Now Any Florida Resident Can Challenge What Is Taught In Public Florida Schools (orlandosentinel.com) 484
New submitter zantafio shares a report from Orlando Sentinel: Any resident in Florida can now challenge what kids learn in public schools, thanks to a new law that science education advocates worry will make it harder to teach evolution and climate change. The legislation, which was signed by Gov. Rick Scott (R) last week and went into effect Saturday, requires school boards to hire an "unbiased hearing officer" who will handle complaints about instructional materials, such as movies, textbooks and novels, that are used in local schools. Any parent or county resident can file a complaint, regardless of whether they have a student in the school system. If the hearing officer deems the challenge justified, he or she can require schools to remove the material in question. The statute includes general guidelines about what counts as grounds for removal: belief that the material is "pornographic" or "is not suited to student needs and their ability to comprehend the material presented, or is inappropriate for the grade level and age group."
Also Common Core (Score:2, Insightful)
Public education... having public input?! wow what a novel concept!
Re:Also Common Core (Score:5, Insightful)
> regardless of whether they have a student in the school system
There's such a thing as lowering the barrier to input too much.
Re:Also Common Core (Score:5, Funny)
"Ok, here's the 'Ban Brave New World' form, goes in that stack over there. What's your objection? Promiscuity? Irreligion? Drugs? Socialism?"
"No, it's inaccurate. Huxley says Alphas belong in charge, but we seem to be doing pretty great with Epsilons running the state of Florida."
"... You can write that, but you know the Board's not going to get it, right?"
Barriers to Input (Score:3)
> regardless of whether they have a student in the school system
There's such a thing as lowering the barrier to input too much.
We all pay for public schools because it benefits all of us to have an educated population. It matters to all of us that kids coming out of school are able to contribute to society, are smart enough to think critically, and are motivated enough to be good people who make their communities better for their presence.
Parents should absolutely be able to contribute input, but so should professional educators, so should professors and scientists and engineers and business leaders and so should everybody else. Yo
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So you select someone. How will people who don't get their own way react? To most he's just another faceless bureaucrat and they'll campaign to get him replaced. Rinse and repeat.
A sizeable number will see him as an enemy of freedom/skydaddy/systemd and try more direct methods of removal.
You can't win. It's like expecting soccer players to accept the referee's decision.
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And I would add, there is always someone smarter out there. For example, taking something which is semi science and semi philosophy and semi beliefs, well, I used to be 100% atheist. I figured that out when I was 7. Then later in life, I ran into Buddhism, and some of what it teaches is a pretty sophisticated philosophy and ethics. Plus there's the problem of sentience. Now, from my position 40 years after deciding to be an atheist, I do find the "evolution" "debate" is on the one hand, a lot of anti-evolut
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Ok, I got to about half of it before the wall of text fell on top of me.
Dude, if you want people to read your stuff,
learn
to
use
paragraphs!
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Not much of a dis coming from an AC.
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Yes, but that's how you were able to post here.
Let me help you out here bud. One of these things is a website for neckbeards, and the other is a system tasked with educating children.
They are different.
Re:Also Common Core (Score:5, Insightful)
On paper it democratizes a bureaucracy that affects most of us. But it won't be average people who primarily use this mechanism to influence public education, it will be those with an agenda to convert public schools into their own publicly funded religious institution.
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The US Constitution prevents anyone from succeeding at that, so that's an entirely phony concern.
Re:Also Common Core (Score:5, Informative)
Texas public schools are proof that phony religionists with a political agenda can convert public schools (and public school curriculum) into their own publicly funded religious institutions.
It's happened in other states, of course, but I'm most familiar with Texas.
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Texas public schools are proof that phony religionists with a political agenda can convert public schools (and public school curriculum) into their own publicly funded religious institutions.
Yes, and countless incidents of students freaking out about their "safe space" and "intolerant" teachers are proof that pot-smoking liberals have converted colleges into their own church of mediocrity and entitlement. What's new?
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Re:Also Common Core (Score:5, Informative)
Yep.
http://www.slate.com/articles/... [slate.com]
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Do you demand that idea be censored?
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Actually, a good idea.
If one religion demands that their creation bullshit to be taught in school, we have to teach them all. After all, government must not play favorites. So along with the christian creation myth we have to teach all the various first nation myths, Hindu myths, Mayan, Aztec, Norse, old Egyptian...
It might take a bit, but hey, we have all school year long. Sure, our kids probably won't know anything but how the world came into existence in roughly a thousand different ways, but IIRC that w
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No, teach it. If you want equal footing with reality, all the bullshit stories have to.
Besides, the Norse gods are way more powerful than that Christian guy. I mean, think about it. Jesus promised to deliver us from sin and evil. Odin promised to slay the frost giants. Now, I don't see many frost giants these days, but considering sin and evil...
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And in northern California, this alternative group of religious nutjobs has warped the science curriculum:
https://geneticliteracyproject... [geneticlit...roject.org]
I'm all for a Teach Real Science Act at the federal level, if necessary.
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Really, you want a Federal act about science education? Are you sure partner? Maybe I should rephrase it to avoid arguing against a unicorn, you want James Inhofe [rationalwiki.org], Randy Weber (Chairman House subcommittee on energy) [youtu.be] and the rest of them to be in charge of science curriculum?
I am straining my brain to think of any possible way in which this is a good idea.
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The US Constitution prevents anyone from succeeding at that, so that's an entirely phony concern.
The religious pledge of allegiance proves otherwise.
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Merely mentioning religion or God doesn't make schools a "religious institution".
Why are you saying it does?
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It's not a "mention".
It's a PLEDGE of ALLEGIANCE to a nation, and that nation is UNDER a GOD. If that's not a religious rite practiced in an institution, what is?
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It's not.
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Is so.
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On paper it democratizes a bureaucracy that affects most of us. But it won't be average people who primarily use this mechanism to influence public education, it will be those with an agenda to convert public schools into their own publicly funded religious institution.
Wait until people challenge religious km material; want to guess how long it takes to change the law? Attorneys must be salivating over the potential for lawsuits.
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And the drunk homeless guy who attends the meeting for the free air-conditioning, plus 3 minutes of fame at the mic every week.
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Well then, at least something good can come of all this.
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Democracy is all about silencing the minority. They do get a vote, but because they are a minority they get outvoted unless the majority choose to act benevolently towards them.
Nothing about democracy says you have to listen to the minority once they have been outvoted.
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What happens is that it proves you're an idiot. There is a difference between the acknowledged experts in a field agreeing and a majority of the general public agreeing on something. That you are trying to create a false equivalency betrays your bias.
Re: Also Common Core (Score:2)
I agree, but this same legislation can also be used by groups to ensure that zero-evidence based hypotheses such as creationism and intelligent design aren't taught in science classes.
John T. Scopes and the ACLU fighting the Butler Act clearly aren't once off events - opposition needs a top-up every do often. It's too easy to become complacent and think "everything will be ok from now on".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
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Authoritarians hardest hit.
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"Let's get rid of authoritarians and put religious fanatics in charge!"
Is Florida one of those super religious bible areas?
Used to be a blue state, now they voted Trump so this kind of bashing is to be expected.
Blue State? (Score:2)
However, if you are referring to the time frame from 1880 - 1948, then your argument might be valid.
http://www.270towin.com/states... [270towin.com]
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If you want to challenge the veracity of the material or bring up reasonable objections to why it can't be true based on some form of evidence based experiment, go for it.
If you want to quote one of a number of different book with the same name, translated to your language from some other intermediate language, compiled by persons with definite political agendas, based on materials written by a number of different authors who heard verbal stories passed around from a number of different people 2000 years ag
Re:Also Common Core (Score:5, Insightful)
this is just an extension of the "all opinions are just as good" method from fox etc.
basically.. in order to be "neutral, unbiased" you have to provide both sides of a discussion equally. basically, what it means that if someone says that they should teach that the sun is made of cheddar and the moon out of marshmallow, they should get just as much of a platform to present this opinion.
it's fucking stupid and it makes stupid people even more stupid so there's that.. and it fits the binary notion.
like, about the composition and how the moon came to be.. there are like 100 scientific, kind of sense making theories. if people were sensible about unbiased they would present 1000 of those theories and the 40 DIFFERENT "god made it" arguments. in any case it would be pretty great to teach that if you teach the religious explanation, then you would also tell of the 100 OTHER RELIGIOUS EXPLANATIONS.
because basically, the quickest way to make an atheist or at least an agnostic is to simply teach that, hey, there's these fucking 100 different religious views that are totally incompatible with each other.
Re:Also Common Core (Score:5, Interesting)
That 35th world ranking for maths for the USA is now looking like nirvana.
US kids are going to end up with the IQ of an (intelligently designed) potato.
I now understand WHY Trump is going to bring back the manufacturing jobs, the average US school leaver will not be qualified to do anything else. All the jobs that will require smart people will be done in Asia, all the work that requires someone who knows which end of a shovel to hold will be in the USA. China and the USA are about to swap positions. And at the rate the US citizens are giving up their "freedom" because they are frightened of terrorists, that swap may come sooner than anyone realises.
LOL.....hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
"leader of the free world"..... maybe last year, but not any more.
Re:Also Common Core (Score:4, Insightful)
That 35th world ranking for maths for the USA is now looking like nirvana.
Yeah, government schools aren't very good. So you should definitely freak out if anyone tries to change anything about them.
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Well now you know where Florida Potatoes come from.
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No, but maybe that's because I'm a physic teacher. I do the occasional civic class too.
Re:Also Common Core (Score:5, Informative)
--
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Education is like any Profession (Score:5, Insightful)
Public education... having public input?! wow what a novel concept!
Input is one thing, being able to challenge material in the curriculum when you may not know the material yourself is a different thing. Education is like health care or indeed any other profession: you want to be able to give input on the best course of action to a professional who can weigh that input along with what they know to devise the best course of action.
If your doctor's course of treatment for you could be challenged by random members of the public and judged by a random bureaucrat who likely has little to know medical knowledge you would get terrible health case. The same is true for education.
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I object to the science material, it should all be in Metric!
Re:Also Common Core (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is majority of the public are complete imbecils. So letting imbecils to having any input into science education is an extremely bad idea.
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What do you call a requirement most kindergarden teachers, and every teacher on up, have a bachleors degree minimum, and rewarding those who have a masters degree with raises?
Union, Pension, 90th percentile incomes, and you come into work daily and teach 5-year olds their ABC's and 123's, how to make apple-seed figures on plates, how to share toys nice, take walks down to the park, and dispense time-outs.
What's really going on here is there's an education industry selling more classes for the pure sake of i
Re:Also Common Core (Score:5, Insightful)
I call it common sense. I don't want uneducated teachers out there. College has been a requirement for public school teachers for many decades. If you want teachers with less education, you can try private schools or home schooling.
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Re: Also Common Core (Score:5, Funny)
It impacts your credibility if you're talking about that and you don't know what apostrophes are for.
He is criticizing the education system. So the fact that he failed to learn how to use apostrophes properly actually strengthens his argument that the system is defective.
Re:Also Common Core (Score:5, Informative)
Well let's look at what it takes to be a public school teacher in Florida. [teachercer...egrees.com] Wow, look at that. Credentials and training are required. It's almost like you're one of those ignorant morons I mentioned earlier. Thanks for providing such a good example!
Re: Also Common Core (Score:5, Informative)
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Letting retarded parents question the teaching of evolution in biology classes is surely going to alleviate this problem...
Re: Also Common Core (Score:5, Insightful)
Garbage in, garbage out.
What happened was simply that people got disillusioned, and that the TV heroes changed big time. In the 60s, the heroes were astronauts and everyone could make a living on a single income. Getting rich, or at least comfortable, was something you could realistically achieve with hard work. The 80s came and the TV and movie heroes were the yuppies who also convinced anyone that you gotta and gonna get rich if you are smart, climb the corporate ladder and get to the top.
Today the TV heroes are washed up idiots and wannabe-celebs in reality docu soaps and getting rich is something you could hope for by winning the lottery or suing the pants off some rich guy who hit you with his car. Even the TV shows we have feature bumbling fools and underachievers as the protagonists.
How do you want to motivate kids in such an environment to waste their time on learning anything? It's moot anyway. And I can't blame them, they're mostly even right.
FD: I live in Texas (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, really, thank goodness for Florida... when something horribly embarrassing hits the news cycle, the statistically best chance it didn't happen here is you folks.
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Banned book week (Score:5, Insightful)
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Did the read The Bell Curve?
Re:Banned book week (Score:4, Insightful)
Did the what read The Bell Curve? The cat?
Ugh (Score:2)
My first thought was to cynically wonder if this were an argument for privatizing schools. Then it occurred to me that these would already be teaching what they wanted, and even if not, the private school has far more incentives to teach what the attendees' parents want. So I suppose the silver lining is that this was the result of the legislative process and can therefore be annulled by the courts. And if that's the best you can say about something, the phrase "damning with faint praise" springs to mind...
darwinism at work (Score:2)
Well the parents who ensure their kids study 'fake science' will get a nice lesson in darwinism when the only work their kids can do is flipping hamburgers.
Good for parents who do want their children to get a real well rounded education, will give them an advantage.
Though I feel bad for the children who get 'brain washed' who are being used as a tool.
Re: darwinism at work (Score:4, Insightful)
A doctoral thesis proposing a radical departure from known science is, however, not something you would teach in elementary schools. Do the legwork, be open to the peer review and if your thesis ever goes mainstream, then it could make it into the curriculum.
Florida (Score:4, Funny)
Maykin Amerka grate agen!!
Unbiased? (Score:3)
The schools should be safe. There's no such thing as an unbiased human, and dogs aren't likely to make too many demands on school curricula.
Lowest Common Denominator = Thickest Bureaucrat (Score:2)
"harder to teach evolution and climate change" (Score:3)
It may "make it harder to teach evolution and climate change". On the other hand, it could also make it harder to teach intellectual design, or if teaching religion the schools may have to broaden their teaching past a certain branch of Christianity, but to also include e.g. Islam and Taoism.
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Bring back the three-dollar bill! (Score:2)
Can we also ADD material? (Score:2)
Citizens should also gain the compensating right to require material to be ADDED to curriculums.
Then let's wait till 1st good guy steps in with pornhub printouts in hand (one hand).
So, if you don't like Creationism taught in school (Score:5, Interesting)
Complain to get it removed. What is the reference supporting the claim that God created the Earth and creatures that live upon it? AFAIK, it's only one book.
And the bible is full of pornography. Easy to find examples.
I would think for sufficiently creative people with appropriate resources, this law could easily be turned around to cause all kinds of problems for it's proponents.
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...this law could easily be turned around to cause all kinds of problems for it's proponents.
So you mean enforced fairly and equally for all? Sounds like a good idea.
Florida Man (Score:2)
This sounds like excellent news for Florida Man stories. Education is the nemesis of Florida Man so, an outright assault on it should let Florida Man thrive.
Here's to you, Florida Man!
I *went* to school in Florida (Score:5, Informative)
I grew up in Florida. My senior year, my English teacher let us watch "Full Metal Jacket" IN CLASS. And to think we went through almost the entire year without realizing how cool she secretly was.
The most twisted part is that if any member of the public had found out and complained, their primary objection would have probably been the film's antiwar sentiment and implied criticism of America and its military (that same year, my American History teacher admitted point blank that he was EXPLICITLY prohibited from saying anything about either Watergate or the Vietnam War because the Principal deemed both topics to be "too controversial").
Re:I *went* to school in Florida (Score:4, Interesting)
"generals running wars works" not always -- if President Truman had let Gen MacArthur run the Korean war the way the general wanted to, we would have been in a land and nuclear war on Chinese territory in the early 50's, back when the nuclear armed Soviets were still allies with China. As it was, MacArthur was the one who goaded China into that war in the first place.
If Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy had let Gen Curtis LeMay run the Cold War the way the general wanted to, we would have been in a nuclear war with the Soviet Union in the late 50's or early 60's.
Don't teach evolution itself (Score:3)
Both religious aversion to science, as we see in some, and also an equally worrying trend of memorizing what is needed for exams only as long as said exams are on the horizon, are symptoms of a common anti-pattern in education.
We should not spoon feed children facts, or purported facts, or disproved 'facts'. What should be taught are the generic skills required to problem-solve, research, fact check, and basically work stuff out for yourself. Importantly, the engineering-like idea that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and that weakest link is only as strong as its sternest test. And teach these ideas first in the context of practical engineering and problem solving. Let religious nuts drive 'genesis as literal' ideas all they want. With the above skills well trained, the religious ideas, free from the medieval risks of burning at the stake for heresy, will just seen too silly to too many. And the class time will be better spent than merely spoonfeeding a naive and simplistic picture of how evolution actually works in practice.
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How would you test that? At the end of it all, you need to grade the students and decide whether they pass. How?
Hyper-liberalism again (Score:3)
Those who care most having input!!?? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parents, who invest $1M per child and blood, sweat, tears and sleepless nights having input on what their child learns?? This concept is anathema to the fascist progressives and alt-left who believe they know better what your child should learn than you do, never mind that at best most of them hold a BA in philosophy or education, while there are many parents that hold MS and PhDs in hard science fields.
This is needed (Score:3)
It is important to have independent review of what is going on in public schools. Parents have a right to know and a right to file a complaint. Quite frankly, climate change doesn't belong in schools. People can find out whatever they want to know on their own. It has no purpose, really, for helping students find employment. The only reason it is even there is for a political agenda. Climate change is heavily politicized and more about an agenda to reduce first world countries to third world countries and global wealth redistribution. Maybe climate change is contributed to by industrial activity. But, that doesnt change the fact that climate change treaties are wealth redistribution schemes designed to make the US uncompetitive and wreck the US economy and are exploiting the issue to push a clearly political social agenda .
I can more empathize with Evolution. But, this too is politicized, and often used to attack Christianity. The fact is, the Catholic Church has issued encyclicals that individual catholics can accept Evolution. Young earth creationism is not universal in Christianity in any way. Creation can be in the framework of the big bang having a divine origination and then evolution happening afterwards after the initial first cause. But this won't stop atheists from trying to lie and exploit it to push their atheistic ideologies.
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Who upvoted you? The members of the "We're awesome and everyone else is stupid, amirite?" club?
Only in a world where you kids grow up in a "everyone gets a trophy", can you somehow think that the conservatives ardent, militant support of Israel's "can do no wrong" people, can also be Holocaust deniers.
Which is it? 2 + 2 = 4 and 5 now?
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My pet favourite is phlogiston. While I could certainly have some fun making speeches about it I don't think it'd quite be worth living in Florida.
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I think we should challenge the geography text books. Then these kids will grown up not knowing that there is a world outside of Florida and they can leave the rest of us in peace.
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How is it that so many people are living in denial about reality?
Judging from the last the last election a lot more than you think.
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Sweet false dichotomy, bro. Do you fuck your mom with that logic? -_-
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...but lots of wrong ones (Score:2)
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Math is not science.
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Unfortunately, the world looks at US for leadership and inspiration.
Both in good and bad.
Not that I like it, but the trends from the 'states do spread over the globe with slow but unstoppable force.
Maybe China will take over? But I doubt it would be a change for the better.
Re: Good. (Score:2)
Poor attempt at trolling. Not enough block capitals & spelling mistakes and too much correct punctuation.
I mean, nobody can think that the theory of evolution, while incomplete has been disproved - it's used in the development of modern vaccines. Oh wait...
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Well yes, ideally you should only teach facts and let kids come to their own conclusions as to the validity of anything else.
But if you let kids think for themselves they could easily come to very different conclusions than you want them to.
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Not teaching religion is exactly how such ignorance can propagate. You teach religion, in part, to show that every religion claims to have the "one true God", that every religion has the same basic rules and even comparable texts, and that every religion claims to be distinct and "punish" believers of those other religions.
Education is about learning these kinds of things, maybe you would have had an epiphany earlier if it were taught properly (i.e. including multi-diety religions alongside the monotheisti