OoF comes in to confirm my suspicions about the newest generation:
Because Fuzzy Math is currently the curriculum in some schools. Unlike this curriculum, which may be approved but is not implemented and therefore not finalized. Education only gets brought up and bloviated about when it doesn't trend towards ever lower standards and feel-goodery.
Again, who the fuck is talking about fuzzy math here? You continuosly use the same, irrelevant example in a sad, failed attempt to drag the conversation off-topic. Stop wasting time and blowing hot air about a different subject.
Neither of those things have been explicitly stated as part of the curriculum. Neither Christianity nor ignorance of natural selection have been singled out. Macro-evolution maybe, but Macro-evolution and natural selection are two different things. The former is an extrapolation of the latter which has not been observed.
I shouldn't even have to point the flaws in this statement out. For your convience, here's about a dozen links that have already been posted:
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_o...ntific_support
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...tional_fossils
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nylon-eating_bacteria
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthet...Entire_genomes
http://darwinwasright.homestead.com/11thFFoC.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory#Scientific_theories
The "credentialed" status of the person in question is irrelevant to his views or expertise in education. The only reason the article would bring it up is to attempt to discredit him through personal attack.
oh noes! bias in a news article! it's the only way people could make this conservative movement look bad!
First of all, you countered this whole topic with your "fuzzy Math" story, which was written by Michelle Malkin.
Michelle Malkin, for fuck's sakes.
Basically, what you are saying here is that an ultraconservative car salesman is as qualified as a college graduate or history professor when it comes to writing the history curriculum for the students of Texas. Really? You're saying that some guy can use his beliefs to warp history out of dimensions when somebody entirely more qualified is watching from the sidelines in horror, helpless to do anything?
As for having real points, I've yet to see anything but regurgitated slop from you. You always engage in such ridiculous class warfare and race baiting that I can only believe your views were drummed into you by teacher. 18 year-olds do not generally think they are avatars of the poor and oppressed, or that anyone who believes things other than they do are agents for white suburbia. These are both positions you have espoused and I can't believe you came to them without significant indoctrination from your teachers. As selfish, self-righteous, and idiotic as teenagers in general can be, few of them are as consistently mired in doctrinaire textbook liberalism as you are.
"blah blah blah rant"-OoF
So now you are suddenly the more competent debater here, because you opponent is clearly some idiot with no opinion of his own? This is frequently what people like you will try to do. You drag your opponent into the gutter. Are you really so pathetic that degrading your opponent is the only thing you can do to make your self feel better when the tides have turned against you? This statement above is a massive hypocrisy, as you are the one who earlier said that "they are trying to discredit him through personal attack". Is that not what you are doing to OoF right here? I'd say that you have some explaining to do.
It was more than one teacher, I could provide several more links. One important difference between the videos is that the children singing praises to Obama were preschoolers, whereas the ones in your video are middle-schoolers at least, high-schoolers most likely. Furthermore it was not conducted in a classroom, it was an event outside of class to greet the President. Tacky and self-serving as it might be (thanks Tricky Dick), it is nowhere near the level of the Obama praisefests.
What? So now the argument is that we are using propaganda to hypnotize the children of America? Are you really so daft to suggest that these little songs are works of the far left? Also, this has nothing to do with the topic at hand. Please step back and take a firm grasp on reality, sir.
The rich already have all the benefits of high education. Our current system of education already fails the poor. Inner city schools (where the poorest live) are the worst. They are inferior to other schools despite whatever funding they get. In inner city schools they have given up on the poor, most of whom suffer from broken homes and live as generational dependents of the very government that purports to be educating them.
So, what? Are you saying that we should just give up entirely on the reform and improvement of the poor, "inner city" schools? That this is just some epidemic failure to concede to? That it is better for these children to have no education at all then to have them "force fed the ideas of liberals"
? So that these children can grow up with violent gang influence and no education, with no hopes for the future? Even with these arguments, the clearly misguided Texas board of education is basically force-feeding the ides of ultraconservatives? Once again, you seem to supporting a system of haves and have-nots.
It is ridiculous that posters here want to pretend that the politicians you elect time and time again for decades have no impact on the culture of the region or quality of education. If people vote for Democrats because Democrats promise to help them, and forty years later they are in worse financial and educational position despite all the liberal "help," how can anyone conclude that Democratic policies are not at least a driver of the problem? That is asinine. It assumes a zero-sum game where poverty and crime are intrinsic and the only reason you have elections is so that politicians can pretend to do something, and all the talk about policy is theater. Maybe that's the case where you all are from, but in America we don't subscribe to that philosophy. Or at least I don't. You can't keep electing people who think poverty can be solved by the printing press and expect the relative value of your society to increase. Since the primary mode of Democratic help is through government largesse, removing government from schooling is likely to improve the situation dramatically.
This is a very confusing and senseless statement. You throw numbers like "forty years" at us, and speak of "ohoho democrats only make things worse" and expect it to work? Your idiotic idea of how removing the government from public education will help families stricken with poverty i awful and ridiculous. Without the government funding, kids will not be able to afford schooling, and grow up into a life on the streets with gangs, petty crime, and maybe even somewhere more serious. Well, big news for you, pal: those without educations cannot get jobs. Those without jobs cannot pay for basic needs and shelter.Those people then resort to crime to get what they need. The whole cycle repeats itself, and in the end, you have accomplished less than nothing.
The federal government should thus be removed from schooling. Every federal (and even state in many instances) dollar that goes to fund public schools has a detrimental effect on performance. Local funding always has the greatest positive impact because local communities suffer from the results of failing schools where states and the federal government do not. Local funding also has fewer restrictions on it. Municipalities should be able to decide if they want a municipal school, but there should not be a federal department of education.
And what if the municipality cannot afford a school? The quality of education becomes poor to zilch. See above.
As far as your class warfare bullshit OoF, this is exactly what I was alluding to earlier. You, not I, are the one constantly going on about the haves and the have-nots. You are the one constantly railing about sinister suburbia. You sound like you absorbed your teacher's leftist "critique" eagerly and left your critical thinking apparatus at home. Since it most likely was too radical even for your parents to buy into, you feel like you've unlocked some new wisdom to slay the evil racist suburban dragons with. It's just that nobody understands your brilliance.
Again, here's that whole "discredit through personal attacks" thing. my responses are getting easier.
You have a critique, you have talking points, but you do not think critically. You accept without review the idea that government is an inexorably positive force on education whose removal would be a blow to an unspecified "poor," even as the results of the current system show poor lay around you in squalor by a government that has done nothing but encroach further and further for decades on end. You resign yourself to the belief that if government created the problem then therefore government must fix it to be responsible. You never apply this logic to anywhere else, however. For instance, you probably do not trust Wall Street to fix Wall Street.
So, what now? you expect the poor to fix themselves? don't they have enough problems to deal with, like crime, or even just getting food on the table? People in poor communities would likely not feel horribly pressured to fund schooling for children when they're fighting just to see tomorrow.
Back to the poor, somehow they managed to get educated long before the NEA came into existence. If there were not a public monopoly on education that pilfered from everyone's pocket regardless of their use then private schools could stand on a more competitive footing (lower price). Dare I even mention homeschooling?
Here you skate past the fact that the majority of people period did not receive educations before 1857.
California is "too fucking poor?" That's what you consider a fact? California is a solidly blue state with solidly blue educators who teach the same crap that you have clearly absorbed to perfection. California has routinely done everything "right" in the liberal playbook you subscribe to. They celebrate diversity in schools, they have strong teacher's unions, they resist English immersion, I can recall one story from my ex-girlfriend (lived in Tahoe) who said one of her teachers brought in something from Rush Limbaugh and asked them to point out the inaccuracies (inaccuracies which I am sure the teacher himself provided). They have a fondness for Keynesian economic policies and lax law enforcement. California is a model citizen for Democratic education policy. California was at one point the 7th largest economy in the world. The idea that "too poor" could ever describe California, even in its bankruptcy, is ridiculous.
Here you are, turning this in to a party war. Goddammit, why can't people ever actually work together to find what's best for their nation? Here you are being hateful and "discrediting through personal attacks". Hmm. That sure is coming up a lot.
Yet California is now bankrupt suffering under the weight of their own fantasies. That is why the article lamented California's fall from the market. They were mired so long in the very policies Texas is trying to de-emphasize in their curriculum that they eventually reaped the toxic results.
Catholic Schools are some of the best schools in the nation (and the world, globally). Catholic Schools do not accept "Jesus did it" as an acceptable answer on any science exam. Unlike public schools which must bow to "everybody gets a prize" political correctness and appeal to the lowest common denominator, Catholic Schools attempt to elevate the moral character of students, to varying degrees of success. Catholic Schools also try to serve the poorest areas of the nation where no-one else will tread, just like Catholic hospitals. You give me the choice between a public school and a Catholic school, and I will always choose the Catholic school. Even non-Catholics choose Catholic schools because the quality of education is higher. Catholic Schools do teach God, and their students do better than those God-free, prayer-free public schools.
Now you're bringing religion into this. Please stay on topic.
I've not made any statements on natural selection, which you have conflated with Macro-evolution.
No President should ever be worshiped in a classroom setting, period. Especially by children still in the most malleable stages of their lives.
It's been done before, why would it not happen again? Plus, these ultraconservative views on education sure do exaggerate the importance of one certain president....*cough*Reagen*cough*.
Pot meet Kettle, seriously. I have never claimed the world is "biased against rich white males." That's more class warfare bullshit that you and Oddish on Fire share an affinity for. Don't put words in my mouth. I understand perfectly the perspective of most of the other people and have deemed it laughable in the face of the facts. I refuse to be demagogued by people complaining about "perspective," especially since they rarely extend the same courtesy.
As Firestorm says, you clearly do say this at many points. Don't even try to stray from the fact is that every last fucking one of your statements revolves around this "bias against rich white males" crap.
Even if we were discussing natural selection instead of Macro-evolution, using that one topic as an indicator for the sciences in general is logically errant. Natural selection is scientifically proven and can be tested with reliable results repeatedly after accounting for any mitigating factors. Macro-evolution is a theory that proposes the diversification of species with natural selection as its basis, but no one has yet been able to get one species to turn into another through the reproductive methods available to natural selection.
Links above. Read them.
Considering False Hope and Unspecified Change is what our current President campaigned on, I find it hard to believe people don't think all change is good change. Revolutionaries of the kind behind CanadaCare and ObamaCare never care about the results of their change, only that the change happens and empowers them as designed. Texas is taking a step in a different direction, and since unspecified change is all the rage, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
so, what? Altering history to fit what they want is a step in the right direction? and why are you suddenly talking about Canada? You're still biased for the wealthier class that can afford their own health care.
Which is a lot more than anyone else here gives Texas. Or Christianity for that matter. Nobody would even have posted this topic if it weren't a magnet for drawing out every leftist foreigner (and leftist Americans with the same leanings) looking for another excuse to call Americans, Christianity, and specifically the American South backward.
Dood, I'm in Oklahoma. Get the fuck over yourself.
If America had a first-rate public education system I wouldn't be so animated. But it doesn't. The same complaints about "anti-science" and "teaching religion" have been bogeymen trotted out by the people who let this system degrade to its current state in the first place. Maybe actual scholarly progress at the expense of the sacred cows of Macro-evolution and Secular Humanism is worth trying for a little while.
More degrading...
I don't have to agree with everything Texas is doing. In fact I don't. But they are trying to do something different and constructive. I am tired of an institution whose representatives only suggest the solution "give us more money." While I'm sure there are private and Catholic schools that occasionally cry poor mouth, that is not their first, last, and only suggested recourse.
>Texan eduction ideas
>Constructive
