Heartland Senior Fellow for Environment Policy James M. Taylor was interviewed for part of a story on PBS Newshour last night about the teaching of climate change in Americas’s public schools. It was biased heavily toward the views of climate alarmists, which was hardly a surprise. But since The Heartland Institute has been gaining attention for our plans to craft climate curriculum, the PBS producers reached out to us for “balance.”
Below are James’ quick thoughts on the piece, and the video of the story. These folks really need to attend Heartland’s Seventh International Conference on Climate Change (and so should you!). The idea that sound climate science backs up the alarmist narrative is a stubborn myth.
Skepticism is essential to science itself. It is deeply disturbing that many public school teachers bemoan such skepticism in their students rather than celebrate such intuitive adherence to scientific principles.
The heart of the alleged global warming crisis is predictions of future warming from computer models that have consistently predicted too much warming in the past. Importantly, scientific data have shown that the two most important assumptions of such computer models – that modest warming due to carbon dioxide will be substantially exacerbated by changes in cloud formation and atmospheric humidity – are not occurring in the real world.
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America’s fixation on diversity is logical. We are a nation of immigrants, a great “melting pot” of ethnicities, nationalities and cultures, brought together by a choice to be an American made by us or our ancestors, and by a shared commitment to a unique set of values that constitute what George Will has called the “catechism” of America’s civil religion.
To acknowledge and appreciate our national diversity is to embrace our American heritage and culture. But diversity itself pales in comparison to the values that all Americans share; we come together as Americans not because we respect everyone’s differences, but because we are commonly invested in a core set of beliefs enumerated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. These ideals transcend diversity.
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We’ve got some good stuff for you this week, as always — in all six of our primary topic areas. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes for the latest in free-market policy. (Search for “Heartland Institute” in the iTunes store.)
ON HEALTH CARE: Maureen Martin reacts to the Fourth Circuit decision to dismiss Virginia’s lawsuit against the individual mandate. Listen here.
ON ENVIRONMENT: International Climate Science Coalition executive director Tom Harris discusses flaws in Al Gore’s latest movie. Listen here.
ON EDUCATION: More than a decade after the No Child left Behind Act was originally passed, the House of Representatives just took the first steps to reauthorize it. Lindsey Burke, policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation discusses the context of the bill and the implications of its passage. Listen here.
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We’ve got some good stuff for you this week, as always — in all six of our primary topic areas. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes for the latest in free-market policy. (Search for “Heartland Institute” in the iTunes store.)
ON HEALTH CARE: Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul was repeatedly singled out to defend his libertarian beliefs at the MSNBC/Politico debate at the Reagan Library on September 7. He had a great answer about the Food and Drug Administration — which has driven up the costs of drugs and not greatly improved drug safety. In fact, the FDA does more harm than good by keeping life-saving drugs off the market. Ben Domenech, managing editor of Health Care News, uses the exchange between Paul and NBC’s Brian Williams to discuss Heartland’s Free To Choose Medicine project. Listen Here.
ON ENVIRONMENT: Heartland Institute science director Jay Lehr explains why EPA is no longer necessary, the safety of nuclear power, and groundwater conservation. Listen Here.
ON EDUCATION: The school district that created its own voucher program using a charter school to administrate state funds has received financial help from a private foundation as the lawsuit against it heads for the Colorado Supreme Court. Ben DeGrow, senior education analyst at the Colorado-based Independence Institute, joins the podcast to talk about that district’s unusual focus on school choice and competition. Visit the Independence Institute’s DougCo Vouchers page for more information and the latest updates. Listen Here.
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We’ve got some good stuff for you this week, as always — in all six of our primary topic areas. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes for the latest in free-market policy. (Search for “Heartland Institute” in the iTunes store.)
ON HEALTH CARE: Benjamin Domenech discusses Gov. Rick Perry’s controversial stem cell treatment on One News Now. Listen here.
ON EDUCATION: The cost of attending college has increased 440 percent in the past 25 years, says Anne Neal, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, largely because colleges and universities have abandoned their mission to educate students. Neal discusses why that happened with School Reform News Managing Editor Joy Pullmann. Listen here.
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We’ve got some good stuff for you this week, as always. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes for the latest in free-market policy. (Search for “Heartland Institute” in the iTunes store.)
ON HEALTH CARE: Ben Domenech gives his quick take on the Obamacare smackdown by the 11th Circuit Court — one more step to getting the Supreme Court to decide if the Constitution allows the forced purchase of health insurance. Listen here.
ON EDUCATION: Herb Walberg, distinguished visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution, joins School Reform News Managing Editor Joy Pullmann to outline his new report, “Achieving More, Spending Less.” He explains the myriad options schools and districts have to do more with less in an era of budget crunches. Listen here.
ON FIRE: Author Laura Laing talks with host Arin Greenwood about her new book Math for Grownups. Listen here.
ON TECH: John Stephenson, director of the Telecommunications and Information Technology Task Force at the American Legislative Exchange Council, continues his conversation with Infotech & Telecom News Managing Editor Bruce Edward Walker. Listen here.
ON ENVIRONMENT: Todd Myers of the Washington Policy Center explains how eco-fads are harming the environment. Listen here.
All of Heartland’s latest podcasts can be found at our website here. And you can explore all of Heartland’s 27 years of research and commentary on free markets and free people at our home page.
President Obama and the leaders of the teachers unions disagree with the view of citizens that schools, educators, and students should be held accountable for their performance on standardized tests. Despite strong public support for testing programs, influential educators have defined standardized tests as beasts that should be removed from schools. To quote one prominent critic, Gerald Bracey, they are “infernal machines of social destruction.”
Political leaders have also revealed a deep misunderstanding about the purpose and use of standardized testing when they claim tests are too simple or too biased to measure up to the subjective judgments of educators themselves. Such claims are naïve or deliberately misleading.
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Many people embedded in education reform acknowledge its bipartisan nature—mostly because the American system is so bad not even the willingly blind can help but bump into it. Add Joel Klein, NYC’s former schools chief now inventing education technology at Rupert Murdock’s News Corp., to the list of middle-roaders too sick of the stench to not shout for help.
His recent (and lengthy, but worthwhile) piece in The Atlantic offers thunderous proof of, well, what we at The Heartland Institute have been telling you for decades:
According to a Department of Education internal analysis, the average NYC teacher works fewer than seven hours a day for 185 days and costs the city $110,000—$71,000 in salary, $23,000 in pensions, and $16,000 in health and other benefits.
I’ve had normal, middle-class Americans tell me teachers “work just as hard as any farmer.” Perhaps some teachers do—family members and friends who teach prove the profession still does have a few hard workers, somehow—but clearly not in New York. And, I suspect, elsewhere.
Another shameful anecdote:
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Teachers’ unions in Wisconsin are scurrying to win school district of teachers union contracts before Gov. Scott Walker’s budget repair bill gets approved.
Currently, teachers and other state employees pay six percent of their health care premiums and virtually nothing toward their pension costs. Under Walker’s bill, they would pay 12.8 percent of their health care premiums and 5.8% of their salaries toward their pensions.
But if they able to renew their contracts before the bill goes into effect, all Walker bets are off.
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