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 [...]

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 [...]

TX “experts” and revision of the state Social Studies standards

Unlike school “Science,” the school subject(s) of “Social Studies” has no such well established recognized identity. If the Texas State Board of Education succeeds unchallenged in accepting people like David Barton to serve as “experts” on Social Studies, this reinforces the establishment of Social Studies as a school subject in which political, ideological, and religious agendas can be played out on the basis of sheer political power, unchecked by anything like the authority of experts in the disciplines.

The Pueblo, me, and Washington, DC

Last January was the 40th anniversary, capture of the U.S.S. Pueblo – as commemorated then on Ed Darrell’s blog.
More recently, Ed’s added a post on the continuing repercussions of that event, even reaching to last week’s negotiated agreement between North Korea and the Bush administration over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
This new post includes a [...]

genetic factors in political orientation?

An article by Jim Giles published in New Scientist, and posted by the Center for Genetics and Society, surveys a variety of studies leading some people to see genetic factors in political inclinations, including liberal v. conservative, and likelihood to participate or not.
The studies include twin studies, gene studies and personality studies. This calls for [...]

high school student finds conservative bias

added May 2, 2008
For links to other posts on LaClair, see this post on the Five Public Opinions blog. Click here for a transcript of his acceptance speech for the FFRF 2007 Thomas Jefferson Student Activist Award, and click here for an audio recording of the speech.
In a new (April 27, 2008) Op-Ed piece in [...]

6-y-o Ben Whitson gets Good Citizen Award from City Council

This might seem like a departure from the usual posts here, but I can’t resist sharing this news about my nephew Ben.
As reported in the Salem, Oregon Statesman Journal:

Ben Whitson, Abiqua School first-grader, was lauded as this month’s Good Citizen Monday at the Salem City Council meeting. He is the second to receive the honor [...]

Pledging Allegiance (BookTV)

Added April 20, 2008: Somebody reached this post today by doing a search on “Ayers” and “BookTV”. I see the BookTV and CSpan links that were originally posted here are no longer good. They’ve changed their databases. The new link for the BookTV database is HERE. The page there includes a link for [...]

Blyth Patriotism (BookTV): “How to Raise an American”

On BookTV — CSpan-2 — Eastern Daylight Time
On Saturday, May 19 at 9:15 am and Sunday, May 20 at 4:00 pm
How to Raise an American: 1776 Fun and Easy Tools, Tips, and Activities to Help Your Child Love This Country
Myrna Blyth
Description: In “How to Raise an American,” Myrna Blyth instructs parents on how to [...]

Laird for President

Sometime later, I add another post on how I used this in my course (I also used it during the 2004 election season in the US). For now, I just want to share a YouTube video from 5-y-o Laird’s campaign for President. I showed this to my students a week before their presentations. I think it helped them think about what they were going to do; but even more, it helped them imagine doing things like this with elementary school students.

correction for Poynter “White Paper”

The White Paper refers to the “Santorum Amendment” to NCLB, which was cut from the legislation before NCLB was passed by Congress and signed into law. Despite representations by ID advocates NCLB actually does not mandate or “encourage” “teaching the controversy,” this is not part of the law.

Distinctive value of the Poynter paper on Intelligent Design

The Poynter Center’s White Paper makes a number of other arguments that are being made by others, but I think this framing of the conflict over Intelligent Design in terms of civic education is the special and unique contribution from this paper.

A Rawlsian argument against ID in public schools

The White Paper extols the virtues of making and being open to public arguments on non-doctrinaire grounds, subject to the evidence. That’s exactly what ID proponents say that they are doing. Analysis that presupposes this not to be the case, rather than addressing those who believe this is the case with ID, does not clarify the central problem for those who do not already understand.