"Science" textbook for fundamentalist homeschoolers

ekg said:
a voucher program makes 'under preforming and bad schools' even worse and it turns good schools into bad and under preforming ones because takes gov't money away from those schools and gives it to private ones..like church-based schools.. who can teach anything they want because they are private entities...and that means using these books.

the voucher program will kill public schools.. which is the goal since the GOP hates public schools and think everything in the whole should be profit based.. schools,jails,your health...

the irony is of course the same people who will shout and scream about the gov't spending and how the private sector doesn't need or want gov't and how evil 'solyndra' type gov't spending it..... are more than happy for the gov't to give money to private business for their profits..

it alll boils down to public schools and universities are the largest and last 'center-leaning' apparatuses in this country and they hate it.. so much so they want to destroy it.. so they can teach our kids about (and only) 'white,christian,republican,conservative'.. that's the goal here.. and it's being hidden under the words 'under preforming and bad' schools..

get rid of 'fcat'.. implement 'merit-based' tenure and raises.. any number of other options are better at fixing our schools than a voucher program that's sole intent is the destruction of another 'publicly funded' program that teaches an all encompassing curriculum, that includes gays and blacks.. instead of teach how Joe McCarthy was righteous and Reaganomics is the shizzle..
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the conservative have wanted a vouchers system for decades so that they could use them to help pay for the private schools they send their kids to, including parochial schools

conservatives hate the entire concept of public schools that are not controlled by conservative religious thought
 
Voltaire said:
So basically, their explanation for everything is to throw their arms up in the air and say "goddidit."

How depressing. These people demonize the scientific method, while enjoying all the fruits of it (e.g. modern technology)
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What do you mean "these people" you think it's just Christian fundamentalist who demonize science?
 
Don Quixote said:
the conservative have wanted a vouchers system for decades so that they could use them to help pay for the private schools they send their kids to, including parochial schools

conservatives hate the entire concept of public schools that are not controlled by conservative religious thought
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Correct. Using a voucher system, admission (not just to the crazy parochial schools, but legitimate schools and magnet schools) to the schools will be afforded to those who need it the least and the poor and minorities will be pushed out of the way.

Dixie said:
You haven't proven this. You can't, because it's not true.
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Teaching fables can only be harmful.

Dixie said:
That's why 70% of black voters favor voucher programs.
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I guess dicksee won't provide a source for this little tidbit, huh?

Here's an extensive study on the effectiveness of school vouchers. One highlight:
A review of the
evidence finds that vouchers’ effects on student achievement are almost
certainly smaller than claimed by pro-voucher researchers. Although programs
in many cities were designed to be like randomized-trial medical
experiments—with high validity and reliability—common problems in
implementation may have compromised validity and produced misleading
results. Moreover, the results are marked by broad inconsistencies across
grades, academic subjects, and racial groups.
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The results of these reports have been widely—and largely
uncritically—circulated in the press. They give the impression that vouchers
are the solution to the educational woes of minority students in “failing”
public schools. The problem is real, but do these studies support their claims?
The empirical findings on the educational effects of vouchers deserve a
closer look.
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Research on the effect of vouchers in Milwaukee and Cleveland showed
anywhere from no effects to small effects of vouchers for mainly African
American students. Studies in Cleveland suggest that the achievement
gains after two years in existing religious schools for voucher students
were higher in one subject, science. Voucher students in for-profit private
schools did significantly worse than non-voucher students in one study,
but did better and then worse according to another.
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It's a long study, 63 pages, but well worth reading for those who really want to know whether vouchers are effective.
 
FN FS2000 said:
It's the flow of electrons through the valence shell of atoms you idiot. Mystery solved.
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That's what electrons "Do" which give elements the ability to form chemical bonds. It's really a bullshit philosophical question....what is the ultimate origin of anything?

Actually Dixie and the creationist literature above is right. We don't know where "electricity" ultimately "comes from". Hell we confuse it even more because we have different names for electricity that are contradictory. for example;

There's the scientific definition of electrons (charged particles) orbiting around the nucleous of an atom.
There's the every day definiton of electromagnetic field energy.
There's the elementary definiton of the flowing motion of electric charge.
There's the static definition of electricity being the imbalance in charge between quantities of electrons and protons.
There's the class definition in which electricity it describes classes of phenomena involving electric charge. Bioelectricity, pizoelectricity, thermoelectricity, etc,.

So there is truth to what the creationist text states about electricity. It is a mysterous and incomprehensible entity that is quite baffling with it's contradictions.

Electricity is visible and invisible at the same time.
It is both matter and energy.
It's a type of low-frequency radio wave that's made of protons.
It moves forward at the speed of light but yet it vibrates in the AC cord with out moving forward at all.
It is weightless yet has mass.
When electricity flows through the fliament of a light bulb it is directly converted into light, yet all the elenctricity is conserved, all the electricity that flows into the element, flows back out.

The point I'm trying to make here is that electricity is not a singular thing. From that point of view we don't really know what electricity is or where it ultimately comes from. However, we do know that electricity is a class of phenomena and events.

So from this point of view the creationist are correct and anyone who is honestly trying to understand "electricity" would understand and agree with them, we really don't know what eletricity is and where it ultimately comes from.

What makes the difference though is how this information is used. If one uses this information to characterize electricity into different categories of phenomena and events using natural models to test and better understand those categories than one is persuing a scientific knowledge of electricity. If on the other hand one draws the conclusion that, well since we don't really know what electricity is (and we really don't) and where it ultimately comes from then it must come from God. This is is well and fine and it may even be true but since it is an argument from authority that is not testable and since it does not provide a natural model for electricity than this conclusion would be completely outside the realm of science. If creationist are making such conclusions about electricity than they are not teaching science but that doesn't change the fact that the comments shown from the literature above are, from a scientific standpoint, is correct. We really don't know what electricity is or where it ultimately comes from.
 
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What makes the difference though is how this information is used.
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Which we don't REALLY know, because we only have a single page of this textbook, and it's 4th grade BEGINNING science.

Again.... EVERY student who earns a diploma in America, has to pass an aptitude test, there is no getting around that. So at some point, they have to be educated about electricity, and know that it's not simply some mystery from God. One way we can confirm they are being educated, is the fact that faith-based graduates have higher test scores than those attending public school. How is that possible if they are just throwing up their hands and saying goddidit?
 
Dixie said:
Which we don't REALLY know, because we only have a single page of this textbook, and it's 4th grade BEGINNING science.

Again.... EVERY student who earns a diploma in America, has to pass an aptitude test, there is no getting around that. So at some point, they have to be educated about electricity, and know that it's not simply some mystery from God. One way we can confirm they are being educated, is the fact that faith-based graduates have higher test scores than those attending public school. How is that possible if they are just throwing up their hands and saying goddidit?
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Obviously you didn't go to the link and read....
 
And what Howey is posting, is information regarding test programs in charter schools. It's akin to evaluating the performance of a 500hp Mustang Saleen, at the bottom of a swimming pool. It performs no better than a 1948 Packard pickup truck! There is no way to evaluate what a national voucher program would do, because we haven't done that. We can pretend we've tried it, and it didn't work, but we haven't really tried doing it on a national level.

I realize this is a tough concept for socialist liberals to grasp, because it involves capitalism and competition. When the public schools no longer have the 'security' of doing whatever they please and have to compete with other schools who are actually educating and getting results, things will change. Suddenly it becomes more important for a school to secure top-notch teachers who produce results, rather than seeing how many butts they can count in desk seats, so they get the appropriated funds for their school.
 
ekg said:
I said a vocher program makes them worse..
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N0o, your insinuation is that parents would pull their children out of public schools and put them in a better education. Only retards would say "hmmm this school is good and I can't find one better but damnit I'm pullin my kids anyways!"
 
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