But it's still not over.
According to the NYTimes,
"Teaching creationism in public schools has consistently been ruled unconstitutional in federal courts, but according to a national survey of more than 900 public high school biology teachers, it continues to flourish in the nation’s classrooms. Researchers found that only 28 percent of biology teachers consistently follow the recommendations of the National Research Council to describe straightforwardly the evidence for evolution and explain the ways in which it is a unifying theme in all of biology. At the other extreme, 13 percent explicitly advocate creationism, and spend at least an hour of class time presenting it in a positive light1."
Given these statistics, it is no surprise at all that we are falling further behind the rest of the world, both academically, and worse, economically, and it is easy to predict what will happen to the United States if this trend is allowed to continue.
The article goes on to say,
"'Students are being cheated out of a rich science education,' said Dr. Plutzer, a professor of political science at Penn State University. 'We think the ‘cautious 60 percent’ represent a group of educators who, if they were better trained in science in general and in evolution in particular, would be more confident in their ability to explain controversial topics to their students, to parents, and to school board members.'
"But Dr. Moore is doubtful that more education is the answer. “These courses aren’t reaching the creationists,' he said. 'They already know what evolution is. They were biology majors, or former biology students. They just reject what we told them.'
'With 15 to 20 percent of biology teachers teaching creationism,' he continued, 'this is the biggest failure in science education. There’s no other field where teachers reject the foundations of their science like they do in biology.'"
That's the crux of the problem. I've studied Creationism for years, and they already know what "evolutionists" are going to say. Going back to my essay Philosophy in America, or The Lack Thereof, how can we reach a demographic whose ignorance is so voluntary and so complete? How can we raise the standard for science education at least so that teachers are confident to approach controversial subjects with students, and can defend themselves against religious fanatics, who use fear and self-righteousness to cripple those who disagree with them?
Maybe we should reduce the control parents have over the education system. We would like to think that every child has a parent that wants the best for them, but after so many of these cases, from mass book banning of Fahrenheit 451, The Handmaid's Tale, and Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret and the willingness to teach something that has no basis in the observable world as a legitimate science, I'm not so sure that's the case. We have no right to let Kitty Farmer dictate our standards of education.
Like any other decision made by a democratic body, people are going to be drawn to bad logic, and the people who should have a say--who best understand the educational needs of our children--are at the greatest risk of being punished for doing what is right.
Perhaps the best thing to do is to reform how we educate teachers. There are a few things teachers will need in order to fulfill the task I am setting out for them, to arm themselves against those who weaponize religion for their own ends and scare a community out of a good education.
Teachers will need a passion for their subject, whether it be science, math, or literature, music, or visual art, and they must be able to quickly justify why their subject is necessary to build character or to give children the skills to navigate the dystopia into which they will be shoved when they become adults. The trouble is that the teachers who understand this will not be arguing in front of a prudent magistrate, but a nebulous mob of self-interested parents with severe cases of Unwarranted Self-Importance. Perhaps, worse, they will argue in front of a spineless, sycophantic supervisor whose hands are tied by that same mob of entitled parents. [*Author's note: Now you know why I chose not to be a teacher*]
Teachers are best-equipped to educate our children, but they are the lowest in the administrative hierarchy. What if communities deferred to the best teachers on questions of how to educate children? How do we choose who the best teachers are? What kind of jurisdiction would these decisions have?
There would have to be a specific set of criteria by which we can measure teacher-student success. At the extreme risk of falling into NCLB territory, I am going to try to lay out some of what I believe that this criteria should be.
Science: In my own experience, science education quickly loses focus on what science IS, and only focuses on what science has brought us. Science classes should have an intense focus on hands-on activities which are designed to teach children how to think critically, examine evidence, and design experiments. Lab assignments should ask the question, "How did you come up with your answer?" Success of a science teacher should be measured by how well his or her students perform not necessarily on tests, but on labs and projects. The creativity shown in science fairs should be a primary basis for judging teacher and student success. In sum, HOW we know what we know from science is more important than WHAT we know.
Literature: I am not concerned with spelling and grammar here; I am concerned with personal development. In truth, English classes should be considered philosophy, in a way. The primary goal of literature is to challenge students to reevaluate what they believe and how they see the world. Literature, according to my English (nation, not language) Literature professor, is designed to "entertain and to teach." The goal of Literature is personal development, and all of adolescent literature is designed to help children find their own identity as they grow up and away from their parents, and to give them insight on how they can cope with existential crises. Parents want their children to be exactly like them, and completely miss the point of the entire enterprise, punishing teachers for doing exactly what they should be doing. English teachers, thus, would be tasked with giving their students some direction and meaning in their lives, and help them to become more aware of both themselves and others; they should challenge their students to relate what they learn in class to their own lives.
Math: I personally was never good at math, so I would be wise to defer standards of education in this area to someone else.
Social Studies/History: Here, too, we are failing miserably. History classes need to cover from 1950 to the present. I have never had a history class that made it past WW2. This era is extremely important, and few of us know exactly what went on after WW2. The problem is that this era is incredibly politicized in our collective consciousness that it would be nearly impossible to teach. What could be done is, in high school, cover America's founding to the Present over the course for four years. This would give enough time to go over everything in sufficient detail. The best thing to do for general Social Studies classes is to teach the basics of law--the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution--and how to evaluate legal and political arguments. The goal here is much of a philosophical one, in which we instruct children to think critically about what they hear on the news and from their parents, and are able to make intelligent decisions as American citizens. This should start in late elementary school and extend to some high school.
The focus in Social Studies should not be on tests and quizzes, but on writing persuasive papers. Ask students to write about something they care for in order to persuade their audience one way or another. Mock debates should definitely be included in the class, and students should be evaluated on the basis of how well they are able to make logical and compelling arguments for their cause(s).
Who are the best teachers? The best teachers are the ones that not only have the greatest passion for their subject, but are best able also to motivate their students and derive the greatest effort from them. In order to measure this, we must keep the process of sitting evaluations (a supervisor sits in on a class), but modify this process a little bit. I propose that the date and time for an evaluation should be kept top secret, and that the evaluator should walk in unannounced. Evaluations should be held between five and ten times a year for each teacher, in order to measure consistent quality and performance.
So what do we do with the teachers we deem to be the most effective given the evaluation process? We notify five of the best teachers at the end of the school year, and we task these teachers with reevaluating curriculum standards and improving them. These would be individuals who have demonstrated passion and knowledge of their field, and they would be put in contact with experts and advisers in their particular field of study in order to make the best decisions possible for their students. Parents and religious organizations would be entirely excluded from this process.
The decisions made by the best teachers will stand for one year and apply to a single school district.
Principals and superintendents would be tasked with administrative and penal duties, disciplining anti-social students and holding teachers accountable to the standards the teachers themselves would devise and support. The entire mechanism of the public school system will stand behind the teachers' decisions against misguided parents, uncompromising in their adherence to a standard of education that will improve the lives of the students and make for a more prosperous community that is better equipped to meet national and international challenges.
If a teacher is challenged by a parent for teaching "controversial" material, a hearing will be held between the parent in front of an impartial judge, impervious to coercion or threats, in which the teacher will be given fair time to defend himself or herself and justify his or her decision before the parent. The parent will in turn have the chance to lay out his or her justifications and state his or her case. The burden of proof will be placed upon the parent to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the material in question is harmful, and the judge's decision cannot be appealed by the parent.
If these guidelines are followed, the quality of education will skyrocket, as teachers are empowered to defend their decisions against the onslaughts by misguided parents and sycophantic supervisors. I do not pretend to not have a severe mistrust of parents, nor do I pretend that I don't want their role in educational decisions minimized to the greatest extent. My goal is to protect teachers from parents who suffer from the Dunning-Krueger Effect in order to prevent what we have been experiencing since 1925 (2). There is no reason why, in 2011, we should be teaching bad theology as legitimate science, or that school kids cannot talk about subjugation, censorship, or menstruation.
1) http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/science/08creationism.html?_r=2&ref=creationismandintelligentdesign
2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
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