What are the universities to do?


Sara at Orcinus has an excellent article on the UC/Calvary Chapel Christian School lawsuit, in which a Christian private school is suing the University of California system to require them to accept their dreck for credit. She’s right that the universities need to stand up for standards, but I do have some problems with her opening statement: it ignores some complexities.

I’ve been saying for a long while now that the power to end the Intelligent Design fiasco, firmly and finally and with but a single word, rests in the manicured hands of the chancellors of America’s top universities. The message is short and simple: “Teach what you like, it’s all fine with us. But if you put ID in your science courses, we will not accept those courses as adequate for admission to our campus.”

Making this kind of public statement would be one small step for a university chancellor; and one giant leap for American science education. Somebody, somewhere, needs to set a firm standard. If our universities — which bear responsibility for training our professional scientists, and maintain the labs and faculties responsible for much of our best research — won’t stand up and draw that line, then we really are well and truly lost.

Unfortunately, while we’d love to stand up and demand higher standards, we face a couple of unpleasant realities: many schools have declining enrollments, and the pursestrings of state schools are held by legislatures populated with education-hating sleazebags. We’ve had double-digit tuition increases for years, and the public colleges are suffering. I suspect that another factor is the war—once upon a time, it was entirely reasonable for someone who couldn’t afford college to enlist in the military to get the education benefits and to save up a little nest egg. That’s become a much, much harder path to take in recent years.

So, we’re squeezed: at the same time that science education is hurting and we’d like to bolster up our requirements and our curricula, we also need to increase enrollments for those purely venal economic reasons. Suggesting that we slash our pool of potential applicants is the kind of idea that will get you thrown out of administrators’ offices.

Another concern is that those students who come out of junk schools like Calvary Chapel Christian School are kids who need help the most. If they’re turned away, that just means that there are a few more minds out there in the electorate that haven’t been given a decent education. That bothers me, too; perhaps the place pressure ought to be applied is accreditation agencies and government licensing bureaus that allow such worthless ‘schools’ to advertise and exist by misrepresenting themselves as educational institutions.

Finally, it’s fairly easy to filter out the students who come from specific religiously-driven anti-educational institutions like these Christian madrassas. The real worry, the cases that are the major threat to the future of American higher ed, are the public high schools. Many of them aren’t doing their job; they usually aren’t actively teaching anti-science (there are exceptions), but a lot of the essential college prep is gutted by school boards and parental pressure. The students I get are a mixed bag—some show up with good math skills, solid introductions to chemistry and basic biology (it’s about 50:50 whether they’ve been taught anything about evolution, though), but I also get some who have been thoroughly screwed over by public schools that taught them next to nothing. They are smart, they are ambitious and motivated, but their background is terribly deficient.

And there’s our dilemma. We don’t want to get sucked into the costly and distracting whirlpool of remedial education, but we also don’t want to let kids who have fallen through the net of our tattered social contract in this country. The universities could try to be more selective and spell out their demands to the rest of the educational system, but really—we’re the tiny top of the educational pyramid. Getting us to change is addressing the problems of individuals far too late in their scholastic careers.

Comments

  1. says

    Why not simply allow these students from these questionable schools to come in on the condition that they take those particular science courses they did not take?

  2. rrt says

    “Another concern is that those students who come out of junk schools like Calvary Chapel Christian School are kids who need help the most. If they’re turned away, that just means that there are a few more minds out there in the electorate that haven’t been given a decent education. That bothers me, too;”

    Man, PZ, you’re slipping. That wasn’t remotely evil, and only the slightest bit ‘lutionist.

  3. says

    That’s the issue. The U says they can enroll, but that the courses they took at their little bible school do not fulfill any of their requirements, so they need to take UC courses to make up for their deficiencies.

    The bible school is suing to force the UC to accept their creationist course, for instance, as a legitimate biology credit.

  4. Benny says

    The problem is that the standards for education are so wildly variable. And no, this is not advocating for No Child Left Behind testing standards.

    Maybe public universities could start publishing a list of high schools whose graduates do well after they enter the university. That provide an incentive for poor performing schools to do better.

  5. says

    Wow! With this as precedent, I can force them to give me astrophysics credit on account of that mail-order astrology degree I got a while back. Of course, my thesis proved that the world would end on May 5, 2000, but my result was only a first-order approximation.

    OK, University of California system, here you go:

    “God did it!”

    Now can I pass out of freshman bio?

    (Actually, I did pass out of MIT’s biology requirement, but only because I aced the AP Biology exam. This was not difficult to do; I didn’t take the AP Biology class, and I didn’t study, but Isaac Asimov had my back.)

  6. George says

    The battle started back in late 2005, when UC reviewed Calvary’s courses and decided that several of them — including “Special Providence: Christianity and the American Republic and “Christianity’s Influence on America,” both history courses; “Christianity and Morality in American Literature,” an English course; and a biology class — did not meet their curriculum standards, and would not be counted toward the admission requirements when Calvary students apply to UC.

    Good for UC. Here’s a Calvary Christian course/textbook they did not like. Read the excerpt! More examples (equally offensive) via the link.

    History/social science course title: Special

    Providence: Christianity and the American Republic

    Textbook: “American Government for Christian Schools,” BJU Press (1999)

    UC Reason: The content of the course outline submitted for approval is not consistent with the empirical historical knowledge generally accepted in the collegiate community.

    Excerpt: “The forces of decay are ever-present in government because of man’s sinfulness. The sin that destroys lives also destroys governments. Greed, hatred, materialism and apathy have often accomplished what foreign armies could not in bringing a powerful nation to its knees. Human government is not only limited by the sin present in it, but that state may actually be destroyed by it, if evil is left unchecked.”

    http://www.cccsmurrieta.com/secondary/pdfs/article_ocregister.pdf

  7. says

    The solution seems simple to me. If anyone wants to skip remedial biology, they have to pass a test of their knowledge of legitimate biological science. This way you don’t have reject applicants because of their school of origin, but you can make them learn what they should have learned before moving on. The ones who don’t have neither the knowledge nor the desire to get it will end up in other fields.

  8. ROF says

    Is there a screening mechanism in place by which Us can determine the degree to which ANY biology class, public school or private, meets minimum standards?

    Given the lack of preparedness you’re citing for many public school graduates, PZ, it would seem that if a U is setting the standard for the private school differently from that expected of a public school, they/it would be open to challenge.

    Perhaps I’m missing something?

    0
    0

  9. says

    We don’t want to get sucked into the costly and distracting whirlpool of remedial education, but we also don’t want to let kids who have fallen through the net of our tattered social contract in this country.

    Isn’t that what community colleges are for?

    Seriously — repair of education can be done on the CC level, and the student, bearing an Associate’s degree, can then move on to university level education with at least a defensible hope of being prepared for it.

    (My design class began last night; during the introductory lecture I mentioned some element or other in a layout that I was critiquing and commented, “That’s what we call intelligent design.” No one’s yet sussed my sense of humor sufficiently to know whether to laugh or not.)

  10. Sammy says

    Blake,

    Heh. When I was a sophomore in high school, I was placed in a “level 2” biology class, where, “level 2” meant “average,” and “average” meant “you’re not that smart.” It had been my experience that every level 2 class was deadly for kids who were actually interested in learning, and I found this to be no different.

    I was a good kid. I studied, I read the textbook, I tried to do the assignments, which in at least one case was “virtually impossible” according to someone I considered to be an expert. I wound up with straight D’s in the class.

    Finals time. We’re taking a standardized test which will be shared across all level 1, 2, and 3 classes, but curved separately for each one. I set the curve in my class. A D for each quarter, an A+ on the final, and I have a C for the year. The teacher hinted that he thought I was cheating, but didn’t accuse me, since I’d taken the exam in plain view of a proctor and everyone else taking it.

    So he asked me how I managed to do so well on the exam. “Well,” I said, “I actually knew a lot of material on the exam before I came to this class. Most of the stuff we covered wasn’t on it.”

    They never used that exam again.

  11. Hank Fox says

    I see this metaphorically as the case of a religious clique which is in favor of casually neutering their kids in the same way we might casually neuter farm animals.

    In this case it’s mental, but it’s just as damaging, and it’s absolutely deliberate.

    There will be at least a few who eventually realize what’s been done to them, and the level of uncaring with which it was done.

    I can imagine a group polling of these students at some future time, to see how they really feel about it.

    And then how about if someone gently encouraged a few of these severely deficient students to go back and sue the anti-evolution Christian schools or the school boards who gutted the curriculum and deliberately, wantonly handicapped them in their educational careers?

    Maybe this cloud has a little bit of a silver lining. Maybe it’s a GOOD thing that they want to send their deliberately handicapped kids to real universities. This could be a prime avenue for some backpressure – in the form of their own angry victims – to come back and bite them in the butt.

  12. llewelly says

    Another concern is that those students who come out of junk schools like Calvary Chapel Christian School are kids who need help the most.

    This has come up here before, I believe, but may as well bring it up again. Schools like Calvary Chapel Christian create a need for a college biology course around a creation-targeting book like Ardea Skybreak’s book.

  13. says

    Ahh. . .the soft susurration as of chickens quietly coming home to roost. Years of an uneducated, and in part apathetic, public electing undereducated representatives who have championed viewpoints unfettered by the bounds of reality is finally generating the fluff necessary to keep the cycle going. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Evolutionarily, the egg! Educationally, the chicken!

  14. wmock says

    If Calvary Chapel Christian School wins this lawsuit, I suppose UC will subsequently be forced to waive foreign language requirements for students who speak in tongues.

  15. says

    I was required to take an exam on mathematics, and write an impromptu essay to prove my English skills before entering the California State College system. I see no reason why this couldn’t become a standard practice for all subjects, applied to all students – and not just returning adult students like I was at that time.

    In South Korea merely to get INTO a college you have to pass the college “Hell Test”. Sort of like an SAT except it is only good for the university where the applicant is seeking entry. If you fail, you don’t get to test again for a period of time. (A year I think, but I could be wrong.)

    Perhaps all universities should start a “Placement Test” scheme – The student takes a test battery and the University then decides how much remedial work the student needs before starting on the standard curriculum. There would be no question about which school or course would be allowed, because only the entry qualifications that would really matter is what you knew.

  16. SteveK says

    Apparently, the University of California does not have the same declining enrollment issues as UMM.

    The “Orange County Register” reported yesterday that UC Irvine has over 34,000 applicants for around 4,500 spots in the next freshman class.

  17. MReap says

    The biggest problem I see is the exemption of private schools from state standards. Public school teachers are required to teach to the standards and students are tested according to those standards. (tangent> In MN the standards are actually entered as state law. Teachers are legally required to teach ALL of them, which is a real concern in the case of our social studies standards) However, private schools are not held to those same standards. Which can be a “good thing” in the case of excellent college prep schools (MN = Breck, etc…) or a really, really bad thing in the case of fundy xtian schools. So, in the case of public schools universities can assume that students have met basic science content. They could also assume that content from the good college prep privates. They SHOULD review course content from anything less than that.

  18. says

    That doesn’t mean too much, though — we also get more applications than we have space for. The question should be about acceptance rates.

    Although with 8 times as many applicants as openings, Irvine probably doesn’t have too much problem filling seats.

  19. amedeohenry says

    Here’s an example of christian fundamentalist science. π = 3. And I can prove it because the Bible says so.

    “And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it about. (I Kings 7, 23)”

    So in calculus class, when the rest of the class approximates π to 3.14159, I’m going to stick with my Bible math that I learned at christian school. After all, what are man’s “proofs” to God’s holy word? Now if I can just find a Bible verse for Euler’s number…..

  20. George says

    How many schools can boast an academic requirement to glorify God monetarily?

    6. Spiritual & Moral Development Students will be able to:
    6.1 produce evidence of a strong moral character and a lifestyle that demonstrates the virtues of Temperance, Perseverance, Discipline, Faith, Love, Patience, Courage, Humility, Trustworthiness, Justice, Wisdom, Respect, Responsibility, Compassion, and Citizenship
    6.2 actively demonstrate the investment of their resources (whether intellectual, spiritual, or monetary) to the benefit of others and to the glory of God
    6.3 model responsible Christian behavior in all aspects of life
    6.4 know and love the triune God, value others, and impact the world for their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ

    http://www.cccsmurrieta.com/secondary/academics.asp

  21. says

    Warren: Isn’t that what community colleges are for?

    Yeah: what Warren said. It’s frustrating how much variation there is in the quality of K-12 instruction, but making up for deficiencies is one of the major missions of the community colleges. We sure do a lot of it. Frankly, I’d like to teach a little more calculus and a little less algebra, but I do value the sense that we’re addressing a major need. We’ll be able to concentrate more on transfer prep and occupational training (and less on remediation) when K-12 gets its act together, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen any time soon.

    Still, it will help if the University of California holds the line on meaningful curriculum standards.

  22. Chris says

    UC Reason: The content of the course outline submitted for approval is not consistent with the empirical historical knowledge generally accepted in the collegiate community.

    I’ve never seen a politer way of rephrasing “This course is a pack of lies.” Granted, it’s polite to the point of being mealy-mouthed, but at least nobody’s going to accuse *them* of the kind of intemperate, rabble-rousing rhetoric PZ is famous for. :)

    As alarming as their excuse for science is, it is really only of direct concern for students intending to pursue science further, or the rare science issue coming into the public eye (e.g. stem cells). Students indoctrinated with their version of history or political science, on the other hand, are a direct threat to democracy in this country, because while colleges can set admissions standards, voting booths cannot. (For good and sufficient reasons – the power to set *those* standards is something nobody can be trusted with.)

  23. says

    Making this kind of public statement would be one small step for a university chancellor

    Unfortunately, it would be seen as, and repeated ad nauseum as proof that, the universities really are controlled by evil liberals that hate God.

  24. Great White Wonder says

    That doesn’t mean too much, though — we also get more applications than we have space for. The question should be about acceptance rates.

    Although with 8 times as many applicants as openings, Irvine probably doesn’t have too much problem filling seats.

    Definitely not, and the same is true for many of California’s public universities. I do “feel your pain” to some extent, PZ, but I think over the long term this approach is what ALL the major public universities need to do. Eventually it will lead to the appreciation by those interested in a higher education that schools which have such policies and which have had them for the longest time are, in fact, the schools that are most committed to providing a solid education.

    The schools which refuse to adopt such policies because they need fundies to fill the seats, well, those schools have a problem that is not going to be fixed by letting more creationist morons in.

    I think you have to look at the long term objective and you have to start somewhere. I think UC is absolutely on the right track with this. If nothing else, it’s just a great way to kick the deserving heads of the fundies while they are lying in the gutter.

    I look forward to your next post where you rip a new butthole in the curricula of the prep schools of the plaintiffs in this case.

  25. Steve LaBonne says

    Isn’t that what community colleges are for?

    Thirded. It frustrates me immensely that whenever there is the usual handwringing over the amount of remdediation 4-years schools have to do these days (and I agree it’s not their job) the CC’s are so rarely even mentioned. The better ones have very good, dedicated faculty (like Zeno) who are there because they love to teach, and in addition to being the appropriate places to remove deficiencies in HS preparation they are MUCH MUCH BETTER than large factory-like state universities at teaching freshman-level science courses (not talking about places like Morris obviously, but there are few of those in the pubilc sector). They could do better still if given adequate resources, but as the stepchildren of higher education they’re more often starved of funds.

  26. Great White Wonder says

    Word on Steve L.’s post. My friends who teach science in community college work their asses off and if ID is mentioned at all, it’s taught as the pile of steaming religion-inspired shite that it is.

  27. llewelly says

    Now if I can just find a Bible verse for Euler’s number…..

    Why do you need to? Simply solve Euler’s identity for e, and plug in 3 for pi.
    Unsurprisingly, the result has an imaginary component…

  28. says

    I am a public high school math teacher, and while I cannot begin to defend K-12 public education as a whole, I can at least ask for sympathy and beg for help. Clearly, the quality of education in your typical public high school is declining fast, and some of the fault is unqualified teachers. Still, everywhere I look I see good, well-qualified, hard-working teachers hamstrung by impossible requirements imposed by administrations, school boards and legislatures. We are being asked to do more and more with fewer and fewer real resources, and while educational leaders will talk until they’re blue about “quality,” their definition of quality often has more to do with organization and planning than with world-class curriculum or instruction. And I won’t even get started on the administrations, school boards and legislatures that are infested with anti-education idiots or creationist morons.

    Public education is dying in this country. How do we save it?

  29. says

    Thirded. It frustrates me immensely that whenever there is the usual handwringing over the amount of remdediation 4-years schools have to do these days (and I agree it’s not their job) the CC’s are so rarely even mentioned.

    Fourthed — but in the end, I do think it’s just saying the same thing as the original lawsuit.

    That is, given the order of [“school” –> CC –> UC], I’m guessing that many of the kids who come out of such a “private school” don’t want to be told that they, almost as a default procedure, will have to attend a CC before proceeding to apply to the school of their choice.

    I’m pretty sure they don’t want to iron-out any wrinkles simply becuase they don’t think that they have any. And the lawsuit is suppoosed to show just that.

  30. Beth says

    ::de-lurking::

    If the Calvary students get their way, and are put into the same classes as other entering freshmen (rather than the remedial classes recommended by the university), they will likely be in for a bumpy ride. UC isn’t recommending this course of action just to be jerks; if those students try to take Bio 101 and get their arses handed to them, do you think they’ll suck it up, re-take the classes they failed, and try to complete their degree? Not likely. They’ll either get discouraged and drop out, or get angry and transfer to a bible college. Either way translates into wasted tuition dollars.

    Regarding Placement tests: At my alma mater, lo these many years ago, entering freshman were required to take placement tests for English and Mathematics before they were allowed to register for any classes in either subject, regardless of where they graduated or what their test scores were like. A student could still be admitted, and take classes to his/her little heart’s content, but good luck fulfulling the requirements of any degree program without English and Math classes.

    I don’t see the problem with placement tests like these. To me, they can only benefit the student because they prevent entering freshmen from signing up for courses that would either let their minds stagnate or beat them senseless. Come on UC, if a public university in Alabama can pull this off, you can too!

    PS –> PZ, you rock! I’m a long-time lurker, and your blog is as essential as my morning coffee.

  31. AMSB says

    Another concern is that those students who come out of junk schools like Calvary Chapel Christian School are kids who need help the most. If they’re turned away, that just means that there are a few more minds out there in the electorate that haven’t been given a decent education.

    Sadly I think that this point is often overlooked in our vitriol against ID and IDers, and to me it is an indication of just how complex this problem has become. Although made in good faith Sara’s suggestion punishes students for something they had little, if any, choice over: which school(s) delivered their K-12 education. Insulting them this way will most likely add another foot-soldier to the fundamentalist army. It is tantamount to arming the ID zealots by taking an elitist stance towards their propaganda. Almost as dangerous is refusing to respond at all. What a quagmire we are in that repairing the damage perpetrated by the hideous Discovery Institute sham requires respecting ID enough to rationally counter its arguments. If only it was as simple as Johnnie Cochran’s “if it doesn’t fit, you must acquit” defense.

    Having only started researching the atrocities of the Discovery Institute a few months ago, I am playing catch-up. Does anyone know of a pro-evolution organization dedicated to countering DI inculcation with fact that could use a volunteer?

  32. stogoe says

    PZ is not quite as essential to me as my morning coffee. To me it’s more like an afternoon feast of wonderment and fury.

  33. says

    Great discussion here. Mind if I play?

    I have a hard time ginning up much sympathy for the poor kids. Their parents had the choice to send them to a perfectly decent (and free) public high school instead. In California, it’s illegal for public schools to teach creationism (which is why these parents are opting out in the first place); and all public high schools do offer the requisite college prep courses needed to successfully apply to UC. So if anyone’s to blame here, it’s their parents. I don’t think we need to be shifting the burden for their educational malfeasance elsewhere.

    It should be noted that most California public high schools delibrerately build their college-prep course tracks around UC’s specific requirements. In this sense, UC does effectively set the educational standards for almost every college-bound public school student in the state — even those who end up elsewhere.

    Per ROF: This whole situation came about because UC does indeed vet individual high school courses to see if they meet their admission standards. They hold public and private schools to exactly the same benchmarks (and routinely reject 10-15% of the courses they review on the first pass). That’s how they found this small handful of Calvary courses that didn’t come up to snuff, and thus ignited this fiasco.

    However, as I mentioned in my post, Calvary does offer other science courses which do meet UC’s standards. So the kids could have simply taken those courses instead; or else taken the SAT II biology exam and tested out of the requirement entirely. It’s not like UC was completely cutting off their options, not by a long shot.

    They were simply saying: These courses don’t meet our standards. They didn’t dictate what the school needed to do about it — that choice was left to Calvary, which decided to sue rather than choose new books. They didn’t say they wouldn’t take Calvary students — in fact, they’ve taken 18 of the last 25 who’ve applied (a rather striking percentage in this competitive system, as others have noted above). They simply said: We have our own standards, and these courses don’t meet them.

    And there’s nothing guaranteed to make a self-righteous Christianist madder than being told that they don’t meet your standards. They’re sanctified. You’re not. God judges them. You don’t — not even if you’re the University of California, and the subject is science, not theology.

    (By the way: My mother was born in Morris, MN, while my grandfather was a grad student in physics at your very selfsame U.)

  34. David Marjanović says

    Well, in the USA the universities are financed, and in Europe the schools are financed instead (“school” being the opposite of “university” — high school and below). Go figure.

  35. David Marjanović says

    Well, in the USA the universities are financed, and in Europe the schools are financed instead (“school” being the opposite of “university” — high school and below). Go figure.

  36. CanuckRob says

    Since suing each other appears to be so common in the US perhaps some student that applies to a university and is refused admission or is forced to take remdial courses should sue the bible college for providing a substandard and inadequate education.

  37. mtraven says

    If you put it this way, you are handing ammunition to the IDists:

    “Teach what you like, it’s all fine with us. But if you put ID in your science courses, we will not accept those courses as adequate for admission to our campus.”

    I can see them jumping up and down and shouting about censorship and oppression.

    What’s my point? The criteria for acceptance should be that evolution and natural selection is taught, not that ID isn’t taught. If they know the actual science there isn’t anything wrong with being aware of alternative theories, whether ID or pastafarianism or what have you.

  38. Mnemosyne says

    That is, given the order of [“school” –> CC –> UC], I’m guessing that many of the kids who come out of such a “private school” don’t want to be told that they, almost as a default procedure, will have to attend a CC before proceeding to apply to the school of their choice.

    With no disrespect meant to the people who attend and teach at community/junior colleges and as someone who attended one year at a very fine community college in suburban Chicago, I can tell you why these kids and their parents aren’t even considering community college:

    Community college is for poor people. It’s for people who can’t afford to go to “real” college. If they went there, they’d be forced to associate with a bunch of lower-class people, instead of their proper middle-class peers.

    There’s a little bit of racism mixed in, but it’s 90% class snobbery. You will be hard-pressed to convince middle-class parents that community college is a viable precursor to a four-year university. After all, that’s why they homeschooled their kids in the first place — to prevent them from having to associate with the lower classes.

    (Obviously, this slam on homeschooling is meant to apply to this particular subset of homeschoolers who are convinced that their non-scientific courses from Cavalry should be the same as a rigorous AP course in biology and not to homeschoolers in general.)

  39. PB says

    Kids are hungry for knowledge, and even the youngest ask great, perceptive questions. I teach 2nd grade at a public school in an urban, Latino community in California. Most of my students are very religious, but, like all little kids, they are endlessly curious.

    Recently, my class has been studying animals – we don’t get too specific, but I do teach basic terms (herbivore, carnivore, invertebrate, reptile, etc.). A few weeks ago, we were reading about mammals, and part of that lesson includes letting the kids discover that people are mammals. Just give them the criteria, and eventually, some kid will have a breakthrough and yell, “Hey, wait! I have hair! And I drank milk when I was a baby!” It’s a wonderful thing to watch their faces light up when they put the pieces together.

    This year, my class was even more enthusiastic than usual, and had lots of questions. One girl read all the books I had on mammals, and reported back to the class that people are primates. Naturally, this sparked a torrent of questions, and I did my best to answer them truthfully, but without creating any misperceptions. (Alas, I was unsuccessful, as one student asked me why babies aren’t born looking like gorillas). The kids were more or less willing to accept that humans look a lot more like chimps than like mice or dolphins.

    Unfortunately, the parents are not pleased, and have told my students that I am flat-out lying. This has just made the kids more curious than ever, and I’ve had to restock my library with every accurate-yet-age-appropriate science book I can lay hands on just to satisfy their questions. Still, I’m not sure how far to proceed – it’s my job to make the most accurate information available to them, but things get touchy when you’re talking about 7-year-olds, not 17-year-olds.

    Other teachers at my school have told me that they “do not believe in dinosaurs,” and I know that God figures into their “science” lessons more than occasionally. I’m doing my best to encourage good little scientists (I’ve got one amazing marine-biologist-to-be), but it is painful to see those little seeds of promise facing such adverse conditions.

    Of course we should have better and more rigorous science education in America, but the issue is knotty all around. Am I really helping my students if I antagonize their parents? On the other hand, if I bow to parental pressure, am I giving my students a sub-par education just because their parents are superstitious, uneducated, or willfully ignorant? My students are brilliant, and they deserve an education commensurate with their potential, but I feel very uncomfortable inserting my white, Ivy-League, atheist self into this poor, religious, Mexican-American community and directly contradicting the things that parents wish to teach their young children.

    Sorry to rant – if anyone’s got advice though, I’d love to hear it.

  40. Caledonian says

    Public education is dying in this country. How do we save it?

    Easy: stop dictating what education is and how it should work.

  41. says

    Community college is for poor people. It’s for people who can’t afford to go to “real” college. If they went there, they’d be forced to associate with a bunch of lower-class people, instead of their proper middle-class peers.

    Mnemosyne is exactly right in that description of how many people think of community college. (As Niles Crane once said in an episode of Frasier, “He reeks of community college.”) One of my students laughingly told me about a friend whose mother took out a second mortgage to ensure she could pay for her child’s tuition at a local university rather than subject her to the humiliation of a community college education. My student thought it was especially funny because she was in my calculus class of thirty-six students, where I knew all their names, while her friend at the dearly-paid-for university was trying to take the same course in a 200-student lecture section (taught by an untenured lecturer). Sheer stupidity on the mother’s part not to take advantage of two years of cheap but good instruction at a CC. Hey, mom, the diploma for the bachelor’s degree would still have the university’s name on it if your daughter did well enough to transfer from the CC and later graduate from the big U!

    Idiots.

    P.S. to Heather: Thanks for the link to the video on Washington state education. If I have any worthwhile thoughts, perhaps I’ll find time this weekend to post something on my blog. First, though, I’ve got to plow through some stacks of paper and write an algebra exam.

  42. nasorenga says

    mtraven wrote:
    What’s my point? The criteria for acceptance should be that evolution and natural selection is taught, not that ID isn’t taught.

    Well, then you’re in agreement with the UC policy: they don’t object to the course being taught, they just won’t give any science credits for it. If the applicant has another, real, science class, credit will be awarded.