Tennessee’s governor has taken the coward’s way out and allowed legislation to pass which will be used to justify the teaching of creationism and climate change denialism in schools. The bill states:
This bill prohibits the state board of education and any public elementary or secondary school governing authority, director of schools, school system administrator, or principal or administrator from prohibiting any teacher in a public school system of this state from helping students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught, such as evolution and global warming.
By the way, if you think that wording could also be used to teach John Derbyshire style “critiques” of the basic equality of all humans, you’d be absolutely right.
I was in the office of a senior Tennessee government official just after GM announced it would locate the Saturn plant there. The plant was to be located in a very small town outside of Nashville. There was some city council meeting which decided that unions couldn’t be mandatory in their town. The official received a call from a GM exec who was furious. The official kept his cool. He hung up, called he tiny town mayor and said, ‘Listen here, I don’t want to hear any more of that crap.’ He called by Mr. GM ans said, ‘It’s settled.’ That was it. The construction moved forward without any more grand standing from the locals.
Obviously, the government is lacking the leadership I was privileged to see in action. The new folks have no idea how an anti science education system turns off science and technology based companies. They need to draw from the surrounding population to a degree and draw in people from other areas. Being anti-science is definitely not cool in that regard.
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If they don’t want to teach science in their High Schools, I don’t think any educational institution in the nation should accept their diplomas at face value, their colleges and universities should be de-accredited, and I think they should be stripped of any and all Department of Education funding.
Tennessee Senate Approves Bill To Warn Students That Hand-Holding Is A ‘Gateway Sexual Activity’
Think Progress, By Scott Keyes, April 13
Like any state legislature dealing with 8 percent unemployment and thousands of its residents facing disenfranchisement, the Tennessee Senate is targeting the menace of underage hand-holding.
Last week, the Senate passed SB 3310, a bill to update the state’s abstinence-based sex education curriculum to define holding hands and kissing as “gateway sexual activities.†Just one senator voted against the legislation; 28 voted in favor.
Since the bill specifically bans teachers from “demonstrating gateway sexual activityâ€, educators would be prohibited from even demonstrating what hand-holding is. Breaking these laws could result in a lawsuit, as Hunter from Daily Kos notes:
Jaw-drop fatigue.
“The best-informed man is not necessarily the wisest. Indeed there is a danger that precisely in the multiplicity of his knowledge he will lose sight of what is essential.”
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Always keep an open mind and a compassionate heart. ~ Phil Jackson
ROFL
http://youtu.be/epUk3T2Kfno
(Couldn’t get the embed to work for some reason.)
for “Laughing Stock State”?
“The best-informed man is not necessarily the wisest. Indeed there is a danger that precisely in the multiplicity of his knowledge he will lose sight of what is essential.”
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
here’s the bill.
http://www.capitol.tn.gov/Bills/107/Bill/SB3310.pdf
Look through it. Can anybody find any reference, no matter how tangential, to the hand-holding we’ve been told was in there?
“The best-informed man is not necessarily the wisest. Indeed there is a danger that precisely in the multiplicity of his knowledge he will lose sight of what is essential.”
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer