Kansas Bill Would Require Teachers To Misinform Students About Climate Change

[octoberlib]

By Rebecca Leber on Feb 19, 2013 at 9:04 am


Kansas drought

Last week, the Kansas House Education Committee introduced a bill that mandates teachers question the scientific basis of global warming, becoming the latest state to take up one of American Legislative Exchange Council’s “model bills” aiming to misrepresent climate change in schools.
Kansas would join Texas, Louisiana, Tennessee and Oklahoma as the fifth state to cast climate change as a “controversial” topic. But climate change is only controversial in political and polluter circles, not the scientific community. 97 percent of climate scientists actively publishing in the field agree climate change is human-caused.
As National Center for Science Education executive director Eugenie C. Scott explained, “The only effects of enacting such a misguided bill would be to discourage responsible teachers from presenting climate science accurately and to encourage irresponsible teachers to misrepresent it as controversial.”


The bill resembles an ALEC “model bill,” written for corporate lobbyists. ALEC’s model bill mandates “a range of perspectives presented in a balanced manner,” “instruction in critical thinking so that students will be able to fairly and objectively evaluate scientific and economic controversies,” and present climate change “in language appropriate for education rather than for propagandizing.” At the same time ALEC’s legislation has gained ground in other states, the similarities to Kansas’ bill are striking, even though the state battles a destructive drought made more likely and severe in a warming climate.

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/02/19/1607051/kansas-bill-would-require-teachers-to-misinform-students-about-climate-change/

[northoftheborder]

1. So disheartening, maddening, disgusting to know what to say

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. An age of warlocks and witches...Sagan was prescient

[KansDem]

3. So this is what happens when you shut off Topeka's fluoride pipe.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/15/topeka-kansas-flouride_n_2697306.html?view=print&comm_ref=false

[octoberlib]

4. Omg, that's crazy!!

A Republican group in Kansas wants Topeka city officials to remove fluoride from the city's drinking water in order to preserve the intelligence of legislators in the state's capital.

This could be an Onion article.

[Fresh_Start]

5. if only, we could have a religious freedom lawsuit against this crap

teacher fired for refusal to lie to their students because lying is against their faith.