I Guess Kansas is Dumber than Kentucky

These fundies are such tools. Good Rep. Donohoe says further down in the article that he would see nothing wrong with students holding satanic rituals if they so choose, all in the name of equality. Please excuse me if I scoff loudly.
So I suppose it'd be alright if I toss a pee-soaked Bible onto a burning American flag. Yeah, I'm sure he'd be quite OK with that.


Kansas House Representative Owen Donohoe, R-Shawnee, has introduced a bill likely to set off plenty of debate if it ever sees the light of a committee hearing. The so-called Religious Liberty Bill of Rights, HB 2779, Donohoe said in a press release, “aims to provide educators and students the opportunity to exercise their first amendment rights in public schools.”
Included in the bill is language that says a teacher has a right to “not be required to teach a topic that violates the teacher’s religious beliefs and not be disciplined for refusing to teach the topic.”
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I Guess Kansas is Dumber than Kentucky(cont.)

The bill, if enacted into law, would mean faculty could avoid teaching any fact or subject that they claimed conflicted with their religious beliefs.
The bill would also declare that students have an inalienable right to “participate in a private religious ceremony held on a public school campus outside of instructional time.”
Donohoe said the impetus for the bill was “nothing specific,” but the press release states “teachers and students have expressed concern about their inability to discuss a religious topic in a public school, even for historical or literary purposes.”
Donohoe said it was “absolutely” fine if the bill’s passage resulted in students being able to hold satanic ceremonies on school property.
He said the bill would not allow teachers to say the earth is flat — by claiming that teaching the planet is round would violate their religious beliefs — but couldn’t explain just how the bill would prevent such a situation.
In fact, if Donohoe’s bill were to be enacted in its current form a math teacher would be able to claim, for example, that teaching the universally recognized value of pi — the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter — offended her religious beliefs, and not teach students the concept. That’s because a passage in I Kings in the Old Testament implies that the value of pi is 3, instead of the correct, approximate value of 3.14.
Mill Valley High School Principal Joe Novak, who is running for election against Donohoe for 39th district, said in his view as an educator the bill was not needed.
“In my 32 years in education I’ve never had a problem with teachers expressing themselves when it comes to teaching about religion,” Novak said.
“There is a natural separation of church and state, as there should be,” Novak said. “That has been the practice of schools and it has worked very well.”
Contrary to Donohoe’s argument, Novak said, “teachers are not held hostage to their belefs. Obviously, if they can’t adhere to the separation of church and state then we have an administrative or curriculum issue that needs to be discussed.”
Across the river in the 39th district, Bonner Springs-Edwardsville Superintendent Robert Van Maren also didn’t think much of Donohoe’s bill.
“I see it as a violation of separation of church and state and do not want any of our teachers or our schools to take on any additional tasks, as we already are responsible for far more than we should be, have time for, or for which we receive funding,” Van Maren wrote in an e-mail.
“This is a huge can of worms that will be disruptive to our schools and communities and open us and our children up to various government controls and litigation. The parents and churches can facilitate all of these faith-based and family-oriented activities as they see fit for their children. After all, it is a free country.”
The bill is not yet scheduled for a committee hearing.

-Jesse Teasedale
The Chieftain

Kentucky: Land of Ignorance or Bastion of Stupidity?

Well hello there, darlin’. Come, sit down. Let me take that coat. Would you care for some tea?
I’ll allow OC the sole soapbox for politics and gender relations; I want all the science-y stuff.

Time to expound on a pet peeve of mine. I have the misfortune of living in the same state as the Creation Museum, located in Covington, Kentucky. If I so choose, I could pay a visit to fantasyland in about an hour-and-a-half.If these freaks want to travel from all across the country to see how well dinosaurs could be ridden by humans, fine. Wallow in your ignorance.But it’s so sad to see these idiots pushing their superstitions onto their own kids.

Mark Liberman is My New Hero

Mark Liberman is my new hero. :)

After surfing yesterday, I found more on Leonard Sax than I thought was ever listed.
Apparently, a little peeved that Dr. Liberman of Language Log (UPenn) exposed his poor reasoning skills, Leonard Sax penned two responses [here] and [here] late in 2007.
While Dr. Liberman hasn't answered his letters directly, you can see [here] he was rather unimpressed.

Let's Talk About Sax, Baby

In my previous post, you may have seen the name Leonard Sax highlighted. Though he has been instrumental in cramming single-sex classrooms down the collective throat of America, he's a bit put-off that Greene County is mandating only single-sex learning. I assume the reason for this is similar to that of Dr. Michael Behe's non-support of Intelligent Design during the Pennsylvania school board fight; exposure of this kind too early can derail thoroughly idiotic, pseudo-scientific policies.
Unfortunately, he isn't the only scientist wanna-be with political motives. This planet has had the misfortunate to be cursed with more of his ilk in the form of Louan Brizendine and David Brooks.
For one of the most comprehensive reviews on these fools as well as on gender (non)differences, please check out the following, which all hail from Language Log:

David Brooks, cognitive neuroscientist
Are men emotional children?
Of rats and (wo)men
Leonard Sax on Hearing
More on Rats and Women
The Emerging Science of Gendered Yelling

Georgia Reallllly Likes its Segregation

I adore this; apparently, all of humanity can be split evenly into two distinct categories. And as an added bonus, each of those two categories possesses a unique, definitive mode of learning that doesn't vary between individuals within those two groups. But never shall the twain meet, for what would occur if one member of a group learned better through the techniques being used by the other? Complete Chaos, fool!
Lovely!


Nearly four decades after this rural Georgia county stopped segregating its schools by race, it wants to divide students again — this time by sex. Greene County is set to become the first school district in the nation to go entirely single-sex, with boys and girls in separate classrooms — a move born of desperation over years of poor test scores, soaring dropout rates and high numbers of teenage pregnancies."At the rate we're moving, we're never going to catch up," Superintendent Shawn McCollough told parents in an impassioned speech last week. "If we're going to take some steps, let's take some big steps."
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Georgia Reallllly Likes its Segregation(cont)

This pine-shrouded county of about 14,400 people between Atlanta and Augusta has in recent years become a magnet for retirees moving into luxury developments along the shore of Lake Oconee. But the vast majority of longtime residents — and most of the 2,000 students in the county's schools — are black and working class. McCollough pointed to research showing that boys and girls learn differently, and said separating them will allow teachers to tailor their lessons. Also, boys won't misbehave as much because they will no longer be trying to impress the girls, and the girls will be more likely to speak up in class because they won't be afraid to look smart in front of the boys, he said.

Some parents, students angered

The school board's move to radically overhaul the system next fall has angered parents, students and teachers, who say they weren't consulted. And one of the nation's foremost proponents of single-sex education warned that the board has gone too far. The measure, approved two weeks ago, applies to the high school, the middle school and both elementary schools. It exempts only the preschool and a charter school, which is public but operates independently. "I am outraged," said Tammi Freeman, who has two children at the high school. "I am disgusted. It's making our county look like our kids are trouble when they're not." [Leonard Sax], head of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education, said that while single-sex schools and classrooms are on the increase, he knows of no other community that has converted its entire school system. He called the move illegal. Federal law allows single-sex classrooms or schools, but parents must also have the option of publicly funded coeducation for their children, Sax said. "This is the worst kind of publicity for our movement," he said. "It misses the whole point. Our movement is about choice. One size does not fit all. Even a small school district needs to provide choice. "U.S. Education Department spokeswoman Samara Yudof said officials "do not have sufficient facts to determine if the district would be in compliance" with federal law.

Federal rules eased in 2006

Districts across the U.S. have been switching to single-sex education since federal officials issued rules to ease the process in 2006. Nationally, at least 366 public schools are either entirely single-sex or have single-sex classrooms, Sax said. In Greene County, boys and girls will be in separate classrooms in the elementary schools. Boys and girls in grades seven through 12 will attend separate schools. Some electives and extracurricular activities such as ROTC and band will probably be coed. The charter school, Lake Oconee Academy, will remain coed; it is governed by a committee of parents and community leaders. It opened last fall amid protests from black citizens who said it brings back segregation, since the school has a fixed enrollment area centered on the mostly white, well-to-do lakefront. Greene County is about 70 percent black. Many people in the county made their living at hosiery, clothing and fabric mills until the industry disappeared at the end of the 20th century and gave way to a service economy in which the big employersare the Reynolds Plantation luxury golf resort community and the Ritz-Carlton lodge. McCollough said he hopes single-sex classrooms raise test scores and graduation rates in a district where more than three-quarters of the students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch.

Teachers split

Sixty-seven percent of Greene County ninth-graders go on to receive a diploma, compared with 72 percent statewide. Last year, the students scored an average of 1,168 on the SAT, far below the state average of 1,458 and the national average of 1,495. The high school has been ranked 332nd out of 369 in Georgia. Teachers and parents are split over the move. "Sometimes big changes are needed for big results. The teaching staff I talked to are willing to work hard and make it work," said Sherry Shutze, who has taught at Union Point Elementary for nine years.But another teacher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job, said dozens of teachers are considering leaving because they feel the idea is being "crammed down our throats."Dwain Evans said he is thrilled his three children will have a chance to attend single-sex schools: "If we continue to do status quo, we can't expect any better outcome."Research shows that when boys and girls are separated, each group performs better in school and is more likely to go to college, said Julie Ancis, a professor in the school of education at Georgia State University. But she said single-sex schools tend to be private institutions with updated technology and ample resources, not poor school systems like Greene County's.

-the Associated Press
February 25, 2008

Greetings, Friends!

Allow me to welcome you to my blog: I’m not sure who - if anyone - will ever visit this site. I would prefer they do, but if not…meh.

Should anyone actually care enough to visit, they will find that a large number of posts will involve scientific research covering gender.

I was prompted to start this blog after witnessing a plethora of unproven, pseudoscientific claims made by “researchers” go unchallenged by the national media. Of course, many of the studies and papers published suffered from poor methodology, sloppy data collection or outright falsehoods. Unfortunately, most of the mega-corporation owned media employ intellectually lazy hacks (they refer to themselves as “reporters”) who choose to publish press releases with nary a glance at any research that may contradict said press releases. That would require some form of movement; possibly even physical exertion! Sweet Merciful Christ!

So read; post; email me. Tell me why I'm a fool.
I'll still love you.

Coming soon (I hope): FAQ

-Cheers