Category: Politics/Current Events

School Choice

~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

January 26 to February 1 is National School Choice Week. According to the NSCW web site this annual week of celebration is a “nonpartisan, nonpolitical public awareness effort.” The purpose of NSCW is to “shine a positive spotlight on the need for effective education options for all children.” The individuals and groups who participate in National School Choice “believe that parents should be empowered to choose the educational environments for their children.”

As an administrator of a non-public school and a parent who has never enrolled my own children in public school I certainly agree that school choice is important. It is not as if NSCW is fighting for something that does not exist–school choice exists in the United States now and has for quite some time. Of course the choice to which I am referring has always come with a cost–anyone who wanted to do so and could afford to do so could send their children to any school they wanted (assuming the student was accepted at the school). One of the positions of National School Choice is that all possible options need to be available to everyone, including public schools, public charter schools, magnet schools, online schooling options and state programs allowing for private school choice–programs like scholarships, tax credits or deductions or vouchers that parents can use to pay for their child’s education at a private school. The idea of vouchers is that parents have the say in how part of the tax dollars set aside for their children gets used–even if that means the funds are used at a private school.

As a school choice proponent and private school administrator I have always been interested in the voucher idea. In the state where I live–South Dakota–spending per pupil in FY 2011 was $8,805, with perhaps 40% of that coming from the state. Across the United States, total spending per pupil in FY 2011 was $10,559.70, which includes federal, state and local spending. Evidence indicates that when voucher systems are in place many parents utilize them. They do not exist in my state, and I am not aware of any significant movement toward their adoption here, but it is a plan that truly gives parents a say in how the tax revenue earmarked for their childrens’ education is used.

Still and all, with or without vouchers more and more parents are choosing to exercise their right of school choice. According to the National Center for Education Statistics 5.2 million students were expected to attend private schools in 2013. That is about one-tenth of the number of students enrolled in public schools. According to figures released last August there are 1.77 million homeschooled students in the United States–about 3.4% of the school-age population. That, by the way, was an increase of 300,000 students over the last time the survey was completed in 2007. So there are a significant number of parents deciding that the best educational option for their child(ren) is not public school.

Now, as I have indicated here before, I am a product of public school. I never took a class anywhere other than a public school from the time I started kindergarten to the time I graduated from high school. I was–and still am–satisfied with the academic instruction I received. As I have also indicated here before, however, I have since come to realize that schooling is about far more than the acquisition of knowledge. Education involves worldview–the lens through which that knowledge is presented. That is the primary reason why my children are in a Christian school and why I serve at a Christian school.

I am not going to use the fact that this is National School Choice Week to reiterate the arguments I have made here before about the importance of Christian education; you can read previous posts if you want to do so. Rather, I am going to use this opportunity to remind parents that there truly is a choice when it comes to the education of your child. Do not just send them to public school because that is where you went or because that is what everyone else does or because it is convenient or it is “free.” Take the time to evaluate what you want your children to learn, from perspective you want them to learn it and in what environment you want them to learn. If, after giving that serious consideration, you determine that the local public school is probably not the place where you want that to take place, take advantage of the freedom you have to exercise school choice. Ultimately the education of your child(ren) is your responsibility; take it seriously.

The content of their character

~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

On Monday Sarah Palin took to Facebook to ask President Barack Obama to stop playing the race card. She posted, “Mr. President, in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. and all who commit to ending any racial divide, no more playing the race card.” USA Today opined that while Palin did not specify how Obama “plays the race card,” her comments came on the heels of The New Yorker‘s profile of Obama by David Remnnick in which Obama makes reference to the issue of his race. Obama stated that there are surely some people who dislike him precisely because he is black and others who no doubt like him solely for the same reason. Sad though that may be, it is true, and I am not sure I would consider that “playing the race card.” However, that is not at all to imply that the race card does not get played, because it does.

As I reflected on the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Monday I could not help but think that his dream that his children would “one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character” has not been fully fulfilled. What I find most troubling about that–as, I suspect, would King–is that African Americans are just as responsible for that as whites. In some cases perhaps even more so. There are many instances in which African Americans–leaders and non-leaders–make race an issue.

Examples are, unfortunately, not hard to find, but an excellent one can be found just last week. Tamera Mowry is an actress most known for starring, with her twin sister Tia, in the 1990s television show Sister Sister. Mowry is bi-racial; in her interview with Oprah Winfrey she said, “My mom is a beautiful black woman and my dad is an amazing white man, and I grew up seeing a family. I didn’t grow up saying, ‘Oh, that’s a white man.'” Mowry is now married to a white man herself, FOX News correspondent Adam Housely. The two have been married for three years and, Mowry says, ever since the wedding she has been subjected to name calling and all kinds hatred due to her marriage. The UK’s Daily Mail said she has been “remorselessly attacked.” Mowry told Winfrey, “I have never experienced so much hate ever in my life, ever.” Providing specific examples, Mowry said, “I get called ‘white man’s whore.’ The new one was ‘back in the day you cost $300, but now you’re giving it to him for free.'”

This is not the kind of attitude or dialogue that Martin Luther King, Jr. would have encouraged. He would certainly disapprove. The vitriol Mowry describes comes predominantly, if not exclusively, from other African Americans according to her report. What makes the issue ever worse is that the racial hatred spewed at her seems to be intensified because of the fact that her husband is a correspondent for FOX News, widely seen to be the conservative television news channel. During the 2012 vice presidential debate Mowry re-tweeted a Twitter post from Greta VanSusteren referencing her frustration with Joe Biden’s interruptions of Paul Ryan. The Twitter-sphere erupted with comments about Mowry being Republican, being married to a white man, and being “a light skinned hoes boy.” Alfre Woodard is married to a white man, too; as far as I know she has never faced the kind of hatred Mowry describes. Compounding the problem is the fact that it seems widely accepted and even celebrated within the African American community for a black man to marry a white woman. Why the double standard?

There are of course plenty of other examples; sadly, prominent African American political leaders like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton seem to bring race into almost any discussion, even when it does not conveniently fit. I know that Rev. Jackson was a colleague and friend of Dr. King; I cannot, though, help but think that Dr. King would frown at the rhetoric Dr. Jackson so often uses.

Bottom line, I agree with Dr. King’s dream; the content of an individual’s character matters much more than the color of their skin. And as I think about it it is indeed the “content of their character” that shines through when ignorant people attack Tamera Mowry for being happily married to a white man. It is the “content of their character” that shines through when Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton tries to manipulate a legitimate political discussion into a racial issue. Sadly, those individuals often insist on connecting “the content of their character” with “the color of their skin” and the two are really not connected. At the end of the day, there are people of all skin tones that are stupid, arrogant, bigoted or contentious. Likewise, there are people of all skin tones that are intelligent, compassionate, humble and gracious. The best way to fulfill Dr. King’s dream, I think, is simply to live skin color out of it altogether.

Too broad a brush

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Christina Hoff Sommers is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. According to WORLD Magazine Editor-in-Chief she is “best known for her notable–and controversial–books about feminism and American culture.” The December 28, 2013 issue of WORLD includes excerpts of Olasky’s interview with Sommers on the topic of education and, specifically, the impact of today’s classrooms on the academic performance of boys.

Sommers makes a few debatable assertions in the interview, including the statement that boys are building “critical social skills” with their running around and mock fighting accompanied by sound effects. Now I do not have a problem with boys playing army or cops and robbers or superheroes or whatever else they may play; I did plenty of that as a youngster and my son does plenty of it now. Try as you might, there simply is an innate tendency among boys to enjoy shooting things, even in play! I am not quite sure that is a critical social skill, though.

What really bugs me about Sommers’ assertion though is that she goes on to suggest that schools have, in some instances, gone way overboard in suspending or otherwise disciplining boys for such activities, even, sometimes, drawings of such activities. I would tend to agree with her there. But then she states, “If the earliest experience a little boy has is disapproval, we threaten his social development and make him unhappy with school. This may be in part an explanation of why boys are so far behind in reading and writing.” To that, I would say, baloney! This sounds far too much like the position of those who advocate letting children do whatever they want and argue that the self esteem of young children is as fragile as an egg shell. “We must not discipline them!” these folks tell us. “If we tell them they are wrong, we will destroy them. An entire life of trauma and antisocial behavior will result!” Far from threatening his social development, parents and teachers alike will go a long way in helping to appropriately shape his social development in a healthy way when they do indeed express disapproval when appropriate. I am not suggesting that should be every time boys run around or pretend to be shooting each other, mind you, but Sommers is using much too broad a brush in her approach.

Sommers goes on to say that schools would be much different than they are today if teachers recognized these differences between boys and girls and were prepared to handle them differently. Specifically, she says, “teachers would learn in teachers’ colleges what they’re not learning today, that girls are readier for school.” I do not agree with this assertion, either. Sommers suggests that five-year-old girls are more mature than five-year-old boys and it is very difficult for a young boy to sit still. Difficult? Maybe. Impossible? Not even close. The problem is not in the gender of the child, in most instances, though, but in the parenting that child has received. Parents who teach their children how to behave–which includes how to sit still when necessary, to listen, to–dare I say it–obey, will have children, whether boys or girls, who are ready for school. And the fact that boys are “so far behind in reading and writing,” I might add, has very little to do with boys being told to stop running around. It, again, has far more to do with whether or not a love for and habit of reading is taught and modeled by the child’s parents. I have seen plenty of boys who love to read and plenty of girls who do not.

Sommers suggests that if teachers were aware of these gender differences and took them into consideration in their classrooms the result would be, “Lots of recess. Different classroom settings, not just one style that is sedentary, competition-free and risk-averse.” I would agree that different classroom styles are appropriate for any age group, and I am all for healthy competition and risk. Let’s not get too carried away with the “lots of recess” thing, though. Recess is indeed important, especially for younger children and perhaps most especially for boys, but when taken too far “lots of recess” looks a lot more like daycare than school.

Toward the end of the interview Sommers begins talking about the fact that more women than men go to college and that graduate degrees are awarded almost 2-to-1 to females. She uses that to support her assertion that high schools should be offering career and technical training course options, that high schools “should be partly career training that offers pathways into good jobs.” She will get no qualm from me there, either, but I do not see the correlation between boys running around as young children and the need for career and technical education courses in high school. First, it suggests that boys are incapable of pursuing more academic paths of study and careers, and that is simply false. Second, it suggests that the little boys who cannot sit still in kindergarten never grow out of that and therefore need a high school version of “lots of recess.” That’s false, too. The fact that high schools need to offer as diverse a selection of courses as possible, including traditional academic courses as well as fine arts, industrial arts, agriculture, home economics and more has far more to do with offering a well-rounded education and the opportunity for students to pursue areas of interest and skill (not to mention the opportunity to be exposed to new areas and skills) than it does with innate gender differences.

Sommers makes some good and points, but I am afraid too many people will swallow her whole approach because of the legitimately good points she makes. Be careful that you do not, though, because there are justifiable and legitimate reasons to tell little boys “no.”

Putting the numbers in perspective

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On November 7 the United States Food and Drug Administration issued a preliminary determination that partially hydrogenated oils (PHOs), the main source of trans fats in processed foods, are no longer “generally recognized as safe.” The FDA then issued a Federal Register Notice reiterating that, “Based on new scientific evidence and the findings of expert scientific panels…PHOs…are not generally recognized as safe (GRAS) for any use in food based on current scientific evidence establishing the health risks associated with the consumption of trans fat, and therefore that PHOs are food additives.” If this determination holds, PHOs would be considered food additives and would therefore be subject to premarket FDA approval. “Foods containing unapproved food additives are considered adulterated under U.S. law, meaning they cannot legally be sold,” the FDA announced.

WebMD reports that trans fats were once considered a great thing because they “enhance the flavor, texture and shelf life of many processed foods.” Unfortunately, they also come with a health risk. In fact WebMD describes that risk in highly technical terms: “Trans fatty foods tantalize your taste buds, then travel through your digestive system to your arteries, where they turn to sludge.” As a result of that health risk the FDA has required that trans fats be listed on food labels since 2006, allowing health-conscious consumers to carefully select whether or not they wish to ingest these sludge-creating PHOs. Interestingly enough, though, the FDA also decided that companies can advertise and label foods as having zero trans fats even if they have up to 0.5 grams of them per serving. (Sneaky, no?) Still and all, as a result of the potential health risks and the general desire among the American shopping public to eat healthier (or at least appear to) many restaurants and food manufacturers have already discontinued the use of PHOs. And, despite the fear that as they did so they would simply replace the PHOs with saturated fats, WebMD reports that that has generally not been the case except with microwave popcorn.

So what’s the big deal now? Why is the FDA trying to ban trans fats and literally make the sale of food containing them potentially illegal? The FDA claims that doing so would “prevent an additional 7,000 deaths from heart disease each year and up to 20,000 heart attacks each year.” That’s why.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am all for preventing death. I am, after all, pro-life. But therein lies the rub for me. These trans fats are, in the vast majority of instances, being purchased by adults and consumed by adults of their own free will or by children with adult consent. Should the FDA work with food manufacturers to limit if not eliminate potentially unhealthy food products or additives? Sure, I suppose so…but I think making the sale of those products illegal is a stretch of government authority, not to mention a real perversion of what government priorities should be.

The National Cancer Institute reports, “Every year, approximately 200,000 people in the United States get lung cancer, and more than 159,000 people die from this disease.” That is a far cry from the 7,000 and 20,000 figures being tied to PHOs, but I hear no one suggesting that the sale of cigarettes should be illegal. I see no classification from the FDA that cigarettes are “generally not recognized as safe.”

According to MADD, more than 10,000 people die every year as a result of drunk driving crashes. And when it comes to adults drinking too much and driving, the Centers for Disease Control reports that that happens about 300,000 times per day in the United States. How many people does that put at risk? Still, no one seriously suggests banning the production, sale or consumption of alcohol. After all, that did not work real well last time it was tried.

Of course, I can hear someone suggesting that there are laws against drinking and driving so that is not a good comparison. Okay…just for the sake of argument, I’ll grant you that. Consider this, though; WebMD also reports, “Every year, about 31,000 people in the U.S. die from cirrhosis, mainly due to alcoholic liver disease and chronic hepatitis C.” Thirty-one thousand is a lot more than the 7,000 the banning of trans fats is supposed to save. Do not even think about suggesting that a lot of that number can come from hepatitis C, either; the Centers for Disease Control reports that approximately 17,000 Americans become infected with hepatitis C each year. For every 100 of those infected, only one to five will die of cirrhosis or liver cancer. That means, even assuming the high end, 850 people per year die of cirrhosis as a result of chronic hepatitis C–leaving more than 30,000 dying from cirrhosis causes by the consumption of alcohol.

So, the FDA wants to ban trans fats because doing so might prevent 7,000 deaths per year caused by heart disease, but no one wants to ban cigarettes or alcohol, despite the fact that they result in far more deaths than trans fats do. And that’s fine by me, by the way; I am not suggesting that cigarettes or alcohol should be illegal, either. I am simply trying to point out the silliness of the justification for this government overreach.

While I am at it, I should also point out that trans fats, cigarettes and alcohol all pale in comparison to the leading legal cause of death in the United States. By that, of course, I mean abortion. According to the Guttmacher Institute there were roughly 1.2 million abortions performed in 2008 (apparently the most recent year for which numbers are available). Shall we put that in perspective?

* Abortion takes more lives in three days than banning trans fats would save in a year

* Abortion takes more lives in four days than drunk driving crashes do in one year

* Abortion takes more lives in ten days than cirrhosis does in one year

* Abortion takes more lives in 48 days than lung cancer does in one year

Given the realities, maybe we should forget about trans fats and think a bit more carefully about the “right” to abortion in the United States.

“…not a woman’s rights issue but a human rights issue”

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This coming Sunday, January 19, is Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. Since 1984 the the Sunday in January falling closest to the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision has been recognized as Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, having begun with a proclamation from President Ronald Reagan on January 13, 1984. Reagan’s proclamation asserted that the death of 15 million children by abortion from 1973 to 1984 was “a tragedy of stunning dimensions that stands in sad contrast to our belief that each life is sacred. These children, over tenfold the number of Americans lost in all our Nation’s wars, will never laugh, never sing, never experience the joy of human love; nor will they strive to heal the sick, or feed the poor, or make peace among nations. Abortion has denied them the first and most basic of human rights, and we are infinitely poorer for their loss.” President Reagan continued to issue proclamations for this Sunday of remembrance each year for the remainder of his presidency. President George H.W. Bush did so, too, as did his son, President George W. Bush. President Bill Clinton did not issue these proclamations, nor has President Barack Obama.

The National Right to Life has called the presidential proclamations and the designated Sunday “a wonderful statement of what the pro-life movement is really all about.” Not surprisingly, pro-abortion groups such as NARAL are adamantly opposed to the proclamations and the recognition of Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, saying that they are in fact attempts to restrict women’s rights. This is not an argument restricted to NARAL and other extremist pro-abortion groups. An April 2009 article on FoxNews.com quotes actress Amy Brenneman as saying, “Unless a woman really has sovereignty over her own body we really haven’t come that far.” In other words, denying a woman the right to kill the unborn child living in her womb, should she so desire, is akin to denying women the rights to own property or vote or pursue career paths previously restricted to men.

Fortunately, there are others that articulately explain and defend the right to life and the reasons behind the Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, and not all of them are individuals that might be most commonly referred to by the mainstream media as right wing Bible bangers. For example, model Kathy Ireland presented her pro-life views very clearly in the same FoxNews.com article that quoted Brenneman.

Ireland explained, “My entire life I was pro-choice — who was I to tell another woman what she could or couldn’t do with her body? But when I was 18, I became a Christian and I dove into the medical books, I dove into science. What I read was astounding and I learned that at the moment of conception a new life comes into being. The complete genetic blueprint is there, the DNA is determined, the blood type is determined, the sex is determined, the unique set of fingerprints that nobody has had or ever will have is already there.”

Interestingly, despite what she learned in her research, Ireland claims that she resisted becoming pro-life; it still did not line up with what she thought was right and it certainly did not line up with what most of the people in her world believed. So, she continued her research, calling Planned Parenthood for help. “I called Planned Parenthood and begged them to give me their best argument and all they could come up with that it is really just a clump of cells and if you get it early enough it doesn’t even look like a baby. Well, we’re all clumps of cells and the unborn does not look like a baby the same way the baby does not look like a teenager, a teenager does not look like a senior citizen. That unborn baby looks exactly the way human beings are supposed to look at that stage of development. It doesn’t suddenly become a human being at a certain point in time. I’ve also asked leading scientists across our country to please show me some shred of evidence that the unborn is not a human being. I didn’t want to be pro-life, but this is not a woman’s rights issue but a human rights issue.”

Ireland’s argument is well stated, and as we approach Sanctity of Human Life Sunday I urge you to take a stand for life however you see fit. You may do it quietly, you may do it privately, you may do it publicly or corporately. However you choose to do it I would ask that you do it respectfully–the name-calling, threats and violence that have been employed by same in the name of the pro-life movement do not help the pro-life cause nor do they reflect well on anyone engaging in such activity. This truly is a human rights issue. Take a stand for life!

Out of Order

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The January 11 issue of WORLD Magazine includes an article by Warren Cole Smith entitled “Going Public.” The article is about the American Bible Society (ABS) and “years of troubles” that “suddenly came into the public spotlight” when ABS fired CEO Doug Birdsall in October 2013. Interestingly, WORLD headlined the section containing this article “2013 News of the Year.” Apparently that means that WORLD considers this story to be one of the most important, if not the most important, news events of the past year.

I am actually not going to delve into most of the “years of troubles” that the article describes because, in my opinion, that was not the most important thing, or perhaps even the most troubling thing, about the article. What troubles me is the way in which WORLD has depicted the ABS as being completely in the wrong and at fault in the matter of Birdsall’s dismissal when, based on the information provided in the WORLD article, it would seem that the dismissal was entirely justified.

Smith writes that the ABS board brought Birdsall in early in 2013, and that he brought along “impeccable evangelical credentials and a reputation for moving fast and for revitalizing large organizations.” A few lines later Smith reports than Birsdall met with “influential leaders” in April 2013 about his plans for ABS. The ABS building in New York City apparently has some extensive problems and bringing it up to New York building code standards is slated to cost some $20 million. Per Smith, Birdsall told his influential gathering about “his plans for a $300 million center for Manhattan’s growing evangelical church,” a project that would replace the current 12-story ABS building.

The proposed 30-story building would include “an Omni hotel, ABS expansion space, and room for special events and other ministries to work.” Bob Rowling, a billionaire Dallas developer whose TRT Holdings own the Omni Hotel chain, committed to finance the plan. (That is a major conflict of interest right there, but that is not even the biggest problem). Smith goes on to say that Birdsall “moved forward on other fronts. He went through an informal process of grading ABS board members with an A, B, or C. Board members who received an A were, in Birdsall’s opinion, in a position to lead and mentor others. Board members with a B were those who could be excellent contributors but who had areas in need of development. Those with a C should not have their terms renewed. Birdsall placed about a third of the board members in each category.”

Smith then reports that when the ABS board chairman found out about Birdsall’s “assessment process and his plans for the building, he saw it as insubordination. The board fired Birdsall in October.” Now, I do not have any independent information or further details of the sequence of events beyond what Smith reported, but the manner in which his article was written certainly seems to imply that Birdsall came up with this plan for the ABS building and presented it to “influential leaders” in a matter of only a few months, and apparently without having the plan approved by the ABS board, perhaps without even presenting it to the board. If that is not insubordination I do not know what is. Someone with the impeccable credentials Birdsall was supposed to have brought to the table would certainly know that he had no authority to devise and promote such a plan without board knowledge or approval. Furthermore, if any CEO is going to be so brazen as to rank the board for whom he works he better be very careful with what he does with said rankings. Having served three boards as a CEO I am of course well aware of the fact that CEO’s often have opinions about which board members are more or less effective, but ranking them the way Birdsall did, within months of taking over the leadership position, was foolish, particularly if he shared that ranking with anyone other than the board. Even if he did share it with the board, or board chair, only, how it was presented would make a tremendous difference in how it was received.

Earlier in the same issue of WORLD Marvin Olasky wrote that ABS and the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities “chewed up and spat out presidents” during 2013. He said that ABS, the CCCU and other Christian ministries that closed in 2013, were “beakers containing more toxic chemicals” rather than “beacons of light.” Yet, he concludes that section of his essay claiming that WORLD is “not out to find scandals that finish off organizations with a loud bang. More often we’re called to report on small storm clouds that together create gloomy skies like those many of our readers see.” Perhaps Olasky, Smith and others at WORLD are not out to “finish off” the ABS, but the tenor of their reporting makes it clear that they feel Birdsall was right and the ABS board was wrong.

I wonder if WORLD CEO Kevin Martin would feel the same way if Olasky, WORLD Editor in Chief, tried something similar. It seems to me that Birsdall’s actions as CEO of ABS were out of order. It seems that WORLD‘s coverage of the situation is, too.

Pro-exploration is not anti-science

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I know I really should not be surprised anymore, but for some reason it never ceases to amaze me how many people who claim that they believe in and stand for tolerance demonstrate anything but when someone on the other side of a position to which they hold suggests allowing for more open debate. The latest example is a proposed bill in Virginia that would allow students to explore “scientific controversies.”

Richard Bell, a Republican, represents Virginia’s 20th legislative district, and has introduced a bill calling for an amendment to Virginia’s science education policy. According to the bill, “[Faculty members] shall create an environment in public elementary and secondary schools that encourages students to explore scientific questions, learn about scientific evidence, develop critical thinking skills, and respond appropriately and respectfully to differences of opinion about scientific controversies in science classes.” Anyone who claims to value tolerance and open discussion and the free exploration of ideas should welcome such a bill, right? Sadly, no. Evolutionists are already crying foul, claiming that the bill is a thinly-veiled attempt to introduce creationism into the public school.

While the bill includes language stating that these scientific discussions are not to promote or discriminate against any religious beliefs, the bill also states, “[Faculty shall not] prohibit any public elementary or secondary school teacher from helping students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in science classes.” That means that teachers could freely discuss with students the merits of all scientific controversies–which would, of course, include evolution versus creation.

Dr. Jerry Coyne is a Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago and the author of the blog Why Evolution is True. He took to his site to explain why the bill is all wrong and why the bill is really just an attack on evolution and “anthropogenic climate change” (that’s a fancy word meaning caused by humans). In the title of his entry Coyne calls the bill the “first antiscience bill of the year.” Tell me, though–how in the world can “encourag[ing] students to explore scientific questions, learn about scientific evidence, develop critical thinking skills, and respond appropriately and respectfully to differences of opinion about scientific controversies in science classes” be anti-science? Is not this critical thinking and exploration of ideas and theories exactly what Coyne and others claim to want in schools and colleges?

Coyne goes on to state that while the bill makes it clear that “creationism and climate denialism” are to be “treated respectfully” because they are “differences of opinion,” “neither evolution nor anthropogenic climate change are ‘differences of opinion.’ They are scientific conclusions, and if teachers pretend that they’re merely ‘opinions,’ they’re sorely misleading the students.” Coyne says that the only acceptable response to the suggestion of creationism is to tell the offending student that creationism and anthropogenic climate change (he insists on linking the two) are facts, not opinions. Furthermore, he says, “if necessary, one can explain why the opposing opinions aren’t supported by science. But there should be no ‘respect’ implying that creationism and climate-change denialism are credible views.”

Interesting… Coyne thinks it is fine to explain the data, theory and so-called facts supporting macroevolution to any student who has the audacity to question it. This seems to be exactly what Bell’s bill has in mind when it states, in Section C, that teachers are tasked with “helping students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories.” If evolution and anthropogenic climate change are the scientific facts that Coyne claims they are he should welcome the discussion and encourage it in classrooms. However, apparently he is comfortable only with presenting the support for evolution and anthropogenic climate change, and anyone stupid enough to question or challenge it does not even need to be treated with respect.

Bell, on the other hand, in an article on the Christian News Network, says, “[W]e’re not asking everyone to believe the same thing; we’re asking for teachers to be protected when they allow discussions about different opinions to take place.”

When someone has facts on his side he does not fear the questions or arguments of the other side. If Coyne is so confident that evolution is established scientific fact he should have no problem allowing the kinds of conversations Bell’s bill is encouraging. The reality is that Coyne is hiding fear behind his guise of scientific certainty; quite simply, he does not want students and teachers to be allowed to critique evolution because under examination it tends to crumble. Imagine if there were a group of people who insisted that two plus two was five. I cannot imagine any math teacher or professor, or even any politician, insisting that math teachers not be allowed to consider that argument in the classroom or to evaluate its merits. Any real mathematician would welcome the discussion, because there are so many ways to prove that two plus two is four that it would be a very short and lopsided conversation. The conversation about evolution goes quite differently because, despite Coyne’s assertion, evolution is not a scientific conclusion.

Coyne ends his blog post with this: “Shame on you, Virginia. If they wanted teachers to simply teach accepted science, they wouldn’t need to pass bills like this.” I would, with all due respect, counter with this…

Shame on you, Dr. Coyne. If you were truly interested in real education and in the testing of theories and hypotheses (as scientists are supposed to be) you would support, encourage and welcome the discussions this bill would protect.

The Gettysburg Address

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Today is the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s delivery of the Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Despite the fact that Lincoln was not the keynote speaker that day, that he did not speak very long, and that he did not seem to think that his words would have any lasting impact, his remarks that day are unquestionably among the most important speeches in American history. It is not by chance or happenstance that his words are still remembered and studied a century and a half later. The text is engraved on the wall of the Lincoln Memorial and memorizing the speech is still fairly common among schools and even colleges in the United States.

I had a unique experience with the Gettysburg Address while I was in college. I was taking an honors course entitled Lincoln at Gettysburg: Propositions of Equality. The course was taught by my favorite professor, Dr. Myron Marty, and we spent the entire semester studying first Lincoln’s words at Gettysburg and then the impact of those words in general and the attempts by other presidents after Lincoln to effect the equality Lincoln spoke so eloquently about. (I, for example, was assigned to look at the first President Bush and the Americans with Disabilities Act). my unique experience, though, came when we were supposed to report to class one day with a question we had about the Gettysburg Address. I had forgotten to think of a question in advance and so, as Mr. Marty (as he preferred to be called) told us that he was going to distribute 3 x 5 cards and we were to write down our questions I quickly thought of this one: How, if at all, would Lincoln have changed his remarks if he could have known that they would still be studied more than a hundred years later? Mr. Marty then collected the questions and proceeded to read them aloud to the class, first telling us that we would have to select one of the questions to be the topic for a research paper we were going to write. For some reason only he will ever know, when Mr. Marty read my question he looked at me (no doubt with a twinkle in his eye) and said, “I am going to require you to write your paper on this question.”

In my mind I was thinking, “Thanks a lot! It is an interesting and thought-provoking question(if I do say so myself), but how in the world am I going to research what Lincoln might have done if he had known something he did not know?” Well, researching that paper turned out to be a fascinating experience for me, and I got an A on it. I think I still have it somewhere, but since I am not going to share it here right now I will go ahead and give you my conclusion: had he known his comments would be remembered and studied long after he spoke them Lincoln probably would have spent much more time crafting them and probably would have changed them, but he should not have changed them. In other words, they were practically perfect just as he delivered them.

Lincoln’s words have echoed through the decades because of what he accomplished in just a few minutes. He recalled the founding of the country, and the belief that all mean are created equal. The Constitution, of course, did not originally reflect that belief given that it did not grant women the right to vote and permitted slavery, but the belief was there in the hearts and minds of many and that belief was eventually recognized with the abolition of slavery and the granting of voting rights to women and non-whites. It has not been recognized yet in one very important way, though, and that is that unborn children are still legally murdered when their mothers decide for whatever reason not to allow them to live. This is a clear violation of the idea that all men are created equal. This idea is also being perverted by those who insist that homosexuals deserve the right to marry. I have explained numerous times why homosexual marriage is not a civil rights issue, so I will not do so again. My point, though, is that the idea that all men are created equal has still not reached its complete fulfillment.

There is far more within the Gettysburg Address that is worthy of examination. If you cannot remember the words of the speech I encourage you to look them up and find them–it will not be hard! Take time to think about the message Lincoln shared that day one hundred and fifty years ago. Take time to reflect on the sacrifice paid by men and women in defense of this nation and the freedoms we hold dear…a sacrifice eventually paid by Lincoln himself. Take time to reflect on Lincoln’s conviction that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth,” and think about the danger being posed to that government by the actions of our current elected officials.

Lincoln’s speech was brief, but heartfelt. He spoke out of the convictions of his heart. There were no speech writers, no teleprompters…he wrote the words himself and he delivered them reverently and solemnly. They are still remembered because they are powerful and, if we let them, they still have much to say to us today.

I’ll be a nutcase, thank you

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The conflict over girls being allowed to participate in boys sports is not a new one, but unfortunately it is not going away, either. Parents of a seventh grade girl in Pennsylvania are suing the school district because it will not allow their daughter to wrestle on the school’s (all male) wrestling team. The school says the reason is that allowing her to participate would present dilemmas for the coaches. The family contends that it is because she is a girl.

Hmmm…ya think?

The family has filed suit in federal court. The district has responded that is does not allow boys and girls to participate together in close contact sports because students have a “right to be protected from undesired contact of sensual body parts from a person of the opposite sex.” The parents countered that their daughter began wrestling when she was in third grade and that in Iowa, where they lived at the time, she was on the school wrestling team in fourth and fifth grade and she competed against boys there. A federal judge has issued an order for the school to allow the girl to sign up for the team and will have a hearing this week to decide whether or not to make that order permanent. My guess is that the judge will rule in the girl’s favor. In my mind, that is unfortunate.

There are girls participating in wrestling all across the country. There are girls on wrestling teams in South Dakota, where I am a school administrator. Our school has a wrestling team and our school policy is that (1) girls cannot wrestle and (2) our boys cannot wrestle girls on other teams. If there is a girl on another team that one of our boys would be paired with, we forfeit the match. There is no discussion, no question, no negotiating. And yet this is not out of some sexist desire to exclude girls or restrict their opportunities or treat them as lesser individuals. It is, on the other hand, out of respect for the girls and the boys and the way in which God created them.

In 2009 John Piper wrote what I think is one of the best responses to the issue of girls wrestling boys. He wrote it in response to first female competitor in a high school wrestling tournament in Minnesota, and it was entitled “Over My Dead Body, Son.” In the post Piper wrote that the moment was not a step forward; “some cultures spend a thousand years unlearning the brutality of men toward women,” he said.

In Piper’s inimitable way he identified the real issue regarding the unwillingness of many to stand in opposition to this perversion of healthy gender roles: “It’s just too uncool. The worst curse that can fall on us is to be seen as one of those nutcases who hasn’t entered the modern world. This is not about courageous commitment to equality; it’s about wimpy fear of criticism for doing what our hearts know is right.”

I was never a wrestler, not in a formal sense. Like probably any male who grew up with a brother close in age I have certainly wrestled. But the sport of wrestling has rules, it has “moves,” and it has uniforms. None of these create a situation that allows for a healthy male-female interaction. First, the uniforms are skin tight. I have never seen a girl in a wrestling singlet and I never want to. Second, wrestling as designed requires grabbing, squeezing, twisting, pushing, pulling… There is, to my knowledge, no other sport in which the opponents are so physically close for so long. Wrestling opponents are literally as close to each other, and entwined with each other, as two humans can be. Tell me then, why in the world any sane parent would allow, much less encourage, a daughter to intentionally place herself in a position to be wearing skin tight clothing pressed together with a young man also wearing skin tight clothing? Piper writes of watching an online instructional video for wrestling, illustrating how to pin your opponent. Of this video he writes, “these two guys are pressing and pulling on each other with unfettered and total contact. And it isn’t soft. It’s what we do not allow our sons to do to girls.”

In 2011 Iowa high schooler Joel Northrup was the fifth-ranked wrestler in the state, but he took a stand when he was matched with a female opponent in the first round of the state championships. Northrup forfeited because he was unwilling to wrestle a girl. Here is what he had to say: “I have a tremendous amount of respect for Cassy [Herkelman, the wrestler he drew] and Megan [another female wrestler who made it to the state championships] and their accomplishments. However, wrestling is a combat sport and it can get violent at times. As a matter of conscience and my faith, I do not believe that it is appropriate for a boy to engage a girl in this manner. It is unfortunate that I have been placed in a situation not seen in most high-school sports in Iowa.”

Northrup’s father is a pastor, and he said, “We believe in the elevation and respect of woman.” ESPN’s Rick Reilly responded in complete foolishness to that statement when he wrote this on ESPN.com: “That’s where the Northrups are so wrong. Body slams and takedowns and gouges in the eye and elbows in the ribs are exactly how to respect Cassy Herkelman. This is what she lives for. She can elevate herself, thanks.”

National Review‘s Mona Charen wisely challenged Reilly’s comments with this questions: “Are we really sure we want to obliterate the last traces of chivalry in young men — to stamp out every trace of protectiveness from the male psyche?” Charen, like Piper, pointed out that boys wrestling girls are put in the position of either being at a distinct disadvantage or of touching girls in places that boys are told in every other context not to touch girls. Says Charen, “Supporters of co-ed wrestling insist that sex is the last thing on the kids’ minds when they’re in the arena, which is almost certainly false.” She concluded her piece with this summary: “Joel Northrup did the honorable thing by bowing out and refusing to wrestle a girl. He cited his conscience and his faith. They have been better guides for him than this gender-neutrality ideology has been for the state of Iowa.” I agree wholeheartedly, though I would suggest that gender-neutral ideology has been detrimental to far more than just the state of Iowa (as, I am sure, would Charen).

Selwyn Duke, writing for American Thinker, said this: “Having girls and boys grapple on mats in front of spectators is nothing short of social perversion.” Later, Duke writes, “We put boys — whose natural desire to be a knight in shining armor and protect girls should be cultivated — in an unreasonable position: They either have to contribute to the defeminizing of the fairer sex or the emasculation of their own.”

I am not really convinced that girls need to wrestle at all. If they do need to, though, they should be wrestling each other, not boys. After all, what other sport is there at the level of high school or above where girls and boys compete against each other? I cannot think of any. And if there is any sport in which coed participation should not be happening it is wrestling! Jen Chu, the Pennsylvania director for women’s wrestling, agrees. She said, in a March 2012 article for Max Preps (a web site devoted to high school sports), “My goal is to have something completely separate from the boys and establish girls wrestling. The answer is to separate girls and boys wrestling, and the way to expand the sport is to separate it.”

Bottom line, girls and boys should not be wrestling each other. There is no realistic argument that supports it. The gender equality argument does not. The comparison to other sports does not. The biblical perspective certainly does not. We need men and women to stand up for the truth, to be willing to say to each other and to their children that boys wrestling girls is not right, it does not benefit anyone, and we will not allow it. And if, in Piper’s words, that means someone will see me as a nutcase, sign me up.

What About Common Core? (part 5)

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I hate to do this. Really, I do. Quite frankly, I am irritated that the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) have taken up so much of my time and attention recently–especially when I am not (1) required to follow them at the school where I serve, and (2) even all that interested in defending the standards themselves! What bugs me is the misinformation and the manipulation of the facts that is so prevalent surrounding the CCSS. I wrote at length on these standards last week and then decided after four posts that I was done. I intended to walk away from the issue and leave it alone. Then I got today’s mail…

In today’s mail I received a letter from Concerned Women for America (CWA) which was accompanied by a pamphlet entitled “Stop Common Core ‘State’ Standards.” The pamphlet included a picture of an elementary school child wearing a safety patrol vest, holding a stop sign. At the top of the cover was this statement: “An Unconstitutional Experiment on Our Children.” The lower part of the cover says, “An experiment destined for failure, loss of local control, loss of parental rights, loss of privacy, high costs and more.” Now, I respect CWA and much of what they do. However, I cannot ignore the inaccuracies and spin of their propaganda piece. The only way to have healthy and meaningful debate is to stick to the facts, and conservative organizations need to hold themselves to that standard–particularly organizations that are also Christian.

The inside front page of the pamphlet provides this explanation in response to the headline, “What is the Common Core?”

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) is a set of national K-12 standards in math and English language arts currently being implemented in 45 states and Washington, D.C. The CCSS were developed behind closed doors by a left-leaning Washington, D.C.-based non-profit group. Supporters of the CCSS claim that the development of the standards was a “state-led” effort, but that simply is not true. Neither state boards of education, state legislators nor local education officials, school leaders, nor parents were included in the development, evaluation, and adoption of CCSS.

That paragraph includes reference to an end note after the comment about the “left-leaning” non-profit group, and that end note directs readers to a report by the National Governors Association, the Council of Chief State School Officers, and Achieve, Inc., entitled “Benchmarking for Success: Ensuring U.S. Students Receive a World-Class Education.” Interestingly, that report was published in 2008, and the CCSS were not even copyrighted until 2010. The suggestion, though, is that Achieve, Inc. is a “left-leaning” non-profit group responsible for drafting the CCSS. The report in question was outlining the arguments in favor of developing such standards. However, Achieve, Inc. (1) is a bipartisan organization that includes both Republican and Democratic governors on its board of directors, and (2) is not cited at all in the final CCSS.

Furthermore, that CWA paragraph states that there were no state boards of education, elected officials or local education officials involved in the “behind close doors” development of the CCSS. However, the CCSS were developed by the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). The CCSSO is “a nonpartisan, nationwide, nonprofit organization of public officials who head departments of elementary and secondary education in the states, the District of Columbia, the Department of Defense Education Activity, and five U.S. extra-state jurisdictions.” The CCSSO board of directors has as its president Mitchell Chester, the Massachusetts Commissioner of Education. The president-elect is Terry Holliday, the Commissioner of Education for Kentucky. The past president is Thomas Luna, the Superintendent of Public Instruction in Idaho. The board includes education heads from six other states. These individuals serve as the executive officers for their state departments of education and, in many states, also serve as secretary or ex-officio members of the state boards of education. It would therefore be difficult to suggest that neither state boards of education nor school leaders were involved in the development of the CCSS. Furthermore, the suggestion that teachers were not involved in the development of the CCSS is not true. There were teachers involved all along the way, and the National Education Association (NEA), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), and National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) are among the groups that were involved. PolitiFact.com rates the assertion that teachers were not involved in the development of the standards as “false” on their truth-o-meter, and even identifies and quotes teachers who were involved in the CCSS development (see the article here).

The CWA pamphlet also states that many states agreed to adopt the CCSS and the accompanying assessments “sight unseen.” That may be true. Even if it is, though, that is a problem with the elected officials in those states, not with the CCSS. No state could adopt the CCSS without the approval of elected officials. It simply is not possible.

The CWA pamphlet also states that the CCSS violate the Constitution, specifically the Tenth Amendment. I addressed in a previous post the fact that the federal government did not impose the CCSS on the states because it cannot do so. It can incentivize the adoption of the standards, and it did do that, but that is not unconstitutional.

The pamphlet goes on to suggest that there are three federal statutes which “prohibit the federal government from guiding the educational curriculum of the states.” The first of those statutes is the General Education Provisions Act. This act reads as follows:

No provision of any applicable program shall be construed to authorize any department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or personnel of any educational institution, school, or school system, or over the selection of library resources, textbooks, or other printed or published instructional materials by any educational institution or school system, or to require the assignment or transportation of students or teachers in order to overcome racial imbalance.

The problem with the CWA assertion, though, is that the individual states that are adopting CCSS have made their own decision to do so. When a state voluntarily adopts the CCSS it is the state, not the federal government, that is subjecting itself to the CCSS guidelines.

The second law referenced is the Department of Education Organization Act. This 1979 law creating the Department of Education contains basically the same language as the law quoted above. Section 103(b) reads…

No provision of a program administered by the Secretary or by any other officer of the Department shall be construed to authorize the Secretary or any such officer to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or personnel of any educational institution, school, or school system, over any accrediting agency or association, or over the selection or content of library resources, textbooks, or other instructional materials by any educational institution or school system, except to the extent authorized by law.

The reasons why CCSS does not violate this law are already outlined above.

Finally, the CWA pamphlet references the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. Now, the full act is some 600 pages. If you want to read it all, help yourself–it is public record and not hard to find. However, this act actually does more to support CCSS than to hinder it. After all, Section 1001 (1) states that the law’s purpose is to “ensure that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education” by “ensuring that high-quality academic assessments, accountability systems, teacher preparation and training, curriculum, and instructional materials are aligned with challenging State academic standards so that students, teachers, parents, and administrators can measure progress against common expectations for student academic achievement….” And again, any suggestion that the CCSS violate the law is negated by the fact that the individual states have opted in to CCSS; they have not had it forced upon them.

The CWA pamphlet goes on to state that “local control of education is best, whereby parents, teachers and taxpayers have a voice.” I agree wholeheartedly, and I am on record as advocating the abolition of the Department of Education completely. Again, though, this is a separate issue from the CCSS.

CWA also suggests that the CCSS actually lower education standards. I think this is a real stretch. It would take quite a while to go through and address, standard by standard, why I disagree with this assertion, so I am not going to do it. But I will touch briefly on one specific assertion made by the CWA pamphlet regarding literature. The pamphlet states that the CCSS has a “prominence of nonfiction ‘informational texts’ such as technical manuals, government documents, brochures and menus rather than highly regarded classic literature.” This argument is really a nonstarter for me. First of all, a well-rounded education needs to include “informational texts” as well as classic literature. Informational texts are certainly going to be more practical for most students than classic literature. Second, though, the assertion is inaccurate.

The CCSS text exemplars (and again, these are recommendations– they are not mandated) include a healthy variety of both. Grades 9-10, for example, include recommendations for stories, drama, poetry and informational texts. Homer’s The Odyessey, O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi,” Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Shaara’s The Killer Angels, Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Macbeth, Williams’ The Glass Menagerie, Poe’s “The Raven,” Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 73,” and Dickinson’s “We Grow Accustomed to the Dark” are but some of the recommended reading for high school freshmen and sophomores. (One of the more bizarre rumors surrounding the CCSS, by the way, is that The Grapes of Wrath is recommended for second grade. Not true.)

What are informational texts recommended for grades 9-10? Speeches by Patrick Henry, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Ronald Reagan are listed for Language Arts. The History/Social Studies information texts include works on Custer, art, fish, African Americans in the Civil War and great composers. Science, math and technical subject recommendations include Euclid’s Elements as well as works on stars, the circumference of the earth and a government document on recommended levels of insulation. Not only do the fiction recommendations exceed the nonfiction recommendations, there is nothing wrong or detrimental about the nonfiction recommendations!

So, to repeat my mantra yet again, please do not believe everything you hear or read about the CCSS. This topic has become quite the political hot potato and folks on both sides are using half truths and spin to support their arguments. Do the research and find the facts for yourself…and insist on candor and honesty from those who are arguing about these standards.