On 3/25/14, 3:50 AM, F*O*A*D wrote:
...continues

Mon Mar 24, 2014 at 07:12 AM PDT
Taxpayer dollars teach that evolution is 'wicked and vain'

by Laura ClawsonFollow


Laws that govern how evolution is and is not taught in public schools
draw public debate, but privatization is the main way creationism is
making inroads in publicly funded schools. That's because many states
have voucher programs that include religious schools with an extreme
anti-science curriculum, as Politico's Stephanie Simon found:

A POLITICO review of hundreds of pages of course outlines,
textbooks and school websites found that many of these faith-based
schools go beyond teaching the biblical story of the six days of
creation as literal fact. Their course materials nurture disdain of the
secular world, distrust of momentous discoveries and hostility toward
mainstream scientists. They often distort basic facts about the
scientific method — teaching, for instance, that theories such as
evolution are by definition highly speculative because they haven’t been
elevated to the status of “scientific law.”

And this approach isn’t confined to high school biology class; it
is typically threaded through all grades and all subjects.

One set of books popular in Christian schools calls evolution “a
wicked and vain philosophy.” Another derides “modern math theorists” who
fail to view mathematics as absolute laws ordained by God. The publisher
notes that its textbooks shun “modern” breakthroughs — even those, like
set theory, developed back in the 19th century. Math teachers often set
aside time each week — even in geometry and algebra — to explore numbers
in the Bible. Students learn vocabulary with sentences like, “Many
scientists today are Creationists.”

The vouchers that fund these schools are booming, with the number of
students receiving them having risen 30 percent since 2010 and
legislation proposed in 26 states to create or expand voucher programs.
Of course, not all vouchers go to schools that teach that 19th-century
math is insufficiently biblical, but the fact that they can should be a
major national scandal. At least 300 voucher-funded schools in nine
states and the District of Columbia teach creationism.

These religious schools aren't the only way vouchers and similar
programs are hurting public education, of course—the explicit goal of
leading voucher advocates is full privatization of education. And when I
say explicit, I mean explicit: "Like most other conservatives and
libertarians, we see vouchers as a major step toward the complete
privatization of schooling," according to the president of the Heartland
Institute in 1997. While the big spread of vouchers comes at the state
level, they're very much a part of the national Republican agenda. House
Majority Leader Eric Cantor, for instance, is all about vouchers. So
don't be fooled by the "school choice" rhetoric. We're talking about an
all-out assault on public education with a heaping dose of anti-science
teaching.


Hard to complete in this world when your kids are learning absolute
nonsense in their church schools.


At least the Church schools teach reading.