Update 8:30AM EDT: Now over 15K raised through individual contributions!
Because Texas buys textbooks as a single block, the state has the largest impact on K-12 curricula in the nation. There are two, local races, where every penny goes to work, that have big implications for science education all over the country. The outcome of either contest could tip the balance away from anti-science extremists who seized control of the schoolboard to professional educators with the students’ best interests in mind. Please help if you can.
You can make a single stop contribution to Judy Jennings and Rebecca Bell-Metereau here. More details at Daily Kos. If you are a blogger or science journalist, please spread the word!
September 22nd, 2010 at 1:00 pm
Outstanding. BTW, she’s probably too modest to mention this, but I never would have known about these races if it wasn’t for Sheril Kirshenbaum and Chris Mooney.
September 22nd, 2010 at 1:15 pm
Passing word around now..
September 22nd, 2010 at 2:00 pm
[...] Get Out Those Checkbooks: Time to Save Science Education! [...]
September 22nd, 2010 at 2:21 pm
Ug, nothing like having to use time and money to ward of a second dark age . . .
September 22nd, 2010 at 4:21 pm
Absolutely true that the textbook adoption process is deeply flawed and politicized and that the situation in Texas is horrific. But it would be a mistake not to see how the science education community itself, embodied by the National Science Education Standards as approved by the National Research Council, has thwarted the development and dissemination of quality textbooks and science programs in public schools. Private schools are so far largely immune from those problems.
September 22nd, 2010 at 4:49 pm
The insanity of the USA continues to rear its ugly head. The world runs on science but religoius zealots sometimes have the power due to voter ignorance, apathy or a combination of both. It is no wonder that the USA is in the shape it is in. The people really don’t care but start screaming if things don’t go their way. It is time to blame the electors for not doing their job not the elected. Science is too hard for most students and it is a lot easier to hypnotize them with religious matters let them buy unlimited guns and ammunition than it is to teach them science so why bother.
Americans should move to Canada where we have free medical coverage and teach science, not well, but we do teach it.
September 22nd, 2010 at 8:43 pm
To continue a thought. It is too easy to get bent out of shape about the influence of fundamentalist religion in public education, specifically surrounding biological evolution. It is another matter for a hardworking journalist to investigate science education “reform;” to find authors, publishers, and educators on the ground who understand the crime perpetrated by the National Research Council and how deeply this has warped science education in the United States. I submit that there is not a working science journalist who understands this problem. Battling the anti-evolutionists is sexy. Really understanding science education in the United States requires another level of commitment and dedication.
September 22nd, 2010 at 9:11 pm
The wing nuts’ assault on evolution is well-known. Less well known is the damage they’ve done to environmental science. In 2009, they pushed global warming denial into the curriculum. Last time they considered science textbooks, they rejected one for being to positive on the Endangered Species Act and too negative on deforestation. The big textbook publishers often self censor in order to appease the ideologues on the Texas State Board of Education, and their watered-down textbooks wind up in classrooms across the country.
September 22nd, 2010 at 9:47 pm
And even less well known is how the science standards have screwed things up. Far more damaging than anything the wingnuts can do.
September 23rd, 2010 at 4:39 am
Feynman’s essay on judging books by their covers is well worth re-reading here.
The problem with science education goes far deeper than just creationism or global warming catastrophe. If science was being taught properly, it wouldn’t matter if you included statements supporting them, because students would know or quickly identify the flaws and errors in them.
But they can’t, because educators confuse science with the conclusions of science; and have targets set of so many facts and theories to learn and no time to explain the reasons and process – Wakalixes rather than meaningful explanations. They fall back instead on authority to convince, which is fragile. The result is a public with no deep understanding, who are easily swayed, and who regard science as just another arena of politics, because that is what it has been made.
The process for procuring schoolbooks has long been corrupt (see Feynman), and now so is our understanding of science. This will not be so easily fixed.
September 23rd, 2010 at 3:46 pm
[...] http://www.meanrachel.com/2010/09/what-learned-me-over-my-texas-summer.html http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2010/09/22/get-out-those-checkbooks-time-to-save-scie... [...]
September 24th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
First, I’m totally with Nullius. Relying on textbooks is problematic. While the acquisition of facts is certainly important to learning, learning how to locate, evaluate, and filter information is even more critical. After the comparatively brief period of formal school, learning throughout the rest of our lives is autodidactic in nature. It could easily be argued, then, that learning /how/ to learn is what’s important. It could further be argued that textbooks are not good mediums for this type of training.
Second, setting aside the problematic nature of relying on textbooks and theories of the purpose of education, it seems unwise to fight against a perverted hegemonic system of education–as the Texas School Board appears to be–by replacing it with another hegemonic system of education that one favors. Doing this is only a temporary victory as the pendulum of public sentiment will eventually swing back undoing what was just done. In my mind it would be better to fundamentally change the underlying system: decouple textbook content from a single school board’s whims. There are a number of ways this could be done: have multiple states strengthen their textbook requirement laws to the extent that the “Texas model applies to everyone” is impossible, create a competing “open source” textbook authoring NGO, etc.
There are more problems with textbooks than just their content. An issue near and dear to my heart (I mean wallet) is when university instructors create low-quality textbooks that they revise annually and require their students to purchase. Granted this issue affects a different group of people than the Texas issue, but I see these and other issues as systemic flaws in our model. Wouldn’t it be better to donate money to a cause trying to fix the underlying system rather than just throwing money–making yet another high-dollar race–at the existing one?
September 25th, 2010 at 11:18 pm
Below my comment is a review of the 6th Edition of a physical science textbook written for the 8th/9th grade level. A review of the 7th Edition also exists and the book currently is in its 9th Edition and still every bit as good. If the book is so terrific, which it is, and if does all the things the reviewer claims, which it does, why has it been increasingly difficult for this textbook to pass muster in state school board adoptions? If you can answer this question in full, then you’ve answered the reason why the fights over evolution are small potatoes. The question illustrates one of the key problems with modern secondary school science education in The United States.
http://www.textbookleague.org/65phys.htm
September 28th, 2010 at 12:45 am
“The people really don’t care but start screaming if things don’t go their way. It is time to blame the electors for not doing their job not the elected. Science is too hard for most students and it is a lot easier to hypnotize them with religious matters let them buy unlimited guns and ammunition than it is to teach them science so why bother.”
Right. It is evident that you have much to teach the world about subtle and careful thinking. Unlike the ignoramuses who are mired in crude stereotypes, yes?