Tag: education

Europe is scientifically illiterate

This explains a lot of the GMO / nuclear paranoia in Europe.

In 15 European nations, including Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, the scientific literacy rate was between 10 and 19% US scores very highly in Adult Science Literacy. The bad news is that global scientific literacy is shockingly low. Among the 34 nations tested in 2005, the SLR rose above 30% in only one nation, Sweden, whose SLR was 35%. For the United States, the good news is that in all of Miller’s results since the beginning of testing in 1988, the US scored above nearly all other nations. In the 2005 tests, for example, the US ranked second with an SLR of 28%.

The author of a 2009 study concluded that “the college and university general education requirement to take at least a year of science courses (fairly unique to US universities, where “breadth requirements” are emphasized) makes a major contribution to the civic scientific literacy of US citizens,” and that the surprisingly high US SLR is a result of the positive impact of these college-level science courses for non-science students.

To be clear, America is the only major country that requires college students to complete a full year of science. As a result, science literacy of US adults is higher than in other developed nations.

Creationist Dumbication

Between this nonsense and the mindless waste of billions culminating this Sunday, no wonder the us gets its ass kicked. A lack of a truly educated public means only fast food jobs get created, and hence the middle class has stagnated for 30 years.

A large, publicly funded charter school system in Texas is teaching creationism to its students. Creationist teachers don’t even need to be sneaky about it—the Texas state science education standards, as well as recent laws in Louisiana and Tennessee, permit public school teachers to teach “alternatives” to evolution. Meanwhile, in Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Arizona, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere, taxpayer money is funding creationist private schools through state tuition voucher or scholarship programs.

Ways to make college free

If we were we scrapping our current system and starting from scratch, Washington could make public college tuition free with the money it sets aside its scattershot attempts to make college affordable today.

this is of course a flawed assumption. why would you set up college as screwed-up again if you had a chance for a do-over? why would you lump in housing, expensive facilities etc that add 0 to education outcomes? an ideal college system would have 90% fewer assets and costs.

Textbook fight

Bible belt influence on textbooks wanes. “last stand” for creationists in education might be putting it a bit too strongly (they are, after all, evolving their antics in response to what resonates with their idiot audience), but it is great news that the texas state board can no longer mandate textbooks. if we are lucky, the us will get pupils that are less of an embarrassment in the science rankings, and the bible belt will get employable citizens.