Ranking Educational Institutions

Kirbert
Kirbert's picture
Posts: 59
Joined: 2007-01-31
User is offlineOffline
Ranking Educational Institutions

Here's something I would like to see:  A web site where one could check out the schools that their kids are attending to see how they rank for instilling rational thought vs. superstitious nonsense.  Perhaps it could work like this:  You click on a country, and you get to see an overall ranking of how enlightened education is in that country.  Then you can click on a state or province and see a ranking of how enlightened education is in that state or province.  Then you can click on your local school district and see how they rank.  Then you can click on an individual school and see how it ranks.

I think it'd be cute to arrange rankings as A through F -- just because it's an educational theme.  Any school that basically teaches straight out of the Bible or Koran or Torah and in which a teacher mentioning Darwin is likely to be fired gets an F.  Any school that teaches Creationism/ID alongside evolution gets a D.  Any school that avoids the issue altogether and teaches nothing "controversial" at all gets a D; "All that's necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

Any school that teaches evolution exclusively and doesn't mention religion gets a B.  To get an A, a school has to teach evolution exclusively and teach that theism is fallacy, as well as teaching unadulterated history showing the conflict and suffering that religion has wrought.

To gather data, I suspect the site would have to rely on input from readers.  A little questionnaire about the school or school system would probably make it more consistent.

I don't think any public school in Florida would rise above a D despite a recent revision in our statewide science guidelines.  Even though the public face is that we are enlightened, unfortunately the reality is that many teachers and administrators are Bible-thumpers and many rational teachers are hesitant to broach the subject with their students because they know for a fact they would get zero support when the parents show up with torches and pitchforks.


MattShizzle
Posts: 7966
Joined: 2006-03-31
User is offlineOffline
Mentioning Florida I

Mentioning Florida I remember an issue of Freethought Today calling it Flori-duh because of this and the 2000 election. Seriously, I would put Liberty University and really most "christian" schools somewhere below "Billy Bob's Skool Uv Edjookashunal stuf."

 

There was that ranking a few years back for science education - only state I remember was Kansas getting an "F-" or "not even failed."

Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team


geirj
geirj's picture
Posts: 719
Joined: 2007-06-19
User is offlineOffline
The Princeton Review might

The Princeton Review might be a good place to start:

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-136565812.html

 

Nobody I know was brainwashed into being an atheist.

Why Believe?


greek goddess
Rational VIP!Science Freak
greek goddess's picture
Posts: 361
Joined: 2008-01-26
User is offlineOffline
Kirbert wrote:I think it'd

Kirbert wrote:

I think it'd be cute to arrange rankings as A through F -- just because it's an educational theme.  Any school that basically teaches straight out of the Bible or Koran or Torah and in which a teacher mentioning Darwin is likely to be fired gets an F.  Any school that teaches Creationism/ID alongside evolution gets a D.  Any school that avoids the issue altogether and teaches nothing "controversial" at all gets a D; "All that's necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

Any school that teaches evolution exclusively and doesn't mention religion gets a B.  To get an A, a school has to teach evolution exclusively and teach that theism is fallacy, as well as teaching unadulterated history showing the conflict and suffering that religion has wrought.

I like the idea, although I have a few concerns.

First of all, what about religious private schools? With Bible classes and chapel services and daily prayer, these schools are technically teaching out of religious texts and infusing academics with religoin. But some are relatively moderate. The Christian high school I attended was not particularly advanced, but the curriculum did include evolution - no ID, and no Creationism "side-by-side." My biology teacher presented it to us by basically saying, "You can believe what you want, but this is a valid scientific theory, and you should at least know what it says before you reject it." Schools like this sort of bridge some of your criteria, so perhaps better categorization would be needed.

Second, I doubt any school would get a straight A. Although the line between church and state has been blurring in recent times, I still think it would be wrong to talk about religion in a school setting outside of a religion class. In a public school, telling kids that theism is fallacy is inappropriate, unnecessary, and would probably lead to legal troubles. The role of a school should be to present students with information; it is up to them to make of it what they will. This doesn't just pertain to matters of religion and science, but also in matters of philosophy, government, and economics. Telling kids what to think borders on brainwashing, which is exactly what we're trying to avoid.

I like the idea of the website, but I just think the criteria and categories would have to be revised before making it into a reality.


Loc
Superfan
Loc's picture
Posts: 1130
Joined: 2007-11-06
User is offlineOffline
greek goddess wrote:My

greek goddess wrote:

My biology teacher presented it to us by basically saying, "You can believe what you want, but this is a valid scientific theory, and you should at least know what it says before you reject it."

For a religous school, that's amazing. I was solely taught literal creationism,and evolution was actively fought against. You had to read anti-evolution books as part as the curriculum and denounce it in science tests if you didn't want to lose points. I wish christians would learn what it is before they reject it. I bet the majority have no idea what it really entails.

Psalm 14:1 "the fool hath said in his heart there is a God"-From a 1763 misprinted edition of the bible

dudeofthemoment wrote:
This is getting redudnant. My patience with the unteachable[atheists] is limited.

Argument from Sadism: Theist presents argument in a wall of text with no punctuation and wrong spelling. Atheist cannot read and is forced to concede.


greek goddess
Rational VIP!Science Freak
greek goddess's picture
Posts: 361
Joined: 2008-01-26
User is offlineOffline
Loc wrote:You had to read

Loc wrote:

You had to read anti-evolution books as part as the curriculum and denounce it in science tests if you didn't want to lose points. I wish christians would learn what it is before they reject it. I bet the majority have no idea what it really entails.

That's scary! At least you escaped, haha. Of course, it's not like our science classes were totally free of religion. I distinctly remember one of the questions on an honors chemistry test: If God had not bestowed certain properties on water, life would be impossible. List three of these properties. (or something to that effect)

Some possible answers were 1) high affinity for hydrogen bonding 2) Lower density when in the solid state (God wanted to make sure the fish could still survive in iced-over ponds in the winter) and 3) neutral pH (useful in biological systems)

Of course when I got to college, I found myself ill-prepared for the biology major I had hoped to pursue, so it's been a tremendous game of catch-up the past couple years. There was a lot of information that other kids received in public school educations that I had never been exposed to - everything from how to use certain lab equipment to acid-base chemistry to deeper understanding of biological pathways. Some of my peers were shocked to learn that Chem 101 wasn't just a glorified review session for me. So while my high school wasn't totally in the dark ages, we certainly weren't cutting-edge either.