Saturday, February 26, 2011

Guerrillas in Our Midst

Your LakeCountyEye takes pride in being unable to resist any opportunity at taking target practice against the low-hanging-fruits. Lately these low-hanging-fruits have been falling from an apple tree in the Garden of Eden, where your LakeCountyEye has been aiming potshots at the looney-toon creationists who are hell-bent on packing the local school boards with their proxies.

It's no secret that Lake County schools are on the cusp of being retooled to teach pseudosciences like creationism (and God knows what else). That story was covered on this blog here ...
Creating a Stir
and here ...
Schismisms
But your LakeCountyEye has the sad responsibility to report that two more County High Schools may become academic casualties of the culture wars. As reported in the Daily Herald ...
At a few recent meetings Stevenson High School board members have heard from parents who object to selections on student reading lists and want to be more involved in choosing what their kids read. Although publicly appreciative of the parents’ interest in the curriculum, the board rejected a request for the creation of a parental committee that would review and approve curriculum choices.
Dist. 125 candidates differ on parental involvement with curriculum
Three (of seven) school board candidates running for four seats are sympathetic to the idea that the parents deserve input into curricula decisions at Stevenson High School. Currently some parents are objecting to a few English reading assignments there. Your LakeCountyEye predicts that with a cooperative board writing the rules, there will soon be parents objecting to Evolution being taught.

While Stevenson bears watching, an adjacent High School may be on the endangered list. According to the Daily Herald ...
All four candidates for the Lake Zurich Unit District 95 school board believe creationism should be taught alongside evolution in science classes. One, Chris Wallace, went so far as to say creationism is fact and evolution is just a theory.
All four Dist. 95 candidates back teaching creationism in science classes
With the local high-schools soon to become academic Hootervilles, so to speak, what can a prudent parent do? Your LakeCountyEye suggests investigating the schools in places like Bangalore and Beijing, where they approach the task of educating their children with the seriousness it deserves.

5 comments:

Karl said...

All I have time to say is that I'm glad that all my kids are out of school, and that I'm glad they didn't go to YOUR school.

Human Ape said...

Thanks for your accurate description of science deniers: looney-toon creationists.

Christian retards infest the school board of a Chicago suburb.

Barney Baxter said...

hi Karl,
Ha ha -- I like your blog, btw.

hi Human Ape,
I calls them as I sees them.

-BB-

Anonymous said...

The candidates running for Stevenson Board DO NOT endorse teaching creationism. They DO NOT want parents to review and approve curriculum.

You are getting your news from the DH? Come on, I have read your blog and you seem much more intelligent than the average bear.

I have gone to 2 forums held by those running for the school board. I asked them those questions myself, and they flatly denied it. What you quote is some reporters view on what was said at that meeting.

They asked for parental INPUT into annual reading assignments. They insist the curriculum decision should stay with the staff, the teachers. They asked to offer a CHOICE of reading assignments, as 2 summer choices where offensive to their families. (They where offensive to me as well)

For you to somehow attach that discussion to "teaching creationism" is totally reckless.

Your blog and writing style is entertaining and sometime informative, but you are WAY off on this one Mr. Eye.

Getting your news from the DH is the funniest part about this entire blog.

Stevenson Parent said...

wrong...Charles Cardella, Kim Brady, and Kathy Powell (the stevenson district 125 school board candidates) ARE creationists. Cardella and Powell go to Harvest Bible Chapel, the crazy 'evolution is a myth' church in Lake Zurich:

http://www.hbclz.org/Search.aspx?terms=evolution

wear your tinfoil hats, every scientist in the world is conspiring against the poor fundamentalist Christians!! gasp! (Catholics and most other sane protestants support evolution as the method of God's creation)

Brady admits he wants to teach his kids 'Intelligent Design' (creationism disguised as science, as proven in court cases)

They even use the creationist organization, The Discovery Institute, exact wording on their website...they aren't really that transparent:

http://vote125for125.org/faq.html#q3


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strengths_and_weaknesses_of_evolution

Lake county isn't the deep south where ignorance trumps science (yet). The rest of the world isn't handicapping their science students with pseudoscience, why should we?

check out the hot topic about this over at:

http://buffalogrove.patch.com/articles/vote-against-extremist-thinking-candidates