None of that other stuff is formally taught as science. It isn’t analogous.
If a college requires that its applicants have taken a biology class in high school, and a particlar school teaches ID in its biology class, then that school is not teaching biology and that applicant has not fulfilled that prerequisite. This is not difficult. It’s not about “punishking” kids for having been taught ID, it’s about being consistent. They haven’t earned the credit. They haven’t studied biology.
I wonder how it would fly if other schools were subjected to the same assumption that their students were inadequately prepared.
"Let’s see, Mr. Johnson - you attended a largely black, inner-city school. Hmmm - obviously they didn’t teach you anything worthwhile. No college for you. Next!
Ms. Smith - I see you once took an English course that covered Ebonics. Sorry, you’re out.
Mr. O’Hara - your ‘History of Science’ class spent a day discussing the impact of Lysenko on Soviet agriculture. Here’s an application for the McDonald’s down the street."
And so forth.
Regards,
Shodan
Speaking as a Christocentric retrograde pinhead, I find your observations about enlightenment to be intriguing, if only for the conspicuous and ebullient absence of any enlightened thinking underlying them.
Well, I think that’s terribly short-sighted. Just because the state board–a small number of peabrains–made the ID decision, does that mean that every well-educated, dedicated teacher, principal, and student in the system immediately changed, became unworthy of respect? They are what truly make up “the system.”
It was a bad decision, IMO, and students are the poorer for it. But I think to eschew having any respect for the entire education system in the state is too extreme a reaction.
High schools are accredited by the State Board of Education (which obviously isn’t going to yank accreditation over this!) but they can also be accredited by one of six regional affiliates which accredit postsecondary institutions (although they use different criteria, obviously). I think Kansas falls under the North Central Association of Schools and Colleges.
However, I just ran across something that makes me think it wouldn’t matter after all:
Your point is valid and your examples are really bad.
The education of kids from inner city schools is already suspect, (as it should be) and we then run into the contrasting problems of letting them in to college to sink unprepared or rating their schools lower and keeping out some kids who have overcome that barrier.
Ebonics is a legitimate dialect of English and deserves to be taught in an English course.
A History of science that did not address the issues of the distortion of science by Lysenko would be seriously deficient. (Much as a History of Science should address the idiocy of the Scopes trial and the various school boards trying to implement Creationism or its stealth buddy, ID.)
Unless everyone who advocates “punishing” kids in Kansas for the mistakes of some of their elders is willing to go out and examinme all the School Board pronouncements throughout the nation, declaring, on a state by state basis, which states have been contaminated by the rhetoric of the idiots in their (largely ineffectual) school boards, then you are simply posturing, here.
The Kansas board did not decree that question of Intelligent Design was to be included in standardized tests, they provided no text to be taught, they did nothing but issue a wishy-washy directive that is going to be ignored by every good biology teacher (and would have been taught, anyway, by every crappy science teacher). They are also not the only state that has embraced such idiotic language in their directives, so you are getting enraged at them simply because they made the news.
I am actively working to oppose and eventually unseat the Ohio board members that dragged the issue into Ohio, but I think this talk of disallowing Kansas graduates into colleges is bombastic overkill that, if attempted, would actually drive more uncommitted and uninformed voters into the “freedom of academia” camp. You guys are so eager to make this an Issue that you will actually harm your own cause.
Yes, but your argument appears to be a practical one, not an ideological one. You’re assuming that whatever amount of time is spent on the “non-science” subject matter, thata the kids will—automatically—not have grasped the amount of real science that they should have.
The only thing that you need to focus on (if, in fact, your concern is a practical one and you are not reacting emotionally to something you don’t like or agree with) is: are the subjects that should be covered being covered? If there is time spent talking about the world series or what may have happened on TV the night before or the upcoming pep rally—or ID—that in no way means that the subject matter hasn’t been covered and that these kids have a deficient grasp of the rudiments of mechanics, biology, the scientific method, or whatever is supposed to be covered. Surely you wouldn’t say that a one-sentence mention of ID would render these kids science imbeciles. How about a one-minute mention? Five minutes? Ten minutes? One day? Two days? Five days? At what point is a significant amount of time “stolen” from the core curriculum that it can’t be covered? Until you have enough information to talk about these things, your objection cannot be taken seriously.
Can we not agree that until we know how much time is beiing spent on ID, and if it is substantial, what subject matter is going to be skipped or given short shrift in order to make room for it, that your objection can—and should—be chalked up to your ideological preferences? Until you can show what is being sacrificed by having ID as part of the curriculum, it is not about the kids, it’s about you.
I take it this post is your way of using a lot of big words to say “Nyahh-nyahh-na-nyahh-nyahh”?
So you don’t see any value in my post. I get that. Do you have a point otherwise? I’m still waiting for some explanation of my question about how it’s not bigoted to exclude students with science backgrounds to admit Kansans with ID backgrounds, if you’re interested in posting something with content.
This would be true only if the entire biology class, or a large chunck of it, has been devoted to teaching ID. Unless you can demonstrate that to be true, your argument isn’t valid.
With regard to the OP, when Kansas first demonstrated their dedication to educational mediocrity in 1999, they got a lot of flak from colleges and universities that contributed to a reversal the next year.
This will go away fairly quickly.
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I heard an interview several years ago, on NPR I believe, with one of the teachers who put forth the notion of Ebonics in Oakland back in 1996. He emphasized a point which was lost from day one in the national debate that took place over it at the time.
While there is certainly an argument to be made in favor of the study the history and development of African-American dialects, the main goal of the mid-nineties Ebonics proposition in Oakland was a semi-joke designed to chastise the school board for ridiculous bureaucratic behavior.
There was a sizeable amount in the local school budget earmarked for aid to students whose primary language was not English. When the number of such students turned out to be small in Oakland, and each had received the legal maximum, there was still money left over in that budget line-item. When teachers and principals requested that the remaining money be diverted to the many poor black students in Oakland who also had needs, the powers that were came back with a flat “No”. The money was only for students of non-English origin, but since each of those students had received all they were going to, the remaining money was apparently going to go unspent.
The resourceful Oakland educators responded: “Fine, here are some students whose primary language is not standard English, but Ebonics, a distinct, English-derived dialect with thus-and-such history” in an attempt to get at the funds, or at least call attention to how ridiculous the controllers of the budget were being.
Seems Kansas doesn’t hold a monopoly on idiotic school administration.
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I think that teaching ID so completely undermines the whole concept of what is and what is not science that it invalidates the entire class. If a history class teaches the sinking of Atlantis as historical fact or that the pyramids were built by aliens it would invalidate that class in the same way. Once a particular class curriculum is known to have deliberately included false information as fact, it would be irresponsible not to completely discredit the class. It isn’t punishing the student, it’s just recognizing that the student has not taken a legitimate course in a required subject. Yes, I am saying that any science class which teaches that ID is fact or is a genuine “alternative” to Darwinian evolution is ipso fact an illegitimate science class.
“Ebonics” is a poor choice of wording. AAVE (African-American Vernacular English) is probably the preferred term. There is no doubt that it is a distinct dialect, although there is a huge debate about what it’s role in the education process should be.
Incidentally, I also think the lack of a legitimate biology credit could be compensated for by a test. The test should include questions about the definitions of science and scientific theory, and a straight up question asking them if they think ID is science. Anyone who thinks ID is science does not deserve a high school diploma, IMO.
Look, the reality is that most kids get almost no coverage of evolution in their sophmore high school biology classes, and by the time they graduate from high school they’ve already forgotten it all. They probably remember more about evolution from watching Jurassic Park than they do from high school.
Most colleges require a passing grade on a certain minumum amount of coursework, and standardized tests that don’t include a science component.
If a good basic knowledge of evolution was a requirement for college entrance then probably more than half of this year’s incoming freshmen would be sent back home. We don’t teach kids about evolution in this country. Not just Kansas, everywhere. Yeah, it would be great if schools actually taught kids science, especially biology, especially evolution, but they mostly don’t. Kansas isn’t the problem, it’s an instance of the problem.
As stated above, I feel the addition of ID into biology class invalidates the course as a science credit. Part of the reason is that ID is not science. Another part of the reason is that the board of education clearly has no idea what’s going on. I can’t trust them to make a simple decision like this, and as a result I have to be sceptical of every other decision they’re making. To them, it is okay to teach religion in science class, they have so little respect for their teachers, and the science of biology, that they added religion into an already loaded curriculum. Even if it was just 5min, that 5min wasn’t there last year. They already had a full curriculum, which had to take into account all the of the silly pre-Christmas quizzes, pizza parties, and pokemon tournaments. In addition to all of that they have to spend 5min talking about religion. You want me to repspect their biology teachers (which I did until now), but how did they allow this decision to take place?
Their decision to add–let’s say 5min of ID into the curriculum–would have used up THEIR time as board members. Even if we agree that highschool biology classes spends most of their talking about movies, can we assume the board of education has fixed recourses and a fixed amount of time to decide curriculum? How much time did they waste adding ID to the biology curriculum? Instead of doing their job, and making sure that their students received the best possible science education, they wasted their time discussing ID.
Reputation is important. Up until now, I held Kansas in the same high regard as every other US highschool. I’m sure they suffer from the same challenges as Canadian school boards, and I was willing to give Kansas students the benefit of the doubt. I assumed their highschool education was at least equal, if not better, then my own, now I’m not so sure.
So even if you think adding ID to biology class has no impact, what does it say about the school board that made that decision? Do you have more or less respect for them? This is the crap that makes the news, but what are we missing? What other stupid religious ideas are they adding to other courses? {insert generic comment about the Earth being 6000 years old and Pi equalling 3…} How much time are they wasting discussing this? To me, this issue invalidates both the biology class AND the school board who made this decision. Clearly they do not have their students best interests in mind and as a result the rest of the highschool program has become suspect.
So what are you saying to the rest of the world? Do Canadian universities need to be suspecious of American highschool students? Are you telling me that your highschool science program is bunk?
Let’s assume your statement was correct, shouldn’t the school board being doing things to IMPROVE highschool science? This Kansas school board made the choice to add 5min to the biology curriculum, and I applaud that. But wait, what did they add? Did that 5min go towards making better students? NO, it made them worse. They COULD have added 5min to challenge their students, to make them BETTER. After what, 5min of debate, the school board decided the best thing for their students was to learn about ID. If I heard their biology students were getting an extra 5min of anatomy, or physiology, or even botany, in some interesting way, I would have been impressed. I would have said, “damn, there’s a school board doing something right.” I would have gone to my school board and said, “Look, the Kansas school board found a way to make their students better, why aren’t we following suit?”
BUT THEY DIDN’T. They choose to make their students worse, and I’m truly sorry for their students. I don’t care if you believe in ID that’s between you and Darwin to sort out. The issue here is whether or not adding it to their curriculum is making better or worse students. My vote is for worse, which gives colleges the full right to reject them until Kansas can prove otherwise. Its not about ID vs evolution, this decision is indicative of how the Kansas school board feels about science education.
No, this is about ID and ID only. Unless, of course, you have cites to show us that Physics and Chemistry are taught differently in Kansas than in other states.
emacknight, the Bible does not strictly teach that Pi = 3. The “error” in I Kings 7:23 is likely due to the rounding of cubits. In the Bible, lengths are usually only described in whole cubits (sometimes in half cubits). Any other size would be rounded up or down to the nearest cubit.
That’s my point. I have no way of evaluating Kansas students individually, neither do universities. I have to trust that their school board is putting together an adaquite program, and in my opinion its up to the school board to prove their students are worth considering. If their school board cannot tell the difference between science and folklore, what conclusion should I draw? I don’t have the time or resourses to evaluate each of their students or each of their courses on a case by case basis. I’m sorry if that seems unfair, but you certainly can’t evaluated each Canadian student individually. You are left to judge them based on, unfortunately, their reputation.
I was willing to assume the Kansas biology program included generic biology concepts, taught by competent teachers, using challenging testing methods. I had no reason to assume otherwise. But if their school board believe that ID is a valid part of biology, what do they believe? Now I’m left looking at all of their programs and wondering what other non-sence their including.
Consider this: How do you rate Canadian highschool students? Are they on par with American students? Why, why not? Now, what if I told you that in chemistry class we learned that hydrogen and oxygen from water because Jesus wants it to. We don’t learn about valence electrons, S and P orbitals, vanderwal forces. We learn that Jesus said, “as I turn water into wine, I also turn 2H2 and O2 into 2H2O.” Honestly, what would that say about our chemistry program? Sure, maybe that only relates to H2 and O2, but would have have any faith in the rest of the program? Oh, we also learn about Inteligent Falling, and that gravity is just a theory. Now what does that say about our physic program? In history I learned the Earth is only 6000 years old, and aparently nothing happened before that. Would you have any respect for Canadian students? That’s the point here. Thankfully my school board saw fit to make sure I had the most challenging science program they could afford, and as a result I went on to a masters in mechnical and biomedical engineering.
Therein lies the key issue here, I think. We don’t know yet whether ID will be taught instead of the Modern Synthesis, alongside it, or if it just merits casual mention, alongside such topics as Lamarckism and spontaneous generation. Certainly, you will acknowledge that there is no harm in learning about ID (just about everyone in this thread knows about it, yet we are none the poorer for it, intellectually).
If ID were to form the core of the biology curriculum in the state of Kansas, then I agree that there would be a significant, statewide problem, as well as providing a major disservice to the students. However, given, as was mentioned before, there really isn’t any substantial way to form a core curricuum out of ID, unless one plans on doing a whole lot of handwaving (and, in essence, teaching nothing substantial, about ID or otherwise). What can really be taught? Dembski’s “theories” are so convoluted and vague that few university professors can make much sense of them, much less the typical high school instructor (and especially student!). Behe’s “irreducible complexity” sounds nice, and could actually represent a viable test of evolutionary theory - one that, unfortunately for Behe, evolutionary theory has passed at each turn. So you can’t really teach that as fact without buttloads of distortion (and any instructor who would willingly do as much wasn’t going to provide the students a great service regardless of the content). And really, there’s not much else out there, “theory”-wise.
The reality of the situation, I think, will be such that there will really be little difference between “then” (before the BofE’s silliness) and “now”, in terms of what the students actually learn. Any decent bio instructor will simply ignore whatever the BofE has decreed, and teach biology normally, as they have done. If that results in a court case, a la Scopes, so much the better.
Why did you respect the biology teachers when they have five minutes having a pizza party, but not 5 minutes discussing ID?
Regards,
Shodan