| 
Are
We Really Getting A Good Deal in the Schools?
Not
in Ohio.
U.S.
spends average $8,701 per pupil on education
Reuters, Thu May 24, 2007 4:54PM EDT
WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - The United States spent an average of $8,701
per pupil to educate its children in 2005, the Census Bureau
said on Thursday, with some states paying more than twice as much
per student as others.
New York was the biggest spender on education, at $14,119 per student,
with New Jersey second at $13,800 and Washington, D.C., third at
$12,979, the Census Bureau said. Seven of the top 10 education spenders
were Northeastern states.
The states with the lowest spending were Utah, at $5,257 per pupil,
Arizona $6,261, Idaho $6,283, Mississippi $6,575 and Oklahoma $6,613.
The 10 states with the lowest education spending were in the West
or South. |
Ohio
Graduation Test halts 8,956 statewide
TPS seniors who fail will not get diplomas
By IGNAZIO MESSINA, Toledo Blade, May 23, 2007
Nearly three-quarters of the public high school seniors who took
the high-stakes Ohio Graduation Test in March failed at least one
part of the test and will be denied a diploma next month, according
to state data released yesterday.
Statewide, 12,387 high school seniors took the Ohio Graduation Test
in March. It was the last chance for the class of 2007 to pass all
five sections of the high school exit exam before the traditional
commencement this year.
Of those who took the test, 8,956 - more than 72 percent - failed
one or more sections they took. Among them, 4,251 seniors failed
just one test, the Ohio Department of Education said. |
Homeschoolers Aren't All Wack-Jobs --Some of Us
Actually Read Darwin
Recently the "Creation Museum" opened near here,
another claim to fame for the progressive midwest....
The
Creation Museum is located just 7 miles west of the Cincinnati/Northern
Kentucky International Airport and within a day’s drive of almost
2/3 of the U.S. population. Address: 2800 Bullittsburg Church Road, Petersburg,
KY
The
first time I saw the address, I thought it said "bullshit" road.
The website has been fun:
www.creationmuseum.org/
Locally, coverage of the opening of this museum
so far has been a perfectly politically correct series of articles:
Thousands
attend opening
Believers, skeptics differ on life's origins
Cincinnati
Enquirer, Tuesday, May 29, 2007
BY MIKE RUTLEDGE
<choice snip> But the flash lacks the facts, argue Riehemann,
Krauss and other critics - including more than 800 scientists from
Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana who signed a "statement of concern"
about the museum.
"We, the undersigned scientists at universities and colleges
... are concerned about scientifically inaccurate materials at the
Answers in Genesis museum," the statement reads. "Students
who accept this material as scientifically valid are unlikely to
succeed in science courses at the college level." [read
on]
|
Though
the reaction in the United States, where freedom of speech is still protected,
has been interesting. Bloggers, especially many homeschoolers again are
having to step up and scream "wait a minute, my homeschool isn't
about indoctrination, and I am not a wack-job!":
Walking
with dinosaurs, and eating salad with them too
May 25, 2007
<choice
snip> And here we go again. Homeschooling must be a form of
indoctrination, and its primary purpose must be to make our children
in our own images. Homeschooling parents work diligently to protect
their children from the world's evil influences, be they naughty
words on TV or insufficiently pious biology textbooks. AiG states
that the top three reasons that parents homeschool "include
the parents’ desire to instill a biblical worldview in their
children, the biblical responsibility that parents have to teach
their children, and the poor moral (and learning) environment
in many public schools."
This perception of homeschooling is perpetrated by both right-wing
organizations such as HSLDA (the Homeschool Legal Defense Association...
a creepy bunch of bastards they are) and by (oh, how it pains!)
my fellow loony liberals who have bought into the idea that public
education is always the best thing for every child and that teaching
your own kids is tantamount to child abuse. Absent from any media
discussion of homeschooling are the families who homeschool to
allow their children to take joy in (and responsibility for) learning,
to escape the bureaucracy and standardization of public schools,
to simply spend their days together as families have done for
millennia. [read
on]
|
AiG
and Home Schooling (AiG - Answers in Genesis)
John Stear - "Creationism is not the alternative to Evolution
- ignorance is"
The links below are to rebuttals of items taken from "Home Education
Weekly News", an e-mail service provided by Answers in Genesis'
Creation Education Centre.
Home schooling is a contentious issue. Attempts by Biblical literalists
to insert their religious dogma into American public education have
been strongly opposed by educators and scientists and soundly rejected
by the courts and the voters. This has helped fuel the proliferation
of home schooling among the members of the religious far right who
have school age children. Professional creationists have encouraged
this practice by producing "curriculum" guides to be used
by home schooling parents. [read
on] |
Though
some of the more recent updates on the characters that have "contributed"
to this museum have been pretty interesting:
Museum's
'Adam' has sexy past
BY JULIE CARR SMYTH, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Registration records show that Eric Linden, who portrays Adam taking
his first breath in a film at the newly opened Creation Museum,
owns a graphic Web site called Bedroom Acrobat. He has been pictured
there, smiling alongside a drag queen, in a T-shirt brandishing
the site’s sexually suggestive logo. [read
on] |
A
good Scientist friend of mine wanted to "weigh" in on this topic,
(as much as I wanted to "run" with this one) and even though
Daphne the Science
Guinea Pig is well read, she didn't seem to recall reading about dianosaurs
in the Bible and just couldn't understand all the whooey surrounding the
Creation Museum, or AiG. She left me with an entire list of resources
that show there were no dinosaurs in the Garden of Eden.
Even
though Daphne the Science Guinea Pig doesn't recall reading about dinosaurs
in the Garden of Eden, it seems that we're not really even sure where
the Garden of Eden really is. Some people believe that it is in Independence
Missouri:
Was
The Garden of Eden in Missouri?
by Sandra Tanner (Official Website of Utah Lighthouse™ Ministry),
founded by Jerald and Sandra Tanner.
The purpose of this site is to document problems with the claims
of Mormonism and compare LDS doctrines with Christianity.)
When Christians hear Mormons refer to the Garden of Eden they may
incorrectly assume that the LDS believe it was by the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers. Joseph Smith, however, claimed by revelation that
the Garden of Eden was in western Missouri. This would throw off
the entire first part of Genesis. Noah would have left in the ark
from Missouri and sailed to some location in the Middle East. LDS
Apostle John A. Widtsoe explained:
"Latter-day Saints know, through modern revelation, that the
Garden of Eden was on the North American continent and that Adam
and Eve began their conquest of the earth in the upper part of what
is now the state of Missouri. It seems very probable that the children
of our first earthly parents moved down along the fertile, pleasant
lands of the Mississippi valley." (John A. Widtsoe, Evidences
and Reconciliations, three volumes in one, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft
1960, p. 127)
|
Though
if you were going to vote for a presidential candidate strictly for his
beliefs surrounding evolution, Mitt might be your guy....
From
"The Caucus" "Political Blogging at the New York
Times"
Romney
Elaborates on Evolution
By Michael Luo, May 11, 2007, 10:19 am
Mr.
Romney, a devout Mormon, surprised some observers when he was not
among those Republican candidates who raised their hands last week
when asked at the Republican presidential debate if they did not
believe in evolution. (Senator Sam Brownback, former Gov. Mike Huckabee
and Representative Tom Tancredo said they did not.)
“I believe that God designed the universe and created the
universe,” Mr. Romney said in an interview this week. “And
I believe evolution is most likely the process he used to create
the human body.”
He was asked: Is that intelligent design?
“I’m not exactly sure what is meant by intelligent design,”
he said. “But I believe God is intelligent and I believe he
designed the creation. And I believe he used the process of evolution
to create the human body.”
While governor of Massachusetts, Mr. Romney opposed the teaching
of intelligent design in science classes. |
Romney's
Mormon Question
By NANCY GIBBS , Thursday, May. 10, 2007
John F. Kennedy's election in 1960 was supposed to have laid the
"religious question" to rest, yet it arises again with
a fury. What does the Constitution mean when it says there should
be no religion test for office? It plainly means that a candidate
can't be barred from running because he or she happens to be a Quaker
or a Buddhist or a Pentecostal. But Mitt Romney's candidacy raises
a broader issue: Is the substance of private beliefs off-limits?
You can ask if a candidate believes in school vouchers and vote
for someone else if you disagree with the answer. But can you ask
if he believes that the Garden of Eden was located in Jackson County,
Mo., as the Mormon founder taught, and vote against him on the grounds
of that answer? Or, for that matter, because of the kind of underwear
he wears? |
Though
perhaps I'll get Daphne the Science Guinea pig started on research on
who the best person is for the one presidential vote from our household.....
See
you next Month -- OldSage |
|
Good
judgment comes from the experiences gained when exercising bad judgment.
