Religions > Atheism > In the News: Culture war pits UC vs. Christian way of teaching
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Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Jason Spaceman" |
| Date: |
12 Dec 2005 06:50:56 AM |
| Object: |
In the News: Culture war pits UC vs. Christian way of teaching |
From the article:
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Religious schools challenge admission standards in court
Mike Weiss, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, December 12, 2005
In a small room at the University of California's headquarters in downtown
Oakland, UC counsel Christopher Patti sat beside a stack of textbooks proposed
for use by Calvary Chapel Christian School in Riverside County -- books UC
rejected as failing to meet freshmen admission requirements.
Biology and physics textbooks from Christian publishers were found wanting, as
were three Calvary humanities courses.
"The university is not telling these schools what they can and can't teach,"
Patti said. "What the university is doing is simply establishing what is and is
not its entrance requirements. It's really a case of the university's ability
to set its own admission standards. The university has no quarrel with
Christian schools."
The Association of Christian Schools International, which claims 4,000 member
schools including Calvary Chapel and 800 other schools in California,
disagrees. On Aug. 24, it sued the university in federal court for religious
bias.
The lawsuit marks a new front in America's culture wars, in which the largest
organization of Christian schools in the country and the University of
California, which admitted 208,000 freshmen this year, are accusing each other
of trying to abridge or constrain each others' freedom.
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Read it at
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/12/12/MNGBNG6N2K1.DTL
J. Spaceman
--
My email address (notreally@jspaceman.homelinux.org) is fake. Email sent to it
will only get caught in my spam tarpit.
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| User: "JohnN" |
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| Title: Re: In the News: Culture war pits UC vs. Christian way of teaching |
12 Dec 2005 03:53:24 PM |
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From the article: "In turning down the English course, Sue Wilbur, the
director of UC undergraduate admissions, checked two categories as
"inadequate" on a standard form: "Lacking necessary course
information," and "Insufficient academic/theoritical [sic] content."
She added a note that said: "Unfortunately, this course, while it has
an interesting reading list, does not offer a nonbiased approach to the
subject matter." And she also commented that "the textbook is not
appropriate." During the interview, Patti said the textbook was an
anthology and that UC demands some full texts be read."
It seems that some of the cources were turned down because the school
did not complete the paperwork. So theey are suing UC because they
refused, or forgot, to turn in the assignment, completed, on time. The
Christian school is being persecuted because they can't follow
directions.
JohnN
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: In the News: Culture war pits UC vs. Christian way of teaching |
13 Dec 2005 01:26:19 PM |
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JohnN wrote:
From the article: "In turning down the English course, Sue Wilbur, the
director of UC undergraduate admissions, checked two categories as
"inadequate" on a standard form: "Lacking necessary course
information," and "Insufficient academic/theoritical [sic] content."
She added a note that said: "Unfortunately, this course, while it has
an interesting reading list, does not offer a nonbiased approach to the
subject matter." And she also commented that "the textbook is not
appropriate." During the interview, Patti said the textbook was an
anthology and that UC demands some full texts be read."
It seems that some of the cources were turned down because the school
did not complete the paperwork. So theey are suing UC because they
refused, or forgot, to turn in the assignment, completed, on time. The
Christian school is being persecuted because they can't follow
directions.
I spent my first two years of high school in a private Christian
school. The summer after my freshman year, the school announced the
implementation of a new course, one that combined the subjects of
english, history, and religion into one three hour class, now called
"humanities." My parents were the ones who received it because I,
along with other students, were selected to be the guinea pigs for the
new course in the upcoming year.
Upon hearing this, my parents along with the parents of the other
guinea pigs, called up the school and arranged a meeting with the
teachers and administrators. They had concerns that the new textbooks
and new changes to the courswork may not satisfy admission standards
for the UC system, for USC, and for Stanford (typical benchmark
admission standards for california, that all of the other smaller
private colleges tend to follow).
The faculty and administration sent a copy of the approval paperwork to
my parents a few days later, stating that the new coursework had no
conflicts with the admission standards of the respective universities.
Apparently the school already had the approval for some time before
they started implementing the class.
Notice my parents and the other parents didn't wait until our senior
year to voice this concern. Notice also that my parents made sure to
check that the courses I were to take satisfied certain admission
standards.
The parents of those kids apparently neglected to check on their own.
Their fault, not the UCs.
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| User: "Roger Coppock" |
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| Title: Re: In the News: Culture war pits UC vs. Christian way of teaching |
12 Dec 2005 11:52:54 AM |
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Gee! I wonder of the University of California will accept my course,
"Military science, the Buddhist perspective," for ROTC credit if they
lose this court challenge?
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| User: "Stile4aly" |
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| Title: Re: In the News: Culture war pits UC vs. Christian way of teaching |
12 Dec 2005 12:29:34 PM |
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Roger Coppock wrote:
Gee! I wonder of the University of California will accept my course,
"Military science, the Buddhist perspective," for ROTC credit if they
lose this court challenge?
I look forward to the day when schools will accept my "The 20th Century
Woman through the eyes of Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler" as credit
for Women's Studies.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: In the News: Culture war pits UC vs. Christian way of teaching |
12 Dec 2005 12:21:46 PM |
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Hmmm!
So, a student could earn the highest SAT score, have the wealth to
afford a university education and be refused admission to UC, because
of a textbook he/she was taught from or may have been taught from,
years before?
I'm sure Mr. Patti is sincere, when he believes that once you lose
control of what can and can't be read by high school students in
private religious schools that the whole of their education is a social
perversion and they must be punished. Unfortunately, it's that sort of
sincere attitude that has led to death by re-education in China and
genocide in Europe and Africa over the past 70 years.
We might want to allow students to atttend university based on their
own aptitude, if that's not too radical a concept.
JTG 12/12/05
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| User: "Stile4aly" |
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| Title: Re: In the News: Culture war pits UC vs. Christian way of teaching |
12 Dec 2005 12:44:41 PM |
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wrote:
Hmmm!
So, a student could earn the highest SAT score, have the wealth to
afford a university education and be refused admission to UC, because
of a textbook he/she was taught from or may have been taught from,
years before?
I'm sure Mr. Patti is sincere, when he believes that once you lose
control of what can and can't be read by high school students in
private religious schools that the whole of their education is a social
perversion and they must be punished. Unfortunately, it's that sort of
sincere attitude that has led to death by re-education in China and
genocide in Europe and Africa over the past 70 years.
We might want to allow students to atttend university based on their
own aptitude, if that's not too radical a concept.
JTG 12/12/05
The jump from tightening college acceptance standards to genocide in
Europe, Africa, and China is impressive. I was waiting for you to
throw in a reference to the heroes of 9/11 to round out the rhetoric.
Noone is preventing these students from attending college, they are
welcome to attend any public or private university that will accept
their coursework as valid. The UC system has decided, rightly so, that
the coursework in question doesn't meet its standards for admission.
Those students could take the requisite coursework in a community
college and then transfer to UC, or choose to attend an alternate
school.
Achieving a high SAT score is certainly noteworthy, but it is not the
end-all-be-all of education. You have to understand that liberal arts
colleges (in which the UC system is included) have requirements from
various fields of study in order to achieve a diploma. If a student
doesn't have the requisite understanding of biology then how is he
going to pass the science portion of the diploma requirement once he is
accepted? Likewise, if I was taught throughout high school that the
American civil war happened in 1632 I would expect to have a hard time
passing a college US History course.
The idea of a student at a Bob-Jones-esque high school getting really
heartbroken over not being able to attend UC-Berkeley does strike me as
funny, though.
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| User: "Lee Jay" |
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| Title: Re: In the News: Culture war pits UC vs. Christian way of teaching |
12 Dec 2005 12:39:47 PM |
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wrote:
We might want to allow students to atttend university based on their
own aptitude, if that's not too radical a concept.
Apititude is something the SAT does not test for, regardless of what
the "A" stands for.
Lee Jay
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| User: "Emma Pease" |
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| Title: Re: In the News: Culture war pits UC vs. Christian way of teaching |
12 Dec 2005 02:29:23 PM |
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In article <1134411706.546410.73670@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
jgrisham@scu.k12.ca.us wrote:
Hmmm!
So, a student could earn the highest SAT score, have the wealth to
afford a university education and be refused admission to UC, because
of a textbook he/she was taught from or may have been taught from,
years before?
I'm sure Mr. Patti is sincere, when he believes that once you lose
control of what can and can't be read by high school students in
private religious schools that the whole of their education is a social
perversion and they must be punished. Unfortunately, it's that sort of
sincere attitude that has led to death by re-education in China and
genocide in Europe and Africa over the past 70 years.
We might want to allow students to atttend university based on their
own aptitude, if that's not too radical a concept.
There are other ways of a student showing he or she is capable (for
instance home schooled kids aren't taking the certified courses and
they have means of getting in). Taking the certified courses and
getting an appropriate GPA is only one way though it is the most common
for Californian applicants.
I took a look at the plaintiff's brief. Since they didn't include the
application for the Biology course, I can't really comment on that.
They did include the application for the other three courses.
1. English - The application info required a list of works to be read
and the course must include extensive readings of _complete works_.
The application included a list of _authors_ not works and the
textbook was an anthology. Whether the anthology included full length
books or not, I don't know but the application also didn't even state
the full anthology would be read. I'm not surprised it was rejected
for insufficient info.
2. American History - the rejection was for being too narrow (note
this course was submitted for fulfilling the American History
requirement not the elective requirement) and for "The
content of the course outline submitted for approval is not
consistent with the empirical historical knowledge generally
accepted in the collegiate community." In other words it apparently
included 'historical facts' that weren't considered facts by academic
historians.
3. American Government - rejected for lack of information on the
course, for being whole year (the American government requirement is
half year only though an explanation from the school might have
allowed a waiver), and again for the 'empirical historical
knowledge'.
In this case they included a 'fact', a quote from James Madison, in
their course description which he apparently never said and
contradicts much of what he did say.
I also took a look at what courses were accepted at other schools
belonging to the same Christian association of schools that is the
plaintiff and found plenty that did appear to have been approved and
were definitely 'Christian' in content including "Biblical Literature"
and "Judeo-Christian Philosophy". Notably these were in the elective
category.
Emma
ps. I have fuller info at http://www.stanford.edu/~emma/UC/
pps. Would be interested if anyone has info on the UC Brief in
response.
--
\----
|\* | Emma Pease Net Spinster
|_\/ Die Luft der Freiheit weht
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| User: "rich hammett" |
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| Title: Re: In the News: Culture war pits UC vs. Christian way of teaching |
13 Dec 2005 10:23:17 AM |
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In talk.origins Emma Pease <emma@kanpai.stanford.edu> sanoi, hitaasti kuin hämähäkki:
2. American History - the rejection was for being too narrow (note
this course was submitted for fulfilling the American History
requirement not the elective requirement) and for "The
content of the course outline submitted for approval is not
consistent with the empirical historical knowledge generally
accepted in the collegiate community." In other words it apparently
included 'historical facts' that weren't considered facts by academic
historians.
3. American Government - rejected for lack of information on the
course, for being whole year (the American government requirement is
half year only though an explanation from the school might have
allowed a waiver), and again for the 'empirical historical
knowledge'.
In this case they included a 'fact', a quote from James Madison, in
their course description which he apparently never said and
contradicts much of what he did say.
ps. I have fuller info at http://www.stanford.edu/~emma/UC/
Wow. Out of 12 authors in a supposed American Lit course,
9 were English and one was French?
BJU's history books are even more child abuse than their
science books. More people believe the crap that they
put in their history books. Of course, if UC is going to
reject Am Hist texts based on facts, then the ones I used
a few decades ago in public school fail pretty miserably,
consisting mostly of pious myths.
rich
--
-to reply, it's hot not warm
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
\ Rich Hammett http://home.hiwaay.net/~rhammett
/ The Bill Clinton of RSFC
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| User: "Emma Pease" |
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| Title: Re: In the News: Culture war pits UC vs. Christian way of teaching |
13 Dec 2005 02:59:49 PM |
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In article <11pttblhb4h602f@corp.supernews.com>, rich hammett wrote:
In talk.origins Emma Pease <emma@kanpai.stanford.edu> sanoi,
hitaasti kuin hämähäkki:
2. American History - the rejection was for being too narrow (note
this course was submitted for fulfilling the American History
requirement not the elective requirement) and for "The
content of the course outline submitted for approval is not
consistent with the empirical historical knowledge generally
accepted in the collegiate community." In other words it apparently
included 'historical facts' that weren't considered facts by academic
historians.
3. American Government - rejected for lack of information on the
course, for being whole year (the American government requirement is
half year only though an explanation from the school might have
allowed a waiver), and again for the 'empirical historical
knowledge'.
In this case they included a 'fact', a quote from James Madison, in
their course description which he apparently never said and
contradicts much of what he did say.
ps. I have fuller info at http://www.stanford.edu/~emma/UC/
Wow. Out of 12 authors in a supposed American Lit course,
9 were English and one was French?
This was on the _supplemental_ reading list but it was the only one
that gave titles (the other gave last names only which could lead to
some questions when the listed author is Williams or Ward or Rogers).
One could justify non-American authors if the supplemental reading was
suppose to get the students to contrast and compare Amer. Lit. with
other Lit. or if the list included works that were important
influences on Amer. Lit. but the course description never said how it
was to be used (part of the insufficient info).
Also it wasn't 12 separate authors. To be exact the list was
"Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen
"Something Wicked This Way Comes" by Ray Bradbury
"Pilgrim's Progress" by John Bunyan
"Canterbury Tales" by Geoffrey Chaucer (I wonder if this is a version
without some of the more interesting words)
"Les Miserables" by Victor Hugo
"The Great Divorce" by C.S. Lewis
"The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" by C.S.Lewis
"The Screwtape Letters" by C.S. Lewis
"A Canticle ofr Leibowitz" by Walter M. Miller
"Dracula" by Bram Stoker
"The Hobbit" J.R.R. Tolkein [sic]
"The Silmarillion" by J.R.R. Tolkein [sic]
Don't know what happened to the Lord of the Rings.
BJU's history books are even more child abuse than their
science books. More people believe the crap that they
put in their history books. Of course, if UC is going to
reject Am Hist texts based on facts, then the ones I used
a few decades ago in public school fail pretty miserably,
consisting mostly of pious myths.
I suspect that this is one reason the UC system is now evaluating
courses; they may not trust the state text board approval methods.
For inaccuracies in K-12 history textbooks
http://www.uvm.edu/~jloewen/
"Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong"
James Loewen
--
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|\* | Emma Pease Net Spinster
|_\/ Die Luft der Freiheit weht
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| User: "Andrew McClure" |
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| Title: Re: In the News: Culture war pits UC vs. Christian way of teaching |
12 Dec 2005 12:56:33 PM |
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The general idea is that the colleges want the students to have taken
certain classes in high school. They don't care what the student has or
hasn't read. They do care that the student took, say, a biology class.
And if they took a class named "biology", but that class did not teach
the actual biology material UC needs, then that doesn't count. If the
student insists on attending a high school which does not teach
qualifying biology classes, I would suspect the student could simply
take a high-school-level biology class from any number of alternate
institutions in order to qualify for UC, or take a GED test.
I am somewhat baffled to actually find someone comparing a college
requiring science majors to have taken science courses in high school,
to state-organized mass murder...
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| User: "No 33 Secretary" |
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| Title: Re: In the News: Culture war pits UC vs. Christian way of teaching |
12 Dec 2005 01:24:28 PM |
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"Andrew McClure" <amcclure@purdue.edu> wrote in
news:1134413793.453514.116130@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:
The general idea is that the colleges want the students to have taken
certain classes in high school. They don't care what the student has or
hasn't read.
I would say it's more they *do* care what a student hasn't read. They don't
care if you've read the religious books. Only if you've read the religous
books _instead of_ science books in a science class.
Which is a good thing.
They do care that the student took, say, a biology class.
And if they took a class named "biology", but that class did not teach
the actual biology material UC needs, then that doesn't count. If the
student insists on attending a high school which does not teach
qualifying biology classes, I would suspect the student could simply
take a high-school-level biology class from any number of alternate
institutions in order to qualify for UC, or take a GED test.
I am somewhat baffled to actually find someone comparing a college
requiring science majors to have taken science courses in high school,
to state-organized mass murder...
You obviously haven't spent much time around fundie jeezmoids.
--
"So there is no third law of Terrydynamics."
-- William Hyde
Terry Austin
www.hyperbooks.com
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| User: "Andrew McClure" |
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| Title: Re: In the News: Culture war pits UC vs. Christian way of teaching |
12 Dec 2005 01:35:27 PM |
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Yeah, I was trying to say something like "they don't care what
textbooks the students has read", but for some reason I wound up typing
"has or hasn't". I don't know why I did that, since they very obviously
*do* care about the kinds of books the student *hasn't* read. Whoops.
English idioms strike again!
You obviously haven't spent much time around fundie jeezmoids.
Well, I said I was *baffled*, I didn't say I was *surprised*...
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| User: "No 33 Secretary" |
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| Title: Re: In the News: Culture war pits UC vs. Christian way of teaching |
12 Dec 2005 01:42:31 PM |
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"Andrew McClure" <amcclure@purdue.edu> wrote in
news:1134416127.758494.320390@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
Yeah, I was trying to say something like "they don't care what
textbooks the students has read", but for some reason I wound up typing
"has or hasn't". I don't know why I did that, since they very obviously
*do* care about the kinds of books the student *hasn't* read. Whoops.
English idioms strike again!
You obviously haven't spent much time around fundie jeezmoids.
Well, I said I was *baffled*, I didn't say I was *surprised*...
I stand corrected. You're far from alone in that bafflement.
--
"So there is no third law of Terrydynamics."
-- William Hyde
Terry Austin
www.hyperbooks.com
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| User: "CreateThis" |
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| Title: Re: In the News: Culture war pits UC vs. Christian way of teaching |
12 Dec 2005 04:18:29 PM |
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Andrew McClure wrote:
... If the
student insists on attending a high school which does not teach
qualifying biology classes
Unfortunately, students of that age have little to say about which high
school they'll attend or what beliefs they'll have by then.
CT
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