As Kansas State Board of Education members and science educators did battle last year over evolution, not much was said about what it all meant for the classroom. A New York Times story about one newly retired Georgia middle school teacher, Pat New, provided some insight into the stress of trying to teach science when you’re under assault from parents, students, administrators and other teachers hostile to evolution. The award-winning teacher, who views evolution as “a unifying concept in life science,” said that parents “badgered, got loud and sarcastic, and there was no support from administrators.” New’s principal even pressed her to say she believed everything in the Bible. “What saved me was I didn’t have to argue evolution with these people,” New said. “All I had to say was, ‘I’m following state standards.’ ”
Sadly, in Kansas, it’s the state science standards that are the problem, given that they now invite the teaching of supernatural explanations such as intelligent design.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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73 Comments
Everybody knows children are delivered by Storks. This evolution nonsense has got to stop. If Storks could talk, they would be really, really mad at the KBOE for not including the truth in science classes.
The FSM told me the other night, as I was praying to Him/Her/It outside, as fireflies (or was that illegal fireworks?) lit up the sacred cottonwood tree, that the KBOE would suffer massive cases of Herpes Simplex because of their failure to include the true story of Storks in school Curriculum. Let the scratching begin!
I don’t see evolution and creationism as mutually exclusive.
Not everyone does. The Catholic church has said that Genesis should be taken figuratively. It’s the fundamentalists who are taking this to the extreme.
But they don’t have all that much faith in the bible. Back when kansas was getting ready to ban gay marriage terry fox was on Hardball and was asked “Do you believe everything in the bible?” After ho humming for a few seconds Chris Mathews had to ask him again. Again he tried to dance around the question. Asked a third time and he finally answered yes. Not all that convincing terry if you have to be asked 3 times.
The problem is that the majority party would rather debate whether your moral code or my moral code or Landwehr’s moral code is dominant than to tackle in a timely manner the real problems facing Kansas families – affordable health care, and good-paying jobs. This legislature, for example, failed in the 2005 session to begin debating the 800-lb. gorilla issue of school finance until the regular session was almost over, and then had to convene a special session that cost taxpayers $400,000 in extra salaries and expenses for legislators. In which job in the private sector are employees rewarded with overtime pay because they don’t get their job done in the regular work week? If the Republican Party would stop spending so much time engaging in power plays – like this Nuss Fuss “investigation” that is also putting more money in the hands of legislators, then perhaps some real work could be done.
I’ll say this again.
The real problem here is that people expect the government to provide things for them. This is in lieu of being adults and doing for their family.
When did education, health care, and a job become something the government should provide?
Let’s see if I have this right. You don’t believe that government should provide for a public education? I guess you forgot that the Kansas Constitution guarantees a public education. You don’t believe that basic preventitive health care should be a birthright in this great nation? You must think that only the wealthy individuals and employees of wealthy corporations deserve basic health care for their children and pregnant wives. And I guess it is clear that you don’t believe the government has a proper role in producing a business climate that is attractive to relocating, up-start businesses so that those businesses will locate and stay in Kansas? You must be a hermit.
We’ll be glad to let PM build and maintain the street he lives on!
I want to bring up a matter of biology that needs attention: children’s sleep deprivation. When I was a kid, most children were put to bed between 9 and 9:30, and got up at 7 to 7:30. This gave them about 10 hours of sleep. Now, kids go to bed later. Those who have to be bused, or chauffered around town to private schools have to get up earlier. The candle is being burned at both ends. I believe, as a retired physician, that one of the reasons, perhaps the major reason, we have seen an epidemic of ADD is sleep deprivation. The drugs used to treat it are CNS stimulants, whose effects are very similar to caffeine’s.
I noticed that in my children’s college attendance, where they were staying up late, they chose to take first-morning classes at 10 and 11 AM. In a modern society, in which people, including parents AND their children are going to bed later than in the agrarian and industrial ages, maybe schools should start class at 10 or 11 AM. This might make things a lot better for teachers who want alert and attentive students.
It’s just a thought.
Here we go again! I think I’ve seen this thread previously. Get it through your head………. evolution (real science) and creationism (philosophy) are not of equal footing in a public education setting.Kitzmiller v. Dover ruled that this “ID” farce and Creationism are one in the same. Creationism cannot be taught in lieu of evolution in the public schools because it violates the establishment clause in the First Amendment of the Constitution.This transparent gambit of the KS BOE to require Science Educators to “teach the controversy” in the current standards is asinine. I would estimate that nearly 100% of the public Science Educators totally disregard the KS BOE silliness and teach about evolutionary science in one form or another. The National Science Education Standards DO include evolution and that is what’s taught.Contrary to popular fundamentalist Christian beliefs, there is no mention of God anywhere in the US Constitution and this not an exclusively “Christian” nation.Keep Religion out the Science classroom, it has NO place there.
Since you brought it up, Jed, most people do pay for the (new) streets they live on through the assesement of special taxes.
As for public education, are we very happy with the results that our schools produce?
The government can provide healthcare to one person only by taking something else away from another person.
Similarly, the money used to provide incentives to business harm existing businesses and individuals.
Or is there some way for the government to generate revenue that I am not aware of?
All this reliance on government for education, healthcare, etc. makes it seem as through none of this would happen if not for government. Are we not better people than that?
KCL you just describe the classic aurgument.
Do people (individuals) create a better society or does government?
I think government is needed, but over relience on government is bad. Also! We must be very critical and keep an eye on government. Since it involves the power of force there are many selfish people that would love to abuse that.
More people have died by the hand of their own government than by any war or crime amoung the people. I believe the figure is around 140 million people in the 20th century alone.
The vast majority of people who have been or are expericing repression are done by their own governments.
That is why our fore fathers wanted to greatly limit government powers when they wrote the Constitution.
Then another classic aurgument in government. Should there be a strong central government and weak local government or weak central government and strong local government?
People say, “government closest to the people is best”. I’ll say, “government closest to the people tend to be more corrupt.”
I’m for a very limited government, but with a strong central government and a very weak local government.
What a zero sum mentality. Anything that is yours is not mine, therefor, I must take it.
Sound republican, with a libertarian veneer. Me vs you, mine vs yours. We win. You lose.
Woof.
Ever heard of growing the economy and making the pie bigger instead of killing each other over the little slices? I see how well the “tax cut induced growth” is working. Now THERE is a contradiction in terms.
Of course, with trickle down, voodoo, spend but dont tax, republican economics, the “trickle” never happens.
Cutting up the pie, ya know.
And I see your slice is bigger than mine…..
“Or is there some way for the government to generate revenue that I am not aware of?”
Yes, ACTUALLY grow the economy instead of just making the upper one percent more wealthy, disappearing the middle class, and telling the lower economic class to eat cake.
Your “tax cuts for business” philosphy is so…. eighteenth century. It didnt work then, and it doesnt work now. Look the hell around you. Or maybe you, like the shrubster, just cant see the little people from your lofty perch.
The more the economy REALLY grows, the more revenue the government takes in. Yes, that means more total dollars collected…
…which means we could actually pay our bills without strangling our children and grandchildren with debt.
I know, I should be waking from that republican spending nightmare anytime.
And not strangling our children with OUR debt? I know, just a liberal wet dream.
Good thing you conservatives are spending all the money now so it wont tempt future generations to do crazy things like fund schools, extend healthcare, improve roads, support law enforcement etc.
Damn crazy liberals who want to do such things.
And unless I am mistaken, I thought the tread was about academic standards.
heheheheheh.
In kansas though, you know that is republican code for money. And we also know, in the end, with all the posturing about science and standards and education and children, it really boils down to one thing for the republican conservatives.
Money.
Is there anything else in their world?
KFG! You don’t expand the economy by taxes businesses. That should actually be elimated.
I’m with you. Taxing the rich, but that is very difficult to do under our tax system, which is tilted heavily towards the middle class. Uber Rich people hide their money and shelter it and therefore pay no or little taxes. Teresa Heinz Kerry paid very little.
There is a solution called the “Fair Tax”. Taxes the rich more, and the poor don’t pay a penny. Elimates tax shelters and write-offs, and businesses no longer have to pay taxes.
Many typos on my part. My bad!
Teresa Heinz Kerry can thank Bush for that, since he’s the one who insituted the tax cuts.
“Teresa Heinz Kerry can thank Bush for that, since he’s the one who insituted the tax cuts.”
She could have donated the difference to the Treasury if she wasn’t such a hypocrit.
“She could have donated the difference to the Treasury if she wasn’t such a hypocrit.”
So could bush and cheney.
Dont ya just love how the righties love the rich and big business…
…unless it is a democrat or a liberal who is rich and does big business…
then they are a hypocrit.
woof.
“So could bush and cheney.”
Yeah, but Bush and Cheney aren’t whining about racist tax cuts.
Every Democrat who complained about their tax cuts and kept them is a hypocrit.
Are you a hypocrit, KFG?
“Tax cuts for business philosophy”: I guess I should not be surprised that ksfarmgrrl misquoted me to make her case, as she has done so in the past.
Aside from that, she is right in describing the zero-sum situation that exists when government takes from one and gives to another.
In markets, people enter into only those transactions that they feel will make them better off. If both parties don’t agree, there is no transaction. But if the parties do agree, wealth is created, as both are better off than before.
Government, however, forces us to enter transactions through coercion. Whoever is able to get the legislature to pass a law in their favor, they can have the government coerce someone else into making a transaction in their favor. What wealth is created in this process? None. If the transaction was wealth-generating, it would happen on its own.
Instead of doing something productive, we are reduced to lobbyists. Instead of being entrepreneurs or capitalists or workers (take your pick as which of these you want to be; they’re all okay with me), we turn into a generation of rent-seekers, seeking to live off of someone else.
Republicans are just as good at this as are Democrats. Maybe even better, and that makes their actions all the more shameful. So why do you call me a Republican?
Some people think that the government isn’t the best place to spend our money. Just look at Gates and Buffet. They are spending their fortune to help others in which they best see fit.
Government is pissed off because they are escaping the inheritance tax.
You choose?
I agree with Crusader X above — I don’t see evolution and creationism (and intelligent design) as mutually exclusive.
I agree with Crusader X above — I don’t see evolution and creationism (and intelligent design) as mutually exclusive.
In my opinion, a good way to compare the relationship between school boards, school administrators down to the principal level, and teachers is as follows.
DON’T think of the military model of chain of command — thats like comparing apples to oranges to bananas.
DO compare to the hospital administration model. All hospitals have boards of directors. Hospitals generally have an administrator who manages the auxillary non-medical staff. Hospitals have doctors, admittedly serving as employees or contractors, who are responsible for the health care mission.
My point here is to compare professionals in both cases, doctors and teachers. Both groups are the trained professionals in hospitals and schools.
Both groups are educated to specifically do their jobs. A code of ethics guides them in doing their jobs professionally. They take continuing education to upgrade their professional skills.
On the other hand, administrators in hospitals and schools come from varying backgrounds occasionally from the medical and teaching profession and/or from training in administration.
High school principals are generally former teachers who work on a graduate degree in school administration for several reasons: (1) unfortunately to get higher pay than teachers, (2) to escape rigors of daily classroom teaching, (3) because they have personalities more suitable to administering a school building than teaching students.
Teaching K-12 is a tough demanding profession but with real hard earned satisfaction available at the end of a long hard day … but with a unrealistic pay scale in comparison to other professionals.
Consider a medical doctor who leaves the field of medicine to manage a hospital or health agencyor to manage some other activity loosely associated with the health care field. Is he still a professional? I will leave you answer that.
Also thinking about hospital administration — does the hospital board or the hospital administrator or staff tell doctors how to deliver a baby or perform a delicate surgery or give health care advice? I hope not!
Members of hospital boards of directors are not chosen for their medical knowledge nor even for their education. They are chosen for their knowledge of their community and the people who support the hospital with taxes and other mutual interests.
Similar general principles apply to our Kansas State Board of Education. In my opinion, they should stay out of the business of setting teaching standards — leave this up to committees of the appropriate professional teachers groups.
As I look at the membership of the Kansas State Board of Education and their hired staff — I see no members or staff who have experience and/or education in the education field.
IN SUMMARY: MESSAGE TO KANSAS STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION — BUTT OUT ON ISSUES THAT SHOULD BE LEFT TO THE PROFESSIONALS.
Actually Joe, Gates and Buffet aren’t escaping the inheritance tax. As a matter of fact they are both on record as supporting the tax. They are giving their money away because they believe in helping other people. Helping others in need, the forgotten value. The value the right never talks about. It is the Hiltons and Waltons (among 11 other families) that have talked several members of congress into removing it. And most of the brain dead repuke drones just fell in line and supported it without knowing a damn thing about it. If anyone wants to know the truth about the estate tax look here.
http://www.factcheck.org/article398.html
k, you said that Gates and Buffet are escaping the inheritance task, but that’s not correct, isn’t it?
I mean, if they give away their money, the government is not entitled to tax it at the time of their death, isn’t that correct?
Whether you agree or disagree with the politics or reasoning behind the inheritance tax, the fact is that these men are not going to pay it on that part of their fortune that they give away.
That portion of a person’s wealth that has been given away to approved charity is exempt from tax. The remainder that they might pass to their heirs is taxable after exceeding the exemption (currently a million I think)
“In the flows and eddy of trickle down economic, it has became painfully apparent those someone has placed a dam upstream from me.”
I had wrote that in 1993
Actually I said they aren’t.
Technically they are escaping it because they will be dead and their heirs will have to pay the tax. When you give money to a charity you don’t pay income tax on what you give anyway. I don’t know if that deduction has a limit but contributions to charities, those that don’t lobby, are tax deductible. You are changing the topic though. My comment was about the estate tax and not charitable tax deductions. They are completely different. Their survivors will pay the tax within the limits of the estate tax guidelines, they won’t escape it (unless shrub and friends have their way).
Ben the current limit is 2 million from a single person or up to 4 million from a couple (if you die in 2006). The link in my previous post has the facts about the estate tax.
I’m not sure about the exact details but I had heard that for every $500K shrub give in tax breaks to the wealthy they create one new job. Not bad, if we remove all taxes from just the rich unemployment might drop another .01% and shrub and friends wouldn’t have to fudge the federal unemployment numbers an further.
Heaetlander, I agree that kids not being in a routine. staying up late, etc. can be linked to ADHD, and I also think that watching too much TV and playing video games predisposes kids, also.Kids don’t get to roam the neighborhood, play pick up games, and have unsupervised play anymore, and are negatively affected by the fact that they can’t just “be kids” in this day and age.
Proudman, I can see your point, I think that when the government provides for it’s citizens what they need to provide for themselves, they tend to become dependant and unmotivated. Rather than seeing assistance as a way to lift themselves up, they often start to believe that the government owes it to them. I see it all the time with many of my patients who are disabled. They tend to take what the government provides them for granted and never really do anything productive with their lives. It’s a fine line between helping people in a rough situation or encouraging them to be dependant and uninspired to solve their own problems.I believe that those who are disabled have a right to free heath care, etc. BUT many of them would thrive and be happier if they had some responsibility and purpose in life. Humans need to feel challenged in order to become their best, when they’re given everything without any expectations on their part, they often become lazy and depressed. It’s just human nature.Whenever I have the opportunity to go to The Center For Independant Living, I’m so inspired by the disabled people who work there. I’m sure they feel productive and useful, and as a result, are happier people.
I agree that TV watching is brain-disruptive, particularly with more commercial interruptions, “flash” type messages, and action/adventure themes. Brains have only so much information-assimilation capacity. Sleep is when the brain organizes the day’s inputs and experiences. Increase information, reduce sleep time, and less of what you WANT to be organized gets organized. TV has a purpose. It is not to entertain. Its purpose is to sell advertising, which is why the networks pay advertisers money to deliver eyeballs. Entertainment draws the eyeballs, which are then delivered to the advertisers.
The ultimate question is, do families need a nightly routine of TV-watching to be happy, healthy and productive? What’s wrong with parents spending evenings reading to their kids, working on various kinds of projects together, going to the Y or other exercise facility, taking family bike rides after dinner in longer-day months, etc, and fostering an active lifestyle instead of a passive one? It’s a lot healthier.
k, are you saying that Warren Buffet or his heirs will pay inheritance tax on the approximately $30 billion he is giving away?
Because if you are saying that money will be taxed at the time of his death, I think he and his heirs will be quite surprised!
KCL perhaps you should reread my post and this time read my words instead of substituting your own.
Biblical Creation vs. Creationism:Most everyone around the world knows little about what”creationism” is. They may think that they want it taughtin schools, but have no idea what the curriculum wouldbe made of. Therefore, consider the following facts.Biblical Creation is the doctrine that God created thisparticular universe, starting with the planet Earth. Thatis all that can be said of it. Biblical Creation shouldonly be taught in an advanced “Bible Theory” class.It is up to the geologist to determine “when” creationoccurred, which is accepted as being 4.6 billion yearsago. Genesis does not tell us how God created the Earth.Anyone saying differently is unqualified to speak on thesubject. There are no “creation accounts” in Genesis,regardless of what bible scholars and theologians say.Creationism is the undisciplined doctrine that Genesisteaches how God created the Earth. “Young Earth”creationism is the foolish teaching that the seven days inearly Genesis is “Creation Week”, and that it occurred6,000 to 10,000 years ago. Both points are false.”Old Earth” creationism generally falls into two maincategories:1) Theistic evolution, which calls God a liar bydeclaring that those seven days are each longages of time, and that God did not createthe Earth and universe in six days (144 hrs)as He said He did in Exodus 20:11. Also itcompromises by saying God directed evolutionto promote life on Earth.2) Variations of the “gap theory”, which teachesthat God first created a perfect world longago, and suffered ruin after Genesis 1:1, havingGenesis 1:2 as beginning the recent restorationof Earth.Both above categories are in error. From Genesis 1:2thru Genesis 2:3, should be called “the seven days ofMoses”. God revealed seven days from the past toMoses, in “biblical order”, not chronological order. Ittells us what happened after creation (4.6 Billion BC),until the advent of modern mankind (7200 BC). Thecorrect reading of Genesis declares the existence ofprehistoric mankind, and that Adam & Eve are justthe most recent dispatch of humans God made onEarth, after the recent Ice Age.Those that speak of “creationism vs. evolution” are speakingin ignorance, and have no idea what the facts are. Thereis no such contest. The opposing view of evolution is “theobservations of Moses”, not creationism. Creationism in anyform does not explain the 600+ million year fossil record.In biology science class, it would have to be the observationsof Moses, not any form of creationism. Unless BiblicalTheory is introduced into the same venue that “the Big Bang”is being discussed, you are comparing apples with tomatoes.Biblical Creation is the opposing view of “the Big Bang”.Only the correct interpretation of Genesis chapter oneexplains what happened to life forms in prehistoric times.Genesis chapter two conveys the origin of modern mankind,which began in about 7200 BC. Both Adam and Eve lived inthe Garden of Eden until 4267 BC, when they were expelled.Previous life on Earth had been removed because of reoccurringmass extinctions, which is another story.Intelligent Design is an inept, swallow doctrine thatdoes not teach the students anything about past life forms.It has nothing to say beyond “the composition of life is socomplicated, that it had to have come about by a designer”.After that one sentence, it has nothing different or ofvalue to offer, and is a near complete waste of scholastictime.Now, about Edwards v. Aguillard, U.S. Supreme Court 482U.S. 578 (1987), in which the high court correctly upheld thatCreation Science should not be required to be taught wheneverand where ever evolution was taught, which was the “CreationismAct” which was passed in Louisiana. The heart of the matter wasthat the apparent progression of prehistoric life forms on Earththrough 600+ million years of history was being discussed inschools. Creation Science did not address that issue, but ratherdenied that there even was a 600+ million year history. TheLouisiana “Creationism Act”, which required that whenever andwherever evolution was taught, that Creation Science also hadto be taught, created an inequity, which needed to be resolved.The U.S. Supreme Court rightly decided the case. Therefore,prehistoric history from Genesis can be taught in the USA.This article is to inform all that a class on Genesis is availableto science teachers. The title of the course is “Moses &Creation: Biblical Reality”. It is a 12-hour class that tellsthe truth about the first three chapters of Genesis, so thatthe teachers won’t be speaking in ignorance about whatGenesis is saying to mankind, calling it a “myth”. Neithertheology nor secular science are anywhere close to knowingwhat advanced scientific knowledge is contained in Genesis.
Therefore, any attempt to formulate any “creation”curriculum without correct technical advice from the leadingexpert is foolhardy, and is merely distribution of misinformation.
My name is Herman Cummings. I am the foremost terrestrialauthority on the book of Genesis. Due to the current pseudocontroversy between what is written in Genesis and theconclusions of secular science, I believe my services aremost needed. I would come the site designated by thelocal school or district to conduct the class.Herman CummingsPO Box 1745Fortson GA, 31808(706) 662-2893Ephraim7@aol.com
k, these are your words:
“Technically they are escaping it because they will be dead and their heirs will have to pay the tax.”
Am I taking these words out of context? Because I don’t mean to. But I ask again, because I want to understand what you meant: are you saying that Warren Buffet or his heirs will or will not pay inheritance tax on the approximately $30 billion he is giving away?
KCL you really should work on your reading comprehension skills. While that may seem like an attact it is really meant to be constructive.
Yes, I said money given to charities will not be taxed under the estate tax. There are two reasons for this. First the money is being given to a charity and is exempt from taxes (income etc.) Secondly the estate tax is a tax on money the heirs recieve. If they didn’t receive it they don’t get taxed on it. Pretty simple.
And yes you did take my statement out of contex.
k, I’ll certainly take that advice to heart. In the meantime, I’m sorry I took your words at their plain meaning.
Now, if Warren Buffet thinks the estate tax is such a good deal for our country, wcan you please tell me why he is taking steps to avoid paying that tax on some $30 billion of his estate?
Welcome to the forum Herman.
KCL – Buffet has always simply said the excess wealth should benefit society as a whole rather than just the heirs. By giving the money directly to society he is actually paying more “back” than if he bequeathed it all to his children and paid the tax. The reason: a dollar given away only leads to a fraction of a dollar saved. You should know that based on your own Schedule A deductions.
“It has nothing to say beyond “the composition of life is socomplicated, that it had to have come about by a designer”.After that one sentence, it has nothing different or ofvalue to offer, and is a near complete waste of scholastictime.”
Quoted for truth.
KCL why do you think Buffet and Gates are giving their money away to avoid the estate tax? Why can’t they want to make the world just a little bit better? Isn’t giving their money to a charity the same as giving it to the government in that either way they are losing money? As Ben said his heirs would still get a lot more if he left it to them instead. Do you really think that once a person becomes successful and gets more money than they can spend in a lifetime they lose all compassion for their fellow man? If money makes a man (or woman) lose all kindness and compassion for their fellow humans then it speaks much about their character and lack of it. Fortunately not all people are that way.
Heartlander, My adult kids have no TV, so my grandchildren find other ways to entertain themselves, they also spend a lot of time at the park, library, and going to various kid centered events around town. It takes more effort to raise kids without TV these days, that’s why so many tired parents use TV and video games as a babysitter. I think another problem that has negatively impacted our kids is the amount of junk food they consume, it’s so accessible and convenient, that it’s easy for parents to give into it rather than taking the time to provide homecooked, healthy meals. Our culture’s lifestyle of working so much and being involved in too many after school activities have parents running like crazy and too tired to do what’s right by their kids. It’s our kids that are paying the price with learning disabilities, obesity, and poor health habits that will affect them for a lifetime. It’s a huge problem in our country, but a really hard one to deal with because the healthy alternatives take time and effort, something that too many parents don’t have enough energy for.
jwinks comments about hospitals, doctors and nurses is reasonable, except for equating doctors (which means “teachers” in Latin) with public school teachers. Registered nurses are professionals. They are the closest analogues to public school teachers. Both pathways have bachelor’s programs, master’s for more advancement, and doctorate programs for a small minority of strongly academically-focused professionals. A medical doctor must undertake: four years of formal education AFTER college completion, plus another three+ years of formal practical and academic instruction BEFORE he or she begins practicing medicine in the community. In essence, one is talking about 11+ years of post-secondary education and supervised training. If every teacher had a doctoral degree, plus three years of supervised post-doctoral training, then teachers and doctors would be analogous professionals. Moreover, we would also have to consider that undergrad premeds must earn 3.5+ GPAS versus 2.75 teacher-track GPA’s, in much harder courses, which is a very large gap, followed by 60-100 hour workweeks to earn a medical degree, followed by 60-100 hour workweeks, in 300+ day work/years, as residents. New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King B’day, President’s Day, Easter, Memorial Day, July 4, Labor Day, Veteran’s Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas aren’t holidays for medical residents, nor for many medical practitioners, much less Spring/Easter week off, a four day weekend for Thanksgiving, two weeks for Christmas, and certainly not 12-week summers off.
One can understand why teachers would like to think of themselves as doctor-equivalents, but this reflects grasping-at-straws ambition without knowledge of the germane facts.
That’s pretty funny, Ben, about excess wealth. Who gets to decide when the excess starts?
I have a feeling — and of course I do not know this — that Mr. Buffett prefers to dispose of his fortune according to his own preferences rather than the government’s preferences. That is probably why he is giving it away rather than letting it be taxed.
After all, if he preferred the way government spends money to the way the Bill and Melinda Gates FOundation spends, he could give it to the government now, couldn’t he?
KCL do you even understand what I and Ben have posted?
I guess I don’t understand! Please explain to me again, this time a little slower, please.
Is Mr. Buffett taking steps to avoid paying (or requiring his heirs to pay) inheritance taxes?
If so, why?
Could it be that he wants to see his money spent his own way, rather than the government’s way (which is what will happen to much of his fortune if he doesn’t give it away)?
I see heartlander is pontificating again. Does he ever give up bashing the public school system and its dedicated teachers? Here’s one to ponder heartlander……………….the NEA has over 3 million members, are you going to force them from their chosen profession with your oh so profound words of wisdom? Give it up man. You are an irrelevant phony.
Apophis, you don’t understand history. Maybe you should go back and get a degree in it, from a reputable institution. Today’s teachers aren’t going to be substantially affected by education transformation, anymore than scientifically ignorant doctors practicing in 1900 lost their practices. The problem is that when it started to become apparent to a few in the 1960’s that industrialization was going to shift to the Third World, nobody retasked our schools of education to prepare kids for a postindustrial economy, in which people would have to think for themselves, and be capable of changing employers, even entire career fields, multiple times.
Now, you haven’t had to reinvent yourself, have you? But some of your colleagues have. I’ve met a number of teachers who became realtors, one who went into educational software, one who became a lawyer, even one teacher who successfully opened a scuba-diving shop. What’s your own reinvention dream? If you say you don’t have one, is it because your students feel you are the best teacher they have ever had, so you feel a need to serve them, or is it because you don’t have the ability to change course, or maybe you might, but you’re too scared to get out of your rut?
Most of your students will have to reinvent themselves one or more times as adults. This is because our economy, knowledge, and “rules for living” are changing at an unprecedented rate. You’ve lobbied Topeka for more money for schools. Did you lobby the district to take the proffered by citizens’ older computers, and disburse them to poorer kids who didn’t have home computers? If you didn’t, why didn’t you?
Have you lobbied for 2-hour math classes for all students? More time = more learning. If you haven’t done this, why haven’t you?
You didn’t do very well in math and science in high school, did you? So because you didn’t learn much in these fields, today’s kids don’t need to learn much in these fields. Nice obsolete prejudice.
The LA Times had an interesting article about talent-drain from conventional public schools to public charter schools. Not a loss of talented students. A loss of talented, creative, energetic teachers, particularly young ones. I’m totally in favor of innovative, dynamic public education.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-exodus3jul03,1,6239757.story
In a past blog you made the assertion that charter schools, owned by the state, and paid for by taxes, are NOT public schools. If you can’t even get your facts straight, and you spew absurdities, why should anybody listen to you?
You want to manipulate people. I don’t. I want to influence people’s thinking by getting them to consider different ideas from those of the past. They can reject my ideas. It’s no skin off my nose.
Our difference is that I understand that stasis or change will not affect me much, but will affect my kids and grandkids and their peers. Your fear is that change will adversely affect YOU and your coworkers, but in Kansas the change will be delayed, so it will not affect you and your coworkers. So alter your focus to view the impact of stasis or change to the younger generations, and you will gain a different perspective. If you can’t envision a very different future, and are preoccupied with the now, that’s the lot of most Americans. But you are supposed to be preparing the next generation for a DIFFERENT WORLD. If this is beyond your ability, you are IMPAIRING kids.
Did you start an after-school geography or history club for your most-dedicated students? Did you do a fundraiser to take them to Europe, China or India, or even LA or New York, to show them the future? If you say, “That’s not in my job description,” well what is your job description? If you truly support teaching and teachers in a postindustrial age, then you have to REINVENT teachers’ job descriptions.
All I hear from you heartlander is blah, blah, blah…………get a real life. Face it, educattion is NOT going to be “re-invented” in your desired image!
Every multi-millionaire has the same options as Buffet, Give most of your money to charity, and pass less to your heirs, than you would have if you simply had inheritance tax taken out of your estate.
Apophis, you say that education is “NOT going to be ‘reivented’ in your [my] desired image.” I don’t have an exact image. I do have a belief that smaller, nimble, experimental efforts to change outdated industrial age education, will come to the fore. My belief is predicated on a lot more diverse experiences than you have enjoyed. I’ve lived in New Mexico, Texas, California, Oklahoma, Oregon, Massachusetts, Indiana and Kansas, as well as New Zealand and Fiji. Growing up, I had Latin American, African-American and Chinese-American friends. I married a Chinese-American woman. My kids have made friends with young people from all over the globe.
Our family understands things you, as a hinterland Kansan cannot. If Kansas could develop a disconnected self-sustaining internal economy, I would support it. But it can’t: the resources for this are absent, so Kansans have no choice but to be connected to the world at large. The question is, do they want to be subservient colony inhabitants, or stand on their own feet? You want your students to be subservient. I don’t.
I’m sorry that you have been fitted with blinders, but I’m more sorry that children you teach are being hauled in your wagon.
BTW, you never answer my probing questions, such as the above-post’s questions about starting an after school club and taking your most-dedicated students outside Kansas to see the larger world. Your failure to answer says more than you wish were revealed about you. You’re an obsolete, severely-limited-experience impediment to children’s learning.
Let me ask you three other questions. Were you ever in the Peace Corps or a missionary effort in the Third World? Did you ever live in one of America’s ten largest cities? Did you ever live overseas? It’s important to know, because the economy is globalized. If you don’t answer, you discredit yourself. Go ahead, don’t be afraid to answer.
Just what paragraph does everyone object to and why?
(http://www.ksde.org/outcomes/sciencestd8t12.pdf).
I guess Apophis has once again declined to answer. For readers who accept “teachers” like Apophis, TOO BAD FOR YOUR KIDS.
Just which paragraphs of the Kansas Science Education Standards approved by the Kansas State Board of Education on November 8, 2005 does everyone object? It was at: http://www.ksde.org/outcomes/sciencestd8t12.pdfHas anyone read it or are they just going by what the Wichita Eagle says about it?
I will address Right Angle’s question. I think where the KSDE Science Standards start to veer toward ID/Creationism are in several places: {Standard, Benchmark, Indicator, Specificity) 3,3,3, 3d – “Whether microevolution (change within a species) can beextrapolated to explain macroevolutionary changes (such as newcomplex organs or body plans and new biochemical systems whichappear irreducibly complex) is controversial. These kinds ofmacroevolutionary explanations generally are not based on directobservations and often reflect historical narratives based on inferencesfrom indirect or circumstantial evidence”.
And……………..3,3,7,7a,b,c -”explains proposed scientific explanations of the originof life as well as scientific criticisms of those explanations”..”Some of the scientific criticisms include:a A lack of empirical evidence for a “primordial soup” or a chemicallyhospitable pre-biotic atmosphere;b. The lack of adequate natural explanations for the genetic code, thesequences of genetic information necessary to specify life, the biochemicalmachinery needed to translate genetic information into functional biosystems,and the formation of proto-cells; andc. The sudden rather than gradual emergence of organisms near the timethat the Earth first became habitable.”
One might think this wordage doesn’t flat out say “creationism”, but these changes were worded by the ID people, go figure. The new tactic of the ID/Creationism people is to “teach the controversy”. The trouble with all of these changes is that they dramatically depart from the National Science Education Standards. There is NO “controversy” in science. This is a typical anti-science ploy, the Republicans are doing right now in attempt to discredit global warming. I’m sure there are other “subtle” changes embedded within the standards but I’d have to dig deeper.
Now, to the “heartlander issue”….. I refuse to engage you in what you think is the need for the total obliteration of the current PUBLIC education system. This thread was supposed to be about the KSBOE and their path toward creationism. You, my misguided friend, attempt to take this and every thread and hijack it as a platform to advocate your improbable schemes for changing the education process. You just don’t get it. All you can do is belittle me for my efforts to bring to the children of Wichita the educational funding they need and deserve. You bash professional educators at every turn and at the same time as you put yourself on a pedestal for being a “retired physician”. In the future, do not bother to address any posts toward me. I tire of hearing your pointless rhetoric. Changes in the educational process will come when they come and you will have little to do with it. The true leader in educational reform is and will always be the National Education Association. I am proud to claim membership in this professional organization of over 3 million members. I also proudly claim membership in the National Science Teachers Association. This professional organization leads the fight against any and all attempts to pervert the Science taught to our nation’s children by the ID/Creationism cabal.I owe heartlander (and his type) no answers or explanations.
Maybe those of you who think that “both creationism and evolution should be taught” need to read the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution. Creationism taught as a required curriculum in a public school smacks of “establishment” of a specific religion. On a slight deviation, critics of increased public school funding in Kansas need to read our State Constitution referencing the section that requires the Legislature to adequately fund public education.
The NEA is going to reform education. Too bad that reform isn’t needed. Transformation is needed. Reinvention is needed. You just don’t get it: the American Industrial Age is closing. Schools don’t serve a past economy, they serve a future economy. I can’t help it that you’ve never been out of the hinterland to see that the future is going to be very different from the past.
But here’s the thing. Because your world view is retrospective, you are unqualified to teach young people, unless they choose you. You have no legitimate authority to force kids to take your classes. You have zero authority to grade them and thus impact their futures. Most teachers were B-C students in academic subjects. How does this qualify them to teach academic subjects? It doesn’t.
This problem is why publishing companies have stepped in to give teachers test-generating software: teachers don’t even know how to write tests anymore. There are “book report” assignments given to students in which an adult in an education publishing house wrote a book report, and then erased words and phrases, so students do fill-in-the-blank “book reports”.
We have “math” books that now have magazine-emulating formats. We have “math” classes in which half the top students are girls. This is pseudomath, not mathematics.
Great job on “reform”. Not.
Dream on heartlander…………..you are IRRELEVANT!BASH, BASH, BASH!!!!
I thought this might be helpful:
Kansas ranks last in science15 states receive failing grade in institute’s report
By John Hanna – Associated Press Writer – December 8, 2005
Topeka — Kansas has the nation’s worst science standards for publicschools, a national education group says, condemning the state forrewriting its definition of science and treating evolution as a flawedtheory.
The “F” grade from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute came after the StateBoard of Education approved the new standards last month. TheWashington-based institute said Kansas’ treatment of evolution was“radically compromised.”
“The effect transcends evolution, however,” the institute said in areport released Wednesday. “It now makes a mockery of the verydefinition of science.” . . .
“The trouble with all of these changes is that they dramatically depart from the National Science Education Standards. There is NO “controversy” in science.” This is a fallacious argument as far as logic is concerned. See A List Of Fallacious Arguments at http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html#authorityIsn’t this the same line of argument that people used against Christopher Columbus. In the 1400s they would be right in there with the news media of the time calling Christopher Columbus a nut as he sailed off to the west to find the east. Then, the overwhelming consensus of mainstream scientists “around” the world was that earth was flat.
Right angle, are trying to tell me that there IS a consensus among the mainstream scientists that ID/creationism is real “science”. You are using the typical fundamentalist/republican tactic of trying to discredit science by raising questions about some “controversy”.
There is no controversy.
It’s not going to work.
“are trying to tell me that there IS a consensus among the mainstream scientists that ID/creationism is real “science”. ”
No I did not say that.
Please read my post again.
Stop beating around the bush with your inane URL citation. What is YOUR view on the attempted insertion of ID/Creationism into the Kansas Science Standards?
Heartlander:”Most teachers were B-C students in academic subjects. How does this qualify them to teach academic subjects? It doesn’t.”
I agree with you ideas that education needs to be updated and focused on the future.
However, I disagree with what seems like your implication (above) that in order to be a better teacher on a subject you have to be the best prepated student you can be.
I believe there is something more to effective teaching than completely knowing the subject matter. I will use myself as an example. In my discipline, to get into graduate school, I had to take the GRE and GRE advanced test. On my advanced test which covered several areas of my discipline, I got a 740 – 800 is perfect – I was discouraged that I hadn’t done better.
My discipline is my first love and it is only out-ranked by my children and some days, my spouse.
I teach adjunctive courses in various universities around town. I did not not become a good teacher until I cared as much about what my students learned than my devotion to the discipline. I think it is an emphatic kind of effort that makes one a good teacher.
Another example: I have a friend who is probably ADD, but she is able to see problems as a kid would see them and is thus able to help them solve the problem. She drives her principal nuts because she is so disorganized, but her strength is her ability to get stuff across to kids.
Preparation on the subject is important, but that is not all that is needed. Knowing people and having good people skills is very helpful (if not necessary) in teaching.
As flike would say: my $0.02
Well said DD.
DD, a 740 on the GRE subject test means that you knew the vast majority of the subject matter. That required a substantial combination of raw IQ and work ethic.
I think that both Apophis and I are too old to make much of a positive difference in the education of today’s and tomorrow’s children. Ultimately, young people are going to have to lead change. For example, in 1970 fifty-sixtyish computer scientists didn’t see personal computers on the horizon. Same-aged schoolteachers certainly didn’t. It took young nerds to birth this amazing phenomenon.
I remember using a “dumb” terminal hooked up to an IBM mainframe. This was IBM’s vision for connecting more people to computing power. The PC leapfrogged this. Twenty-year-olds Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak tried to get HP to build PCs. Rejected. So they created their own company.
Wozniak, of note, decided to become a multimillionaire math teacher. He found a Silicon Valley school whose administration decided, “He’s not certified in math, but he’s a really smart guy. Let’s invite him in.”
Teaching is of course more than subject knowledge. Understanding and conveying are not synonymous. But you must have understanding of subject matter before you can pass it on. It is what is known in mathematics as necessary, but not sufficient. Ed schools have operated on the principle that it is unnecessary. That’s completely fallacious.
The problem with the public education system is, it empowers those who are long in tooth, who tell the younger generation of teachers, “You have to bide your time. You have to pay your dues. Then you can rise to power positions.” But then, you’ve squandered young teachers’ youthful energy, and novel insights. Apophis wants to apply brakes. He wants the traditional regime to hold sway. This isn’t the time to do this.
I find it interesting that public schoolteachers originally invented national board certification, in an effort to emulate doctors. The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards was founded in 1987. So it has been around for almost 20 years. What percentage of teachers are now certified? Approximately 2.5%. At current growth rate, when NBPTS is 40 years old, in 2017, fewer than 15% of teachers will be certified.
A lot of teachers say, “Well board certification isn’t really relevant.” But THEY INVENTED IT. So, they are saying THEY INVENTED AN IRRELEVANCY?
DD, you have argued that there is much more to effective teaching than subject knowledge, and I concur wholeheartedly. But let’s look at this closely. Do you have to undergo formal training in education theory and didactics methodology to become a great teacher? Not at all. The top-ranked private schools in America have mostly uncertified teachers at the high-school level. These are schools that presidents, VPs, senators, and CEOs send their children to. That’s a take-home lesson.
My wife and I know we are very good teachers by measures such as objectively testing our students on what they have learned, and by subjectively allowing them to make evaluations of us, delivered to third parties. Does Apophis hand out teacher-evaluation forms to his students, to be quantitatively analyzed? Probably not. But the reality is, children can distinguish amazing teachers from very good from okay from deficient from awful ones. This is not to say EVERY child can make an accurate report, but statistically, children can tell us a lot. For teachers who want to learn.
Wichita has subsisted on blue-collar paychecks disbursed by “foreign” (distant) companies. But the jobs are shrinking. Wichita’s aviation employment has shrunk by more than 50% since the 1950’s. It will hold or marginally expand in the next five years, but then will shrink further, and probably disappear in 25 years–unless workers accept Third World global-standard wages. So do people here want to live in a Third World community, even if they are the few rich in such a community? If they do not, then education reinvention is required.
There is an important article on technology and education in the LA Times. It is important because it explains things that most middle-age+ Americans, including NEA leaders, have trouble comprehending: kids don’t need traditional teachers or traditional teaching methods to learn. It discusses an international technology-in-education conference held in San Diego last week.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/schoolme/2006/07/the_philippines.html
I’m going to cut-and-paste a few germane points from the article, titled “Brazilians with tiny orange laptops vs. entertainment-addled game boyz and girlz?” and comment.
“[Today's American students are not] interested in copying the notes that teachers dutifully scrawl across the board each day…When the U.S. Department of Education asked you youngsters if you find school engaging or interesting, only 21% said yes.”
Comment: Let’s do the math: 79% of American students DO NOT find school engaging or interesting. That’s 4 out of 5 students. We have had numerous NEA-endorsed reforms over the past 23 years since “A Nation at Risk” was published. When only 1 out of 5 students finds these reforms have made school engaging or interesting, who here would agree that THESE REFORMS ARE NOT WORKING? So, are parents supposed to sit back and conclude that NEA-led teachers just need a lot more time? They’ll figure out how to reverse this ratio and engage and interest 79% of kids by 2080?
Back to the article (CAPS are mine):
“Ian Jukes, the arm-flailing, globetrotting author and owner of the Committed Sardine edu-blog, talked, for instance, about how ‘disintermediation,’ or the ability TO INGEST INFORMATION DIRECTLY FROM PRIMARY SOURCES, HAS MOVED POWER FROM PRODUCERS (in this case traditional educators) TO CONSUMERS (i.e., students and their parents).
“We adults are paper-oriented in our learning. The kids now sitting in those little wood-and-steel desks are light-and-sound-oriented. THEY NOT ONLY KNOW WHERE TO FIND, IN AN INSTNT, MORE INFORMATION THAN THEIR TEACHER COULD LEARN IN A LIFETIME, but they absorb it in a flash and thump of video — and KNOW HOW TO CREATE AND SHIP THEIR OWN MULTIMEDIA CONTENT AROUND THE GLOBE.”
Comment: How amazing is this? And yet, most traditional teachers are clueless about it. Right now, mainly mid-middle-class-and-above students are able to do this, and most of them are on the coasts. But this is going to change quickly, with $100 laptops.
“Keynote speaker Nicholas Negroponte, a founder of MIT’s Media Lab as well as Wired magazine, offered a glimpse of his controversial effort to give millions of poor kids worldwide a low-wattage, Web-linkable laptop at a cost of about $100 each.
“What’s even more radical than his distribution plan, however, is the education equation on which he’s basing his initiative.
“When his group hands out the first 5 million to 10 million machines next year, THEY WILL OFFER NO CURRICULA. Rather, they’re counting on students in Brazil and Nigeria (and probably China and India and dozens of other countries soon) to take the little orange gadgets home, figure out how to use them for whatever they want — from helping Mom inventory her fruit stand to tracking down soccer stats — and then come back to class and HELP TEACHERS LEARN not just a new technology but A NEW CONCEPT OF THE RELATION BETWEEN LEARNING AND TEACHING.
“As an acolyte of Thomas Friedman’s ‘The World Is Flat,’ I’ve been telling my children to work hard in school so they don’t wind up fetching coffee for young doctors and engineers educated in India and China. Negroponte’s globalism-sans-national-concern causes my moral compass to spin.
“As the conference got rolling, Don Knezek, the ed-tech society’s CEO, spoke of recent trips to the Philippines, where leaders plan to use techno-training to do for teachers what that nation already did with nurses: plaster them across the science-averse U.S. In Jamaica, he was told: ‘We want to stamp every one of our teachers ‘fit for export.’”
Comments: Aha! Now we understand the importation of Filipino (actually most Filipina) math and science teachers. Their nation has deliberately created a m/s “teacher factory” whose product is specifically designed for export to the U.S. (Did the Eagle article on these teachers last month mention this? No it did not. This is why more WE readers should follow papers like the Timeses, then post their findings and help WE staff learn too.)
Have Wichita teachers lobbied USD 259 to get these $100 laptops into the hands of Wichita students, so that they can have access to knowledge that kids in Brazil and other Third World countries are going to have? No, they are too far behind the curve to know about this.
This idea of students learning without teachers is already here, and teachers here have problems with it. Two years ago, WE reported on a California website called hotmath.org (now com). It gave detailed solutions to several standard high school math textbooks’ odd-numbered exercises. Local math teachers interviewed tried to discredit hotmath. Never mind that it was created by a Berkeley computer wiz, and a university professor. Never mind that it emulated, and improved upon students solutions manuals published for math and science textbooks used in all community colleges to research universities in America. Never mind that it was designed to prepare kids for higher ed after high school. Never mind that the textbook publishers supported it–today solutions are available for most textbooks used in public schools. Never mind that really smart high school teachers were contributing solutions. In our region, these things were not considered. The local teachers who were interviewed were upset about ONE THING: STUDENTS WERE BYPASSING THEM. The teachers feared LOSING CONTROL OF STUDENTS’ LEARNING. THESE TEACHERS FELT DEEPLY THREATENED BY THEIR OWN OBSOLESCENCE.
Apophis has an interesting take on things. He says I am anti-public education. Actually I am pro-public education and APOPHIS is anti-public education. Why do I assert this? Because he insists on perpetuating public-education failure, i.e. upholding a unionized, seniority-based, anti-math, anti-science Industrial Age education model. This obsolete model is spurring the expansion of private schools, home-education, and charter schools in which highly committed and creative twentysomething year old teachers are able to design their classes, and ossified Industrial Age-minded-fixture teachers are not invited to join, because they would sandbag change.
You can ardently believe you are “for” public education, but if the acts you commit actually work to dismantle it, then you are deceiving yourself. Or, what you are really doing is trying to feather your own nest for as long as you can get away with it. When the crash comes, it won’t affect you.
Apophis’s problem is that teaching per se isn’t fun for him. If it were fun, i.e. if he could engage and interest 80% of his students, then he wouldn’t be sidetracked into devoting most of his afterschool hours into union activities, rather he would devote all his energies to teaching children. He’d set up an afterschool club. He’d figure out how to get funding to take his students to places that his courses talk about.
Perhaps he’s not a true teacher. He may just be just a guy who was a lazy, mediocre high school student who didn’t want to do blue-collar work, but who liked a pitch of 3 months plus huge school-year vacation time off, lifetime-secure employment, super healthcare insurance, the opportunity to retire by age 55, and a comfortable pension. If 80% of his students could get these things for themselves, maybe his ideas would be germane–but his students can’t, and his ideas aren’t.
Let’s talk about science teaching and evolution. First off, if you are against paying science and math teachers $15-20,000 more than language arts and social studies teachers, you are against having Kansas students learn science and math. You can say that you are not against this, but you are. It takes a lot more work to learn, and teach science and math than the humanities. They use totally foreign languages. How do you think that would-be teachers learn these as students? By working exceptionally hard. If you say this effort isn’t worth paying for it, you have a something for nothing ethos. Since you aren’t going to get this, you get pseudo science and math teaching.
On evolution, I don’t have a problem with this. But I understand why a lot of Kansans do. Take the monkey-to-man theory. An enlarging brain, and greater intelligence. Now extend this: some people have higher evolved intelligence than others.
This was an immediately realized corolllary of Darwin’s proposition of natural selection. It gave rise to the eugenics movement. Bruce Lahn at the University of Chicago performed DNA studies of people and found strong evidence for a genetic correlation with high IQ. He proposed that mutations arose that gave their recipients higher thinking abilities.
This is absolutely scientific. His findings have not been criticized scientifically, but socially: “There are some questions science should not ask.” But that isn’t science. Science seeks understanding of the natural world. There are no out-of-bounds questions in science, if such questions can be answered through scientific means.
There are a lot of Kansans, a majority assuredly, who don’t want to hear, “You aren’t as evolved as other humans. You didn’t inherit the higher-IQ genes that evolution produced.” They don’t want to hear that they are “genitically inferior”. They don’t want their children to hear this. Can we blame them for feeling this way? If 5 million people in America’s granary feel this way, do 5 Supreme Court Justices have the right to violate their beliefs in their own self-worth? Think about it.