and incorporated.

Most of the people on the pro-evolution (god, that's like saying pro-gravity, or pro-round earth) side of the 'debate' are /also/ Christian. They're just Christians who also have a basic education in science. Some people have a 'belief' that certain races are genetically predisposed to crime, to poverty, to violence, to low achievement. This flies in the face of all available research in the area of genetics, race, and sociology. Should we also say, "Oh, no! Racist parents feel that their views are being trampled on by the mainstream education monopoly, and those naughty public schools are teaching their children values that they don't agree with. Let's "teach the racial controversy" by using this Social Studies book written by David Duke. I'm /sure/ that it'll be Fair and Balanced (tm)!"

[bimmer1200.livejournal.com]

Hold on a second. I said nothing about profit. The definition of a monopoly hasn't got a thing to do with profit. It has to do with wether the consumer (either the taxpayer or the parent depending on how you look at it) has any choice. Except for the wealthy, there's no choice. The government does have a monopoly on education.

As for what to do about it? Well, I do think that education is important enough to fund it publically. But not the way we currently do it. The German model seems to be working spectacularly well in Germany and the only real impediment to it here in the states are teacher's unions and administrators who want to make sure they have control and not parents.

Are you familiar with the German model of education funding? The per pupil funding, instead of being tied to a particular geographical area, is tied to the actual pupil. That is, whatever school a student attends, the government pays X amount to the school. If the school is more expensive, the parents are responsible for the difference.

According to recent DOE figures, we are spending around 10k dollars a year per pupil on education, not counting operational expenses (IE: paying the power and heat and sewer, etc). I'm not advocating closing any public schools (yet). What I'm suggesting is that parents have the choice of where to send their children, provide the school is accredited. The 10k per pupil would follow the student to whatever school, private or public. If there's a difference, it's up to the parents to cover it.

As to evolution, and I say this as a soft agnostic who thinks that evolutinary theory is correct if needing some work, it is an inherently anti-theistic theory. It posits natural mechanisms to explain the prescence of life. Now, do some Christians perform some mental gymnastics to accomodate what is essentially an atheistic theory into their worldview? Sure, but then Christians (and other religions) have been doing that a long time. I'm not saying Christian != agreeing with evolution. I'm not saying that's the only thing that has many Christians (notice I didn't say all, here or earlier. I want to be explicit that I mean 'some' in both the previous post and this one) upset.

I'm saying that it is part of what many Christians see as a system that is hostile to their values. From teaching anthropogenic global warming as fact, to many universities requiring as part of granting an education degree that students sign a pledge to support 'social justice' (a codeword for income redistribution and socialism), to attempting to squash Bible study clubs or the FCA, to telling students they can't wear Christian slogan t-shirts while allowing things like Che Gueverra t-shirts, they believe that their students are being indoctrinated.

And are you honestly trying to equate the philosophical premise 'life is too complex to be purely an accident, perhaps this means there is a prime mover' is morally equivalent to racism? I mean the former is a legitimate philsophical question. It's not scientific in that it isn't a scientific claim, but I don't think it's the same as claiming some race is inferior to another. Especially when the latter is a falsifiable hypothesis.

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

Actually, I would /love/ to see funding of schools divorced from district-level tax support. The current funding scheme ensures that children from poor tax-value neighborhoods will have poor schools, inferior equipment, and fewer enrichment opportunities than children from rich neighborhoods. That's a big problem, and funding every school based on population, state of school building, and financial need, would be a good start with it. However, the solution there is moving the funding, not the children.

When you take children out of schools local to themselves, and put them in schools that are distant, you're losing valuable opportunities to involve communities in schooling, as well as helping children, school staff, and parents get involved in school activities. Additionally, parents and children of the school they're moving to often feel resentment at being 'invaded', or worry that 'those children' will bring the school's scores down.

The private school option is also not as good as you may think. One of the main reasons why private schools do better than public schools is because a) they get to choose their students and b) they have a limited number of students. The smaller your school (student/teacher ratio in particular), assuming full funding per student, the better that school is going to do. It's almost universal. When you can not accept any student who doesn't meet your dress code, your grade standards, your behavior standards, then you're self selecting for students who /want/ to be there and are usually in a condition to be able to learn.

If the ever-popular school choice idea would be implemented, you'd see a massive funding suck from public education to private, and then many private schools' scores would crash, as they got an influx of students of wildly different proficiency levels, educational experience, behavioral difficulties, special needs, and interest level. Additionally, what standards are you going to hold these schools to? Will they be required to take any student whose parents wish them to attend? Will they have to make the same special education and ESL accomodations that public schools have to? Will teachers all be required to be certified? By who? Will religious institutes be required to accept students not of their religious affiliation? What about students of religious affiliations openly hostile to their own? How often will private schools be inspected, compared to public schools? Will private schools be required to have the same facilities and support personnel as public schools, in the same ratios? Very, very few of the voucher/school choice programs that are floated (at least in this state) have done anything to address these questions. The protests from the educational community are not rabid job-protection, but sincere concerns from people on the ground level of what politicians are looking at as a theoretical problem.

(Continued in next comment...)

[bimmer1200.livejournal.com]

The current funding scheme ensures that children from poor tax-value neighborhoods will have poor schools, inferior equipment, and fewer enrichment opportunities than children from rich neighborhoods.

I'm sorry, but this is not correct. Take Char-Meck in NC for example. The schools which have the highest per pupil spending in CMS are the inner city schools. Those are also the worst performing. Are there cases where it is true what you say? Yes. But it isn't a given. Further, more money, from all available evidence doesn't necessarily mean a better education.

As for your statements about private schools, I'm sorry, but that doesn't jibe with what Germany and much of Europe has experienced. It also shows a misunderstanding of how markets work. Let me give an example.

The county I was from had three high schools. West, Central and East. The county being a vague rectangle was pretty much divided into three sections. Whichever of the three you were in, that's the school you went to. Schools were then funded based on number of students equally. But there was no competition. They were guaranteed enough kids because if you were in the Western district, that's where you had to go.

Now, let's imagine we used a pupil based funding instead of district based. I'm going to ignore the details of whether it's state or national based for now. Every kid in the county has the exact same amount spent on him, regardless of what school he goes to. So you can't make the argument that it's unfair to the poor; the money follows the kid. Say someone like me who lives near the border of the Eastern and Central districts is deciding which school to go to. My parents can see graduation rates, test scores (part of the funding by pupil instead of distric requires every school to make publically available these rubrics), college acceptance rate, scholarship rates, etc. They see that the Eastern school has better than the Central school and send me there. Now, the school is getting more cash so even if there's a hundred of us transferring, they can afford to build more space. They can probably even pay to expand bus routes. It also means that the Central school, if it wants to continue operating and the administrators and teachers want to keep their jobs, are going to have to perform better and bring up their scores. Add in the threat of a private school opening which doesn't have admission requirements; and you will get better schools across the board. This is what has happened in Germany in particular, and other European countries as well.

As for selective admissions, yes, some schools would continue to be selective. They'd probably charge more than the theoretical 10k. And that's fine. Not everyone can afford a Mercedes. But there'd be plenty of Mazda's and Fords and Volkswagons, schools with no more stringent policies than the public schools have. They wouldn't be top flight prep schools, but they'd a) be better than current schools, which are horrible and b) they'd be geared more toward those who weren't up to the challenge a more elite school offers. No one would argue that UNC-Wilmington is on par with Duke, but nor would anyone argue UNCW provides a sub-par education. You'd have a similar situation in secondary schools, and it would be an improvement over the current situation.

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

No, it doesn't. A /lot/ matters about where that money is going. And honestly? I would very much support some sane restructuring of the educational financial system. I suspect that we would disagree on the definition of 'sane', however.

And I attempt to do research on German schools! I find the absolutely perfect site, with comprehensive lists of everything I want to know...except for the small problem that all the good stuff is in German. It is to weep. However, based on what I /can/ read, it seems to have state schools. Certainly state regulated schools...http://www.bildungsserver.de/index_e.html if you're interested.

And while I agree with you that there needs to be public school reform, I'm honestly not sure that that 'school choice' is the way to go...at least in its current political incarnation.

[bimmer1200.livejournal.com]

ABC News Story

Sorry, it was Belgium, not Germany that I know for sure does this. My fault. I got the two confused (so much for my geography, huh?). Though according to a prof. from Harvard quoted in the article it's common in Western Europe.

As for money, I'll say one last thing, all the studies I've seen in the past twelve years (and this is an issue I've been following since college. Going to a teachers' college and majoring in poli/sci tends to bring that up) indicate there is no correlation between spending and education. Some of the best performing schools in the country are parochials schools. Yet their per pupils spending can be half of what the local public school is spending.

Another example that it does, in fact, work is Maine which has a sort of limited voucher system. They have been using them in some towns since the 1800s. The result has been that kids in private schools there get a better education based on test scores and college admissions than those at the public schools. Unfortunately it's not a universal system, you have to be lucky enough to live in a town too small to have a public school. Here's a link to the .pdf. Maine Vouchers . Further, the evidence from Milwaukee which has a program limited to vouchers for poor students, has shown radical progress in the 12 years it's been going on. It has, in fact, helped the poorest students by giving them choice.

I can't fathom why someone, esp. a progressive, would be against giving everyone the same choice and opportunity that only the wealthy have currently when it comes to schools when all the evidence we have indicates that it would be improve education for /everyone/. I mean, can you point me to a single shred of actual evidence that vouchers or tax credits would have the effect you claim? A study or report that shows more money spent means better education? A single study showing, with real data that where various voucher and tax credit/scholarships have been tried that education has gotten worse?

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Okay. I can't give you direct links to papers...I use a university password, and many of them are only downloadble for a fee. However, citations:

McEwan, Patrick J., The Potential Impact of Vouchers. Peabody Journal of Education; 2004, Vol. 79 Issue 3, p57-80

Quote from abstract: Conclusions are that African American students who are offered vouchers experience small achievement gains. The results are highly sensitive to analytical assumptions and are not evident for other racial or ethnic groups. The evidence further indicates that large-scale voucher plans encourage sorting that could lower the achievement of public school students. There is no compelling evidence that such losses are outweighed by competitive gains in public schools. The conclusions on sorting and competition are most applicable to unrestricted choice plans in which flat-rate vouchers are offered to a large number of students with few eligibility restrictions.

(On the other hand, the author does suggest that modified policies may have better results, and I would like to see them.)

Also, look at the success...or lack thereof, of the 'Edison' school system.

As for school funding, I have an article on .pdf that I could send you that addresses the issues that you've brought up, fairly well, I think. However, it's a professional magazine, and not a journal article. I'm running late for work, so delving more into the maze of universit journal collections will have to wait.

However, I'm eagerly awaiting your academic citations in return! I'd like to read the studies on successful voucher and school choice programs. I've no doubt that there are benefits to be mined within those. If you can get a citation, I can probably look it up through our collections. :)

More Citations

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

Larry V. Hedges, Richard D. Laine, and Rob Greenwald, "Does Money Matter? A Meta-Analysis of Studies of the Effects of Differential School Inputs on Student Outcomes," Educational Researcher, April 1994, pp. 5-14

Rob Greenwald, Larry V. Hedges, and Richard D. Laine, "The Effect of School Resources on School Achievement," Review of Educational Research, vol. 66, 1996, pp. 361-96

(These are older citations, however, and may not reflect the most recent research.) Unfortunately, I'm restricted to Google at work, which gives several studies for correlation between class size and achievement, and library resources and achievement, but I'm unable to refine the search to tease out specifically school funding as a whole and achievement. Once I get back home, I'll try some more. :)

Re: More Citations

[bimmer1200.livejournal.com]

Here's an abstract:

"I identify the effects of class size on student achievement using longitudinal variation in the population associated with each grade in 649 elementary schools. I use variation in class size driven by idiosyncratic variation in the population. I also use discrete jumps in class size that occur when a small change in enrollment triggers a maximum or minimum class size rule. The estimates indicate that class size does not have a statistically significant effect on student achievement. I rule out even modest effects (2 to 4 percent of a standard deviation in scores for a 10 percent reduction in class size). © 2000 the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology" From "The Effects Of Class Size On Student Achievement: New Evidence From Population Variation" by Caroline Hoxby. Linky

Further, while the STAR study from Tennesee, considered a 'small' class to be 13-17 students. And a large one to be 22-26. Unfortunately for your viewpoint, the average class size is already down to around 16, which is down over the last 20 years from 18. So we're already down into the range of small classes on average. Making them even smaller isn't going to help. And, according to

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Here's an abstract:

"I identify the effects of class size on student achievement using longitudinal variation in the population associated with each grade in 649 elementary schools. I use variation in class size driven by idiosyncratic variation in the population. I also use discrete jumps in class size that occur when a small change in enrollment triggers a maximum or minimum class size rule. The estimates indicate that class size does not have a statistically significant effect on student achievement. I rule out even modest effects (2 to 4 percent of a standard deviation in scores for a 10 percent reduction in class size). © 2000 the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology" From "The Effects Of Class Size On Student Achievement: New Evidence From Population Variation" by Caroline Hoxby. <a href="http://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/qjecon/v115y2000i4p1239-1285.html#abstract"> Linky </a>

Further, while the STAR study from Tennesee, considered a 'small' class to be 13-17 students. And a large one to be 22-26. Unfortunately for your viewpoint, the average class size is already down to around 16, which is down over the last 20 years from 18. So we're already down into the range of small classes on average. Making them even smaller isn't going to help. And, according to <a href="http://www.alec.org/meSWFiles/pdf/0424.pdf> this </a> in inflation adjusted dollars we've tripled spending over the last 40 years.

Re: the first citation on this post, I can't read either the original or Hedges, Laine and Greenwald's rebuttal so I can't judge for myself who is more accurate in their methodology. Judging from the abstract though, it seems that Hedge et. al. had a viewpoint and went looking to refute a major analysis of various studies that disagreed with that viewpoint. And surprise! They did.

I think there's an important point here I didn't make earlier. Would I agree that spending 3K on a student will have some impact on quality of education versus say 9K on another student? Sure. I'm arguing that overall totals have gone up, and up, and up, with no real improvements. So let's say that <a href="http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/kbid9709.htm">this guy</a> is right and it's the disparting that's the problem. A tax voucher system at the state level -solves- that problem, not adds to it. Because you take the total state education revenues, say NC's of 9 Billion and divided it by the number of students at a little over 130K, and you get 6900.00 per student. John Smith who is poor gets the same as Jane Doe who is rich to fund his education. And his parents get to choose where he goes. So if the inner city school down the block isn't cutting it, his parents can choose another school. Overcrowding is alleviated, as the best schools will be most in demand and will be able to build to keep up with the demand. In short, school choice is -more- egaliatarian than how we do it now.

Re: More Citations

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

Has LJ denied us the ability to use links?

And while I do agree that there could be significant reform in the area of educational funding (I don't think we're using the money we're getting in necessarily the right ways), I still don't see any compelling evidence that vouchers will do anything other than shift the problems around.

Will some students benefit? Probably. Will enough students consistently benefit in order to make it a worthwhile adjustment, while staving off some of the truly unpleasant consequences of giving public funds to private schools of dubious qualifications? ...I don't see it. I don't see any data to really support that conclusion. I see a lot of hope. I see a lot of optimism. But concrete examples? Not so much. Thus, I'm exercising my right to be conservative, and suggest that perhaps tossing our kids into an entirely new system should wait until the data proves out, one way or another.

Re: More Citations

[bimmer1200.livejournal.com]

I'm seeing the attitude "we shouldn't try it because there isn't enough data." Unfortunately, one can't get data unless one tries it. So that's circular reasoning.

From everything I've found, and you've shown me, the students who benefit the most are the ones at the bottom. At worst, the middle and upper stay about where they are. And none of these have shown that it makes things worse for the worst off, unless I missed something.

You mention 'truly unpleasant consequences'. Like what? Schools that graduate students who are functionally illiterate? Happening right now under gov't monopoly. And without choice programs, or being wealthy, there's nothing those worst served can do about it. With a choice program they can go to another school, where it may only be marginally better or it may be a great deal better.

Schools that are dangerous? Already have that in gov't monopoly. And you can't /make/ them clean it up, because they know if you're kid is in their district and you're not wealthy, he's got to go there and that school is gonna get funding regardless. Heck, even if you do take the kid out, they still get funding for him. The current gov't monopoly /disincentivises/ improving schools.

Schools where money is wasted in vast sums? Again, we're spending, on average 10K a year per student on schools, not counting capital expenditures. Look at Kansas city from 1995 to 2000. Look into the waste going on at CMS just a little north of where you're at. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent and the board and administration have intentionally underbuilt in the suburbs where most of the growth is, and overbuilt in the inner city so they can get around a court order to stop busing. The result has been the inner city schools doing increasingly worse, and overcrowding in the suburban schools. And ever higher numbers of people moving out of the county, or home schooling, or sucking up the extra cost of paying for private education out of pocket.

Drain of resources from public schools? What difference does /that/ make. Unless the primary concern is making sure the school is part of the gov't monopoly, this is irrelevant. If everyone can get an education at a private facility, or a mix of public and private, with the gov't taxpayers picking up the tab for those that can't afford it, what difference does it make? The resources are going to the student directly, the only people hurt by it are the umpteen layers of bureacracy. The driving off of taxpayers to districts where things are done more reasonably is more of a drain and danger for the poor than a follow-the-pupil system would be.

I should probably stop though, I think we're going in circles at this point. In all the stuff I've presented I've yet to see any of the following disproved:

* The government is spending more and more money overall, while getting worse and worse results

* There have been successes both here and abroad in numerous places, some are, at worst, moderate successes. Others are quite spectacular.

* That in a democratic society parents should have a choice in where their children go to school. There's no evidence showing that compulsory system we have is working.

I mean, I understand why a few teachers, but esp. bureaucrats and teacher union /leaders/ fear this. It means they'll have to compete like the rest of us. No more cushy tenure (or whatever the equivalent is for H.S.), no more being able to ignore parents complaints, no more being able to carry out their grand social experiments with other people's money. They'll have to be responsive and accountable in a way the ridiculous NCLB doesn't make them, because if they aren't, if they don't provide a good education, they wind up looking for a real job.

Re: More Citations

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

To the first, let me say: the burden of proof is on the one who wants to change things. Prove that this will be demonstrably /better/. Not just 'as bad' or 'as good'. I don't think public schools are beyond saving. I don't think that private schools can 'pick up the slack' on any kind of consistent basis.

And no, it's not about being afraid to compete. It's about being afraid that kids are going to get screwed over. You may think that belief is /wrong/, but please don't automatically assume selfish motives to those who disagree with you.

I think our fundamental assumptions are so diverse, here, that unless we can come up with some really firm data one way or another, we can toss isolated examples of both viewpoints at each other all night without changing each other's minds. But I've enjoyed the discussion, and it's given me some new things to look up! Thanks!

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

As to evolution, and I say this as a soft agnostic who thinks that evolutinary theory is correct if needing some work, it is an inherently anti-theistic theory. It posits natural mechanisms to explain the prescence of life.

...it's science. Science is the study of natural phenomenon. Once you introduce a supernatural element, the whole scientific method goes out the window, because supernatural elements, by their natures, do not follow natural rules. You can't develop natural rules by observation and testing if every other sentence you have to add, "...or it could be God, in which case every bit of data I just collected is invalid, because God will do whatever God wants." God is entirely outside of science...scientists can't tell you anything about God, and they don't try. They tell you what they see, how substance A reacts to substance B, what happens with Organism X is introduced into environment Y, and so forth. Priests can then say, "That's because God set it up that way." And that's great! That's fine! But it's not science.

I'm saying that it is part of what many Christians see as a system that is hostile to their values. From teaching anthropogenic global warming as fact, to many universities requiring as part of granting an education degree that students sign a pledge to support 'social justice' (a codeword for income redistribution and socialism)...

"Social Justice" is not, and has never been, a codeword for income redistribution and socialism. Social Justice is ensuring that the gay kid in your classroom doesn't have his head slammed in a locker in between periods. Social justice is working just as hard with the poor kids, and the kids who barely speak English, as you do with the rich kids, and vice versa. Social justice is reporting it when a kid comes into your classroom with bruises around her throat and can't seem to sit down without crying in pain. Social justice is standing up for your kids' health, happiness, and ability to learn in an environment free of bullying, discrimination, and abuse.

However, that said, I support the right of student groups to use school grounds outside of school hours for any non-criminal and non-harmful activities they like. Be that FCA, Bible Study, whatever. I support 'lighthouse schools'. And it sucks to have your club closed down by a fearful administration. I know: My high school gaming club was shut down after three sessions because the administration said that parents said it was 'Satanic'. (Che Gueverra, however, would be a political statement, not a religious one. I certainly have heard of schools that have banned all religious items to be worn, rather than allow someone to wear a pentacle. In those cases, Che would not fall under the ban, because he's not religious.)

Never said anything about morals. However, I will equate, "I want all children to be taught intelligent design as science because I believe, against all the known evidence, that evolution does not exist," on a /rational/ level with "I want all children to be taught that some varieties of human are lesser than others as social studies because I believe, against all the known evidence, that this is so."

And if intelligent design is taught, in an elective philosophy or political science class, we've already covered that I support that. I do not support, in any shape, form, or fashion, it being taught as physical science. Because it's not.

[bimmer1200.livejournal.com]

..it's science. Science is the study of natural phenomenon.

Exactly. Nothing you wrote in that paragraph disputes my point. I'm saying that science is by definition anti-theistic. Now, the Priest can say he believes god created the universe and set the world in motion and that's that, but that's deism, not theism. Once you start saying that god interferes, even occassionaly, you're making statements that run counter to science. In other words, if science is true, then god either doesn't exist or it is marginalised. And if that is true, you're striking at people's core beliefs. And it rankles to have to pay to have your children taught things that cut at your core beliefs. I'm not saying I agree with the attitude, just that it is understandable, and if we had choice in where your kid goes to school you can alleviate some of that.

"Social Justice" is not, and has never been, a codeword for income redistribution and socialism.

Yes. Yes it is. Social justice does not stop at the examples you gave. It's a ideology that extends to many areas, that in every poli/sci class i had where the term came up was/is best described as socialism and income redistribution. It's a political term, and it's definition is essentially, leftist/progressive ideology. Which is fine for a teacher to hold as an individual, but requiring teachers to pledge to uphold that ideology would be no different than requiring them to pledge to uphold sharia, or anarcho-capitalism, or my own individualist libertarianism.

(Che Gueverra, however, would be a political statement, not a religious one. I certainly have heard of schools that have banned all religious items to be worn, rather than allow someone to wear a pentacle. In those cases, Che would not fall under the ban, because he's not religious.)

According the SCOTUS, this is an irrelevant distinction. It's viewpoint discrimination and violates the First Amendment. Allowing political speech, but not allowing religious speech is as much discrimination as it would be to allow t-shirts with a cross but not one with a pentacle.

My point in mentioning this is to point out the ways in which Xtians feel marginalized. Are they being a little paranoid? Yeah, but the religion has a built in martyr complex, and it's not surprising that minor things like this can make them feel that way. And that feeling is further aggravated by the lack of control, input, and influence in how their children are educated.

And if intelligent design is taught, in an elective philosophy or political science class, we've already covered that I support that. I do not support, in any shape, form, or fashion, it being taught as physical science. Because it's not.

But as you pointed out, even when taught in that context, it's being challenged. Of course it isn't physical science and should not be taught as such, but the reason it's an issue at all is because parents have no choice or control over their kids education. Or they feel that way.

Now, having said that, I don't have an objection to teaching evolution, then offering in the science class an explanation of ID. Then pointing out how it (ID) isn't science and using it as an illustration of what science is and isn't. Being familiar with a theory doesn't mean you believe it. I'm familiar with the geocentric solar system theory. That was part of my astronomy classes. It's bad science, but it's still taught in science class because it can illustrate scientific principles. In fact, as science is about questioning and observing, I'd prefer that when I have children that they be taught evolution, but have a section discussing the whole debate. It isn't unknown in science class for this sort of thing to be addressed. Whether it's Galileo or Darwin or the Scopes trial, science history and the controversy around it is as much part of teaching science as the actual theories and facts.

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Nothing you wrote in that paragraph disputes my point. I'm saying that science is by definition anti-theistic.

Science is not /against/ gods, though. If anything, it's respectful in acknowledging, "We cannot explain supernatural phenomenon. Thus, we will explain /only/ what we can observe from scientific methods, and leave the supernatural to those better equipped to deal with it."

...okay. If social justice is an ideology that can only be interpreted one particular way, then I can only say that I am all for a just society, and I don't think anything else will come useful from discussing that. We're using the same words, but I'm pretty sure they're coming from two different languages.

The SCOTUS would be correct. However, it doesn't stop the fact that if a school's written policy has 'no religious items', then Che wouldn't fall under that, and therefore could be safely worn until someone sued. (Although most people wearing Che shirts today probably have no idea who he was, what he did, or what his political positions were.)

I can sympathise with the small minority of Christians who feel that they are being oppressed (although it's kind of silly in a country where Christianity is the most popular religion, and there are only a handful of politicians across the entire nation who aren't, in fact, Christian). However, my sympathy ends at the point that they start attempting to cripple our already not-terribly-good science education.

And if the ID folks /wanted/ the kind of instruction that you describe, I'd have no problem with it. We learned the different atom theories in Chemistry, the geocentric theory in Earth Science, as you mentioned. But they want to 'teach the controversy': portray ID as a viable criticism of evolutionary theory. And it's not. They purposeful rely on most people's ignorance of evolutionary theory in order to create straw men to knock down. They misrepresent scientific papers, misrepresent their own credentials, are dishonest about their intentions, and have not one, /one/ credible study to the entire political movement. They're fundamentally dishonest. I have more respect for Young Earth Creationists than I do for ID: at least the former aren't weaseling about it.

[bimmer1200.livejournal.com]

Science if fundamentally a materialist/naturalist world view. It's not that, as soem would like to say, it leaves the supernatural to the theologians. It ignores the supernatural as not real. If it can't be observed (directly or indirectly), and it isn't a repeatable phenomenon, then it isn't real. And theism rests solidly on supernatural, unrepeatable phenomenon. I mean, definitionally, it's about miracles. Science is also inherently skeptical. Theism isn't. It's inherently about taking things on faith, the evidence of things hoped for, of things not yet seen.

And yes, we're using different defintions of what Justice is. Regardless, trying to make a teacher commit to a particular political ideology, is wrong. And that's what many colleges and universities are doing. Justice, during the enlightenment and as embodied by our Constitution is the idea of the law treating everyone the same. Not ensuring equal outcomes.

However, it doesn't stop the fact that if a school's written policy has 'no religious items', then Che wouldn't fall under that, and therefore could be safely worn until someone sued.

Two quick things on this. The policy wasn't 'no religious items'. It was no disruptive items. They claimed that the christian t-shirt would be disruptive due to the viewpoint it represented. But let's stipulate the policy is as you say. That still doesn't diminish my point; which was, schools are doing many things to make Christians feel marginalized. Some of that is Christian overreaction, but some of it is justified. And it comes from a misinterpretation of the Constitution and the establishment clause, and an entire section of SCOTUS jurisprudence resting on extra-Constitutional sources.

One last thing, and then i've had my say on this. They aren't misrepresenting themselves. As Multiplexer points out, ID or the Watchmaker theory is a very old one. The first time I encountered it was in High School from a teacher who was both a Christian trying to reconcile her beliefs with the evidence supporting evolution. I later heard the same/similar theory from an astrophysicist giving a talk out our University on faith and science. It's an old idea, and while some YECs are attempting to adopt it, those are really two different but allied camps. They aren't being intellectually dishonest. I could make the accusation that you're relying on most people not understanding that to swipe at a strawman, but I don't think you're doing that. I think you just didn't realize how long that theory has been around.

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

I know that the hypothesis has been around a long time. (It's not a scientific theory.) However, the proponants of ID /are/ intellectually dishonest. They misrepresent the findings of real scientists, and misrepresent their own credentials, in order to make it look like ID has scientific support that it entirely lacks. Exhibit 1, from the Discovery Institute, the most active organization of ID proponants.

http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=2640&program=CSC%20-%20Scientific%20Research%20and%20Scholarship%20-%20Science

They claim a whopping 4 peer-reviewed scientific articles that show support for ID...for a very /old/ theory, that's not exactly impressive. And it gets even less impressive when you actually look at what's there.

Stephen Meyer is, for the record, a geophysicist, not a biologist. His article in that journal was published contrary to the normal practices of that journal (without multiple peer-review mandated by the journal's constitution), and the Biological Society of Washington has published a statement (http://www.biolsocwash.org/) essentially apologizing for the inclusion of that work, calling it 'not up to the standards' of the journal.

The Max Planck Institute has published disclaimers on Lonnig's work, but he's the most solid thing that they have.

Wells admits that he went to school from seminary specifically to "destroy Darwinism" (http://www.tparents.org/Library/Unification/Talks/Wells/DARWIN.htm) at the order of Reverend Moon. Also, this article is published in Biology Forum, a journal of theoretical biology. The articles within do not reflect the results of actual experiments, but rather hypothetical experiments that illustrate the authors' theories. Also, you will notice that the /actual/ abstract here (http://www.tilgher.it/(4mi0go45sj1fyc45wkyl4455)/index.aspx?lang=eng&tpr=4) is different in the end from the 'quoted' abstract on the Discovery Institute page, which is set off as if to reflect the actual words of the paper. The Discovery Institute suggests that a true experiment has been defined and ran successfully...that's entirely untrue. A theoretical experiment has been designed, and never run.

Two of the 'peer reviewed' books in that section were not, in fact, peer-reviewed. Popular trade books are largely useless from a scientific perspective...they're published based on the number of copies they're likely to sell, not the rigidity of their research, and classified according to what the publisher wants to classify them as.

...I was going to say more, but discovery.org is no longer opening for me. I think it's down for the moment. But I don't have the list of articles before me. More later, once I can get it back in shape.

[multiplexer.livejournal.com]

To quote Carl Sagan on Cosmos:

"Evolution is a fact. It is not a theory."

The evolution episode of Cosmos is wonderful. He introduces the Creationism argument, says why it is just not true, and moves on to describe the wonders of evolution in bright and happy detail.

Interestingly, the philosophical argument for the Cosmic Watchmaker (better known as Intelligent Design now) has been around since the Victorian Times. So have the counter-arguments against it. I had a full introduction to the logical fallacies of the Cosmic Watchmaker in my introduction to Philosophy class way back when, long before the "ID Movement," and had to write this big paper describing it and the various debunking counter arguments. My favorite was one in Bertrand Russell's collection of essays, "Why I Am Not A Christian." I was pretty surprised when it came back around, but hey, it's doing well with a dusting and a new coat of varnish.

All Hail Bishop Ussher and the Beginning of the World in 4004BC! On a Wednesday!

[bimmer1200.livejournal.com]

From my reading of that quote of the abstract, he's saying that the gains are small, and that there's no 'compelling' evidence that the gains outweigh the losses. Though I haven't read the article, obviously, so I can't say for certain what he considers a loss. It doesn't surprise me that a journal for professional educators is less than pleased about the idea.

I'm not citing academic journals. Here are a couple of cites, concerning a program in Milwauke which targets poor students, defined as those in households that have an income under 175% of the poverty level for the U.S.:

“Choice can be a useful tool to aid families and educators in inner city and poor communities where education has been a struggle for several generations … If programs are devised correctly, they can provide meaningful educational choices to families that now do not have such choices. And it is not trivial that most people in America ... already have such choices.”

John Witte, The Market Approach to Education - An Analysis of America’s First Voucher Program, Princeton University Press, 2000.

According to this website, Minnesota Choice , both Harvard and Yale teams found "statistically significant math gains". There's various other data there.

Vermont has been doing this for over 130 years, in a limited fashion and like Maine mentioned earlier, there's no indication of the problems you claim this would cause. Vermont .

Be glad to look at Edison, the majority of their 100 schools have shown improvements in test scores even after the Administrative problems they've had. Further, the troubles they are having illustrate perfectly my point; a public school operated in that fashion doesn't close, or get taken over. It just keeps going, and keeps demanding more tax money. With competition, a badly run school does not last. And if you think that public schools don't have any mismanagement...I'll point you to Washington DC and the scandal with the teacher's union there in 2003 as just a quick off-the-top-of-my-head example.

And we're still back to the fact that adjust for inflation we're spending far more than we were 30 years ago more and test scores are either flat or falling. It is a fact that we spend more per pupil than nations which we lag behind in test scores. There's the example of Kansas City. After being ordered by a judge to spend 2 billion dollars (!) more over five years, what happened? The school district failed 11 performance standards and lost its accredation. We spend more than anyone else on education, 7% of our GDP. Yet we're like..15th in the rankings of industrialized countries. Education is one of the few areas where we really do lag behind the rest of the world (at least primary and secondary school. Post-secondary is another story). We've been trying it the leftist way of spending more and more, and giving more and more control to cetralized authority for 40 years, and it's made the situation worse, not better.

I'll be happy to look at that .pdf.

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

...darn, man. If I'd known that advocacy groups and political organizations like the Cato Institute were acceptable sources, I could come up with a /lot/ more cites. Also, if you're invalidating articles by professional educators...I'm not sure how I could possibly come up with anything to refute you. It's like saying that businessmen have nothing useful to say about economics, or doctors have nothing useful to say about anatomy.

Texas Charter Schools (http://www.ruraledu.org/rpm/rpm501d.htm) (Funded by a Texas School Choice program.)

Cleveland Voucher Study (http://www.azsba.org/clevelandstudy.htm)

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...darn, man. If I'd known that advocacy groups and political organizations like the Cato Institute were acceptable sources, I could come up with a /lot/ more cites. Also, if you're invalidating articles by professional educators...I'm not sure how I could possibly come up with anything to refute you. It's like saying that businessmen have nothing useful to say about economics, or doctors have nothing useful to say about anatomy.

<a href="http://www.ruraledu.org/rpm/rpm501d.htm">Texas Charter Schools</a> (Funded by a Texas School Choice program.)

<a href="http://www.azsba.org/clevelandstudy.htm">Cleveland Voucher Study</a>

<a href="http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=17815"</a>Vouchers in D.C.</a>

<a href="http://www.rdc.udel.edu/policy_briefs/v14_April.pdf">A useful policy brief on both the up and down side of vouchers.</a>

<a href="http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:cqUEzWgOjH0J:www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt%3FGAO-02-752+school+voucher+failure&hl=en#6">A marvelous meta-analysis of the results of several voucher programs.</a>

After reading through the available research, it looks like vouchers, depending on the program, may have gains for some students, in some circumstances. Unfortunately, those gains are not reliable, and tend to vary widely by program. Unless we hammer out the details of a specific voucher or school-choice plan, it looks like we're going to find data all over the map.

There may be something worthwhile there, but the data doesn't support it consistently.

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

Clearly, I fail at HTML.

[bimmer1200.livejournal.com]

I didn't say I was invalidating them. Just said I wasn't citing them. I don't have access to academic journals any longer. I follow this almost entirely from the advocacy group/think tank end of it and have for a long time. I'd even posit (and we're getting a little meta here) that professional educator journals /are/ an advocacy group. They have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Competition would not be good for teacher unions, it would undercut their power.

I will tentatively agree that the data isn't consistent. There's not hard proof that it will, 100% work better. But there's no data showing that yep, definitely, it'll be worse, either. At most, even the 'negative' studies show it coming out about the same. It does, however, even if it's about the same, give parents a sense that they are participating.

Which is really the point. The NEA and other teacher unions, /particularly/ administrator types are virulently opposed to even trying it. Which makes it difficult to get any data (remember, this movement is in its infancy. It was a new thing 12 years ago when I got to college, save of course for Maine and Vermont). The lack of said data is then used by the NEA, et. al. as proof that it won't work.

Things are not working. Particularly for poor students in inner city schools. Why not pick some of the worst schools. Start offering those students to have 'follow the pupil funding'. Make it open to any accredited educational facitility to recieve those funds and those students. Expand it slowly unless there is a disaster.

I'm not suggesting that next year we close every public school in my state and go purely to a follow the pupil method. That wouldn't work too well. But what we are currently doing isn't working and throwing more and more money at the same old moribund, hidebound, monolithic structure isn't going to fix it.

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

I'd counter your posit with the countertheory that professional journals, undergoing a peer-review process of peers with diverse backgrounds, are less likely to be mouthpieces for unions than think-tanks, which are largely formed for the direct support of an organization's agenda. (Also, academic journal bitchfights are the best, even if you have to wait several months for each round. I've never seen anyone used such large words to call their distinguished collegues dung-eating idiots, before. It's fun!)

Also, I've yet to see anyone adequately address some of the problems with school choice: the low participation of people who aren't already attending private schools, the unfortunately large cases of graft, fraud, and unexpected school failure that have shown up...one school in Texas shut down in the middle of the night without informing students, parents, or teachers. The company that ran it is still qualified to recieve vouchers in their other schools. Teachers in the voucher schools are less likely to be certified, and for that matter, less likely to have even a bachelor's degree than teachers in public schools. Private schools can still choose not to accept students, regardless of the vouchers...a survey of California private schools indicated that less than 10% of those schools were ready or willing to accept public school students, and those could only have handled approximately 1% of the public school population.

Until I see some good, solid addressing of these issues, I'm not going to accept school voucher programs. You can't wait ten or fifteen years for an 'education market' to 'stabilize' with kids being bounced from fly-by-night school to public school to private school every year, standards and resources varying widely from one to the other, funding going into the pockets of people who randomly decide to set up a school. Keep in mind new business statistics: how large of a percentage of new businesses /fail/ in their first three years?

An educated populance is too important to trust to an unstable system.