Author Archives: E Wayne Ross

Religious scholars mull Flying Spaghetti Monster

CNN: Religious scholars mull Flying Spaghetti Monster

(AP) — When some of the world’s leading religious scholars gather in San Diego this weekend, pasta will be on the intellectual menu. They’ll be talking about a satirical pseudo-deity called the Flying Spaghetti Monster, whose growing pop culture fame gets laughs but also raises serious questions about the essence of religion.

The appearance of the Flying Spaghetti Monster on the agenda of the American Academy of Religion‘s annual meeting gives a kind of scholarly imprimatur to a phenomenon that first emerged in 2005, during the debate in Kansas over whether intelligent design should be taught in public school sciences classes.

Supporters of intelligent design hold that the order and complexity of the universe is so great that science alone cannot explain it. The concept’s critics see it as faith masquerading as science.

An Oregon State physics graduate named Bobby Henderson stepped into the debate by sending a letter to the Kansas School Board. With tongue in cheek, he purported to speak for 10 million followers of a being called the Flying Spaghetti Monster — and demanded equal time for their views.

“We have evidence that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe. None of us, of course, were around to see it, but we have written accounts of it,” Henderson wrote. As for scientific evidence to the contrary, “what our scientist does not realize is that every time he makes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage.”

The letter made the rounds on the Internet, prompting laughter from some and vilification from others. But it struck a chord and stuck around. In the great tradition of satire, its humor was in fact a clever and effective argument.

Between the lines, the point of the letter was this: There’s no more scientific basis for intelligent design than there is for the idea an omniscient creature made of pasta created the universe. If intelligent design supporters could demand equal time in a science class, why not anyone else? The only reasonable solution is to put nothing into sciences classes but the best available science.

“I think we can all look forward to the time when these three theories are given equal time in our science classrooms across the country, and eventually the world; one third time for Intelligent Design, one third time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, and one third time for logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence,” Henderson sarcastically concluded.

Kansas eventually repealed guidelines questioning the theory of evolution.

Meanwhile, Flying Spaghetti Monsterism (FSM-ism to its “adherents”) has thrived — particularly on college campuses and in Europe. Henderson’s Web site has become a kind of cyber-watercooler for opponents of intelligent design.

Henderson did not respond to a request for comment. His Web site tracks meetings of FSM clubs (members dress up as pirates) and sells trinkets and bumper stickers. “Pastafarians” — as followers call themselves — can also download computer screen-savers and wallpaper (one says: “WWFSMD?”) and can sample photographs that show “visions” of the divinity himself. In one, the image of the carbohydrate creator is seen in a gnarl of dug-up tree roots.

It was the emergence of this community that attracted the attention of three young scholars at the University of Florida who study religion in popular culture. They got to talking, and eventually managed to get a panel on FSM-ism on the agenda at one of the field’s most prestigious gatherings.

The title: “Evolutionary Controversy and a Side of Pasta: The Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Subversive Function of Religious Parody.”

“For a lot of people they’re just sort of fun responses to religion, or fun responses to organized religion. But I think it raises real questions about how people approach religion in their lives,” said Samuel Snyder, one of the three Florida graduate students who will give talks at the meeting next Monday along with Alyssa Beall of Syracuse University.

The presenters’ titles seem almost a parody themselves of academic jargon. Snyder will speak about “Holy Pasta and Authentic Sauce: The Flying Spaghetti Monster’s Messy Implications for Theorizing Religion,” while Gavin Van Horn’s presentation is titled “Noodling around with Religion: Carnival Play, Monstrous Humor, and the Noodly Master.”

Using a framework developed by literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin, Van Horn promises in his abstract to explore how, “in a carnivalesque fashion, the Flying Spaghetti Monster elevates the low (the bodily, the material, the inorganic) to bring down the high (the sacred, the religiously dogmatic, the culturally authoritative).”

The authors recognize the topic is a little light by the standards of the American Academy of Religion.

“You have to keep a sense of humor when you’re studying religion, especially in graduate school,” Van Horn said in a recent telephone interview. “Otherwise you’ll sink into depression pretty quickly.”

But they also insist it’s more than a joke.

Indeed, the tale of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and its followers cuts to the heart of the one of the thorniest questions in religious studies: What defines a religion? Does it require a genuine theological belief? Or simply a set of rituals and a community joining together as a way of signaling their cultural alliances to others?

In short, is an anti-religion like Flying Spaghetti Monsterism actually a religion?

Joining them on the panel will be David Chidester, a prominent and controversial academic at the University of Cape Town in South Africa who is interested in precisely such questions. He has urged scholars looking for insights into the place of religion in culture and psychology to explore a wider range of human activities. Examples include cheering for sports teams, joining Tupperware groups and the growing phenomenon of Internet-based religions. His 2005 book “Authentic Fakes: Religion and American Popular Culture,” prompted wide debate about how far into popular culture religious studies scholars should venture.

Lucas Johnston, the third Florida student, argues the Flying Spaghetti Monsterism exhibits at least some of the traits of a traditional religion — including, perhaps, that deep human need to feel like there’s something bigger than oneself out there.

He recognized the point when his neighbor, a militant atheist who sports a pro-Darwin bumper sticker on her car, tried recently to start her car on a dying battery.

As she turned the key, she murmured under her breath: “Come on Spaghetti Monster!” E-mail to a friend E-mail to a friend

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press

“If your aspiration is to be a college president, that is a way to become a millionaire”

The New York Times: Increased Compensation Puts More College Presidents in the Million-Dollar Club

Soaring compensation of university presidents, once limited to a few wealthy institutions, is becoming increasingly common, with the number of million-dollar pay packages at private institutions nearly doubling last year, and compensation at many public universities not far behind.

Rouge Forum Update: French students and workers direct action

Dear Friends,

The Rouge Forum web page is updated at www.rougeforum.org. We call your attention to the No Blood For Oil section of the page for updates on the expanding wars as well as those good-for-the-rest-of-your-life antiwar posters for sale at lifesaving prices. And, for those under 35, remember: If They Attack Iran—You’re Drafted.

This week, however, we focus on the rising of workers and students in France, taking direct action against the Sarkozy regimes attacks on education, rights to strike, health care, and pensions. The corporate press in the US has largely ignored this struggle which has spread to more than twenty universities.

The French student resistance demonstrated, in 1968, several key things that remain true today:
*Students can initiate mass struggle for social change, but cannot complete them. For that, a worker-student alliance is necessary, and possible.
*When hope in schools is eradicated, uprisings typically follow.
*Mass struggles that turn to direct action, as in strikes or general strikes, can confront massive, organized, ruthless force with reason to believe that winning is possible.
*Those struggles are routinely betrayed from within. In 1968, the Quisling force was the official Communist Party of France which did all it could to divert and finally destroy the uprisings. One would expect the same from the CP-USA, and all its affiliates, today–as we witness the muddle that the CPUSA front, the United For Peace and Justice Coalition, has made of what there is of the anti-war movement. The core of that is the CP’s ironic rejection of the term, “class struggle.”

The Rouge Forum will be very active at the upcoming National Conference for the Social Studies conference in San Diego at the end of November. Come visit our booth and our presentations about high-stakes testing. Plus, please RSVP if you would like to come to our Rouge Forum party on Saturday evening. You are welcome to invite friends, but we need some guess for the number of people.

Thanks to Bill T and B, Greg, Katie, MrJ, Sean, Bill S, Candy, Elise, Irene T, Sue Horning, Charley in Vista in Africa, Seepho, Mary, Doug and Connie, Beau, Erin, Colin, Wayne, and Sharon A.

All the best,

r

Survey Finds Today’s Students Are More Civically Engaged but Are Ambivalent About Politics

Below are two articles on the report “Millennials Talk Politics: A Study of College Student Political Engagement,” a study conducted by the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement, in collaboration with the Charles F. Kettering Foundation. The study examined the barriers to political engagement that young people face.

Note that the survey reports students do not see voting as means for political change, this, I think, is actually encouraging news as it illustrates youth understand that the political system in the US is fundamentally flawed. (Also note the reported “wealth gap” in political activism.) The challenge for social educators is then how to get beyond teaching conceptions of democracy that are chained to a flawed political system and take advantage of the developing “activist” conception of civic engagement among many youth.

Inside Higher Ed: Millennials, Unspun
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/11/08/civic

The Chronicle of Higher Education
Today’s Students Are More Civically Engaged but Are Ambivalent About Politics, Report Finds
http://chronicle.com/daily/2007/11/635n.htm

The Chronicle of Higher Education
Today’s Students Are More Civically Engaged but Are Ambivalent About Politics, Report Finds
http://chronicle.com/daily/2007/11/635n.htm

By MARY ANDOM

Young people entering college today— most of whom are part of the so-called Millennial Generation born after 1985— are neither cynical nor highly individualistic, according to a new report released on Wednesday. Compared to their predecessors, Generation X, the Millennials are more likely to volunteer and be involved in social issues, researchers found.

The report, “Millennials Talk Politics: A Study of College Student Political Engagement,” is based on a study conducted by the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement, in collaboration with the Charles F. Kettering Foundation. The study examined the barriers to political engagement that young people face.

The authors of the report conducted focus groups with nearly 400 students on a dozen four-year campuses, including Bowdoin College, Kansas State University, and the University of New Mexico. They also conducted a written survey and drew on a national telephone survey.

The researchers found, among other things, that today’s students are turned off by polarized national debates, but are eager to engage on a local level.

At a panel discussion in Washington that followed the report’s release, college representatives, students, and youth civic engagement groups said the report confirmed their findings all along. Speakers said there was a disconnect between issues students cared about and ones they were active in. For instance, students were passionately concerned about the genocide taking place in the Darfur region of Sudan or the war in Iraq, but they didn’t know what steps they could take to change what is happening.

Students who participated in the study didn’t see voting as a way to create political change. Instead, they considered volunteering in their community as more important. A University of New Mexico student told the researchers that students feel they can have a direct effect on their communities but cannot influence the government.

“Like the government is, like, really far away and something that you can’t really affect or change,” the student is quoted as saying. “But something that you can actually do in your community and see the results of might be more, like, motivating, like, for people.”

During the panel discussion, George L. Mehaffy, a vice president of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities and a leader of the American Democracy Project, a civic-engagement initiative, said it was “time for higher education to pay attention” to its role in providing opportunities for students to become more civically engaged. The skills to do so should be taught in college, he said.

Kiran Katira, director of the University of New Mexico Service Corps, said during the discussion that universities needed to keep in mind the people who cannot afford to participate in civic engagement.

“Those involved in the political process tend to be middle-class white individuals not representative of the communities they serve,” Ms. Katira said.

One way universities and colleges can reach out to others is by creating a dialogue on their campuses that involves different ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic groups, she said.

Alexandria Barabin, from the Center for Progressive Leadership, a national political training institute that recruits young people from minority groups and lesbian and gay youths, agreed that certain voices were shut out of the process.

“Young people of color are interested in issues of financial aid, minimum wage, immigration, disenfranchisement based on class, and women’s issues,” said Ms. Barabin, a member of the audience. “Collectively, they want a change from the current political direction.”

___________________________________________

Inside Higher Ed: Millennials, Unspun
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/11/08/civic

Pick the stereotype that rings truest about the political engagement of today’s youth

1. They’re too busy sending Twitter updates and playing Nintendo Wii with their friends to bother participating in the political process.

2. Following the heroic example of Tracy Flick, they hurl themselves energetically into student government like the Organization Kids they are.

3. Donning Barack Obama campaign buttons, they idealistically and methodically rally around grassroots causes that bypass politics entirely.

Each statement paints a picture that’s been used, more or less, to represent the sentiments of the current generation of students. They even have a name — “millennials” — and a set of core values that supposedly encompasses a greater willingness to collaborate, learn visually and share intimate details of their lives with the public.

They also care about the world they live in. According to a report released yesterday called “Millennials Talk Politics: A Study of College Student Political Engagement,” the generation currently enrolled in college fits most snugly into option (3) above. They may not support Obama per se (or even a specific presidential candidate), but they do have goals and want to improve the world. The problem is that they’re not sure whether the current political environment makes any of that possible.

The report, from the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), which studies civic engagement among young people, suggests that students are tired of partisanship and “spin,” are wary of the political process in general and tend to distrust the overwhelming array of media sources that vie for their attention. The students surveyed still retain their idealism but choose to put their beliefs into action through local organizing and volunteer efforts that offer more tangible, immediate results. They stand in marked contrast to Generation X, who in a similar 1993 report (like this one, supported by the Charles F. Kettering Foundation) were portrayed as generally apathetic and unconcerned with affairs beyond their own lives.

It might not be a coincidence that today’s college students look primarily to local activism: Many came from middle and high schools with requirements for community service. “Most high schools now have community service requirements and it’s come to the point where they’ve trained you so much into it, it becomes second nature and habit to do service,” one student told a focus group.

The picture painted in the report isn’t scientific, although its authors said they made efforts to include as representative a cross section as possible in the 47 focus groups organized at 12 four-year colleges nationwide — almost 400 students in all. Still, there’s always the possibility that students attracted to such groups are a somewhat self-selected bunch interested in particular goals and involved deeply in campus causes.

Comparing survey results from the focus groups to the report’s data from a related national telephone poll of college students, for example, reveals differences in representation for certain groups. Forty percent of focus group participants identified themselves as Democrats, compared with 25 percent polled nationally; 12 percent (versus 33 percent of students in the poll) said they were Republicans. More self-identified as liberal, fewer as moderate and twice as many said they were “very liberal” than the national sample.

At the same time, African-American students were underrepresented in the focus groups (10 percent versus the 17 percent polled by phone) and there were many more who consider themselves ethnically mixed, or in the “Other” category (11 percent in the focus groups versus 3 percent).

If the representation of students raises some questions, so does the representation of the population at large: “Are these attitudes any different from those of the general public?” asked Maureen F. Curley, the president of Campus Compact, at a panel on Wednesday announcing the report’s release.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the study found a gap of political engagement at colleges and universities: at wealthier institutions such as Princeton University and Bowdoin College, for instance, students are exposed to more opportunities to organize rallies, pursue causes and otherwise engage in activism. Other colleges involved in the survey included Kansas State University, Tougaloo College in Jackson, Miss., the University of Maryland (where CIRCLE is based) and Wake Forest University.

— Andy Guess

AN OPEN LETTER IN SUPPORT OF DAVID WASSERMAN

Read Paul Michael Goldenberg’s open letter in support of David Wasserman—the Wisconsin teacher who refused to give the Wisconsin state exam—at the Rational Mathematics Education Blog.

On December 12 from 6:00-6:30pm CST, tune in to Michael Baker’s “Room 101” radio (KZUM 89.3FM in Lincoln, Nebraska) when David Wasserman will be his guest.

People not in the Lincoln, Nebraska, listening area may listen online.

No Exit

The New York Times

November 4, 2007
Op-Ed Contributors
No Exit
By MONTY NEILL and LISA GUISBOND

Cambridge, Mass.

THE Connecticut State Board of Education is considering some form of exit exams as a graduation requirement from high school. The board is likely to make its recommendations to the Legislature by the end of the year.

Connecticut should think twice before going down this road. Evidence shows “high stakes” tests like exit exams that determine whether a student can graduate, are the wrong prescription for what ails public education.

The ills of many public schools are undeniable. Like other states, Connecticut has vast disparities in educational access, quality and outcomes. The record demonstrates, however, that exit exams are a false solution for these problems. Graduation tests that deny diplomas are simply another way to punish the victims of inadequately financed education. The victims are disproportionately low-income and minority students, some of them learning-disabled or immigrants for whom English is not the first language.

Proponents of graduation tests ignore the real consequences. Like snake-oil salesmen, they promise miracle cures. In reality, the harmful side effects of exit exams include a curriculum narrowed to a few subjects, teaching reduced to little more than test preparation, increased dropout rates and demoralized students.

Exit exam promoters promise narrowed achievement gaps and overall score increases. But that has not happened. While the number of states with graduation tests has steadily risen over the last two decades, results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the benchmark federal test that is administered every year, show no narrowing of the achievement gap among racial groups at the high school level. Nor have average reading scores increased.

A major reason for the lack of progress is that high-stakes testing, whether state-mandated graduation exams or the federal No Child Left Behind law, flies in the face of real learning. Untested subjects are ignored, while tested topics turn into test-coaching programs. Test prep is like holding a match to a thermostat and believing the room will get warmer: scores may rise on that test, but learning does not.

What’s more, high-stakes testing reduces the high school graduation rate. Texas introduced exit exams in 1992. Fifteen years later, a record 40,200 students in the class of 2007 were denied diplomas based on the state tests. National independent research confirms a link between graduation tests and higher dropout rates.

In 2006, Boston’s annual dropout rate rose sharply to 9.9 percent from 7.7 percent. At the same time, the city suffered a wave of youth violence. Boston City Council members, who solicited the views of local young people on why violence was rising, reported “frustration and boredom with the endless drilling and practice” for the state comprehensive assessment exams, which students in grades 3 through 10 are required to take.

Unable to produce evidence of real success, exit exam supporters say we’re not doing these students any favors if we just give them a diploma. But what is gained if students have nothing to show after playing by the rules and passing required courses for 12 years of schooling? Students without diplomas earn much less money, are less likely to maintain stable families and are far more likely to end up in prison. Denying a diploma based on a test score does neither student nor society any favors.

If exit exams really enhance equity and school quality, why are Southern states — the first to adopt graduation tests — still mired at the bottom by any measure of educational performance? Why, in short, should Connecticut follow the failed practices of Mississippi and Alabama?

The truth is that race and class performance gaps reflect more on what happens outside the classroom than inside. A recent analysis of high school test scores in Connecticut found socioeconomic factors alone account for about 85 percent of the variation in test scores in four subjects. Connecticut can do better than putting accountability on the backs of its children while failing to address the underlying economic and social inequalities.

The choice is not between imposing graduation tests and doing nothing to improve education. Solving the problem of unequal schools and inadequate outcomes requires many actions, from ensuring financial equity for the Bridgeports and Hartfords to better K-12 programs to having expectations of a well-rounded education for all children.

Connecticut must reorder its priorities and pursue public policies that address the foundations of children’s academic success: health care, nutrition and living wages for working parents, along with high-quality teachers, a strong curriculum and well-financed schools.

Monty Neill is the co-executive director and Lisa Guisbond is the testing reform analyst at the National Center for Fair and Open Testing.

Rouge Forum Update: Fight Fear with Solidarity and Resistance

Dear Friends,

On our recent tour of California, CalCare’s Susan Harman, Bob Apter and I learned that one of the main things going on in schools today is fear. There are numerous sources of the fear we saw, but curricula regimentation, high-stakes exams, and militarization seem to be key. Our full report will be in the upcoming issue of Substance News.

Fear cannot serve as a basis for education, unless one wishes to train slaves. It follows that it falls upon each of us who seeks to connect reason to power to find answers to the fear that pervades schools.

One good answer is resistance, direct action. We have three recent examples of direct action in schools which can serve as models. They deserve our support.

Chicago Indymedia is carrying an article on 70 students at Morton West High who led a sit-in against the Iraq war and now face suspension and expulsion. We need to demonstrate solidarity with this courageous action. Here is a link to a petition on their behalf and the Indymedia article which includes phone numbers and email for authorities involved. Better still, we need hundreds of Morton High disruptions, perhaps under the slogan: If They Bomb Iran—You’re Drafted.

In Vancouver, a teacher refused to give a high stakes exam, was disciplined, but has been gathering support ever since. A Simon Fraser University dean is among her supporters, saying she was protecting her students from ‘psychological and educational vandalism. ‘

David Wasserman, a Madison teacher, refused to proctor his students’ high stakes exams, was threatened with severe discipline, and chose to return to his classroom.

David deserves our support as well. His email address is: dwasserman@madison.k12.wi.us

Here are email addresses for his bosses and others:
School board:
ccarstensen@madison.k12.wi.us
mpcole@madison.k12.wi.us
lkobza@madison.k12.wi.us
lmathiak@madison.k12.wi.us
bmoss@madison.k12.wi.us,
asilveira@madison.k12.wi.us
jwinstonjr@madison.k12.wi.us

Art Rainwater (District Superintendent): arainwater@madison.k12.wi.us

Libby Burmaster (State Superintendent): elizabeth.burmaster@dpi.state.wi.us

We need dozens of David Wassermans, acting in concert.

These are not the first test resisters. George Schmidt, fired for publishing the Chicago Case test, was among the first of those, and many others just walked away from teaching. But these direct actions are indicators that we can stand up to fear and reverse it, if we stick together.

On a broader scale, teachers in Bulgaria recently led massive job actions, demonstrating the Rouge Forum thesis that in many societies, social change can indeed emanate out from schools. Here is a link on Bulgaria .

Perry Marker sent along a link to a wonderful web site that should be useful to all social studies, cultural studies, and math educators: http://www.chrisjordan.com/

Remember the Rouge Forum booth and presentations at NCSS, coming up in San Diego at the end of November. Those who want a short history of the Rouge Forum, look here http://www.jceps.com/index.php?pageID=article&articleID=97

Thanks to Sherry W., Perry, Wayne, Susan, Carol, Val, Suber, Bill T., Sean, Mike A, MrJtheteacher, Beau, Greg and Katie, Bill, Della, Dave, Denise, Sharon A., Stewart, Dan C., Jim3, and Amber.

All the best, r

ps. we can always use donations. The Rouge Forum web page is updated at www.rougeforum.org. Those good-for-the-rest-of-your-life anti-war posters are up for sale!

SFU dean defends ‘no test’ teacher; He says the educator was protecting her students from ‘psychological and educational vandalism’

SFU dean defends ‘no test’ teacher; He says the educator was protecting her students from ‘psychological and educational vandalism’

The Vancouver Sun
Tue 30 Oct 2007
Page: B7
Section: Westcoast News
Byline: Janet Steffenhagen
Source: Vancouver Sun

The dean of education at Simon Fraser University says a teacher who defied her employer by refusing to deliver a mandatory reading test to her Grade 3 students should serve as an inspiration and role model for all teachers.

In a speech to SFU graduates this month, Paul Shaker praised Kathryn Sihota, a Vancouver Island teacher, for engaging in civil disobedience to protect her students from “psychological and educational vandalism,” despite knowing that she risked discipline and public disapproval for her actions.

“You should remember that you entered the profession at the moment when this courageous teacher was taking her principled stand,” Shaker told graduates in a fall convocation speech now posted on SFU’s website. “Let her character, conviction and willingness to act be an inspiration to you.”

Although his comments landed in the midst of a province-wide debate about the value of standardized tests, Shaker said in an interview he was making a point about the need for professionals to take non-violent action in defence of their principles and he was not passing judgment on the tests.

But he admitted he is particularly sensitive to the debate about standardized tests because before moving to Canada he spent many years as an educator in the U.S., where he said students have been damaged through rampant abuse of high-stakes testing.

“I like to think that won’t happen in Canada,” he said, “but I don’t think that we can be complacent.”

B.C. Education Minister Shirley Bond said it was irresponsible of Shaker to encourage teachers to engage in civil disobedience rather than working cooperatively with others on issues of mutual interest.

“It’s unfortunate when political agendas become part of a graduation speech to teachers in the province,” Bond added.

But the B.C. Teachers’ Federation, which supported Sihota in her fight with the Sooke board, cheered Shaker’s stance.

“It’s so heartening to see someone outside of teaching and someone with the stature of Paul Shaker … making those comments, especially to student teachers,” union vice-president Susan Lambert said in an interview.

A longtime teacher and union leader, Sihota said she decided not to administer the District Assessment of Reading test to her students at Millstream elementary after seeing a nervous child break down in tears.

She said the test was not worth that amount of stress.

As a result of that decision, Sihota was called before the Sooke board of education last month and given a letter of discipline for insubordination, which her union has grieved.

Shaker, when asked by The Sun if he agrees the tests are damaging to students, insisted he wasn’t taking a position on the tests. “That judgment would have to be made in the context of the teacher in the classroom,” he said.

But in his speech to almost 300 new teachers, Shaker said they have a professional obligation “to protect our students, not only from bullets or brutality, as we have seen teachers regularly do, but also from psychological and educational vandalism against their spirits. And this is what Kathryn Sihota has sought to do.”

Penny Tees, head of the B.C. School Trustees’ Association, declined to discuss Sihota’s actions but said she doesn’t accept the contention that tests damage students’ spirits. She noted that even B.C.’s representative for children and youth, Mary-Ellen Turpel-Lafond, has defended the tests.

“If every teacher had the right to eliminate the pieces of the curriculum that they personally don’t agree with and don’t want to teach, then we would have a very, very hard time managing a public school curriculum,” said Tees.

Shaker said he does not have a problem with the most controversial standardized test in B.C. — the Foundation Skills Assessment — but is highly critical of the way it is used to rank schools.

The science education myth

Here’s interesting piece of research that undercuts the persistent rhetoric about the failure of schools to prepare students for the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields.

The Urban Institute’s report Into the Eye of the Storm: Assessing the Evidence on Science and Engineering Education, Quality, and Workforce Demand says that the evidence does NOT support recent policy report claims that the United States is falling behind other nations in science and math education and graduating insufficient numbers of scientists and engineers. The report argues that:

U.S. student performance rankings are comparable to other leading nations and colleges graduate far more scientists and engineers than are hired each year. Instead, the evidence suggests targeted education improvements are needed for the lowest performers and demand-side factors may be insufficient to attract qualified college graduates.

The report, written by B. Lindsay Lowell and Harold Salzman, shows U.S. student performance has steadily improved over time in math, science, and reading. It also found enrollment in math and science courses is actually up. For example, in 1982 high school graduates earned 2.6 math credits and 2.2 science credits on average. By 1998, the average number of credits increased to 3.5 math and 3.2 science credits. The percent of students taking chemistry increased from 45% in 1990 to 55% in 1996 and 60% in 2004. Scores in national tests such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the SAT, and the ACT have also shown increases in math scores over the past two decades.

Why the discrepancy between the evidence and the rhetoric about STEM achievement and jobs? Salzman told Business Week

that reports citing low U.S. international rankings often misinterpret the data. Review of the international rankings, which he says are all based on one of two tests, the Trends in International Mathematics & Science Study (TIMMS) or the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), show the U.S. is in a second-ranked group, not trailing the leading economies of the world as is commonly reported. In fact, the few countries that place higher than the U.S. are generally small nations, and few of these rank consistently high across all grades, subjects, and years tested. Moreover, he says, serious methodological flaws, such as different test populations, and other limitations preclude drawing any meaningful comparison of school systems between countries.