In 2009, Don McLeroy, then Chairman of the Texas State Board of Education, said, "Somebody's got to stand up to experts that...I don't know why they're doing it..."
Stand up to experts...because they have "expertise." Why on Earth would we listen to people who are trained in a particular field and who, through research and study, have learned more than the rest of us?
McLeroy was railing against scientists who had the gall to suggest that they knew more about science than he did. And McLeroy's attitude, which has been drifting through America for centuries, is on the rise again, and is responsible, at least in part, for the election of President Donald ("I love the poorly educated") Trump.
Jim Wright says we've traded our moon ships for the Creation Museum. Carl Sagan was prescient in his 1996 interview.
The Later Days of a Better Nation, Part IV
From Jim Wright
Somewhere in the last half a century, we Americans traded Apollo moon ships for the Creation Museum and the ugly truth of the matter is that Donald Trump is a reflection of who we’ve become as a nation.
Trump is the utterly predictable result of decades of an increasingly dumber and dumber electorate. A deliberately dumber electorate, Idiocracy in action, a society that dismisses intelligence and education and experience as “elitism” while howling in drunken mirth at Honey Boo Boo and lighting their farts on fire.
...Trump is the result of a nation that glories in ignorance, manipulated by conspiracy theory and a primal fear of the dark, that embraces monkey violence and cowers from the unknown future with bluster and bared teeth and a gun clenched in one fist, instead of looking forward with quiet courage, head up, feet wide, braced and ready with curiosity and confident they are prepared to handle anything that might come along.
Trump is the result of a nation that traded the moon for the Creation Museum.
Carl Sagan's last interview with Charlie Rose (Full Interview)
From Carl Sagan
In his last interview (go to 3:55 for this quote), Carl Sagan warned (1996),
Science is more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking; a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility.The charlatans are here...it's time to step up.
If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then, we are up for grabs for the next charlatan (political or religious) who comes ambling along.
EXPERIENCE MATTERS
Senator from Louisiana spends summer recess substitute teaching in home state
Speaking of experts...who are America's education experts? The media and general public apparently believes that the answer to that question is "billionaires" and "textbook publishers." Here's a politician who disagrees. This Louisiana Senator has discovered that education is not just "telling them what they need to know."
From Senator John Kennedy (R-Louisiana)
Every single person who makes policy for elementary and secondary education needs to substitute teach once a year.
Teaching the heart as well as the mind: Caring, kind adults can make all the difference
Instead of damaging the teaching profession with punitive laws which lower salaries, reduce teachers' control over their classrooms, and allow anyone with 5 weeks (or less) of training to stand up in front of students, we ought to be improving the working conditions of teachers in order to attract those people who are willing to devote their lives to preparing the nation's future.
From Phyllis Bush in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette
Those who want to fix teachers and kids seem to forget that all of the testing and all of the online learning and all of the latest technology and all of the moronic plans of those who have no idea about what is instructionally or developmentally appropriate have little to do with children.
NO MONEY WITHOUT SUPPORT
A Message to the Democratic National Committee
How would Democrats respond if the two largest teachers unions asked for something in return for their political support? Diane Ravitch has the answer we should all give when asked to donate to a political campaign.
From Diane Ravitch
Not a dime until you support public schools and oppose privatization.
OPPORTUNITY
Lily Eskelsen García: Education is not Uber
In my last post, I wrote,
Would a wealthy family send their child to a public school without a library? Would you be able to find a white suburban school without a playground or gymnasium? How about a music program?Why do we expect poor families to accept poor facilities and understaffed schools?
From Lily Eskelsen García
Anyone could do this without a federal grant. Go in to the best public schools in your state...Go in. Walk around and see what they've got there to help those kids: gifted programs, athletics, arts. They've got a library. They've got a librarian...and they've got the staff and they've got the programs. Kids have access and opportunity.
TESTING
Retiring Monroe Schools superintendent blasts education officials
We're still wasting millions of dollars annually on useless tests...
From Phil Cagwin in the Journal-News (Ohio)
“There also seems to be the expectation that our teachers should focus more on the common core standards and test results than on our children. Our teachers are not threatened by accountability, but when they are expected to teach to tests that have no value to instruction, and that change constantly, it seems such a waste of valuable time for quality student and teacher interaction, not to mention the millions of taxpayer dollars that funnel to the test making and scoring companies,” said Cagwin.
MONEY TALKS
Betsy DeVos: Trump's illiberal ally seen as most dangerous education chief ever
DeVos is what happens when money runs the country instead of the people.
From David Smith, in The Guardian
What DeVos – a 59-year-old entrepreneur, philanthropist and former chair of the Michigan Republican party – lacks in expertise or charisma, she makes up for in money...
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