CERN’s Large Hadron Collider is scheduled to become fully operational on Wednesday. This is a tremendously exciting event, but unfortunately it’s very rare that cutting-edge science gets the kind of attention it deserves in the media - and all too often the information gets distorted, as this article at The Times (of London, of course) explains.
On Thursday night I saw a Republican strategist on the BBC claim that “what’s taught in biology class” and other curriculum decisions should be left to local governments, which is a terribly stupid idea. I can see letting localities determine what to teach when it comes to local and state history, but there’s absolutely no reason why math and science curricula shouldn’t be determined at the national level. Do you know the members of your local school board? Do you think they’re better qualified to determine what children should learn than, say, a nationally selected board of experts? Science in Maine is no different from science in California - last time I checked, the gravitational constant was just that. Constant.
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I can’t speak to what this particular strategist meant by his comment, but I can see a strong case for leaving curriculum decisions to local government, even those involving math and science. I take it that the main objection to such decentralization involves the teaching of evolution, so I’ll concentrate my argument here. I should add that I am arguing against a mandatory centralized curriculum, not a voluntary one.
First, the Advanced Placement program already provides a de facto standardized, albeit voluntary, curriculum for college bound students. Parents and students care about AP availability and pass rates. If a school board decides not to allow the teaching of evolution, its students certainly won’t fare too well on the AP Bio exam.
Of course the obvious rejoinder to this argument is that many students don’t take AP courses. Shouldn’t someone be protecting these students from bad science education? Ideally, yes, but things aren’t so simple. It isn’t enough for evolution simply to be taught in school. Parents are free to contradict this teaching at home, or even homeschool their children. If a parent wants his children to believe that evolution is a lie, there is really nothing the state can do to stop him.
The case of evolution is perhaps a bad one, since the science is so clear and the decision so obvious. Many other curriculum decisions aren’t so cut and dry. What and when should students learn in math class? No one would argue that students should be taught that 2 + 2 = 5, but why shouldn’t localities be given some freedom to innovate? Perhaps one school district might choose to emphasize mathematics as it relates to business and finance; another would be free to focus on logic and proof. Again, the AP curriculum provides a voluntary standard for those who choose it, but allowing some variation in curricula might give educators a better idea of what works and what doesn’t.
But the most powerful argument for decentralized curriculum decisions involves this proposed panel of experts itself. Whoever they should happen to be, they will end up wielding a tremendous amount of power. By extension, those who appoint them will end up wielding just as much power. Would not this be the ultimate politicization of education? Working school district by school district, intelligent design advocates have a long road ahead to see their theories in the classroom, but what if all it took was the support of a few well-placed politicians?
Those are excellent arguments, especially the last one about the ease of swaying a centralized decision-making panel. Maybe this problem could be alleviated by allowing the president to nominate the members, but requiring a confirmation in Congress? Or maybe some sort of bipartisan nominating panel (similar to the FEC). It’s not perfect, obviously, but neither is electing people who aren’t necessarily qualified to local school boards, especially when the general public often has no clue who they are.
I’m all for choice in education, but for too many people it’s non-existent. Many people don’t have the luxury of choosing their school district - they have to live where they can find work, or where they can afford housing.
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[…] when compared to, say, the mature state of particle physics, where they are about to subject the Standard Model to yet another rigorous and precise empirical examination. Oh well, I guess that is why so much of the research money now is headed to life sciences where […]
[…] when compared to, say, the mature state of particle physics, where they are about to subject the Standard Model to yet another rigorous and precise empirical examination. Oh well, I guess that is why so much of the research money now is headed to life sciences where […]