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~ covering government and politics in Missouri – since 2007

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Tag Archives: public schools

Go ahead, you be you

31 Monday Jan 2022

Posted by Michael Bersin in social media

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

anti-mask, anti-science, Corona virus, COVID-19, DHSS, Dunklin, Jefferson County, Mary Elizabeth Coleman, missouri, pandemic, public schools, right wingnut

It’s everyone else who gets to suffer.

Mary Elizabeth Coleman (r) [2019 file photo].

Yesterday:

MaryElizabethColeman @meaccoleman
This is [….]. He didn’t wear a mask to school, and in response, [….] Superintendent Clint Freeman [….] called the cops on him for trespassing, and he was promptly hauled away in the back of a police car.
[….]
8:57 PM · Jan 30, 2022

On a Sunday?

A kid? Is the student over the age of 18? Did the student refuse to leave?

The consequences of not wearing a mask are clear.

From the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) COVID-19 Dashboard:

Note the number of cases in the last 14 days, compared to the total since March 2020. Do the math.

Note the test positivity rate.

The current Dunklin R-5 School District masking policy:

That’s fair warning.

Previously:

HB 1987: apparently 1984 was already taken (December 16, 2021)

The reason for the season? (December 26, 2021)

HB 1993: and you’ll have to wear a brown shirt while you’re driving on it (December 21, 2021)

HB 2424: Covid Mary (January 14, 2022)

Demonstrating to everyone, once again, that he really is that stupid

29 Saturday Jan 2022

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Corona virus, COVID-19, dumbass, Dunning-Kruger Effect, Jay Ashcroft, missouri, pandemic, public schools, right wingnut, Secretary of State, social media, Twitter

Jay Ashcroft (r) [2021 file photo]

This morning:

Jay Ashcroft @JayAshcroftMO
62 school districts in Missouri are closed, leaving thousands of parents without the choice for what is best for their child. That is unacceptable. Keep schools open and the right to decide what is best for the family for the parents.
10:31 AM · Jan 29, 2022

The stupid, it burns.

“…That is unacceptable…”

If you buy his crap you’re as stupid as he is.

Some of the responses:

And keep local control so school boards and local leaders can decide what’s best for THEIR communities without fear of being sued by the state and wasting taxpayers’ money! Deal?

Not gonna happen.

Perhaps protocols that would prevent sickness that forces teachers and students to stay home from school would be sensible. Can you think of any?

Uh, like wearing masks, promoting vaccines, contact tracing, quarantine?

There is not enough staff to keep them open. Kids are sick. This has nothing to do with parents rights. So tired of the gaslighting. The virus did not go away just because Parsons said he was done with it.

Why are the schools closed, Jay?

Why are 62 school districts closed?

Take a wild guess.

My goodness, you might mention they’re closed because teachers and staff are ill. This has nothing to do with ‘parents not having the choice’, it has to do with a pandemic. This is the most idiotic tweet I’ve seen in months and you’ve had a lot of competition.

Jay Ashcroft really is that stupid.

Eric Schmitt’s (r) Utopia

23 Sunday Jan 2022

Posted by Michael Bersin in US Senate

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

anti-mask, anti-science, Attorney General, Corona virus, COVID-19, Eric Schmitt, pandemic, public schools, right wingnut, sociopath

Eric Schmitt (r) [2021 file photo].

Eric Schmitt (r) [2021 file photo].

On Friday Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt (r) filed lawsuits against a number of Missouri school districts that have rejected his assertion that the school districts cannot enact mitigation efforts during a deadly global pandemic.

Rockwood School District:

Lawsuit filed against the Rockwood School District by Eric Schmitt (r) .

[….]
THE STATE OF MISSOURI ex rel. ERIC
S. SCHMITT;
JOHANNA BEAUDEAN;
BENIGNA BLEVINS;
CRYSTAL DOMAGALSKI;
RICK HORTON;
AMBER HORTON;
JULIE KELLER;
MEGHAN KING;
STEPHEN LAROCQUE;
AMBER MUELLER;
RICHARD MUELLER;
CHRIS NAEGEL;
LINDSEY NAEGEL;
SHAUNA POGGIO;
DAN SANDWEG;
STACEY SANDWEG;
CINDY SCARATO;
NAOMI SHULDBERG;
MICHELLE SWAIN;
DEREK WATSON; and
RACHEL WOOD,
Plaintiffs,
[….]

[emphasis added]

Two emails submitted about the Rockwood School District to the illegalmandates@ago.mo.gov email address set up by the Attorney General to solicit complaints about mask wearing in Missouri public schools:

From: Meghan King [….]
Sent: 12/8/2021 6:36:21 PM
To: illegalmandates@ago.mo.gov [….]
Subject: Fwd: Important Rockwood South Middle Health Information

Still happening at Rockwood.
[….]

[….]

From: Naomi Shuldberg [….]
Sent: 12/8/2021 4:30:19 PM
To: illegalmandates@ago.mo.gov [….]
Subject: Rockwood School District Segregating my kindergartner for not wearing a mask

Hi Attorney General Schmitt,

We are in the Rockwood School District in Saint Louis County.

I walked my kindergarten daughter into her school today without a mask and your letter in hand. Her principal did initially let her go to class without a mask, but said that she would need to reach out to her district supervisor and then give me a call later. After she spoke with her supervisor she let me know I had three options. I could come pick her up, I could send her back to class with a mask, or I could send her to the library to learn for the rest of the day segregating her from the rest of the class.

My daughter hates masks so much, but still wanted to stay in school so she chose to go to the library to learn for the day. I have an email into the district asking them how they feel they are above the law and how legally they have the right to segregate my healthy child away from her classmates because she refuses to put a mask on her face that is illegal and unconstitutional for them to enforce in the first place.

Our interim superintendent Dr. Ricker responded to your letter yesterday basically by stating that his attorneys assure him that he does not need to follow the law. Another thing that is unique about Rockwood is that our board has never voted on the issue of a mask mandate. Our superintendent has been the only individual making the calls for our entire district.

I appreciate all you are doing to help put the power to parent our kids back into our hands. I look forward to what type of enforcement action you will take against our district and specifically Tim ricker who is the worst of them all.

Thank you,
Naomi Shuldberg

Additional lawsuits against school districts filed by Eric Schmitt (r) include:

Ferguson-Florissant School District

Fox C-6 School District

Grandview School District C-4

Hazelwood School District

Hickman Mills C-1 School District

Lindbergh School District

Maplewood Richmond Heights School District

Pattonville R-III School District

Warrensburg R-VI School District

WARRENSBURG R-VI SCHOOL DISTRICT
MINUTES OF BOARD OF EDUCATION REGULAR BOARD MEETING
Tuesday, August 17, 2021, 7:30 P.M.
District Office Conference Room, 201 S. Holden St.
Warrensburg, MO 64093

[….]

At 7:56 PM, Board President Mr. Justin Johnson reconvened open session.

Approval of the Safe Return to In-Person and Continuity of Services Plan (SRCSP) The administration and Board discussed the Safe Return to In-Person and Continuity of Services Plan. Input from staff, parents, and patrons aided in the formulation of this Plan. Mr. Gary Grigsby moved with a second by Mr. Tom McCormack to approve the Safe Return to In-Person and Continuity of Services Plan with the addition of the mask threshold metrics and a school year start in Plan A. Vice-President Dr. Scott Chenault asked that a roll call vote be taken.

Aye: Mr. Johnson, Dr. Chenault, Mr. Sergent, Mr. Gary Grigsby, Dr. Julie Lewis, Mr. Tom McCormack, and Dr. Bridgmon. Nay: None. Motion passed.

[….]

Unanimous. That’s also called “local control.”

….The information referenced in this Plan is based on district policy EBB, County – Johnson County Community Health Services (JCCHS), State – Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS), and National – Center for Disease Control (CDC) restrictions, guidelines, and recommendations.

Expertise. How novel.

Currently, in Johnson County, Missouri:

Here is a look at our weekly COVID-19 numbers in Johnson County.
Total number of tests to-date: 76,788 PCR and 65,173 Antigen
The Positivity Rate is the percent of positive cases out of the total number of tests done.
7-Day Positivity Rate: 25.6% for PCR TESTS ONLY
Total of those vaccinated in Johnson County:
34.4% of Johnson County is fully vaccinated
38.9% have initiated vaccine.
(per state dashboard)

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt (r) is a sociopath.

Webster Groves School District

And on…

Interestingly, even with the significant number of complaints about masking requirements in private and parochial schools submitted to the illegalmandates@ago.mo.gov email address Eric Schmitt (r) doesn’t appear to have filed lawsuits against them. Why would that be the case?

Attorney General Eric Schmitt (r) didn’t need to open up his state funded “snitch on your local schools” email address. His office could have simply visited school district web sites and/or directly requested information. Aside from involving individuals in his U.S. Senate primary campaign publicity stunt, his actions damage the relationships between the community and their local school teachers, school administrators, and elected community school boards.

They have a plan.

Previously:

A simple request (December 9, 2021)

We get a response (December 14, 2021)

We’re still waiting… (December 31, 2021)

There’s much more to follow (January 6, 2022)

illegalmandates@ago.mo.gov – RSMo § 610 – Missouri Sunshine Law – email submissions – part 1 (January 6, 2022)

illegalmandates@ago.mo.gov – RSMo § 610 – Missouri Sunshine Law – email submissions – part 2 (January 7, 2022)

illegalmandates@ago.mo.gov – RSMo § 610 – Missouri Sunshine Law – email submissions – part 3 (January 8, 2022)

illegalmandates@ago.mo.gov – RSMo § 610 – Missouri Sunshine Law – email submissions – clown (January 8, 2022)

illegalmandates@ago.mo.gov – RSMo § 610 – Missouri Sunshine Law – email submissions – part 4 (January 8, 2022)

illegalmandates@ago.mo.gov – RSMo § 610 – Missouri Sunshine Law – email submissions – Get In Good Trouble (January 9, 2022)

illegalmandates@ago.mo.gov – RSMo § 610 – Missouri Sunshine Law – email submissions – part 5 (January 9, 2022)

illegalmandates@ago.mo.gov – RSMo § 610 – Missouri Sunshine Law – email submissions – One Is The Loneliest Number (January 9, 2022)

illegalmandates@ago.mo.gov – RSMo § 610 – Missouri Sunshine Law – email submissions – Photo Evidence (January 10, 2022)

illegalmandates@ago.mo.gov – RSMo § 610 – Missouri Sunshine Law – email submissions – part 6 (January 10, 2022)

illegalmandates@ago.mo.gov – RSMo § 610 – Missouri Sunshine Law – email submissions – part 7 (January 11, 2022)

illegalmandates@ago.mo.gov – RSMo § 610 – Missouri Sunshine Law – email submissions – Generations (January 12, 2022)

illegalmandates@ago.mo.gov – RSMo § 610 – Missouri Sunshine Law – email submissions – Pets (January 12, 2022)

illegalmandates@ago.mo.gov – RSMo § 610 – Missouri Sunshine Law – email submissions – part 8 (January 13, 2022)

207 W. High Street (January 18, 2022)

Arsonist complains about his victims (January 18, 2022)

Watching a dumpster fire float down the street during a flood (January 21, 2022)

Otto reads philosophy (January 21, 2022)

7500 you say?

17 Friday Dec 2021

Posted by Michael Bersin in meta, social media, US Senate

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

anti-mask, anti-science, Attorney General, Corona virus, COVID-19, Eric Schmitt, meta, missouri, Missouri Sunshine Law, pandemic, public schools, right wingnut, RSMo § 610

Eric Schmitt (r) [2021 file photo].

Today:

Attorney General Eric Schmitt @AGEricSchmitt
ICYMI: We’ve received more than 7,500 emails from concerned parents. We’ve sent 52 cease and desist letters to school districts. We will continue to fight these mask mandates and quarantine orders and enforce the law.
[….]
3:53 PM · Dec 17, 2021

We can’t wait to read them all. We have an idea.

Some of the responses:

Don’t be fooled by the zealot. #MaskUpMO #COVID19
[….]

How many emails did you receive telling you to stop trying to endanger our children

We’ve been wondering about that, too.

Not the law. You are misinterpreting a ruling and endangering kids.

He doesn’t care.

Yes, bc that’s not a feckless waste of your time & state resources. Ensuring child, teachers, staff are open & ready to get sick.

Concerned of what exactly?

ICYMI: you’re a lunatic

Thank you for protecting our freedoms. For those individuals still afraid of the virus, they can continue to mask up, vaccinate, social distance, or whatever other measures they choose fit. For the majority that aren’t afraid, business as usual!

The postman always rings twice.

Previously:

A simple request (December 9, 2021)

Forget it Eric, you’re out of your element (December 11, 2021)

The Ghost of Pandemic Present (December 13, 2021)

We get a response (December 14, 2021)

God bless the citizens of the great state of Missouri (December 15, 2021)

Meaningless word salad (December 15, 2021)

God bless the citizens of the great state of Missouri

15 Wednesday Dec 2021

Posted by Michael Bersin in meta, US Senate

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

anti-mask, anti-science, Attorney General, bullying, Corona virus, COVID-19, Eric Schmitt, missouri, pandemic, public schools, RSMo § 610, sarcasm

Every single one.

“…ATTENTION PARENTS – Missouri Attorney General asks parents for help in identifying school districts continuing to violate the Cole County order. We encourage parents to submit violations of mask mandates or other public health orders that are null and void under the judgement for further invistigation by the AGO. Email videos, pictures, or any other documentation related to this matter to illegalmandates@ago.mo.gov

Submit Media with Proper Lighting + Horizontal Orientation…”

Well, almost.

Wearing a mask.

An email submitted to Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s (r) public school anti-mask complaint email address – illegalmandates@ago.mo.gov:

From: [….]
Date: Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 00:22
Subject: Report
To: […]illegalmandates@ago.mo.gov[…]

Child wearing an illegal face covering. Excuse it was cold .

[….]

So much for “Horizontal Orientation”.

This was forwarded to us by the sender. We’ll probably have to wait until at least December 23rd to find out if there are other submissions like this one. We suspect there are quite a few.

Eric Schmitt (r) [2021 file photo].

“What could possibly go wrong?” – probably not part of the conversation in the Missouri Attorney General’s Office when they dreamed up their anti-mask email “complaint” gimmick.

Previously:

A simple request (December 9, 2021)

Forget it Eric, you’re out of your element (December 11, 2021)

The Ghost of Pandemic Present (December 13, 2021)

We get a response (December 14, 2021)

In the neighborhood

16 Tuesday Jun 2020

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

elementary school, free meals, missouri, public schools, sign, Summer

At the entrance to a local elementary school in west central Missouri.

Nicole Galloway is helping to make Missouri school children cybersecure

25 Wednesday Oct 2017

Posted by willykay in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Brce Wasinger, cybersecurity, Cybersecurity audits, missouri, Nicole Galloway, Paul Curtman, public schools, State Auditor

Thanks to State Auditor Nicole Galloway, Missouri is number one in an important area. Not only number one, but the only state even in the running. If you want to know more, keep reading.

Galloway was appointed by former Governor Jay Nixon after the death in 2015 of her predecessor in the office, Tom Schweich. Since then she’s been very busy doing a bang-up job. According to the Columbia Daily Tribune, Galloway is “on her way to becoming one of the best auditors in state history” in part because she “shows an inclination to exploit the office in unprecedented ways.” It’s the tendency to look at her job with fresh eyes that has made her a bona fide Missouri political star who does as much or – and given the current status quo – probably more to to advance quality of life in Missouri than many of our elected representatives.

A segment on the NPR radio show, The Takeaway, highlights one of the directions Galloway’s “unprecedented” approach to her job has taken: cybersecurity audits. In the wake of the Equifax hacking, Galloway has emphasized the fact that her office has made examining the mechanisms in place to insure cybersecurity “a priority across all facets of [state] government.” As the Takeaway segment noted, that goal has been extended to the data collected and retained in the public school system where digital tools have gradually become omnipresent.

So here, I bet you’re scratching your head and asking why would anyone hack a public school, why does the data schools collect need to be secured. It’s just information about kids. And there you have your answer: kids have clean credit records; they don’t usually have have a credit status at all. That means that their personal information can be used by hackers to open false accounts that will remain viable for years – until the student reaches age eighteen and finds that he or she can’t secure a line of credit because their identity was hi-jacked and their credit worthiness wrecked. There have already been incidents where school data has been stolen, although, primarily because nobody wants to be blamed for negligence, most have slipped under the radar and the problem has been under-reported.

But that’s not likely to be the case in Missouri. Thanks to Galloway’s offer to provide cybersecurity audits to public school systems, Missouri is the only state making any kind of effort to safeguard public school data. Just think. For once Missouri is playing a leading role in dealing with an emergent problem. And it’s all because we have a state auditor who is able to identify potential problem areas and act proactively to address them.

But never fear. Mediocrity – or, worse, disaster – is still out there, stalking the auditor’s office. Galloway has declared that she will run again for the office in 2018. To my knowledge, there are currently two Republicans who want her job: standard GOP drone, Bruce Wasinger and Tea Party golden boy (and, incidentally, goldbug) State Rep. Paul Curtman (R-109), whom I’m guessing is term-limited and casting about for a safe berth while he searches for a more high-profile opportunity.

Think about it. Change a fresh, vital and highly qualified auditor who has revitalized the position for ho-hum, fresh-off-the-GOP-assembly line Wasinger. Or worse, Curtman, the mini Greitens (loves guns; emotive, faux-heroic rhetoric; and reminds you of his military record every time he opens his mouth), all-in-all a Trump-lover’s dream boy. See what I mean about lurking disaster.

*Edited slightly to correct typos and add clarity (10/25/17, 1:33 pm).

Sinquefield and the KKK

02 Friday Mar 2012

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

KKK, public schools, Sinquefield

Recently, at Lindenwood University, the long simmering debate over public education exploded into hateful rhetoric against public schools by voucher advocate Rex Sinquefield, founder of the right wing think tank, The Show Me Institute.

Financier Sinquefield was lecturing on how to improve Missouri’s business climate.  The base of his speech was his support for no income tax.

Two years, I had written an Opinion Shaper column opposing no income tax, and had come to hear his side.  I was joined by Anita Miller, Francis Howell’s NEA President, Kim Garbs, Fort Zumwalt’s NEA President, and Cheryl Heibler, former St. Charles County councilwomen.

Following is his speech, Sinquefield was asked about his support to eliminate tenure for teachers. That ignited Sinquefield into a rant not only against tenure but against public education and teachers. He climaxed with these incendiary words from a column in an Osage county newspaper:

“a long time ago, decades ago, the Ku Klux Klan got together and said how can we hurt the African American children permanently? How can we ruin their lives? And what they designed was the public school system.”

Only a trickle of laughter sprouted, most were like my friends and I, just stunned. This was only the final nail in Sinquefield’s diatribe of false accusations against public schools. Prior to the KKK remark, Sinquefield had incorrectly said, “In this country, can you think of any other occupation where you can screw up, and screw up a child’s life permanently, and they can’t fire you?”

As a school board member, I have been one of the “they”; and Sinquefield is just wrong.  My second year of the school board, we terminated over 80 teachers including a large number of veteran tenured teachers. A teacher’s contract is like any workers contract it allows for dismissal of poor performing employees.  All a contract does is set up fair procedures for termination.

Besides, it takes two to sign a contract. If the administration doesn’t like a clause in a contract, work to change it in negotiations.  Tenure does not have to be granted for five years. If it takes an administrator longer to evaluate a teacher, you need a new administrator.

Sinquefield further insulted all veteran teachers by saying, “Many teachers quit. After about three to five years many of the good ones leave … and the bad ones stay.” That is how little regard Mr. Sinquefield has for all dedicated experienced teachers.

Kim Garbs asked Sinquefield if he had ever been in a public school and talked to a public school teacher. Sinquefield said he had, but the school he cited was a charter school.

Sinquefield is Missouri’s foremost advocate of charter schools. Yet charter schools have a bleak ten year history of failure in the St. Louis. Even after closing three of the worst charter school, charter schools still underperformed St. Louis public schools by almost 25 percent last year.

This failure of charter schools was underlined by a Stanford University study of 70 percent of the charter schools in the nation. They found only 16 percent of charter schools outperforming the public schools.

Despite this clear evidence there legislation is being considered which would bring charter schools to St. Charles County. Ultimately what is wanted is a voucher given to all children to go to the school of their choice.  This would mean a 12 percent cut in funding of public schools in order to bankroll private schools.

Sinquefield’s final attack on teachers came when he said, “It is, right now, illegal to consider the performance of students in setting the pay of teachers.” I questioned how my wife could be held responsible for the performance of homeless children (12 percent are in her district) or children who are beaten or sexually abuse, or are offspring of felons, drug addicts and alcoholics.

Sinquefield can be held responsible for the performance of his employees because he can fire those who are not producing. My wife cannot fire a child.

Kim, Anita, and I are members of an Education Caucus who believes in the words of Martin Luther King, “In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” It is time for all residents of St. Charles County who are friends of public education to stand up to the Rex Sinquefield’s.

My Opinion Shaper Column from St. Charles County Surburban Journal – cwviking

Promoting critical thinking and academic symbiosis in education

05 Wednesday Oct 2011

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

abstract thinking, art education, critical thinking, No Child Left Behind, public schools

“Bring me into the company of men who seek the truth, and deliver me from those who have found it.” ~ Cletus Young

One of the characteristics of our educational system has different subjects put into neat separate boxes. Math, reading, art, science. Today, we see much more blurriness and convergence between subjects like science, religion, philosophy.

This “Gnostic syncretism”-the combining of knowledge-is especially apparent when teasing out the details surrounding revolutionary innovations. The inspiration that leads to breakthroughs in technology, science-even cultural breakthroughs-many times involve a bringing together and merging of ideas formally not associated.

Many pivotal inventions, ideas, concepts have been birthed through a sort of revelatory experience breaking down barriers and opening up the mind to new ways of doing things.

For example, Nobel Prize winner Charles Hard Townes describes the unconstrained interplay of “how” and “why”-questions that both religion and science seek answers for-as he developed the principles for masers sitting on a park bench in Washington, D.C. in 1951. Masers led to lasers and an amazing plethora of inventions and discoveries in medicine, telecommunications, electronics, and computers in common use throughout the world today. Townes describes the genesis of his idea as an “epiphany”, and “revelation as real as any revelation described in the scriptures.”

Are there ways to prepare student’s minds to have revelations such as Townes had?

How do we germinate and spur on the kind of abstract thinking that leads to innovation, entrepreneurial creativity, and solutions to the larger challenges facing humankind?

The “teaching to the test” approach that initiatives like No Child Left Behind (NCLB) created, encouraged a rote and mechanistic memorization of answers to questions that a multiple choice test would ask. What gets left behind in this approach is attention toward abstract and critical thinking, depth of knowledge-the exact seeds that need to be planted to develop innovators and inventors. The bulwarks upon which whole economies are built.

Take Apple and Steve Jobs for example. When Wozniak and Jobs built their revolution in their garage the difference was in the synthesis of different disciplines together to make a truly unique product in the hobbyist computer industry. Jobs demanded that all the chips inside the Apple line up in neat little rows, blending an artistic and aesthetic perspective into what was, before, the equivalent of geeky electronic erector sets. Fast forward to the design elegance of iPods and iPads and you see the shift that has now emerged into an entire economy. Point being, the assembly line repetition that “teaching to the test” engenders does not foster the cross-disciplinary tools used in innovation.

In a recent article published on Science 2.0-“Join the Revolution”-a defense is made for NCLB, and that it’s concerted and imminent exit, possibly premature.

Hank Campbell makes statements like,

“If you teach kids critical thinking, they are not going to do as well on standardized tests, plain and simple.”-or- “Teaching ‘thinking’ means you have to teach both sides, teaching facts means young people have a lot less confusion and they can learn the subtleties in college.”

Campbell lays out the conflict between NCLB-based education on one hand and teaching critical thinking on the other as fact vs. fiction.

In other words, if we teach critical thinking, kids will have to look at all sides of a particular subject (imagine that!). For example, he warns global warming as a “fiction” will have to be seriously considered, or even evolution debunked. I understand the point, but this is a straw man argument. Critical thinking does not mean embracing falsehoods, but rather, in the finest traditions of science, examining all the evidence available to arrive at a more refined and informed perspective-a higher order of truth composed of nuances. And I’ll make the argument that in a hyper-interconnected world full of an exponentially larger set of data, information, and differing points of view, sending kids out in the world armed with only the mastery of dogmatic facts (and a lack of critical thinking) is, intellectually, sending lambs to the slaughter, so-to-speak.

We need critical thinking because in this generation we are processing more information than ever before. We have to learn to separate the wheat from the chaff from the beginning of our education-not only when students move past high school, as Campbell suggests, “…they can learn the subtleties in college.”

Hank Campbell continues in Teach Facts Or Teach Thinking? Why NCLB’s Demise Could Hurt Science Classes,

“Progressives are less likely than conservatives to dispute global warming. Progressives are less likely than conservatives to dispute evolution.   But progressives are far more likely to object to a standardized national program like NCLB, because the education unions instead want the status quo of 60 years ago, except with more money each year, and progressives don’t want to anger education unions any more than conservatives want to anger the military.  The fact that NCLB had more improvement in education in its first five years than had occurred in the previous 28 years, along with an all-time high for black and Hispanic grade schoolers, was declared unimportant.”

“It hasn’t been declared unimportant,” stated St. Louis Parkway School Board member and attorney Tom Appelbaum.

“Early on in NCLB there was a push to focus on the lower performing students, how they performed on standardized tests, and highlighting achievement gaps-but the fact remains NCLB is in the process of creating a crisis in education as fallacious and artificial as the debt-ceiling crisis was,” explained Appelbum, St. Louis Public Schools Examiner. “Because according to NCLB, by 2014, every school has been mandated that 100% of students reach the level of proficiency on standardized tests-an impossible task. Meanwhile, schools are often severely penalized for not being able to do the impossible.”

So facts versus thinking.

It really seems like you can’t have one without the other-and a comprehensive and thorough education will involve both. NCLB ratchets down the critical thinking piece and replaces it with assembly line precision. But the prize of the American economy is not fact regurgitation, nor even professional classes like engineers (China and India are cranking out engineers at a rate we’ll never match)-the prize of the American economy is creativity, entrepreneurialism, and innovation.

The prize is intellectual property-an industrial sector that has performed at a trade surplus since its inception. Publishing, software, technology. And all this goes down in a realm not defined by neat boxes, it happens in the nether world where ideas and disciplines collide freely and emerge as new things. In a recent appearance on the Daily Show, New York Times columnist and author Tom Friedman gave a vision for an America re-discovering its former heritage of success and becoming the place in the world where new projects are launched. If ideas flourish here, they’ll have a good chance of having global legs. It makes sense, and points toward the need to embrace creativity, entrepreneurialism, and innovation as the chief characteristics of what we teach to our children-and what we support through public policy, research, and reducing barriers for new talent to have access to our marketplace.

The study of
crossing disciplines has increasing pertinence in fostering abstract and creative thinking and problem solving. Promoting “academic symbiosis” in student’s minds-as they metabolize each individual subject-will build a higher order appreciation and capacity to utilize their total educational experience in productive and creative endeavors in the real world.

The idea for this piece came from a TED talks group discussion held on Linked-In. The question that was posed:

“What are the most important topics or things which should be taught at school, and currently aren’t, and which would give the best possible tools to children for life?”

Been to Sedalia, can't buy the t-shirt

30 Sunday Aug 2009

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

evolution, missouri, public schools, Sedalia

The Smith-Cotton High School Band has to turn in its new t-shirts.

In a nutshell:

Band shirts hit wrong note with parents

“..I was disappointed with the image on the shirt…I don’t think evolution should be associated with our school…”

They must have a really unique biology curriculum.

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