[Taxacom] botany removed from highschool curriculum in USA

[Robin Leech]

California and Texas may not dictate, but publishers are in it for the 
bucks, not
charity.
The way we have interpreted this in Canada is that the way these two states 
go
will [dictate] what books become available from publishers, especially in
biology.
Robin


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Herbert Jacobson" <jakejudy at hotmail.com>
To: <kennethkinman at webtv.net>; <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, October 06, 2009 10:16 PM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] botany removed from highschool curriculum in USA



Ken,



California does not dictated standards to anyone outside the state. It 
simply sets them for the state. Text book publishers may or may not choose 
to be influenced by these standards. School districts within the state have 
quite a bit of leeway in how they apply these standards. They are completely 
free to purchase or not purchase text books of any kind. The state does 
control some of the purse strings and gives or withholds money according to 
behavior of the local elected school boards of each district. For example a 
local school district may buy texts that are not on the state's list, but if 
they do they must buy them with their own money instead of with the funds 
provided for that purpose by the state.



I don't think states should lose the right to set standards because their 
choice may or may not influnce text book pulishers.



Herb



Herb

> From: kennethkinman at webtv.net
> Date: Tue, 6 Oct 2009 22:03:51 -0500
> To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Subject: [Taxacom] botany removed from highschool curriculum in USA
>
> Dear All,
> Whether this concerns regular national standards in general or
> Advanced Placement standards (which should presumably be more strict),
> restricting the study of plants or photosynthesis in any way seems
> absurd. If it weren't for plants and their photosynethic energy supply,
> our early metazoan ancestors would pretty much have died off millions or
> even billions of years ago.
> That places like California should be dictating such standards is
> even more problematic, given their virtual bankruptcy economically and
> their large role in the whole nation's present economic problems, that
> they should dictate such standards is laughable. I wouldn't put a lot
> of trust in Texas either. Perhaps it is time to rebel against the
> bullying of the bulls in the china closet, and curbing their blind faith
> in molecular research alone (but I 'm a little surprise that I just said
> that).
> Trouble is that in spite of the advances made by molecular
> biology, some people are just a little too enamoured with those advances
> and frankly ignorant of the occasional shortcomings. Not to minimize
> the influence of New York City in their contributions to our problems,
> both economic and biologically (overly phylogenetic). In some ways, New
> York City is the epicenter of a wide variety of problems. Frankly big
> population centers might attract a lot of talent, but a lot of such
> talent seems to be subsequently corrupted by the national funding that
> such centers are able to monopolize. Whether such centers (economic
> "black holes") cause more harm than good is debatable (and frankly
> variable from one discipline to another). The same could be said for
> Washington, D.C. Probably a mixed bag of excellence in some cases and
> pouring resources down a rat hole in others. But then again, California
> and Texas have tapped into a big chunk of pouring such funding down rat
> holes as well.
> This seems to be the mixed bag of urban centers in general, able to
> econonically attract both the best of the best and even more so the
> worst of the worst. That New York publishers should be dictating how
> our students should be educated is a little disturbing. Most of them
> are probably about as removed from the natural world as humans can get.
> Seems like New York City is perhaps even better able to breed even more
> horrible parasites as they are real contributors to the betterment of
> humanity. Urban centers in California perhaps rellect the same
> combination, and in time the greedy tends to overwhelm the good.
> -------Ken Kinman
>
> ***************************************************
>
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