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I see problems however in attempting to create yet another unfunded mandate, all the while expecting overwhelmed teachers to meet regency testing standards. Eating a huge dinner while sitting on a broken chair might be a bad Idea.
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This is the problem with using words like "ID" and "education reform". They're great for communicating a plethora of ideas and for identifying large groups of people, but they are absolutely terrible for any reasonably practical debate.
I don't think anyone here (except for the mentioning of introducing an Honors/AP Philosophy course) has mentioned "creating yet another unfunded mandate" in our discussion about "education reform". What we've been discussing is censorship and whether or not there should be restrictions about what can cannot be taught by teachers and textbooks in regards to evolution and the scientific views of the origin of, well, everything.
If you read the article that was the original subject of this topic, it talks about ideas that we haven't even discussed yet, and doesn't make mention to ideas that we have.
1) The article under question does not call for a new course curriculum to teach ID.
2) The article under question does not call for a mandate requiring the instructors to teach ID.
3) What it does do is expand the restrictions on what can be taught, allowing material that could not previously be introduced in a science class.
4) People are upset that an unpopular candidate was allowed to become a supreme authority in science education "by default".
5) People are upset that a person is allowed this esteemed position of scientific educational authority even though he is a creationist. (Or IDist, a makeshift term that I find particularly amusing.)
There's also a potential #6 not related to the article but relavent to the discussion, "6) The current situation can cause instructors backlash and trouble for instructors if they mention ID in the classrooms, or make public known that they personally are in favor of the ID ideology." Since I'm the only one to mention this though and no one else cares to discuss it, it's not really on topic.
Much of the contraversy in the discussion comes from people insisting that #3 above will "open the door" to #1 and #2 above, in terminology that vaguely reminds me of the red scare and how we should not "open the door" to hostile communist ideas).
#5 also strikes me as a bad position to hold, because the implication is that he won't (or can't) 'do his job' but will instead abuse his position to put forward his own personal agenda. Proponents of this view tend to suggest that allowing for #3 is just the first demonstration that proves #5 correct, though I disagree.
There also seems to be a side issue here, unrelated to the article but important to the discussion, as to whether or not scientific classrooms should teach controversial topics that have not been adopted as mainstreams facts. I am unsure enough in my position that I have refrained from discussing this, the question being largely irrelevent to my case (since I don't hold to the position that ONLY facts can be mentioned in a highschool science class, or to the position that highschool children are too young/ignorant/whatever to make value/fact decisions on their own if all alternative viewpoints are presented and weighted in an academic environment). (I'm working on the premise that highschool is an academic environment, which I may not actually agree with, but don't want to discuss it on this thread.)
This is a summary of the topic as I understand it as it relates to educational reform, intelligent design, and the original article posted (along with my opinion on these issues). So it's not really about whether or not we should have educational reform. It's more of "this thing has happened, and how should we react?" It's more of a question of setting values and agendas for future practical decisions rather than deciding if we have funding for new mandates, or what kind of mandates we should have.