It’s understandable that the National Academy of Sciences and the National Science Teachers Association would be unhappy about seeing their copyrighted material included in new Kansas science standards critical of evolution theory. But unwilling to allow its use? Yet the groups have denied the state the use of their material, which sets back the board’s plan to give the standards final approval next month. In trying to punish the state board’s conservative majority, the national groups are punishing Kansas kids, too, by denying the state the use of solid, science-based information in standards unrelated to evolution. That’s regrettable. Then again, it’s not the science groups’ fault that Kansas is in this mess. It’s the school board’s.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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22 Comments
In my opinion, it may have to do with the context in which the materials are being presented, or misrepresented judging by the actions of the KS BOE. Since the science standards are being sold as one unit, the groups are merely trying to guard against the perception that they implicitly approve the deficient standard by allowing their materials to be selectively used by the KS Board of (Politicizing) Education.
I don’t think it’s so much that anybody is trying to “punish” the school board as it is an attempt to keep their work from being used as part of a lot of foolishness. The Board of Education has gone off on a tangent that unfortunately, a majority of Kansans seem to support. A couple of things I see:The board is attempting to stop the “brain drain” the state is experiencing (no brains to drain).The board’s policy will also stop young people from leaving the state to seek better jobs elsewhere. They won’t be qualified intellectually for any job outside of Kansas.Next time you go to the emergency room, maybe you’ll be fortunate enough to get a doctor trained and educated in Kansas. He or she can pray for you to get well.
I would like to see one shred of evidence that kids who attend Christian schools or are homeschooled by Christian parents are in any way less intelligent than public school kids! Why is it that Sunrise Christian Academy wins the WSU “Metro-Award” for best Freshman GPA average nearly every year? Is it because they are dumber for understanding ID AND Evolution? Don’t believe for a minute that being exposed to ID in any way makes you “less” informed about science.
Sam,
I and most people I know don’t object to exposing kids to ID and other religious philosophies in schools so long as they are not foisted off as science. ID is NOT science.
As far as the “embargo” on Kansas is concerned…a definite mistake. We see how well US foreign policy involving embargoes on nations has worked. NAS and NSTA should continue discussions with the BOE and try to either convince them or wait out their ouster in a new election. The last thing they should do is isolate Kansas and make conservative, fundamentalist citizens and board members even more radically anti-science establishment.
Hey Brian..Agreed… I wish they would just drop it, I prefer my kid learn Creation from someone besides a science teacher in public school!! Oh.. not a problem.. my kid doesn’t go to public school……
The conservative school board is trying to force their personal religious superstitions into Kansas classrooms.
The science academies are doing what little they can to make that difficult for them.
We should be grateful. But, folks, it’s our responsibility to make sure these right-wing zealots aren’t elected in the first place.
Democracy is not a spectator sport. Registering to vote is simply filling out the paperwork for your most important job: US citizen.
What is really sad is that most people have heard of the Discovery Institute and know what it wants to do and how it plans to do it but are unwilling to do anything about it. They sit back and let the minority push their views on the majority because they have a very loud voice. And for the real joke, go visit another state. I was in Georgia this past week and of course somebody had to ask me about this crap. And of course I had to deal with the occasional jab (ment in humor, I think). It is pretty bad when you are in a state with a horrible education system (georgia is in the bottom 5 states according to national testing) and you have to put up with these jokes because it is mostly true. But it is too late because Kansas is already the butt of many jokes. And with the reputation Kansas is getting in other states any student who wants to go to an out of state school or get hired by an out of state company will have to be two or three times better than other applicants. The image has already been tarnished. And I predict this is just the tip of the iceberg, if you don’t mind me using a cliche’.
When will we learn that government control of education only ensures that you learn what the government approves. For all the examples of right-wing zealots controlling education standards there are comparable examples of left-wing zealots controlling the standards.
This is what government control of education (or anything else) leads to, politics.
Scientists are not left-wing zealots, ProudMan.
They do have standards though. Conclusions have to based on evidence.
No wonder the right-wing hates them.
Not alwasy ProudMan. Properly funded and staffed, the schools can and will do an exemplary job. A problem occurs when our government wants to spend more on tax breaks for companies and other ‘more important’ items.
Scientists don’t sit on the KBOE Galahad, and I would wager they never have in significant numbers.
I didn’t call scientists left-wingers. My point is that when the government runs things then politics is heavily involved. Today the ‘lefties’ are all upset because the ‘righties’ are doing their thing. If things where reversed the ‘righties’ would be just as upset.
And that’s great ‘k’, if we could just spend enough money on education….
It sounds like both sides is discribing the color of a brown horse. We all agree that politics in education is a problem.
That one side or the other setting the standards based on their own agenda causes the student and in the end the country to suffer.
Politics does play too large a part in our current education system. The NEA members spend more time thinking about the next contract then the class room. Yet ask any teacher and they will tell you they hate that they can not just teach.
Go to any local school board meeting. You see more time spent on end fighting and minor becking.Then discussing what is the best for the school district.
I once sat through a three hour fight over a two cent price difference for grass seed. Amazing!
Like what is happening national, we are just now waking up to what is happening in our local schools as to what our children are being taught. The price tag has gone up and the level of knowledge is going down.
RD,Problem is, both sets of extremists consider “everything is political.” Which means that whatever the subject, they will see it as politics; no escaping it!Know any good way past that?
Jed and R. D., just remove the government control of education.
It’s really that simple.
Taking politics out of education is a good idea. Taking government control away isn’t. What would that leave? I can only imagine what schools would be like if they were run by private enterprise. Goals and performance judged on the basis of the bottom line? Kids “fired” from school for not performing to expectation? What would be the ramifications for children who were challenged mentally or physically?I’d be a lot more sympathetic to private and religious schools if they had to submit to the same atandards and expectations as public schools. For profit education (Edison?)hasn’t been that impressive.Education is an investment in people, not a bottom line. If we take government control out of the schools, we decend to a situation where the only good schools are in well to do neighborhoods, and that doesn’t serve anybody’s purpose except the wealthy. Government control may not produce absolute equality in education, but I think it’s a lot better than the alternitave.
New Zealand has a solid, government funded education system. In that system the money follows the children and the parents select where the children go to school. This removes the politics simply by letting the parents make decisions.
Proudman,And what, give it to the churches?By the way, isn’t pride a deadly sin?
Proudman, I don’t think we can compare the education system in New Zealand to that in the US (New Zealand???).
I think NAS and NASTA are right. You can’t just teach “alternate” theories or take evolution out of science without destroying most of modern biology. You can’t take microevolution and lose macroevolution. They are the same process. They demand all of their material because you need it to understand the rest of basic biology and biochemistry too.
Jed,
I’m a firm believer in individual freedom not group-think. Hence I wouldn’t suffer church control of education any more than I suffer government control (my family homeschools).
Some years back there was an attempt to marry education and business. Or basicly have business tell education what they were looking for in a future employee.This seem to be a good idea, as in most cases by the time a student graduates from a four year college. The hot major had changed and those that had gotten a major in computer science were now having to apply for a job in mico science. The down side of it has been since most student do not attend a college and the high tech jobs are being filled by graduates from other countries. there has been the lowering of knowledge as most jobs require less knowledge than the high tech fields.
There need to be a balance in education. Since the top carreers change. It is important that a student have general knowledge in many subjects. More to the point be well rounded in their knowledge.
Taking the politics out of education is a no brainer. There need to be an atmosphere where the NEA is no longer needed. That could be done by a flat pay scale a cross the board. candadates quit using local school boards as a jumping off place. As some use the board to get their name out there.Or even make it a non-political post. Professional board memebers, it being a paying job where it is real educators.
What do you mean by a flat pay scale across the board? How does this get rid of NEA? I am sorry I don’t quite follow your thinking.