“Are Too Many Students Going to College?”

The cover feature for the November 13 issue of the Chronicle Review section of the The Chronicle of Higher Education is a forum on the question: “Are Too Many Students Going to College?”
People are sure to differ in their judgments as to how that question should be answered. What I want to call attention to [...]

Mass., Va., etc. “students’ religious freedom” bills

There’s “An Act Relative to Protecting the Religious Freedom of Students” pending in the Massachusetts legislature which, according to Antoinette Pizzi reporting in the Cape Cod Times, “has bipartisan support and is expected to pass favorably through the Joint Committee on Education.”
Folks at the National Center for Science Education have taken particular notice of this [...]

CERU: 12th Annual Report on Schoolhouse Commercialism Trends

The Commercialism in Education Research Unit, a partner center of the Education Policy Research Unit at Arizona State University, has released Click: The Twelfth Annual Report on Schoolhouse Commercialism Trends: 2008-2009.
The word “Click” is part of the title this year (not just part of the link), since this year’s report is concerned with children getting [...]

Chris Hedges | BookTV | Colbert Report

On Sunday, October 11th at 12pm noon (ET), BookTV on CSpan2 will be re-airing their “After Words” interview of Chris Hedges on his new book, Empire of illusion: the end of literacy and the triumph of spectacle.
I saw this segment last weekend, and then I bought the book. Hedges has more depth and perspective than [...]

US Educ Sec Arne Duncan on Colbert (Oct 5, 2009)

This weekend I saw Chris Hedges on BookTV’s “AfterWords,” and I thought “this is somebody that I need to see on the Colbert Report.” I decided to do some posting to encourage that encounter (that will be my next post after this one — see the post above this one, or the link with arrow, [...]

civic education study 2009

Two people landed on this blog today by doing searches on “civic education study 2009″.
I think I’ve had browser windows open for the last few days on what they probably were looking for, but I hadn’t had the time to save those items, much less post anything about them.
Anyway, the most substantial source on that [...]

Louisiana procedures for disputes over anti-science materials in biology classes

WILL SENTELL of the [Baton Rouge] Advocate Capitol News Bureau reports that “Procedure [have now been] crafted for handling evolution-materials complaints“:

NCLB “lying to children and parents” – U.S. Ed Sec Duncan, Sept. 24, 2009

According to an Ed Dept press release:
In his speech, Duncan said that the NCLB law has significant flaws and that he looks forward to working with Congress to address the law’s problems. He said the law puts too much emphasis on standardized tests, unfairly labels many schools as failures, and doesn’t account for students’ academic [...]

“neutrality” strikes again: banned band shirts in MO (evolution/religion dispute)

A story by Tonya Fennell for the Sedalia (MO) Democrat reports on the action taken by Assistant Superintendent Brad Pollitt in response to complaints from some parents about T-shirts designed for the school marching band’s program, “Brass Evolutions 2009.” Pollitt says he “made the decision to have the band members turn the shirts in after [...]

Three books for civic economic literacy (Book TV)

Three books on BookTV (CSpan2) this weekend:

Economics Does Not Lie: A Defense of the Free Market in a Time of Crisis , by Guy Sorman

About the Program
Mr. Sorman argues that to get rid of the free market because it’s imperfect would be a danegrous overreaction to recent events. Rebuilding trust in the market is [...]

TCS report on new Texas science standards

A report by Texas Citizens for Science on the Science Standards adopted by TSBOE in March is now posted on the TCS website. Dr. Steven Schafersman, President of TCS, tweets:
New TCS report on Texas science standards just posted on the website. The new standards can be used to improve evolution education if the science textbook [...]

ICR tries again in suit over grad “science ed” degree in Texas

Unwilling to deal with the hilariously hideous complaint that was filed initially by the Institute for Creation Research in their attempt to get accreditation for their graduate degree program in “science education,” the judge ordered ICR to file an amended complaint, and then a second amended complaint, with a maximum page limit of 20 pages.
The [...]

new Lowe standards for Texas Social Studies

An AP article on Gail Lowe, successor to Donald McLeroy as chair of the Texas SBOE, can be found now on the websites of the Houston Chronicle and the Lufkin Daily News.
The story quotes Chairman Lowe expressing her agreement with the preachers who have been appointed by the Board as “Experts” to advise them in [...]

“Neuatheismusstreit”: Was ist das?

My recent post on “Mooney & the ‘new atheists’: another round” begins with a reference to the latest round “in the ongoing Neuatheismusstreit.”
I’ve been asked what that is–this “Neuatheismusstreit” that I’m referring to. Let me begin with the “sense” (or Sinn) of the word, and then explain its “reference” (or Bedeutung) in the context of [...]

Mooney & the “new atheists”: another round

Another round in the ongoing Neuatheismusstreit was touched off by an opinion piece in the L.A. Times by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum, authors of the new book Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future. They write:
It often appears as though Dawkins and his followers–often dubbed the New Atheists, though some object to the [...]

Comer decision appealed

added 8/31/2009: The case of the banned band T-shirts in Missouri may be eerily related to this case.
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Chris Comer, who was forced out of her job as Science head in the Texas Education Agency for forwarding an email announcement of a talk by Barbara Forrest in Austin, has filed her brief appealing the decision by [...]

NCSE: Science coverage better, but creationism creeping in

A new study by NCSE staff (available in html and pdf) finds improvement in state science standards, marred by the creeping influence of creationist language. Here is the abstract:
In 2000, Lawrence Lerner and the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation reviewed state science standards in 49 states and the District of Columbia, specifically with respect to the [...]