Friday, November 11, 2005

SOME DIVERSITY COMES TO KANSAS

Keith Burgess Jackson (who is, like me a religious unbeliever) comments: "This fight is not about imposing religion on schoolchildren. It is about keeping scientists from imposing their secularism on schoolchildren"

The fiercely split Kansas Board of Education voted 6 to 4 on Tuesday to adopt new science standards that are the most far-reaching in the nation in challenging Darwin's theory of evolution in the classroom. The standards move beyond the broad mandate for critical analysis of evolution that four other states have established in recent years, by recommending that schools teach specific points that doubters of evolution use to undermine its primacy in science education. Among the most controversial changes was a redefinition of science itself, so that it would not be explicitly limited to natural explanations.

The vote was a watershed victory for the emerging movement of intelligent design, which posits that nature alone cannot explain life's complexity. John G. West of the Discovery Institute, a conservative research organization that promotes intelligent design, said Kansas now had "the best science standards in the nation."

A leading defender of evolution, Eugenie C. Scott of the National Center for Science Education, said she feared that the standards would become a "playbook for creationism."

The vote came six years after Kansas shocked the scientific and political world by stripping its curriculum standards of virtually any mention of evolution, a move reversed in 2001 after voters ousted several conservative members of the education board. A new conservative majority took hold in 2004 and promptly revived arguments over the teaching of evolution. The ugly and highly personal nature of the debate was on display at the Tuesday meeting, where board members accused one other of dishonesty and disingenuousness.

"This is a sad day, not just for Kansas kids, but for Kansas," Janet Waugh of Kansas City, Kan., one of four dissenting board members, said before the vote. "We're becoming a laughingstock not only of the nation but of the world." Ms. Waugh and her allies contended that the board's majority was improperly injecting religion into biology classrooms. But supporters of the new standards said they were simply trying to open the curriculum, and students' minds, to alternative viewpoints.

There is little debate among mainstream scientists over evolution's status as the bedrock of biology, but a small group of academics who support intelligent design have fervently pushed new critiques of Darwin's theory in recent years. Kenneth Willard, a board member from Hutchinson, said, "I'm very pleased to be maybe on the front edge of trying to bring some intellectual honesty and integrity to the science classroom rather than asking students to check their questions at the door because it is a challenge to the sanctity of evolution." Steve E. Abrams of Arkansas City, the board chairman and chief sponsor of the new standards, said that requiring consideration of evolution's critics "absolutely teaches more about science."....

More here




BACKLASH AGAINST BRITAIN'S DICTATORSHIP FOR BABIES

A national curriculum for babies and toddlers has been dismissed as "absolute madness" by parents who fear childhood could be taken from children.

Under the Childcare Bill, childminders would teach the curriculum to children "from birth" until they start school. All three-year-olds in childcare in England would learn rudimentary maths, language and literacy.

But the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations described the proposal as "bizarre". Spokeswoman Margaret Morrissey said: "We are now in danger of taking away children's childhood when they leave the maternity ward. "From the minute you are born and your parents go back to work, as the government has encouraged them to do, you are going to be ruled by the Department for Education. "It is absolute madness."

The proposals for the first threee years of children's development give statutory force to existing guidelines, Birth to Three Matters, published two years ago. But the Professional Association of Nursery Nurses (PANN) also expressed concern. Tricia Pritchard, from PANN, said: "We hope that this will be age-appropriate and flexible as young children develop at different rates. "Children of the same age have different abilities." Deborah Lawson, former chair of PANN and now vice-chair of the Professional Association of Teachers, said: "We do need to have some guidelines and parameters but nothing that is too prescriptive."

Children's Minister Beverley Hughes said the curriculum would indeed be flexible and "age specific". The Bill tells childcare providers to give a mixture of "integrated care and education from birth". Introducing it, Ms Hughes said: "We want to establish a coherent framework that defines progression for young children from nought to five. "We are not talking about sitting very young children in chairs and making them learn numbers and letters where that is inappropriate."

The government drew up the new curriculum for toddlers, arguing that research showed earlier education helped children develop faster socially and intellectually. It will build on an existing system which teaches three-year-olds "mathematical development and communication, language and literacy", the Education Department said. The early years foundation stage will have the same compulsory legal force as the national curriculum for schools, Ms Hughes said. She said young children's learning deserved "parity" with that at primary and secondary level, but denied that this would be at the expense of play.


Source

***************************

For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"


Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

***************************

No comments: