Stop teaching pseudoscience in school

[_Paul Kemp]

Looks like Droopy's copy of The Limbaugh Letter came today.

I don't expect the slightest substance from you at this point Kemp. Thanks for meeting my expectations.

Did it or didn't it come Droopy and have you rubbed one out to it yet?

[Guest]

Private school education is not always superior -- I wonder why this is repeated so often.

Because it is superior in the a majority of cases, if not all. The very fact that private education is so well established as a superior alternative to what is, at all events, the worst public school system in the western world, is reason enough to institute massive reforms of the present system.

Those that send their kids to private school are ensuring that they will be about other children that are from a similar socioeconomic background -- those from this background usually have the means to help their children with stimulating activities, have higher educations themselves, and their children start out with some luxuries that children from lower socio-economic backgrounds do not have. There is a direct positive correlation between students being at risk (to drop out, failure, learning disabilities) and being low on the socio-economic ladder -- these children fill our public schools -- their backgrounds, economic status, parental involvement, and parental education level is not going to magically disappear if they went to a private school.

False. Read the link above regarding the D.C. experience. Further, being poor has no necessary relation to exposing one's children to books, a love of learning, and a respect for the life of the mind. You're confusing cultural attributes with socio-economic status, something that never stopped the depression era generation from succeeding the way its stopped some classes of the modern "poor" who are in no conceivable way "poor" in the since people were "poor' in the thirties.

Private schools do not usually accept children with learning disabilities and this of course sways how their student population is seen. Private schools do not usually have the finances to offer a variety of languages, art, drama, etc... classes that are seen in many public schools. Private school teachers (in many instances) are not certified teachers and actually could not be hired on in public schools because they are not qualified to teach as determined by the state. I've known many private school instructors that teach so that their kids get a discount -- one had a degree in journalism and she was teaching High School Biology.

Utterly facile. Certification has nothing whatsoever to do with competence in any subject. Its nothing more, in essence, than a credential for entering the public school system and an entrance into the local teacher's union. As I've pointed out time and again, many private schools will not touch certified teachers because they don't actually have a competency in a specific subject. They've graduated from schools of education where they've been stuffed with fashionable pedagogical theories, multiculturalism, and pop psychology. This is fine for many public schools, where according to the empirics, little substantive teachings is going on.

In any case, in a vigorous free market, private schools would appear specializing in the needs of special ed students. That is as inevitable as anything could be. Further, I'm not aware of any specific successes within the public schools regarding special ed students. With half of our normal students unable to construct coherent sentences, engage in basic logical argument, answer basic historical questions (even about very recent history) or do much beyond rudimentary arithmetic, what is the point of pleading the special ed cause?

The public school system has issues and there is no doubt that there are some teachers and administrators that don't care -- yet, these schools are also filled with teachers and students passionate about learning and helping ALLL children -- from all socioeconomic spheres and with all types of learning from gifted to severely disabled.

Some?

Here are some excellent discussions of the issues:


http://www.educationsector.org/usr_doc/ ... _Jan08.pdf


http://www.boston.com/news/local/massac ... 8/19/more_
than_half_of_minority_teacher_applicants_fail_test/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+--+Globe+West

http://www.mail-archive.com/ista-talk@l ... 00419.html

http://www.aim.org/guest-column/public- ... -fail-act/

http://4brevard.com/choice/internationa ... scores.htm

http://www.azstarnet.com/dailystar/238273

The rot has been growing overseas as well:

http://www.aim.org/guest-column/public- ... -fail-act/

The results of the recent NCIE survey of teachers shows some utterly incredilbe things, including the following:

Public school teachers are strongly opposed to using “academic progress of students as measured by standardized test scores” to determine whether or not a teacher is qualified to teach. Only 2 percent of public school teachers surveyed “strongly agree” that this would be a good measure to use; about one-third (35 percent) “somewhat agree” that it would be a good measurement to use; about one-third (34 percent) “somewhat disagree” that it would. One in three (29 percent) public school teachers “strongly disagree” that using academic progress of students would be a good measurement to use in determining whether or not a teacher is qualified to teach.

* Public school teachers think schools should adjust to student needs. Three out of four (76 percent) public school teachers agree that schools should adjust to the needs, interests and learning styles of individual students, rather than expecting students to meet the norms of the school. Nineteen percent – up from 15 percent in 1996 and 13 percent in 1990 – think students are the best judges of what they need to learn and when they are ready to learn it. Sixty-nine percent of teachers surveyed in 2005 – compared to 68 percent in 1996 and 77 percent in 1990 – agree that standards of academic achievement should be flexible enough that every child can feel successful.

What we see here Moniker, is the almost utter, total, and complete success of the cultural Left, and the result, the thorough destruction of the public education system and the mediocritization or outright rape of the minds and potential of generations of American children.

If I were really given to conspiracy theories, this would be the greatest temptation I've ever run across. Truth be told, the dumbing down and politicization of the American school system is a long term, systematic project of the Left, even if many teachers are not aware of that reality and are simply, as public school victims themselves, aping the can't and sophistry of their peers. The "long march" through the institutions of the cultural Marxists is pretty much complete, as the attitudes above well express.

[_Droopy]

It's still a violation of the establishment clause to teach children in a public school bad criticisms of evolutionary theory to achieve a religious goal like undermining student confidence in evolutionary theory. That's almost certainly what teaching, say, Behe's Irreducible Complexity arguments minus the design inference would be.

Clever sophistry, confuting fundamentalist Protestant Creationism with serious ID criticisms. At issue here again is really the nature of the public school monopoly and the captive impressionable minds with nowhere else to go. What Allusion is really concerned about is preserving the fundamentalist Darwinist world view extrapolated from evolutionary theory, just as Seth is really concerned about insuring that most children will never be able to escape the orthodox scientism and atheist humanism of his intellectual puppet master, Richard Dawkins.

Without the public school monopoly, or course, this kind of door slamming could not occur. At BYU, orthodox evolutionary theory is taught just as its taught in every other secular school. Darwinism, however, is not required as a concomitant intellectual commitment. Secularists want the public schools to be a safe haven for their pet ideologies and theories of social reconstruction, not "education" in any traditional sense.

Liberals are scared to death of the substantive philosophical and scientific criticisms of Darwinian fundamentalism because they know precisely where it will lead: away from the trend toward the social control, collectivism, biological determinism, and radical individualism so dear to their hearts.

Its really very simple. The "culture wars" are about the rising generation, and the captive audiences of the government schools, unable to think for themselves, having difficulty expressing themselves verbally or in writing with any sophistication or depth, without a substantive knowledge of history, literature, or philosophy, and bereft of a intellectually serious understanding of politics or their own form of government, and fed a steady diet of carefully vetted and constructed leftist ideology (environmentalism, moral relativism etc.,) as "social studies", are ill equipped to preserve a free society or defend it from its internal or external enemies.

[_Droopy]

Run run away HEY!!!!

[Guest]

Run run away HEY!!!!

Heh. Well, unfortunately, for me, I saved the post. Here ya go, Coggins. I don't run away -- that's my problem. Sometimes it's best not to even deal with you. Yet, here ya go -- froth and fume on this.

You don't know what an at risk student is Coggins. Do a google for it or get a synopsis from wiki:

The term at-risk students is used to describe students who are "at risk" of failing academically, for one or more of any several reasons. The term can be used to describe a wide variety of students, including,

1. ethnic minorities
2. academically disadvantaged
3. disabled
4. low socioeconomic status
5. probationary students

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-risk_students

Statistically these kids do poorly at our schools. There are a variety of problems and many of them stem from their home life and then schools that aren't well equipped to handle them. Yet, private schools are NOT set up to handle these children any better -- matter of fact private schools do NOT accept these kids for the most part -- disabled? NO. Behavior issues? NO. Academically disadvantaged (learning disability)? No. Etc...

I agree that some teacher education programs are lacking. I think the bar is way too low for the early education courses. However those that will teach a certain discipline in junior high or high school (in my state at least) must actually take courses to become highly qualified to teach science, english, math, etc.... This is NOT so with private schools -- some private schools want their instructors to have a degree in the discipline they'll teach, others just want a degree in anything, and others will take less than a 4 year degree. They can do that because they're privately funded.

Homeschooling in my state can be done from someone that merely has a high school diploma (and oops it may have come from a public highschool - gasp!).

Private school teachers are paid less than public school teachers, Coggins. It's not that private schools won't hire certified teachers -- they can't usually find certified teachers to work for them because those certified aren't going to take a pay cut to work in the private school. Private schools operate on tuition and often just don't have the finances to pay their instructors more and offer a variety of classes that are found in public schools -- of course the religious schools have no problem squeezing in an hour or two devoted to religious studies each day. If you think private school instructors are so highly qualified and have such a great education why aren't they working in their field of study instead of taking a big pay cut to work at a private school? Think about what you're arguing here. If you're saying just anyone goes into teaching then why are private school instructors automatically assumed superior? They took 4 years to get a degree and go to make $20 K a year at a private school. Hmmm???

by the way, I'm not fond of tenure, really.

~Edited to add~ There are certain schools that are set up and are private that take special needs students -- yet, these are not the private schools that I assume you're talking about. There are residential schools for behavior, special needs, etc... and yet, the private school education that so many people associate with that term is not open for these students. The cream of the crop academies don't accept these kids as they don't have the ability to handle them -- they're cost prohibitive, and they would lower their overall scores and well, then they're not so special anymore because their scores are right there with the public schools. :)

[_Moniker]

Here Coggins:

To be eligible for a Tennessee teaching license, an individual must:

* Have an undergraduate or graduate degree with a major, or equivalent, in the subject he/she chooses to teach.
* Complete the appropriate professional education courses and a two-semester, year-long school-based internship experience.
* Meet general education guidelines as set by the Tennessee Department of Education for all teachers. This includes, but is not limited to, nine (9) semester hours in communications, eight (8) semester hours in the natural sciences, six (6) to nine (9) semester hours in the humanities, and three (3) semester hours in cultural studies. General education semester credit requirements vary depending on the teaching field chosen by the applicant. Therefore, the number of semester credits required to complete a post-baccalaureate program depends on the applicant's prior academic course work and the chosen teaching field.

Here's to get math licensure:

http://web.utk.edu/~tpte/math_ed/licensure.html


Looking at majors and minors to be a public teacher:

Undergraduate students and individuals who have already graduated who are interested in becoming a teacher must first decide which subject or grade level they are interested in teaching. For example, to teach high school mathematics, you major in mathematics and complete a minor in Secondary Education. If you are interested in teaching grades K-8, you can select any major from the College of Arts and Science and minor in Elementary Education.

[_cksalmon]

The "culture wars" are about the rising generation, and the captive audiences of the government schools, unable to think for themselves, having difficulty expressing themselves verbally or in writing with any sophistication or depth, without a substantive knowledge of history, literature, or philosophy, and bereft of a intellectually serious understanding of politics or their own form of government...

My motto: "Everything I need to know, I learned [via reading, after high school]." I'm sure I learned some basic fundamentals there: rudimentary grammar, math, and history. But, I certainly wasn't taught how to reason, let alone how to think about thinking.

But, now, I believe that just so long as American children feel good about themselves and manifest a healthy level of American entitlement, all is well in the world of secondary education.

Chris

(For Paul: I apologize for affixing my name to the end of this post. I realize now that that's sort of weird to you.)

[Guest]

Here Coggins:

To be eligible for a Tennessee teaching license, an individual must:

* Have an undergraduate or graduate degree with a major, or equivalent, in the subject he/she chooses to teach.
* Complete the appropriate professional education courses and a two-semester, year-long school-based internship experience.
* Meet general education guidelines as set by the Tennessee Department of Education for all teachers. This includes, but is not limited to, nine (9) semester hours in communications, eight (8) semester hours in the natural sciences, six (6) to nine (9) semester hours in the humanities, and three (3) semester hours in cultural studies. General education semester credit requirements vary depending on the teaching field chosen by the applicant. Therefore, the number of semester credits required to complete a post-baccalaureate program depends on the applicant's prior academic course work and the chosen teaching field.

Here's to get math licensure:

http://web.utk.edu/~tpte/math_ed/licensure.html


Looking at majors and minors to be a public teacher:

Undergraduate students and individuals who have already graduated who are interested in becoming a teacher must first decide which subject or grade level they are interested in teaching. For example, to teach high school mathematics, you major in mathematics and complete a minor in Secondary Education. If you are interested in teaching grades K-8, you can select any major from the College of Arts and Science and minor in Elementary Education.

Good for Tenn. but this is somewhat rare (and difficult to then explain in light of the wholesale inability of many American teahersr to pass basic examinations in the subjects they teach) and if you follow some of my links, you will find that, I believe, some thirty percent of teachers nationally have no expertise in any basic subject. You will also find serious problems in teacher competence among differing states. These links, were, of course, only the tip of the iceberg. A number of teachers are barely literate, but are stil allowed to teach, while union rules make it virtually impossible to get rid of such people unless they commit a serious felony.

I'll get to your other arguments when I can, but suffice it to say at this, point, the American school system is empirically the worst in the western world. We know this empirically. Why are you then defending it? Open, free competition creates innovation, quality and lower prices, in everything else (where a true free market is allowed to operate), so why wouldn't this be the case in K-12 education?

Are you defending the ideological domination of it by the Left? I don't think so. Then what?

[_KimberlyAnn]

Well, my experience with public education has been mostly positive.

I attended a small school, but feel that I got a decent education there. I read a lot on my own, granted, but I think I was overall a very good student and made the most of the education I was offered.

My daughters have had excellent teachers, so far, and are astute readers, thinkers and writers. I have found their teachers to be sometimes overly difficult. Courtney, in third grade, was learning to write a simple three paragraph essay, and got a 'C' on her paper due to a tense shift. That kind of strict grading and attention to detail is common in our school district. Her advanced placement classes have only become more difficult, and she's looking forward to high school next year.

I'm sure there are inferior public school teachers, but, I hate to see public education criticized wholesale, because in my experience, it's not deserved.

KA

PS. I feel as if I should apologize to Paul--his thread has been largely derailed, and I continued the derailment. Sorry about that.

[_EAllusion]

It's still a violation of the establishment clause to teach children in a public school bad criticisms of evolutionary theory to achieve a religious goal like undermining student confidence in evolutionary theory. That's almost certainly what teaching, say, Behe's Irreducible Complexity arguments minus the design inference would be.

Clever sophistry, confuting fundamentalist Protestant Creationism with serious ID criticisms.

Fundamentalist Protestant Creationist Henry Morris in 1974:

This issue can actually be attacked quantitatively, using simple principles of mathematical probability. The problem is simply whether a complex system, in which many components function unitedly together, and in which each component is uniquely necessary to the efficient functioning of the whole, could ever arise by random processes.

Morris, Henry: Scientific Creationism 2nd edition, pg. 59

Intelligent Design Advocate Micheal Behe in 1996:

“By irreducibly complex I mean a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning.”

Behe, Micheal: Darwin's Black Box, pg 39

Yes, clear sophistry.

Every major ID argument is either prefigured in scientific creationist literature or is a exact repeat of it with the label simply changed. Unsurprisingly, the arguments are miserably bad in both cases.