Education

Picture from the Boston Herald.

What a sad day.Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, who was elected with a wave of hope, has turned his back on migrants.

Governor Deval Patrick has decided against taking action to allow illegal immigrants to pay resident tuition and fees at state colleges and universities this fall, an administration official said yesterday, crushing advocates who were counting on the governor to deliver on a pledge to support the students.

Maria Sacchetti - Boston Globe (22 May 2008)

This is a sad day for hundreds of migrant youth, whose only hope to go to college this year was crushed.What makes this an even harder pill to swallow is that Patrick is turning his back on a promise he made during his campaign.

We will have in-state tuition for undocumented aliens when I am governor.

Deval Patrick - WBZTV (4 April 2006)

No...not "Jon Stewart." I'm talking about John Stewart, Provost of John Muir College at the University of California, San Diego. I found out this morning that John Stewart, a man who had a profound affect on my life in college, died last year.

I am an alumnus of John Muir College and UCSD and I knew John Stewart. I should note that we never called him John or Dr. Stewart or Professor. He was always "John Stewart." I don't know why. Some combination of closeness and respect. I probably last talked to John Stewart some 20 years ago, though he may have written me a letter of recommendation or two after that. But probably even that level of contact ended by 1990 or so. For a few years now I have wondered if he was still alive and well. When I knew him he was already 70 or so, and he was backpacking in the backcountry with myself and other gung ho college kids. He might not have been the fastest of the bunch, but I am willing to bet he could have out hiked us if push came to shove. He retired the same year I graduated, so my graduating class was the last he presided over as Provost. I remember being asked to give a short speech at a tree planting ceremony in his honor, an event where the music was played by folk singer and marine biologist Sam Hinton, another friend of John Stewart's. I can't remember what I said, I just remember feeling honored to be asked to do honor to this man. The tree is probably still there, I suppose.

Healthcare is failing in America. Farmers are hurting. The poor are getting poorer. We can't fix our roads, levees and bridges. The deficit spirals out of control. We are told we can't afford to secure out ports against terrorism. And education is underfunded.

And the Iraq war is costing us $720 million per day. Wouldn't that money be spent on improving life here in America?

From the American Friends Service committee:

Bush is hurting America with this failed war based on lies and with no exit strategy. McCain has vowed to continue Bush's failed war. It is time to stop the stupidity and neglect of America by the Republican Party.

Annual Native Amercian Education Summit

Type of Event: Training
Hosted By: J. Dalton Institute
Event Dates: 4/24/2008 - 4/26/2008
Event Location: Albuquerque, NM
Contact: J. Dalton Institute
Email: jdalton98@aol.com
Contact Phone:1-888-886-0664
Contact Fax:920-338-8683
Website: http://www.jdaltoninstitute.com

Course Description:Six Essential Strategies for an Effective Prevention Model, Community Resource Assessment, Critical Elements of Effective Prevention and Community Readiness, Ethics, Professional Networking

How to Register: http://www.jdaltoninstitute.com/registration.html

Head Start Performance Standards
Type of Event: Training
Hosted By: J. Dalton Institute
Event Dates: 10/27/2008 - 10/28/2008
Event Location: Las Vegas, NV
Contact: J. Dalton Institute
Email: jdalton98@aol.com
Contact Phone:1-888-886-0664
Contact Fax:920-338-8683
Website: http://www.jdaltoninstitute.com

Course Description:DAY ONE. Seminar Overview, Professional Networking Exercise, Ethics & Professional Responsibility, Subpart D - Program Design and Management, Program Governancec, Q & A, Close for the Day, Instructor will stay for Individual Issues. DAY TWO. Roles and Responsibilities of Tribal Council and Policy Council, Shared Governance, Developing Impasse Procedures, Required Community Grievance Process, Head Start Performance Standards, Q & A, Evaluations, Presentation of Certificates, Closing. Agenda subject to change.

How to Register: http://www.jdaltoninstitute.com/registration.html

12th Native American Youth Entrepreneur Camp
July 20-25, 2008
University of Arizona campus
Tucson, Arizona

Join us at the 12th Native American Youth Entrepreneur Camp July 20-25, 2008, on the campus of The University of Arizona in Tucson.

Learn to build private-sector enterprises in Indian Country. Visit Native-owned businesses. Enjoy extracurricular activities on and off the UA campus.

Like the real world, the camp is intensive and challenging, but rewarding and fun!

During the six-day camp, students will reside on campus, eat in the Student Memorial Union, and attend classes on the UA campus.

Register by July 1.

For more information, contact Monica Agar at cortes@u.arizona.edu or call (520) 626-0664.

29th Annual American Indian Language Development Institute

June 4 - July 2, 2008
University of Arizona

Creating Spaces for Indigenous Languages in Everyday Life

The University of Arizona and Department of Language, Reading & Culture invite you to the 29th American Indian Language Development Institute (AILDI). AILDI 2008 will have a special focus on Native teachers in the classroom and language. Special topics will include NCLB & Native students, language immersion methods in the classroom, Native children's literature & writing and schooling in Native American communities. Our theme, /Creating Spaces for Indigenous Languages in Everyday Life /reflects this emphasis and will be highlighted with guest speakers, presentations, activities, projects, and fieldtrips.

AILDI provides a unique educational experience for teachers of Native children. The AILDI format offers Native and non-Native teachers the opportunity to become researchers, practitioners, bilingual/bicultural curriculum specialists, and especially effective language teachers. The common concern of language loss, revitalization and maintenance brings educators, parents, tribal leaders and community members to this university setting to study methods for teaching Native languages and cultures and to develop materials.

AILDI offers six graduate credits or undergraduate credit hours during four weeks of intensive study. Courses can be applied toward regular degree programs and teacher endorsements.

Alaska Pre-History from a Darwinian Standpoint.
Start Date and Time: 2008-02-12 19:00
Event Website: http://www.auofak.org

Activities:
The event will be held at the Alaska Museum of Natural History with Museum Director Katch Bacheller presenting information on geological and evolutionary changes occurring in the Great Land. Se will guide a free museun tour for early arrivals. Introductions ny Museum Board member Gordon Harper

Address:
201 N Bragaw Street,
Anchorage, AK UNITED STATES
Sponsor: Americans United of Alaskla
Contact: Al Sundquist, stellar_at_yahoo.com, 907-562-7522

Jacksonville: Tracing Our Ancestors the DNA Way--An Anthropological Adventure
Start Date and Time: 2008-02-06 11:00

Activities:
Dr. Connie J. Mulligan, an internationally-recognized anthropologist and geneticist from the University of Florida, will speak on using molecular technology to trace our human origins in the Americas and Africa.

Address:
Florida Community College at Jacksonville-North Campus, 4501 Capper RD
Jacksonville, FL UNITED STATES
Sponsor: Natural Sciences and Student Engagement
Contact: Paula Thompson, PhD, pthompso@fccj.edu, 904-766-6530

I am so sick and tired of seeing the crass way in which the New York Times equats "homeschooling" with radical right, christian fundamentalist loonies. Huckabee Draws Support of Home-School Families is a slap on the face of the millions of parents in this country who believe that independent, child-led, out-of-school, unschooled, parent-directed education is better and far superior than the crap that passes these days as "progressive" school-confined education --regardless of religion

Yet the only people who are to blame are the leaders of the secular homeschooling movement. They have failed to raise money and to raise awareness among the progressive movement about their true politics.

First, their libertarianism has hampered the growth of the independent and even "open source" learning movement in this country because they've stuck their heads in the sand on about what they've needed to do to attack the politics and PR game of extremists like Michael Farris and his radical Home School Legal Defense Association. This guy is one of the signers of "A manifesto for a Christian America", just FYI.

Second, their natural disgust of Democrats has unfortunately marginalize them within the progressive community, even though most homeschoolers are more than liberal but progressive in their education and political thoughts and would most likely align themselves to the Democrats. But because Democrats treat them like three-eyed bible totting hill billies, they'd rather stick with the tried and true millions of the schooling industry and teacher's union than "explore" a constituency that appears anyway to be hostile to them.

Here are more of Elizabeth Upton's student submissions to 10Questions.com. They are in the CUNY Language Immersion Program at LaGuardia Community College. The previous videos are here.

Maria has a simple question about Iraq:

Magdalena is worried about the internet :

Elizabeth wants to know about how they will handle violence in schools:

My friend Elizabeth Upton teaches English as a Second Language at LaGuardia Community College. I went to her class to talk to them about what new things people are trying to do with technology to foster a more participatory democracy.

I have a longer post on my field trip, I just wanted to give you the students clips first.

Here's Susana (Colombia) with a question about terrorism:

Olga (Uzbekistan) on the future of the middle class:

And Miguel Ángel (Mexico) on drug trafficking:

Imagine your son coming from school and telling you that he had to ask permission to the school principal to sit during recess under the "white's only" tree, which happens to be the only tree in the schoolyard. Then imagine your son coming back from school telling you that he could sit under that tree but now there were lynching nooses covering it.

Then imagine that word spreads. People of all ages and races talk about the incident. Some white and black kids get into an altercation and the rumble. One of the white kids draw a gun on 6 of the brawlers, but they're able to rumble harder with one of the white guy's friends.

Now, imagine you are the mother of one of those guys. The white kid that got his ass kick luckily is fine. He even goes to school and to an event the next day.

Now imagine being the mother of one of the 6 brawlers. While the white instigators threatened to kill the black teenagers with a gun, there's a police officer knocking on your door with a warrant for your son's arrest. The crime? Attempted murder. Not disorderly conduct or assault and battery, which would have been possible valid reasons to take your son to the police station. No. Your son is going to jail for attempted murder of a guy who walked away with some cuts and bruises.

That's what The Jena Six Case is all about.

Please help me reprise the Digital Ethnorati Panel at SXSW next year; and in the process, bring outstanding African American, Asian American, Latino, Native American and other minority teenage technologists to one of the most important new media conferences in the United States.

Liza with Bianca and Samantha, two awesome ambassadors for the Digital Ethnorati

One of my accomplishments this year was to be able to put together a panel at the prestigious South by Southwest new media conference, discussing the rising influence and importance of african american, latino, asian and other minorities early adopters of digital, new media and mobile technologies.

In this panel I attempted to open a reframing of the digital divide by asking the question : If minorities are such profitable early adopters of digital, mobile and new media technologies, why is it that we're still treated as if we were technology illiterate?

For that matter, Mini Khanlon's talked about the accomplishments of The Level Playing Field Institute and her experience as an upper class Indian woman who understood the social privileges of many Asian Americans.

The second presentation was with Stephen Wilmarth, Bianca Velez and Samantha Perez of The Center for 21st Century Skills. This presentation was heartbreaking, as one of the students of the program had been deported to Brazil and was giving her part of the presentation through Skype.

Calling Rob Reich, calling Rob Reich . . .
Self-driving cars?? Right there at Stanford University, whence emanate your advanced theories of controlling kids to set them free?

Homeschooling should not be banned, but regulated much more vigilantly.

Not to mention the intellectual cradle of your Stanford-educated colleague Kimberly Yuracko, who quotes your theories so um, liberally -- or illiberally, both, neither? -- as spitshine for her own Stanford-servile theory that home education is a public function from which government is required to protect all children. (Did you two go pub-crawling while she was a student, to swap collegial notes on these elaborate fantasy worlds you both had under construction, like CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien?)

It says right there in the news, “The idea of a self-driving car is a really big idea that will have a big impact on society.”

Only if society is asleep at the switch, and that's where you come in, quick! There's still time to cook up some kind of ethical servility theory to stop it. Maybe use your homeschool regulation screed as a template, here, we'll help --

The families of homeschooled children are clearly different from those of traditional schoolchildren.Some 97 percent of homeschooled children live in married couple households; the comparable number for public school students is 72 percent. Nearly 88 percent of homeschooled parents continued their own education beyond high school; less than 50 percent of the general population has attended college. The home environment of these students is supportive, nurturing and encourages diligence. . .

Yes, good! Let's actually focus on the kids and their learning, not just exploit them in the name of helping their exploited moms or any other political agenda. Let's leave prayer and religion out of it, too, since most folks in schools and government (and politics) also self-identify as god-fearing believers; religion is a confounding variable in education analysis that may quack like a duck, but really is more of a duck-billed platypus.

In other words, religion is not education and religious freedom is not academic freedom, wherever it happens. So let's stick to the constitutionally sound raison d'être of Compulsory School -- secular academics and independence sufficient to preserve and protect our liberties and provide for the common good -- for at least this one conversation.

UPDATE - CNN story just posted here, with full transcript of statement.
***********

Still watching the live news conference on CNN and thinking it should be required viewing in every school worldwide -- that is, if we do mean to create and preserve real environments that sustain human life by right instead of might.

"Fighting back was simply not an option."
When one is "not equipped for a fight" and reason fails in the face of unhearing, blinded, singleminded Borg-like purpose with superior numbers and ammunition, then Reason itself becomes an unreasonable response forcibly redefined against your will, becoming not an academic exercise but a raw first-rung survival skill, a matter of figuring out who is fit to survive and what it will take.

"We realized that our efforts to reason with these people were not making any headway. Nor were we able to calm some of the individuals down.
It was at this point that we realized that had we resisted there would have been a major fight, one we could not have won, with consequences that would have had major strategic impact. We made a conscious decision to not engage the Iranians and do as they asked.

And even that kind of Raw Reason falters without intelligence, sound information for making wise decisions, and being allowed untwisted, unmanipulated communication within one's one group of fellows and with the real world. Reason stripped, blindfolded and shoved up against the wall to hear the sound of guns being cocked.

So Scoble twitters a link to this little gem showing Americans' knowledge of current affairs. Of course, for every incompetent respondent they probably found two or three people who answered thoughtfully to their questions --but that wouldn't make for good TV, wouldn't it?

What caught my eye though was the logo on the clip. I had to find out what it was all about. Well, what do you know? CNNN is a news parody show straight out of Australia and financed by the Australian Broadcasting Company. Can you imagine PBS producing The Daily Show?

I. Think. Not.

It makes a difference who you are -- and whoever gets to create your character.

Favorite Daughter defines herself as her own reflection, says she has a "Disney Princess Complex."

But I don't think this fake news videoclip of "Frog Princess" is quite what she had in mind, guess homeschool princesses better be careful what we wish for and who gets to grant it.

(Sorry, can't get fancy video screen to appear but the link above will take you to it at Comedy Central site)
Anybody for popcorn? --

Studying overseas is often thought to be an upper middle-class or wealthy bourgeois privilege that Black students cannot afford. Don't believe that hype! Because tuition, housing and transportation costs are higher in the United States than in many other countries, and educational subsidies are often lower here, astute Black students may find that they cannot afford NOT to study overseas.

For example, the annual tuition at United States colleges and universities is rarely less than $5000.00 per year and often comes closer to $$50,000 per year. Meanwhile, tuition at some French universities is as low as $500.00 per year, including a comprehensive health insurance package that covers prescription medicine. Effectively, the cost of college health insurance in the United States may exceed the cost of health insurance AND tuition in France.

Comprehensive US financial aid may be available for American students to study overseas. Many United States colleges and universities permit students to remain enrolled in the United States, paying a nominal fee of perhaps $15.00 per semester for continued enrollment, while actually earning many of their degree credits at a foreign institution, and paying the substantially lower foreign tuition. Because the students remain enrolled at US institutions, they remain eligible for all available US financial aid, but they can spend it overseas in an environment where money goes much further.

So I was blogging for Thinking Parents today at Snook, about individualism versus institutionalism:

I pretty much hate "versus" applied to any two things. I choose the -ism suffix to mean anything (not just religion) that becomes dominant dogma, elevating some system of belief or aspect of being to an all-purpose imperative, too much of one good thing to the exclusion of others. The one tool that makes every problem look like it needs a good hammering.

In this sense, individual-ism and institutional-ism are indeed opposing mindsets pitted against each other. Ugh!
. . . So today I'm remembering Mortimer Adler's oxymoronic definition of education as the freeing discipline of wonder, and wondering myself where learning without schooling can catch the most light without throwing off too much heat, across the full spectrum of individual and institution?

Two books came to mind in this context --
"The Hedgehog, The Fox, and the Magister's Pox" by Stephen Jay Gould is about reconciling science with the humanities, or how to understand them as an integrated whole, and "The Ant and the Peacock" is about reconciling this seeming paradox in nature: are individuals or collectives favored?

In honor of Charles Darwin’s birthday on February 12th, I am posting a series of diaries on Darwin and his theory. My first entry in this miniseries covered the basics of Darwin’s theory of evolution. My second essay described the "Intelligent Deception Lobby." In this essay, I wish to discuss some of the objections that have been made regarding his theory and show how more than 100 years of research have done nothing but bolster or minorly modify Darwin’s theory.

Ever since Charles Darwin first published Origin of Species, many who see his theory as somehow detracting from religion have tried to tear it down. They have pretty much failed from the start and the more we have learned of biology, the more evolution has been supported, if occasionally modified. Interestingly, most objections to Darwin’s original theory were recognized and brought up by Darwin himself in Origin of Species. Far from avoiding or denying potential problems, Darwin approached them head on, giving his hypotheses as to how the problems would be solved over time. In general, his hypotheses have proven quite correct.

There are three particular objections that are often brought up to try and discredit evolution. First there is the problem of the gradual evolution of complex organs, such as the eye. How can random variation acted on by natural selection produce an organ as intricate and complex as the eye? Second there is the problem of intermediate species. If evolution is a slow and gradual process, why do we never see the intermediate species, the “missing links,�? either alive or in the fossil record? These two problems can be called the Problems of Missing Intermediates and can be solved by, in essence, pointing out that a.) intermediates will be rare and rapidly replaced by improved versions, and b.) in reality, intermediates CAN be seen in both instances. I will address these momentarily.

Yesterday's Darwin Day Essay discussed what evolution is all about. Today I want to revisit the foolishness of those who "oppose" the teaching of evolution, the "Intelligent Deception" lobby.

I originally wrote this as I was reading a biography of Darwin and came to the part where the publication of Origin of the Species has produced a huge religion vs. science debate at an Oxford scientific conference. I am struck by how far we came since then only to see reactionary forces pulling us back towards willful ignorance. From the very beginning, right after the publication of Wallace and Darwin’s twin papers and the publication of Origin of the Species soon after, the evidence for evolution has been carefully put together by excellent scientists providing a clear argument, while those opposed have used spurious evidence, misrepresentation of evidence and reliance on the argument that because evolution threatens their faith, it must be wrong. Since those initial publications, the argument for evolution has merely strengthened with the discovery of DNA and an understanding of mutagenesis, the discovery of many “intermediate species�? as fossils and “precursor organs�? to complex organs like the eye in living organisms. Today, the evidence for evolution is overwhelming, though exact details of how it works are still being worked out.

One of the most ironic things about the religion vs. science debate is that many scientists I know are deeply religious whereas many who push for relgion against science know very little about science. I know active researchers who are practicing and believing Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists as well as non-believers, agnostics, atheists and people who don't care about religion at all. One friend takes breaks each day to pray to Mecca. Another friend would break off a discussion to daven at the proper times. In short, many scientists see no conflict between science and their beliefs. I suspect those religious reactionaries who DO see such a conflict are less comfortable in their belief than the scientists who are also religious.

This biography of Darwin was already pissing me off, because so many of the issues that SHOULD have been resolved decades ago are still being debated by people who fear science and who feel that reality should conform to their personal belief structure. This anger was, in a humorous way, spurred further by a sarcastic letter in Nature I read recently:

Nature 438, 422 (24 November 2005)

Is the ID debate proof of an intelligent deceiver?

Richard Palmer1

1. Systematics and Evolution Group, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2E9, Canada

Sir;

In the ongoing debate over whether intelligent design (ID) should be taught as a legitimate alternative to evolution in schools ("Expert witness: the scientists who testified against intelligent design" Nature 438, 11; 2005), I suggest that ID could be presented as an alternative so long as it is always accompanied by a third option: intelligent deception.

This hypothesis proposes that the ID movement is motivated by an 'intelligent deceiver'. Individuals who understand how to debate alternative scientific hypotheses would never intentionally promote religious dogma as science. So an intelligent deceiver must be at work, guiding proponents of ID to sow confusion over valid scientific debate.

To exclude intelligent deception from debates over ID versus evolution could be considered hypocritical on both legal and moral grounds. And if proponents of ID reject the hypothesis of intelligent deception, their objections would be most interesting to hear, particularly the ones that dismiss the deceiver without imperilling the designer.

I think Palmer is right. There are those whose fear of doubt and debate is so great that they WILL do their best to mischaracterize both their own opinion, pretending that their faith is scientific, and the opinion of their opponents to try and sway popular opinion. It seems that Intelligent Design proponents argue things that fit NEITHER the evolutionary nor the biblical model. Now those who say evolution is true but put a deity at its origin are one thing. They are taking a reasonable path. But those who push Intelligent Design into our schools are doing something else. They are taking points of faith and trying to teach them as science. Evolution shows that RANDOM mutations lead to variety within a species, and environmental influences and sexual preferences put selective pressures on a species such that some variants are favored, some are neutrally selected, and some are selected against. Isolation of a population can then lead to different selective pressures on different populations within a species leading to divergence into two species. This basic outline is supported by 140+ years of solid evidence from careful scientific study. Creationism and its bastard child intelligent design do not have such a pedigree.

Science is a very specific process of hypothesis, testing and revision of hypothesis. When a hypothesis is tested, that test has to be able to solidly DISPROVE the hypothesis. Otherwise it is not a valid scientific test. A hypothesis is something you do your best to disprove. If your careful testing is unable to disprove the hypothesis, then that hypothesis is supported by your test. As years go by and many scientists submit a given hypothesis to successive rounds of testing in an attempt to disprove it, the hypothesis gets refined and further supported until it has such robust support from so many tests that we call it a "theory." A theory is not something that is proven. Nothing in science can ever be definitively proven. A theory can merely be so thoroughly supported that further hypotheses can be built upon it with confidence and very accurate predictions can be made from it. Often years later new information comes up that requires further refining of the theory, but the basics remain intact.

Einsteinian physics did not disprove Newtonian physics per se. What it did was radically refine it in such a way that Newtonian physics is still usable for most day-to-day purposes, but Einsteinian refinement is necessary under extreme conditions.

Evolution is no less robust a theory than Einstein's theories. Both have been subject to many tests and retests and refined over the years. Both are so well supported that although we can expect further refinements, we can also accept them as basically facts from which we can construct confident views of our world and build new theories that can hopefully give us even deeper understandings of the universe.

Intelligent Design, like Creationism before it, is not a scientific theory. Both ID and Creationism start with a desired conclusion and attempt to mold existing evidence around that conclusion. Any scientist who did that would fail out of grad school. For this reason alone, ID and Creationism do not belong in a science class except as examples of what is NOT science. When you start from a desired conclusion and try to mold evidence to fit that conclusion, you are not engaging in science. You are merely trying to bolster up a belief without seriously questioning it. A true attempt to combine belief and fact starts with the fact and tunes the belief to the fact, not visa versa. Proponents of teaching ID and Creationism as "alternative theories" to evolution are trying to bend facts to fit belief. They are being intellectually dishonest. The leaders of this movement are, in fact, intelligent deceivers because they are trying to play on people's beliefs to gain followers to push their particular agenda. ID is even more dishonest than Creationism because Creationism is at least true to its belief. ID is a bastardization that attempts to wedge just enough creationism into evolution classes that a door can be opened for teaching Creationism in its full form.

I am biased in this debate. I am a scientist and I am, most of the time, agnostic. But I also am Jewish and I also respect people who have faith. Judaism is a religion where doubt and questioning and arguing are not only accepted, but encouraged. This is best illustrated in the format of the Talmud, the collected commentaries of Rabbis on the Torah (first 5 books of the Old Testament). Each page of the Talmud has at its center a single passage from the Torah. Surrounding this passage in a kind of spiral are commentaries, often contradictory, from several famous Rabbis. No resolution is reached between contradictory commentaries. Rather, the contradictions and the controversy they imply are an integral part of the study and thought of religious Jews. Although orthodox Jews are as dogmatic as any orthodox religious group, they are also welcoming of debate and doubt. So even what religious background I have is going to be open to scientific debate and doubt thrown on religious texts. Few Jews would ever suggest taking the bible literally. That is a Christian invention as far as I am aware. Jews would consider it detracting from the beautiful complexity of the bible to suggest that its word is literal rather than a mixture of history, myth, morality play and allegory.

But our society is currently dominated by those whose belief is so weak that they consider ANY doubt, ANY questioning of the literal word of the bible (which bible? Which part of the bible? In which language?) so threatening that they will break laws and smear reputations just to stop people from even mentioning those doubts and questions. This is nothing new. Scientific progress has always threatened those whose belief is so weak that when facts threaten their beliefs they have to take the side of beliefs. When someone insists on belief over fact how is that different than psychosis?

The Creationism/ID/Evolution "debate" is not a scientific debate. The scientific debate was over long ago, settled in favor of evolution, and has moved on to bigger and better things like determining whether evolution has been continuous or punctuated, whether the evolution of the universe is best described by a point-particle or a string theory, etc. To paraphrase a comment from a Daily Kos reader, the literal interpretation of the bible on which Creationism is based has been long ago disproved by extremely clear data that shows that the Earth is about 4.6 billion years old, rather than the some 10,000 years old that a literal interpretation of Genesis would require. The age of the universe has been shown, but other means, to be even older. The physics used to determine these ages is the same physics that was used to create the atom bomb, airplanes, TV, computers and rocket ships. If our estimates of the age of the universe, predicted by modern physics, are wrong, then it would be impossible for us to have atom bombs or the computers we are using now. Fossil evidence is one strong source of evidence for evolution. We can indeed follow the evolution of species through the fossil record, though with gaps here and there. Evolution has been observed on a small scale using fast reproducing organisms like bacteria or fish that get isolated in separate lakes as a region becomes more arid. Finally, studying the DNA of living organisms gives us good clues to evolution and strongly bolsters the data from fossils and direct observation. The DNA evidence for evolutionary relationships among species uses the same techniques and makes the same basic assumptions as DNA fingerprinting--the closer the relationship between two DNA samples (usually in comparison with a third sample) the more of a match will be observed. DNA fingerprinting in criminology and paternity cases compares DNA from two individuals. Mapping human migrations compares the DNA of two human populations, usually in reference to a third population. Evolutionary relationships are determined by comparing the DNA of two species to a more distant out species. In essence the three techniques are based on the observation that DNA fingerprints more closely match the more related two samples are. To deny the evidence is valid in the evolutionary argument calls into question the validity of DNA fingerprinting. Yet many who oppose evolution based on “faith�? are perfectly happy to put someone to death based on “DNA evidence,�? not realizing the contradiction between these two views.

The scientific debate is over and evolution is as accepted a scientific theory as any theory in scientific history. But our society has backtracked and is now having a renewed debate NOT about science, but about the role of science in society. The debate is not about evolution, which is scientific fact as much as anything is, but is about how society values religion versus science and whether society should favor fact over belief when deciding what to teach in schools.

This debate should not be happening in America. America was founded by students of the Enlightenment, such as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. The very people who wrote our Constitution—the basis for our government—were students of science and often engaged in scientific experimentation. They were not religious fundamentalists, by and large, and in fact wanted to avoid the religious dogmas that dominated Europe. Our Founding Fathers had many flaws (racism and sexism, to name but two), but they very clearly saw that religion was a matter of PERSONAL belief and the less that society and religion mixed the better off both would be. Science was seen as a SOCIETAL matter, which the government should encourage in every possible way. Thomas Jefferson funded the Louis and Clark expedition specifically as a scientific endeavor as well as an exploration of new territory. Our Founding Fathers would be horrified by the attempts by the Bush administration to act as the intelligent deceiver, putting belief over fact.

But the Bush Administration and large segments of the Republican Party are indeed playing the intelligent deceiver, deceiving America to get their way. Evolution isn't even their main front, but it is a way in which they can rally people against science. Republicans wrap themselves in Christianity and declare Crusades. In the process they subjugate fact to belief. They suppress scientific evidence showing that global warming is upon us here and now in their belief that what is good for big oil companies is good for America. They suppress evidence that world fisheries are declining in their belief that deregulation of fisheries is a good thing. They suppress evidence for the harmful effects of mercury and arsenic on children in their belief that deregulation of environmental standards is a good thing. They suppress facts about the Iraq War in their belief that it is a Crusade that will make America strong.

Anytime someone puts belief over fact they are someday going to get hit hard in the face by the facts that they ignored. Global warming will hurt America (probably already is!). When fisheries die out, entire industries fail as was seen on the California coast when the sardine (?) canneries collapsed when the fish populations evaporated. America is probably already facing the consequences of industrial poisons in our environment with cancer rates going up and male fertility declining. And, the Iraq war is dragging down America's economy, International reputation and our soldiers who we are sending over there to fight for Bush's beliefs.

America CANNOT be guided by belief over fact. That is not how America was founded. It is a violation of the secular, rational plan that the Founding Fathers had when they wrote the Constitution. It is impractical and intellectually dishonest to, as the Bush administration and the Republican Party have been doing, try and deceive the entire world to push an agenda of faith, whether that faith is in neocon ideology or Christian fundamentalism. Our nation, built to be a place where all religions and beliefs are allowed, was never intended to favor ANY belief over common sense facts.

I call upon Americans to reject the reactionary anti-intellectualism of the Republican Party for a revival of science, common sense and an emphasis on facts. For those who are interested in more on these issues, the Union of Concerned Scientists addresses all of these issues, from evolution to environment to energy issues. The National Center for Science Education and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State focuses on keeping America the secular, rationalist nation that the Founding Fathers intended it to be. Please join in the fight against the Intelligent Deceivers.

This is a reprise of an article I wrote last year in honor of Darwin Day. Enjoy!

Darwin's theory grew out of an era when considerable careful observations from around the world were beginning to be formulated into careful scientific ideas. Not all ideas from this era were equally scientific, nor equally valid. Charles Darwin's theory was formulated based on a huge amount of observation both personally made by Darwin and made by correspondents he wrote to from all over the world. It took many years for Darwin to put his ideas into words and his book, Origin of Species, spends a great deal of time addressing criticisms of the theory of Evolution. When Darwin formulated his theory, the Mendelian rules of genetics were unknown, and DNA wasn't even conceived of. So, in essence, the mechanisms and rules that govern evolution were unknown. Darwin defined the patterns of how living things changed and competed, and it was only later that those mechanisms were discovered, giving the statistical and molecular context for Darwin's theory. Those later discoveries have only strengthened Darwin's theory, never contradicting his ideas.

The most fundamental basis for the theory of evolution is the very simple and very evident observation that individuals within a species vary from one another. This may seem so obvious that it seems silly to state it, but it really is the foundation of Darwin's theory and he spends an entire chapter of his book demonstrating variability within species in nature. We now know that this variation is due to genetic differences, differences in the DNA sequence, among individuals. Darwin did not know this. He simply observed that in every species he had any information on, individuals showed clear differences in appearance, in abilities, in behavior and in internal structures. Simple differences like human skin color or our differences in eyesight are examples of this. What is important about individual variation is that such variations can make an individual better or worse able to survive and produce children. Since producing children is what contributes to the next generation, differences in an organism's chances of surviving and reproducing can determine whether or not that individual organism contributes to the next generation.

Here is an update on what's going on with the Iowa Democratic Party. Both newly elected Governor Chet Edwards and newly (and unexpectedly) elected Congressman Dave Loebsack are doing good things.

Culver proposes big bump for schools (Des Moines Register)

...The governor's proposal for more than $200 million in new spending for education programs would mean new college scholarships, more money for preschool programs, and higher salaries for teachers and college faculty...

One of Culver's priorities is to bring teacher pay from 40th in the nation to 25th. He said his proposed $70 million appropriation for salary increases in fiscal year 2008 would be the largest single increase in teacher pay ever made in the state...

Salaries for K-12 teachers in the 2007-08 school year would go up roughly $2,900 per teacher. "That's still about $5,000 below this year's national average," Schlapkohl said, "but it sure gets us closer..."

Highlights of Culver's plan for Iowa's schools:

PRESCHOOL: Place more certified teachers in the early childhood education classrooms and reduce waiting lists until all 4-year-olds have access to quality preschool. Proposed new spending: $20 million, with increases over four years.

TEACHER SALARIES: Boost teacher salaries to the national average. Proposed new spending: $70 million.

CLASSROOM INSTRUCTION: Improve the quality of classroom instruction. Proposed new spending: $95 million for the 2007-08 budget year, based on a 4 percent increase in per-pupil spending.

February 12th is Darwin Day, celebrating the birthday of the man who did more for our understanding of biology than practically any other person. My birthday is Feb. 12th as well, and I am pretty happy to share a birthday with Lincoln and Darwin. In fact, Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born on the exact same day in 1809...though I was born much later. What some may not know is that the Darwin family were firm abolitionists, opposing the British slave trade. From the above link:

For those of us celebrating science and humanity it is of interest to note that Darwin, as well as both his paternal and maternal grandparents, Erasmus and Mary Darwin, and Josiah and Sarah Wedgwood, were also opposed to slavery that was so prevalent in the British West Indies at that time. In fact, Josiah Wedgwood designed and manufactured an antislavery medallion that was used in the campaigns against slavery in both England and America (see below). Benjamin Franklin, who was acquainted with both Erasmus Darwin and Josiah Wedgwood through his 'corresponding membership' in the Lunar Society, was given a medallion while he was in England, and when he returned to Philadelphia received a shipment of these medallions for use in the American antislavery movement.

E'en now in Afric's groves with hideous yell
Fierce Slavery stalks, and slips the dogs of hell;

(That's a movie quote, read on to make it make sense.)

The idea of community colleges (and education generally) as the engine of economic progress and social mobility came up in comments here, and I think it's worth many separate blogposts and discussions. I mean only to start it off with this one, but I feel the need to set the table with a little common context first, because I've been struggling mightily to find it in a few other discussions lately, and maybe I'm not the only one. Even if I am, that counts for something, right?

I think reasonable folks understand that ideas, beliefs and practices ought to stand on their own, independent of our personal feelings about any idea's advocates and detractors. Yet I've drawn a couple of dismissive responses here because I am a "homeschooling" parent, as if that were a disqualifier to be taken seriously in mainstream education or progressive discussion of any kind. And even among context-sharing progressives, political thought about education so predictably veers off into the hypocrisy of personal affinity and animosity (for these guys, against those guys) rather than doing the tough work of separating our lizard brain instincts and impressions from our highest-order systems thinking and power of story.

So merely to balance that wrong assumption --but not to confer any special authority on myself, even though I'm pretty sure someone or other will accuse me of that -- I state for the record that I wrote my doctoral dissertation in education leadership and policy on community college effectiveness criteria; my major professor was considered the father of Florida's community colleges, James L.Wattenbarger, who was a longtime colleague of my management professor dad. (They also shared demography as white southern officers and gentlemen, along with generational history and education-economic-patriotic values as children of the Great Depression, both of whom joined the Air Force and later studied their way to doctorates and academic careers.)

Drum Major Institute has just released a 21-page long analysis (in blog parlance this would be a fisking), of George W. Bush's State of the Union Address. I have no idea if they did this last year but the velocity with which they've put this together is unprecedented.

I am reprinting only the Introduction to the report, which you can read online at DMI on the 2007 State of the Union or download as a PDF here.

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Introduction | DMI’s 2007 State of the Union Analysis
DMI Staff

There was little for current and aspiring middle-class Americans in tonight’s State of the Union Address.

On the domestic front, which is the concern of this report, President Bush wavered between promoting ideologically driven experiments to fix our most pressing problems and offering such detailed proposals that the larger challenges were obscured.

When it came to health care, the President opted to push an aggressive ideological agenda on the backs of middle-class Americans, offering “market-based” proposals that treat health care as if it were any other commodity and fail to address the real reasons behind its ballooning costs. On the economy, the President wants to reduce the deficit while maintaining his tax cuts that favor the very wealthy.

American Prospect online has published a piece that has created a good deal of discussion, yet again, around the subject of rape. This time the author, Courtney Martin, makes the connection in American Prospect Online - Willful Ignorance between abstinence-only sex education programs and the high rates of rape and sexual assault in the United States.

Every two and half minutes someone is sexually assaulted in America. Many of these assaults take place on college campuses; 80 percent of rape victims are under age 30. Two-thirds of all rapes are committed by someone who is known to the victim, not a stranger in a dark alley. (Though rape statistics are notoriously inaccurate, we can assume that these, from the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN) are at least close to the truth, as they are derived from a survey of multiple studies, including the National Crime Victimization Survey from 2005.)

The lack of public, comprehensive, and complex sex education in this country contributes to this toxic sexual culture on most college campuses. The abstinence-only sex education that most young men and women receive does not teach them how to articulate their own sexual needs and respect those articulated by their partners. Teens who are merely told "Just don’t do it" are lacking more than an anatomy lesson or information on contraceptive choices. They are also missing out on essential communication skills and life-saving knowledge about sex and power. Which is bad news for teenagers in our paradoxically hyper-sexual and hyper-conservative contemporary America who are in desperate need of wise mentorship.

This article has inspired me and irritated me in equal parts. So much so that I believe that in order to break down the barriers around the discussion of sexual education, feminists need to take action now: It's time we build an open-source feminist enclyclopedia.

On this day in 1973, "School House Rock" debuted. Last night, apropos of nothing, my youngest brother mentioned that he had never forgotten any of the lyrics to any of the songs. They had become embedded in his brain, always there for access.

I felt the same way when I took a test in eighth grade in which I had to write the words to the Preamble of the Constitution. I, like everyone else in the class, simply sang the song under my breath as a I wrote.

'Course, I can't find the Preamble on YouTube, but I did find "How a Bill Becomes a Law."

Funny, but nowhere in that song does it mention that the president gets to attach any of his goddamned, fucking, wrong-headed, fascist signing statements to those laws.

Just sayin'.

So what do we think about The School That Oprah Built?

Not many hand-picked groups of 150 girls have $40 million standing behind their learning . . .

I heard about it on National Public Radio yesterday, and then today Newsweek arrived and Favorite Daughter read it to me in the car. Quite the personal project. It reminds me of

So what do we think about The School That Oprah Built?

Not many hand-picked groups of 150 girls have $40 million standing behind their learning . . .

It occurrs to me some days that I don't really work at a school. I work at a Holding Tank.

Let me share a little bit with you, and I'm sure you will understand.

Inmates are restricted to a small space, and there are too many of them. They are fed awful stuff, loaded with excess simple carbohydrates to ensure that the guards work hard for their money.

Restroom facilities are locked. Permission must be obtained to go to the restroom, and the head guard must be located to unlock the facilities. This is because inmates have repeatedly tried to set fires in the restrooms and use them more often to do drugs than to use the toilets.

In the room with you are: persons under the influence, drug dealers, gangsters who have beaten a fellow inmates head against the sink causing a broken nose, sniveling brats, wiseasses who are cracking joke after joke, none of them funny, in an effort to make the time pass more quickly, girls who have been picked up for looking like prostitutes, girls who have been picked up for acting like prostitutes, a shrieking guard who is calling the warden down every two minutes, a guard who mills about silently, for the most part, occasionally sending people up to see the warden, a guard who is tall, scary, and makes horrible threats that don't get followed up upon, and a psychotic guard who looks as stoned as the inmates because she has not been sleeping enough. Periodically, the assistant warden or the warden will wander down for a stroll through. This riles the inmates up, and as soon as they are gone, the level of interaction increases dramatically.

[Liza's note : Awesome, awesome, first time post. Good way to start the new year.]

I'd like you to meet a few people I know. Maybe this will help you better understand why I put up with so much cow manure on a daily basis.

Meet Anthony. Take a minute to read his life story, if you would. I’ll tell you my side of it. I met Anthony when he was a ninth grader. He had written a very well written story that scared his ninth grade English teacher to death. She was convinced that we had another Dylan Kliebold on our hands. I thought otherwise. He was an awkward kid, a little overweight, very unkempt. His wardrobe was limited, he wasn’t always particularly clean, and he had a temper like Vesuvius. He was also creative, bright, and articulate (even if we didn’t always like what he had to say).

So the meetings started. I asked him to get involved with the STAR program, and he did. I asked him to do his schoolwork, and he mostly did. His dad cut a deal with him and sobered up so that Anthony would graduate. I watched this awkward child blossom into a responsible almost-adult. He was the school mascot his senior year, much beloved by his classmates, even though he was still reeling from the death of his beloved step-mom. He still remains involved with the youth of the city. He attends community colle