Special Election, and a Prop 8 Update

The California statewide special election is on the horizon (May 19th--it's almost May?), and it is a good time to talk politics.

In brief: vote YES on Props 1A through 1F, to help protect public schools and community colleges against further funding cuts, and to reverse the damages made to our schools from financial cuts so far.

Oh, and that whole gay marriage business? Yeah, haven't turned any students gay yet, good thing Prop 8 passed!

Here's a repost of my article explaining why Prop 8 never had anything to do with education:

***

Let's summarize what the code actually says, along with a 2003 sex education research study cited by the Yes-on-8 crowd, to understand what it is I actually have to teach your kids:

1) CA Education Code 51933 states that school districts "may provide comprehensive sexual health education" in any grade as long as it is age-appropriate and factual. It's likely your neighborhood school does. 96% of schools chose to do so.

2) CA Education Code 51890 elaborates on what a comprehensive sexual health education program entails, which is a vast spectrum of health topics concerning drugs, exercise, disease and making good decisions. Also included is this topic:

"Family health and child development, including the legal and
financial aspects and responsibilities of marriage and parenthood."

Notice I don't really get into what marriage is, but the fact that it is legally binding, and involves vague financial aspects. Oh, and sometimes you have kids, too. The big idea here is that with commitment comes responsibility. This will not change with Prop 8.

3) Jumping back to CA Ed. Code 51933, there is another passage concerning marriage that is part of the health program that most schools teach:

"Instruction and materials shall teach respect for marriage and
committed relationships."

Students should consider relationships and committed relationships with respect. Students should respect that 2 people choose to commit to one another. The point, as given from the context, is that commitment and honesty are both traits found in a healthy lifestyle. That includes the commitment of heterosexual couples and of homosexual couples. The institution of marriage and what marriage means is not the focus. This will not change with Prop 8.

4) Yes, you read right, I can already talk about homosexual couples. Also from CA Ed. Code 51933:

"Instruction and materials shall be appropriate for use with
pupils of all races, genders, sexual orientations, ethnic and
cultural backgrounds, and pupils with disabilities."

My instruction would not be appropriate if I chose to disregard certain sexual orientations and not others. This will not change with Prop 8.

5) Another mention of the role of marriage is contained within CA Education Code 51930 as one of the goals of these programs:

"To encourage a pupil to develop healthy attitudes concerning
adolescent growth and development, body image, gender roles, sexual
orientation, dating, marriage, and family."

Marriage in this context is nothing more than a committed relationship, as another aspect of a healthy lifestyle. Notice again that I am already teaching about sexual orientation and how that relates to dating and committed relationships. This will not change with Prop 8.


6) Despite what CA Education Code states, an ACLU research study conducted in 2003 found that while 96% of schools opted to teach an (optional) sexual health education program, many did not include all of the required components discussed above. For instance, 71% of middle schools omit teaching the required topics about contraception, condom effectiveness or abstinence. Exact data on how frequently the "marriage/committed relationships" topic is taught is not reported, even though proponents of Prop 8 continue with dishonest claims that nearly all schools teach marriage.

7) Knowing all of this, if parents still look unfavorably at the topics covered in this sexual health education program, they have CA Education Code 51938-51939, which states that I must notify parents at the beginning of the year of sexual health topics that will be covered. Parents can request to see any of the materials I will use to teach these topics, and can pull their student out of any or all portions of this program. If you still don't believe me that marriage is not and will not be a focus in your school, ask to see the materials, and if it is not to your liking, request that your child be given alternative instruction. This will not change with Prop 8.

8) My diverse students have diverse perspectives and took diverse life paths to get to where they are now, and my instruction needs to be aware of that. Some kids are raised by families with a mom and a dad, but there are many exceptions to that "rule". To be certain that my kids are growing up with a respect for diversity and an open, critical mind to differences, I need to expose them to these differences now. In the context of a sexual health education program, I teach them that commitment is a healthy choice, regardless of who is doing the committing. This will not change with Prop 8.

Science may make a comeback

President-Elect Barack Obama has set science and society up for success with his new agenda:

The economy and foreign policy may be higher on President-elect Barack Obama's to-do list, but science and technology issues are on the radar screen as well. Among the top tasks: taking the ideology out of scientific issues, and doing more about what Obama has called a "planet in peril."

This is good news for many reasons, one of which: I'm tired of writing cynical blog posts relating to stem cells. Give me some better material to work with!

Bittersweet

The good: President-Elect Barack Obama's new website

The bad:

Prop 8, eliminating gay marriage in California, passed by a slim margin. Prop 8 was decided by 250,000 voters, or 2.5% of the total vote. I am convinced that these voters, if not more of them, were voting not because of a belief that gay marriage is wrong, but because they worried it would be taught in our public schools. The issue of gay marriage in schools was one of the bigger issues pushed by the Yes-on-8 crowd. You can even see evidence of it in their banner, with the 2 adult figures protecting the 2 children (as if gay marriage had anything to do with family structure).

As a public high school teacher, I could just spit when I hear about how absolutely convinced folks are that schools would have taught gay marriage had Prop 8 failed. It's also unnerving to see how poorly the No-on-8 campaign refuted this dishonest claim. One measly ad featuring Jack O'Connell, the California Superintendent of Schools, was not nearly enough to halt the momentum of this race. Prop 8 was never about gay marriage in schools, yet the other side succeeded in playing this canard to voters. I'd applaud their strategy were it not so vile and baseless, tainted with church views that homosexuality is sinful.

Tonight's the night

"It's gonna be a glorious day!
I feel [our] luck could change."

- Lucky by Radiohead

Vote Republican!

I really need to plan something for tomorrow, but this GOP debate is hilarious. Hilarious.

"What would you do about black-on-black crime?"

* Encourage black people to work on family values

* Blame the educational system but not give solutions for fixing the educational system


"Death Penalty: What Would Jesus Do?"

* Feel really bad about it, because it's such an awful choice

* Kill the bastards anyway


"Do you believe every word of the bible?"

* Yes.

* We need to love our neighbors, as ourselves (This answer came right after his response to the previous question about killing bastards)


"What would you do to repair the image of America in the eyes of the Muslim world?"

* Stay on the offense!

* Fuck Islamic Terrorism!

* Continue our surge of more troops!

* Fight those who want to stop our surge!

* Our troops are awesome!

* We don't apologize!

* Fuck yeah!


"Is waterboarding torture?"

* I'm against torture.

* I don't want to discuss what we do.

* We shouldn't even discuss torture!


"Aren't the troops professional enough to serve with gays and lesbians?"

* We can't force our Christian troops to fight with people they don't like

* We have a right to whatever feelings we want

* (To the face of the gay 42-year veteran that asked the question) We're just not ready for fightin' alongside gays


"Why don't African-Americans vote republican?"

* The government makes Black people go to bad schools, and we need to allow them to go to private schools instead


Maybe it's because of those family values they lack.

Puff Puff

More stem cell puffery:

"By avoiding techniques that destroy life, while vigorously supporting alternative approaches, President Bush is encouraging scientific advancement within ethical boundaries," the White House said Tuesday in a written statement on the new research.

By avoiding direct routes that get people to work on time, while vigorously demanding that everyone take the congested side streets, we are encouraging people to "get to work on time" --

within "certain boundaries".

Strive to Keep It

Loved this article in Time:

When Americans look around right now, they see a public-school system with 38% of fourth graders unable to read at a basic level; they see the cost of health insurance escalating as 47 million people go uninsured; they see a government that responded ineptly to a hurricane in New Orleans; and they see a war whose ends they do not completely value or understand.

But there is something else we are seeing in the land. Polls show that while confidence in our democracy and our government is near an all-time low, volunteerism and civic participation since the '70s are near all-time highs. Political scientists are perplexed about this. If confidence is so low, why would people bother volunteering? The explanation is pretty simple. People, especially young people, think the government and the public sphere are broken, but they feel they can personally make a difference through community service. After 9/11, Americans were hungry to be asked to do something, to make some kind of sacrifice, and what they mostly remember is being asked to go shopping. The reason private volunteerism is so high is precisely that confidence in our public institutions is so low. People see volunteering not as a form of public service but as an antidote for it.

That is not a recipe for keeping a republic.

...


At this moment in our history, 220 years after the Constitutional Convention, the way to get citizens involved in civic life, the way to create a common culture that will make a virtue of our diversity, the way to give us that more capacious sense of "we" — finally, the way to keep the Republic — is universal national service. No, not mandatory or compulsory service but service that is in our enlightened self-interest as a nation. We are at a historic junction; with the first open presidential election in more than a half-century, it is time for the next President to mine the desire that is out there for serving and create a program for universal national service that will be his — or her — legacy for decades to come. It is the simple but compelling idea that devoting a year or more to national service, whether military or civilian, should become a countrywide rite of passage, the common expectation and widespread experience of virtually every young American.


...


We have battlefields in America, too — particularly in education and health care — and the commitment of soldiers abroad has left others yearning to make a parallel commitment here at home.

Make a commitment to our country. Join the movement for educational equity. Teach For America's first application deadline is September 21st.

Investing in Schools (Literally)

Inequitable, stratified school funding is one of the reasons propounded as a cause of the Achievement Gap, or the observed disparity on a number of educational measures between the performance of groups of students, especially groups defined by gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Apart from the apportionment normally divvied up from your taxes, our schools are also funneled money from their respective communities:

In those final weeks before summer vacation, when temperatures can soar into the 90s, parents at 5 of Greenwich’s 11 elementary schools without adequate air-conditioning could no longer watch their children wilt, along with the crayons, in the heat. So they approached the school board and air-conditioning was installed — but not at the expense of property taxpayers; the parents raised the money.

Students in two other elementary schools in town, without the same deep-pocketed parents, had to wait, however. They were finally granted air-conditioning after town officials squeezed the upgrades into capital budgets financed by taxpayers.

In the last decade, a growing number of parents, alumni and corporations have been donating private money to public schools for a wide range of school equipment, educational supplies, artists-in-residence and accouterments that go beyond the traditional PTA gifts and what may otherwise be outside the local school board’s spending plan.

This growing partnership between schools and families offers us another arena of controversy, especially within the context of student achievement being impacted along socioeconomic lines by differently resourced schools in differently resourced communities. Is it fair that students in the quoted scenario above were offered air conditioning at different times based on the level of privilege of the homes they are growing up in? The issue burns brighter when the focus shifts from "Who gets air conditioning sooner?" to "Who gets extra-curricular activities?" and "Who gets more textbooks?"

Gift caps have been put in place by some districts, but they are not the best solution, as some communities cannot donate nearly as much as the legal amount, while other communities have had success in "negotiating" with districts to donate more than the allowed amount to their schools:

It was just those kinds of disparities that led the Greenwich school board to impose gift caps 10 years ago on what schools can accept in total each year from parents and other sources. These days, the caps have been hovering at about $64,600 per elementary school and $104,500 per middle school.

Despite those controls, a board of education analysis dated September 2005 showed “continuing inequities among schools,” with the largest variation evident at the elementary school level. Hamilton Avenue received as little as $17,022 in gifts in the 2004-5 school year, $7,811 of which was contributed by its parent-teacher association. Eight other elementary schools received well in excess of $50,000 apiece from their parent-teacher associations.

One of the more promising ideas is to create nonprofit foundations that meter out contributions to all schools of a district. There are approximately 5,000 such foundations, found in 1 out of every 3 school districts nationwide.

Unfortunately, in an effort to cash in on private philanthropy, these foundations are often put in place to compensate for individual donations given to separate schools:

In California, where parents first started educational foundations in response to a statewide law capping property taxes, the combined district of Santa Monica and Malibu requires that 15 percent of the gifts from parents to individual schools must go in an “equity fund” that is administered by an independent foundation. That money then provides block grants that have the potential to “improve the achievement of all students,” according to the district’s Web site.

The $330,000 that the equity fund took in this year, according to Linda Gross, the chairwoman of the foundation, goes a long way toward smoothing out differences in a district where one parent-teacher association raises $25,000 a year and another raises $750,000.

While the paltry 15% might help smooth out differences in funding for our schools, we could eliminate those differences if contributions to individual schools were restricted, or at least promote more equality if stronger gift caps were implemented and the "equity fund" was increased. These funding disparities are appalling and they detriment society by prohibiting education from truly being the great equalizer.

Spirit of Affirmative Action

I found this op-ed regarding Affirmative Action and identity in the Daily Bruin and thought I'd press the "disseminate widely" button:

As students of an institution with a humbling legacy of civil rights activism, we should be shamed at our complacency in this facade of tolerance and equality.

In fact, given the undeniable correlation between race and socio-economic status in this country, to be color-blind is to deliberately ignore the appalling disparities inherent in our society.

To be color-blind is to be perfectly content with the fact that a meager 392 black students were accepted this year to UCLA.

And to be perfectly content with this outrageous statistic speaks loudly of a culture marred by ignorance and cultural insensitivity.

Humanist Manifesto

Lately, studying for chemistry tends to lead me to other passions. An example, if you will:

Pondering my core ideals and what I've learned about myself in college, I feel that the Humanist philosophy most closely matches my own, and though expected, I'm still a bit surprised at how uplifting it feels to read more about the ideology. I do have beliefs and I do appreciate spirituality, however it simply feels more right to me to believe in our connections throughout humanity versus our connections into the supernatural.

Humanists are concerned for the well being of all, are committed to diversity, and respect those of differing yet humane views. We work to uphold the equal enjoyment of human rights and civil liberties in an open, secular society and maintain it is a civic duty to participate in the democratic process and a planetary duty to protect nature’s integrity, diversity, and beauty in a secure, sustainable manner.

Thus engaged in the flow of life, we aspire to this vision with the informed conviction that humanity has the ability to progress toward its highest ideals. The responsibility for our lives and the kind of world in which we live is ours and ours alone.

That last line gives me chills. Hoooah.

Catharsis

Ca·thar·sis (noun)

1. A purifying or figurative cleansing of the emotions, especially pity and fear, described by Aristotle as an effect of tragic drama on its audience.
2. A release of emotional tension, as after an overwhelming experience, that restores or refreshes the spirit.
3. Purgation; vigorous evacuation of the bowels.


Democrats win House

Democrats promised Wednesday to lead the country in a new direction after winning control of the House for the first time in 12 years in midterm elections.

By early Wednesday, Democrats had picked up at least 28 seats; they needed 15 to capture a majority in the House.

Democrat Wins Senate Race in Montana:

The Democratic challenger in Montana, Jon Tester, won the race for the United States Senate today, leaving only Virginia to face an uncertain outcome in a tight midterm election race that is not expected to be decided for days or weeks.

Mr. Tester’s victory means that the Senate will at the least be tied 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans.

Early this afternoon, with 99 percent of precincts reporting, Jim Webb, the Democratic challenger [in Virginia], led Senator George Allen, a Republican, by less than 8,000 votes out of more than 2.3 million cast — a difference of about one-third of a percent.

Strategy Shift Likely for Bush:

For weeks, President Bush has waved off questions about how he would cope with a Democratic House. He and his aides said they simply did not expect to be dealing with a Speaker Pelosi, and Bush regularly mocked the Democrats for "measuring the drapes" on Capitol Hill in anticipation of victory.

But the dramatic election results yesterday left Bush facing not only a House but also, possibly, a Senate in the hands of the opposition party -- should the narrow Democratic leads in Virginia and Montana hold up. And later today, at a White House news conference scheduled for just after 1 p.m., the nation will begin hearing just how Bush plans to cope with a completely different Capitol Hill environment than he has faced in his first six years in Washington.

Rumsfeld Resigns:

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the hard-driving and super-confident Pentagon boss who came to symbolize President Bush’s controversial Iraq policy, is resigning, President Bush announced today.

Mr. Bush, appearing at the White House the day after the Republican Party suffered sweeping defeats in Tuesday’s midterm Congressional elections, said he and Mr. Rumsfeld had “a series of thoughtful conversations” and agreed that “the time is right for new leadership at the Pentagon.”

A new agenda:

"Democratic candidates across the country have been talking about their agenda for the country: accountability in Irag with a focus on training Iraqi soldiers and police, engaging partners in the region, and developing a real plan for victory and redeployment; to raise the minimum wage; to provide access to quality and affordable health care to all Americans; to overturn the President's stem cell veto; to allow the government to negotiate for lower prescriptions prices, and to extend the tax deduction for college tuition. And there's more."

Olbermann on Kerry's Misfire

Bravo to Olbermann for nailing the non-issue of Kerry's misfire and those that have politicized it:

A brief reminder, Mr. Bush: You are not the United States of America.

You are merely a politician whose entire legacy will have been a willingness to make anything political — to have, in this case, refused to acknowledge that the insult wasn't about the troops, and that the insult was not even truly about you either — that the insult, in fact, is you.

I find it nauseatingly ironic that this president is criticizing someone else for bungling a speech.

Have YOU voted yet?

Stem Cells: Science at the Steps of Decency

(Technorati Tags: Stem Cells, Stem-Cell-Research, Bioethics)

Victims of a wealth of diseases, disorders, and crippling injuries enjoyed hope for what lasted only a short time, when on last Thursday President Bush threw down his gloves and swaggered “Bring ‘em on” to scientists and free-thinkers alike:

“I hold to the principle that we can harness the promise of technology without becoming slaves to technology and ensure that science serves the cause of humanity. If we are to find the right ways to advance ethical medical research, we must also be willing when necessary to reject the wrong ways. For that reason, I must veto this bill.”

His only veto of his entire presidential career, I guess we should have expected it would have come in the form of stalling scientific progress. Science and Ethics are always considered polar opposites when we listen to the perspectives of those on the Pro-Life side of the debate. However, this is a gross oversimplification that is simply not true: science and morality are more often interwoven than not, research scientists themselves being some of the most honest, truth-abiding people out there in our society. I pose this question: what type of person would choose a job that paid little, expected lots, and placed intense scrutiny from educated peers on his or her ongoing research constantly? There is no room for intellectual dishonesty with an occupation rooted in empirical evidence, where logic and honesty are the only realities possible.

Science and Ethics are particularly in agreement when it comes to the issue of embryonic stem cells, and to better understand this we need to deconstruct the sale of Morality by our opponents.

President Bush said in his veto photo-op:

“Yet, as science brings us ever closer to unlocking the secrets of human biology, it also offers temptations to manipulate human life and violate human dignity.”

Bush’s justification for his stance on embryonic stem cell research picks and chooses tenets of a morality that he cares to employ and to preach (protecting the sanctity of aspiring life), while skipping over others (protecting the sanctity of existing life). He packages his own version of morality and sells it to the nation as evidence for his actions, one of the reasons even his political party, and some of them Pro-Lifers, are divisive about the issue. This dissent comes from the same group of misfits that all recently agreed to embrace the Iraq War—yes, that one nation that has descended into chaos under our watch— as a key issue this fall. How could it be that a bloc of politicians can agree to run on the war amidst failing public opinion and security, with a linearly increasing civilian death toll, but not seem to get their opinions squared away with Bush’s principled delivery? It seems there are some forces at play here that rival the mystique of quantum physics.

Well, maybe not. President Bush again highlights the inherent variability of his morality by his response to stem cell research. He claims that science tempts us to “manipulate human life,” which it does. In fact, we do so on a day-to-day basis, and are lauded for our achievements. Human egg cells are routinely fertilized and destroyed in an unnatural laboratory setting, cell division and thus the growth of new and healthy cells is inhibited by chemotherapy, cadavers are donated for medical research and practice, organs donated and transplanted hither and thither, volunteers for clinical studies on drugs that need to be proven to work, and the list goes on. All of these endeavors were absolutely necessary for science and technology to have advanced as far as they have, and there’s still an infinite amount more we need to accomplish. Bush asserts that his stance on stem cell research is because it is temptation to manipulate life, an ethically-challenged position that is provincial to the myriad other ways that scientists do—and must—manipulate life to effect change, an ethical decision made by those who are passionate about engendering a more enjoyable life for society through advances in science.

While the case against abortion on the grounds of morality might be tenable through a moral principle to uphold life at any cost (no matter how insanely intrusive this compels our government to be), that same principle does not hold water with this issue, as I’ve explained before. Is it really an ethical decision to assume a 5-day-old embryo (or blastocyst), a structure comparatively not unlike that of a lone sperm or ovum, warrants the same rights and liberties as that of an independently-living human being, even when this decision trumps the rights of the suffering to potential panaceas? What’s more, opponents often cite the dreaded slippery slope of such a moral distinction between life and non-life, saying that if the “utilitarian” case for ESC research is made, what’s to stop “immoral” scientists from pushing the envelope and claiming embryos in the 1st and fetuses in the 2nd and 3rd trimester are also non-life? This is preposterous in the sense that the envelope can more easily be pushed in the opposite direction: if 100 cells constitute human life, why not 50, or 10, or even a lone sperm and egg, seeing as how they, too, have the potential to merge and implant in the uterus and lead to a pregnancy? Are we to then conclude that male masturbation and a woman’s period are also morally reprehensible?

If we extend the same morality inherent in Pro-Lifers fighting for human rights for the developing fetus to the prospect of scientific research with blastocysts, we come to the conclusion that scientists are operating with a similar morality in mind: to defend the sanctity and security of human life at all costs. We manipulate life in the way that science has always done so, with respect for our fellow man and the dignity of mankind, to aim for advancing our consciousness and understanding our purpose on this earth. In the context of ESC research, our best hypothesis is that this branch of science will offer tremendous help in understanding developmental biology and the mechanisms of cancers and genetic disorders, in testing new drugs, and even in cell-based therapies involving healthy tissue generation. It would be downright, dare I say, immoral to pick-and-choose certain aspects of morality but not others to justify stalling this research.

Alas, that is the key difference between our morality and Bush’s: we do not screen ethics for principles that best suit us and our purposes (read: riling up the rapture-ready conservative bible-thumping base for an election year), nor do we flip-flop on our commitment to sustaining and promoting the welfare of life. We unequivocally and morally advance society through intellectual stages of development as we have done since the beginning of time, desiring nothing less than continuing the pursuit of unknown knowledge, for ours and our children’s sake.

Embryonic Stem Cells and Abortion(?)

(I wrote this as a comment on another thread but feel it adequetely gets across my point. I have another piece on this topic that I'll upload whenever I finish it.)

One of the problems we run into with this debate is conflating it and its ethical dilemmas with abortion, even though the two are not alike. Logically, one can still consider oneself Pro-Life on abortion and also support federal funding of ESC research, and I wish scientists would say it more often.

Take a look:

Fetal Development

Abortions normally take place within the 1st trimester, or first 13 weeks of a pregnancy. The embryo is developing at this stage, implanted in the uterus, growing with the help of nutrients supplied by its mother. Having an abortion is normally the mother’s choice and results in termination of the pregnancy and little other effect on society. However this influences your stance on abortion, it really has no bearing on the topic at hand.

ESCs are taken from extra 5-day-old embryos artificially fertilized in a laboratory by the wishes of the aspiring parents. Markedly early in development, the embryo numbers about 100 cells (compare that to the 10,000,000,000,000 cells in an adult). At this stage in the natural female body this bundle of cells has not even reached the uterus, the mother’s womb, where fertilized eggs have to initially implant for a pregnancy to even begin, as is the medical consensus. Thus one may argue that abortion is unethical because gestation has without a doubt occurred, but will equivocate about how a 5-day-old embryo is technically still almost a beaming baby boy, even when the medical community begs to differ. Framing the debate with this in mind would assist more Americans in keeping an open mind to the logistics and implications of ESC research.

Pro-Life or Pro-Choice, those who feel morally obligated to interfere with scientific research into ESCs because of a doctrine that life beings at the onset of fertilization should also be calling on a ban of oral contraception, but you can imagine how well this political stand would hold up. To clarify, withholding federal funds from a normally federally-funded entity that relies excessively on these funds constitutes a ban on that entity. Cut this funding out from the rest of our research programs and you'd see our pursuit of scientific and technological breakthroughs quickly come to a halt.

The fact that ESC research—or any scientific research, for that matter—needs to be funded by the government is evident by the benefits it gives to society. Scientific and technological advances provide cures for diseases, prolonged health into old age, and knowledge about the physical world around us. Everyone partakes of these benefits, making it a good reason our tax dollars should be footing the bill. Should highways, education, and domestic security also be funded by private donors?

And as already mentioned before, vetoing federal funding is pretty much the same thing as vetoing the entire project, which is a disillusioning thought. Scientists (real ones, with an honest interest in the subject rather than politics) are very enthusiastic about the possibilities with ESC, and with even a limited knowledge of what ESCs are and what they can be used for—which aside from the usual tissue repair reasoning, include giving some critical information about cell developmental biology and help with understanding the mechanisms of cancers and genetic disorders— it’s difficult to find them so morally corrupting.