The best people to read on that question are the people from the Discovery Institute. And you can find a nice summary of their approach on the Sententia blog.
Excerpt:
I decided to gather together an easy-to-follow outline of the evolution of (how apropos) science education policy and intelligent design with a particular focus on the role of the Discovery Institute.
The New Debate over Teaching Evolution
It’s about science, NOT religion.
It’s about teaching MORE about evolution, not less.
The problem isn’t that we are teaching too much about evolution rather we are not teaching enough about evolution.
It’s about freedom of speech and academic freedom.
Discovery Institute has “transformed the debate [over evolution] into an issue of academic freedom rather than a confrontation between biology and religion.” New York Times, August 21, 2005
Discovery Institute’s “Teach the Controversy” Approach
Teach the scientific evidence for and against Darwin’s theory, but don’t try to mandate the study of alternatives to Darwin like intelligent design.
This tries to not politicize intelligent design.
This was DI’s policy before Dover, and it remains the policy after Dover.
The rest of the article explains how this approach has been applied to the education system in different states, and how the Darwinian Empire is responding.
State investigators have uncovered a decade of systemic cheating in the Atlanta Public Schools and conclude that Superintendent Beverly Hall knew or should have known about it, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has learned.
In a report that Gov. Nathan Deal planned to release today, the investigators name nearly 180 educators, including more than three dozen principals, as participants in cheating on state curriculum tests, officials said over the weekend. The investigators obtained scores of confessions.
The findings suggest the national accolades that Hall and the school system have collected — and the much-vaunted academic progress for which she claimed credit — were based on falsehoods. Raising test scores apparently became a higher priority than conducting the district’s business in an ethical manner.
[…]The report’s release culminates more than two years of inquiries into Atlanta’s huge gains on the state-mandated Criterion-Referenced Competency Test in 2009. An AJC analysis first detected statistically improbable increases in test scores at two Atlanta schools in 2008. The following year, the AJC published another analysis that found suspicious score changes on the 2009 CRCT at a dozen Atlanta schools. The newspaper’s reporting ultimately led to the state investigation that is being released today.The investigators’ report, officials said, depicts a culture that rewarded cheaters, punished whistle-blowers and covered up improprieties. Strongly contradicting denials of cheating and other irregularities by Hall and other top district executives, the report describes organized wrongdoing that robbed tens of thousands of children — many of whom came from disadvantaged backgrounds and struggled in school — of an honest appraisal of their abilities.
At the same time, the document apparently provides a scathing assessment of the school system’s handling of the scandal, accusing district leaders of hampering the special investigators’ efforts to uncover the truth. The investigators reportedly accuse Hall and her top aides of refusing to take responsibility for the district’s problems.
The report also will detail potentially criminal acts by district officials, the AJC has learned.
In an effort to maintain Hall’s high profile in national education circles, the superintendent and her top aides reportedly tried to hide unflattering information as far back as 2006. District officials illegally altered documents related to the test and withheld material that should have been released under the state’s Open Records Act, the report is expected to say.
There is a possibility of criminal charges, and I do hope that this woman and all responsible spend at least a few years in jail.
We need to get taxpayer money out of the public school system, and back into the hands of parents, through a federal voucher system. Let the parents decide which school is best for their children. Let them buy education the same way that they buy things from other retailers. Choice and competition. Lower price and higher quality. If they don’t like the results that public schools provide, then let them take their money to a private school – or use the money to homeschool.
Notice that the largest teacher union, the National Education Association (NEA) has endorsed Obama. Democrats protect the failings of the education establishment, in exchange for votes and political activism. The faster we vote the Democrats out, the faster education in this country will improve.
Campaigning in South Carolina, Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann said a “devastating” miscarriage helped shape her pro-life views on abortion. The compelling personal story ties in to her rationale for becoming a foster care mom.
While on the campaign trail in Rock Hill, South Carolina, the Minnesota congresswoman revealed she had a miscarriage decades ago and that the event led her to solidify her pro-life views and prompted her and her husband to become a foster home to 23 children over the years.
“After our second child was born, we became pregnant with a third baby,” Bachmann said, according to a Politico report. “And it was an unexpected baby, but of course we were delighted to have this child. And the child was coming along, and we ended up losing that child. And it was devastating for both of us, as you can imagine if any of you have lost a child.”
She said the miscarriage also prompted Bachmann and her husband Marcus to re-evaluate their personal and professional life goals.
“At that moment we didn’t think of ourselves as overly career minded or overly materialistic,” she said, according to Politico. “When we lost that child, it changed us. And it changed us forever.”
“We made a commitment that no matter how many children were brought into our life, we would receive them because we are committed to life,” she added.
Reporters at the event say Bachmann shared it about halfway through her town hall at Winthrop University on Wednesday night. The miscarriage story is not one that Bachmann has shared much and Peter Hamby from CNN reports that “Even some of Bachmann’s staffers were caught by surprise when she talked about the miscarriage and had not heard [the] story before.”
You can see pictures and videos of the event at Right Wing News, courtesy of John Hawkins. I really appreciate that John has been broadly supportive of Michele, because he is a major figure in the conservative blogosphere.
WINTERY KNIGHT 