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Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Science isn't for poor kids in Florida.

Bob Sykes from Scathing Purple Musings did an excellent piece about how on one hand Florida's leadership screams about the need for science education but on the other hands sentences poor children through the use of vouchers to schools that ignore science. 164 schools that take public money in Florida teach creationism as science. We're paying for that with our tax dollars by the way.

Here is the piece.

The nation’s supposed need for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) professionals drives much republican education policymaking in Florida. Governor Rick Scott turned a state college over to the influence of a state senator in the interest of graduating STEM grads. Mouthpieces for Common Core never stop lecturing about the need to prepare students to “compete in a global workforce” that’s largely STEM dominated.
But such focus is at odds with another republican obsession: school choice. Gradebook’sJeff Solochek reported yesterday that 160 Florida private schools teach creationism while accepting state voucher money.
So, yes, to STEM, but don’t worry about teaching evolution, today’s most important scientific life science theory. Such blinders justify President Barack Obama’s assertion that republicans don’t really want “science in its rightful place.”
The nation’s science teachers – the majority of which are union members – responsibly teach evolution and its companions like Darwinism and the Primordial Soup Model astheories – which are all backed by scientific research and collected data. Creationism,  or as textbook publishers are often tasked to do by ideological school boards, Intelligent Design, is not.
I guess those Florida republican legislators who are always looking for loopholes to expand the tax credit scholarship voucher program aren’t looking to get any STEM professionals from those 160 private schools.  Neither are those corporations who contribute and get the tax breaks.

1 comment:

  1. The majority of biology teachers in Jax do not buy into evolution. I would bet that the cluster chiefs don't either. I happen to know that a science support person downtown (you know, one of the people who does site visits) doesn't buy it either. Expect science scores to remain stagnant. A friend of mine recently took a college course in science in order to become certified and she said the overwhelming majority of her classmates did not accept evolution. Malpractice as far as I'm concerned They need to teach Sunday school, not school.

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