Kentucky science and social studies standards contain almost no academic content and the problem with them is ... cursive writing

Richard Day at Kentucky School News and Commentary is apparently upset that State Education Commissioner Stephen Pruitt is going to include a new state standard covering cursive writing.

First he goes after critics of the contentless new state science and social studies standards:

One supposes the delays in fully implementing Science and Social Studies is political avoidance behavior. Politically, these catch the most opposition—from climate change deniers and to those who would remove Thomas Jefferson from U. S. History books. Perhaps the word came down from On High. How else might we explain why Pruitt, until recently the nation's lead science standards guy, is taking his foot off the gas.

But instead, apparently Kentucky will add 21st century standards for cursive writing, but not the critical skill of shoe lace tying.

Yeah, those deniers who are upset about a whole semester unit on climate change in Kindergarten, before they even know about, oh, I don't know, nature. In fact the science standards contain little about actual study of nature, which is actually interesting for younger students, and opting instead for technological abstractions that are sure to bore children stiff.

Similarly with the social studies standards, which,instead of teaching children about the rich history of America and the Western world, have Kindergartners identifying "ways that physical and cultural characteristics may affect people living in a place."

If these people don't turn off a whole generation of students to history and science, it will be a miracle.

Oh, and then there's this in the Kindergarten social studies standards:

K.GR.9 Human—Environment Interaction Identify the characteristics of climate and explain how it affect peoples’ lives in specific places.

No mention of George Washington, Patrick Henry, Paul Revere, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, the Liberty Bell, the Revolutionary War, the U.S.S. Constitution, the Star Spangled Banner, Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War, World War II, Civil Rights, Martin Luther King, Jr., or the Vietnam War. But we just can't get enough of climate change. In fact, although all of these other people and events are never mentioned in Kindergarten, climate change is mentioned five times.

And I'm wondering why Day is concerned about other people removing Thomas Jefferson from the history books when Jefferson seems to be absent from the state's proposed social studies standards, along with virtually every other historical figure, event, and document.

And then there's cursive, which Day obviously doesn't like. Of course, I can't think of a better way to prevent students from reading any of the original documents that Jefferson wrote, since they were all penned in cursive. In fact, good luck reading any original source material from about 50 years ago and before if all you know is manuscript writing.

If you wanted to erase a nation's cultural memory, you couldn't do it any better than with standards like these.

Richard Day gets it wrong again on the state's science standards

Richard Day not only didn't like my column on Kentucky's science standards, he didn't like my response, claiming I not only did not refute, but supported his claim that my text analysis of Kentucky Academic Standards--using a word count--was not "definitive."

"Definitive" of what? Where did I say the analysis was "definitive"? "Definitive means, if my dictionary is correct, "final," or, as another has it, "supplying or being a final or conclusive statement." Not only did I not use the word "definitive," I didn't use any of the words that mean "definitive."

But maybe consulting the dictionary is too simplistic a way in Day's mind to determine the meaning of words.

I fully admit it's not "definitive." I admit the possibility that I could be wrong. All someone like Day would have to do is to go to the document and read it and come back with some kind of textual proof that what I said was an incorrect characterization of the text.

If I were wrong, it would be pretty easy to prove it. But what is interesting is that Day hasn't bothered to even attempt to do this. All he has done is carp at my method of determining the relative emphasis on particular topics in the state' standards, which consisted of the revolutionary procedure of seeing how many words had to do with that topic.

In fact, Day seems to be having continuing difficulty determining exactly what I said. He claims that I was looking at the wrong document when I did my word count, quoting someone by the name of Alex Grigg, who commented on my column in the Lexington Herald-Leader. Now I'm sure Grigg is a fine, upstanding ... whatever he is. But here is what Grigg said (and Day quoted approvingly on his blog):

Martin seems to need a little help counting. Here is the document in question, unless he is looking at something else: http://63960de18916c597c345-8e.... Global Warming is mentioned 0 times and Climate Change, which is the currently accepted scientific term for the effect in question, is only mentioned 16 times.

Uh, no. Sorry.

That is definitely (perhaps even definitively) not the document in question. The document Grigg links to is the Next Generation Science Standards, which is the national standards document on which the science sections of Kentucky's science standard are based. I stated very clearly what document I did the word search on. Here is what I said: "If you do a simple word search through the Kentucky Core Academic Standards document ..."

Note that the Kentucky Core Academic Standards document is not the same document a the Next Generation Science Standards.

Comprende?

In other words, Day is simply wrong about the document in question.

The former document is based on the latter one but what connection there is after that, I don't know because I have taken only a cursory look at the latter document. If Grigg is correct (which is apparently not a safe assumption), then there are some differences.

In fact, it is interesting to see how Grigg tries to refute my analysis: by using the same procedure (a word count), which happens to be the one Day says is not legitimate! He doesn't question word counts; he questions whether I word counted correctly. Had he be using the correct document, he might have had a telling point.

And here's another interesting thing: If Grigg is correct (again, I haven't checked his count), then the Kentucky Academic Standards contains more occurrences of the term "global warming" even than the national standards! In other words, they would have had to take the national standards and added an even greater emphasis on global warming.

If I'm Day, I'm going to quit while I'm ahead right at this point. But I get the sneaking suspicion that he's only going to dig himself in deeper.

Then Day charges me with "compounding the academic felony" (I'm still not sure what this exactly refers to) by "[extrapolating] speculations on what the authors of Next Generation Science Standards were thinking!"

Huh? I seriously have no idea what he is talking about, perhaps because he never says. Then, in another strange remark, he says, " Cothran’s word count argument proves only that things are a certain way. It tells us little about why they are so."

What the heck is that supposed to mean? "The Count’s [that's me] method, while arguably helpful on a surface level - if and only if one is not mislead by the data - is insufficient. The most useful analyses tell us something about why something is so."

Once again, Day seems have jumped to conclusions way down the road which I literally never made. I never said (and don't believe) that my analysis was "the most useful" analysis. I'm sure there are many other more useful analyses that could be done. But the question is not whether it is the "most useful" analysis, but whether it's useful at all. Does it show an inordinate emphasis on a trendy scientific topic?

I think it does. And if it's incorrect, Day is welcome to disprove it. Like I said, it should be very easy thing to do if Day is right. In fact, it would be a lot easier than just obfuscating the issue by assuming I said things I never said and refuting arguments I never made--and claiming that I used the wrong document when I didn't.

I'm waiting, Richard.

Is the Bible Literacy Bill a Bad Idea? Richard Day's case that public school teachers are incompetent

Richard Day is against a proposed state law that would allow schools to have a course in Bible literacy. His argument? That teachers are not competent to teach such a course.

[I]t's not too hard to accept the argument that, in western society, "an educated person is familiar with the Bible." Coloquial speech in America is laced with Biblical references. In fact, Matthew 22 is central to understanding the secular/religious struggles that led to bloody European wars - and eventually, a new nation built on the principles of freedom of religion, freedom from religion (freedom of thought) and freedom of the press. But turning teachers loose to teach the Bible as literature?

Get this: In high school, books do not teach themselves so much as teachers teach them.

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that it is NOT the intent of Boswell, Worley or Carroll to have the Bible besmirched. Let's assume they merely wish Kentucky students to become more familiar with the Bible's literature. Let's assume they have no interest in "establishing religion" so there will be no effort to direct how the book must be taught, or what lessons should be taken from the text. Let's assume there will be no special requirements of English teachers teaching the Bible than there are for teaching Hamlet.

Just exactly how might that work in the classroom of a teacher who held no particular reverence for the good book?

Well, first of all, one wonders why it's hard to accept the role the Bible plays in our cultural history at all. But beyond that, there must be a name for the kind of argument that pretends to be concerned about the integrity of one thing, but is secretly really concerned about something else. Somehow--and I really hate to question Day's motivation here--it doesn't really seem like he's concerned about how the Bible would be taught, but rather has that little voice in the back of the brain--overactive in many civil liberties types--that keeps whispering how the First Amendment says that we should eliminate religion from the public square altogether.

Of course, if that were the case, Day would be doing the same thing he accuses the sponsors of Senate Bill 142 of doing: taking a public position for reasons other than their stated ones. I am willing to listen to Day's protestations on this, but I will have to say I remain unconvinced.

More importantly, however, if teachers are not competent enough to teach such a basic course in Bible literacy, then why are they teaching in our schools in the first place? Are public school teachers really so Biblically illiterate that they are incapable of teaching such a course?

If we admit--as the bill states and as I think any learned person would have to admit, and as Day says he is, with minimal pain, willing to admit--that Biblical literacy is necessary for a competent understanding of our "culture, including literature, art, music, mores, oratory, and public policy," then what Day is in fact saying is that our schools are populated by people who do not have a competent understanding of our culture, including literature, art, music, mores, oratory, and public policy.

This is quite an admission on Day's part. In fact, it is a stunning vote of no confidence in our public schools.

If the army of teachers we have out there are so pedagogically challenged they they would screw up a Bible literacy class, what other subjects are they incapable of handling? Are they butchering history right now, even as I write, teaching that the Egypt was populated by mummies and that they wrote in hydraulics? that Homer's books were not really written by Homer but by another author of the same name? or that Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock?

Are teachers even now on a rampage through other subjects, creating educational havoc as they go? Are they telling their poor unfortunate charges that a semicolon is a reference to the small intestine? that H2O is hot water, and CO2 is cold water? and that Penelope was the last hardship Ulysses endured on his journey?

Where are his blog posts expressing concern over whether we should teach math, science, literature, and foreign language on the grounds that teachers might mess them up? If teachers are not cometent to teach a Bible literacy course, then why should they be considered competent enough to teach anything else? If the lack of teacher competence is an argument against having Bible literacy classes in our public schools, why isn't it an argument against having any other courses in schools?

It can't be because they may be biased in teaching the Bible: they can be biased in teaching anything. Try taking an English course at a state university. In fact, we set up whole departments in our universities for the express purpose of indoctrinating students in political ideologies--but I don't remember Day speaking out against Womens' Studies departments in the recent past.

In fact, I wonder if Sharon Oxendine, president of the state teacher's union, shares Day's view of the lack of teacher ability. Sharon, you there?

Day's argument isn't with this bill, it's with the system he claims to support.