{"id":2927,"date":"2017-10-18T17:36:55","date_gmt":"2017-10-18T21:36:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=2927"},"modified":"2017-10-18T17:36:55","modified_gmt":"2017-10-18T21:36:55","slug":"another-barrel-of-rotten-apples","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2927","title":{"rendered":"Another barrel of rotten apples"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Orlando Sentinel is publishing a three part series about Florida private schools raking in voucher money from the state despite some incredibly ugly problems at those schools. The first part ran today:\u00c2\u00a0Schools Without Rules: An Orlando Sentinel Investigation (Florida private schools rake in nearly $1 billion in state scholarships with little oversight.)<\/a><\/p>\n

There’s plenty of problems highlighted in just this first article. I cringe while imagining what’s in the subsequent articles. But the main issue that attracts my attention is, of course, this:<\/p>\n

Nor do private schools need to follow the state\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s academic standards. One curriculum, called Accelerated Christian Education or ACE, is popular in some private schools and requires students to sit at partitioned desks and fill out worksheets on their own for most of the day, with little instruction from teachers or interaction with classmates.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

Like many of the Christian schools that take state scholarships, [TDR Learning Academy in Orlando] uses one of a handful of popular curricula that, as one administrator explained, teach \u00e2\u20ac\u0153traditional\u00e2\u20ac\u009d math and reading but Bible-based history and science, including creationism<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

At Harvest Baptist Academy in Orlando\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Parramore neighborhood, parents choose the 20-year-old school for its academics, Bible-based lessons<\/strong> and no-nonsense discipline that includes spanking children, said Harry Amos, recently retired principal.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

About 78 percent of Florida\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s scholarship students are enrolled in religious schools. Most are Christian schools, though some Jewish and Muslim schools take part, too.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Way back in 2012 I got into an online debate with the\u00c2\u00a0Assistant Director for Policy & Public Affairs at Step Up for Students, the organization that administers Florida\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Tax Credit Scholarship program. You can read our arguments at this old post: Rotten Apples<\/a>. (Be sure to read the comments on that post.) For instance, I told him:<\/p>\n

Teaching creationism as if it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s real science most certainly should not be supported by public tax dollars. My focus when I wrote my first response to your post and now this response is very narrow. Your argument is (correct me if I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m wrong) that if kids are getting great reading, writing and math education at a private school, then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s OK to overlook bad science education. My counter-argument is that the science instructors in this narrow subset of creationism-promoting private schools are not just teaching science poorly but are actually teaching the very opposite of science! I also argue that if blatant creationism is being taught in biology classes in these particular schools then I guarantee that other unscientific concepts based on faith rather than science can be found in the geology, chemistry and physics classes. Not only do some of these schools teach creationism, they go a step further and actively teach that evolution is wrong. That way of teaching doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just affect students\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 thinking about the one subject of evolution; it gives students a grossly warped view of what science is and how it is done overall! You can have your own opinions, but in science you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have your own facts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I also noted this creationism-in-private-schools issue in 2013:\u00c2\u00a0Creationist Voucher Schools<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A website called Say No to Creationist Vouchers lists schools that use questionable (and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a charitable word) curriculum and materials in the science classroom or blatantly teach anti-science. The site identifies and links to 163 voucher accepting public schools in Florida that use creationist materials or boldly state that they teach anti-science.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My point now is that this crazy scheme has been around for several years. I appreciate that the Orlando Sentinel is once again exposing it, but let’s be honest. Is anything going to change?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Orlando Sentinel is publishing a three part series about Florida private schools raking in voucher money from the state despite some incredibly ugly problems at those schools. The first part ran today:\u00c2\u00a0Schools Without Rules: An Orlando Sentinel Investigation (Florida … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-Ld","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3304,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3304","url_meta":{"origin":2927,"position":0},"title":"More reactions to Schools Without Rules article","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"June 8, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Last weekend the Orlando Sentinel ran an article that's part of their Schools Without Rules series that investigates private schools that accept public money via various scholarships (aka vouchers):\u00c2\u00a0Private schools' curriculum downplays slavery, says humans and dinosaurs lived together. In a previous post I highlighted some reactions to the article,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3299,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3299","url_meta":{"origin":2927,"position":1},"title":"Reactions to Schools Without Rules article","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"June 6, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"The Orlando Sentinel published an article a few days ago highlighting the atrocious curriculum some voucher-accepting private schools use:\u00c2\u00a0Private schools' curriculum downplays slavery, says humans and dinosaurs lived together. Now we're starting to see reactions to the story. First there is Tampa Bay Times columnist John Romano writing about the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1822,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1822","url_meta":{"origin":2927,"position":2},"title":"Orlando Sentinel takes notice","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 30, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The Orlando Sentinel's School Zone blog took notice of the voucher-accepting-private-schools-that-teach-creationism mess that I posted about before. Teaching of creationism at voucher schools raises alarm (again), as taxpayer money supports Bible-based lessons The end of the post notes: Of course, this is not a new issue, as colleague Dave Weber\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 3 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1822#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3292,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3292","url_meta":{"origin":2927,"position":3},"title":"Blatant creationism in “Schools Without Rules”","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"June 1, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"The Orlando Sentinel has been running an excellent investigative series called \"Schools Without Rules\" about private schools that accept public money in the form of various types of scholarships (otherwise known as vouchers). The articles have been documenting \"problems in some scholarship schools, including campuses that hired teachers without degrees\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 4 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 4 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3292#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1763,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1763","url_meta":{"origin":2927,"position":4},"title":"Florida tax dollars going to anti-science schools","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"November 24, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"We need to get the content of this Orlando Sentinel article out into the wider public view, so please share and blog and tweet about it as much as you can: Florida already funnels millions in tax dollars to religious schools. There are quite a few religious schools getting \"voucher\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 3 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1763#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3322,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3322","url_meta":{"origin":2927,"position":5},"title":"News Roundup","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"June 24, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a quick roundup of recent news articles associated with current events Florida Citizens for Science has been involved in. Orlando Sentinel: Director stands up for his Christian voucher schools The director of three private Christian schools that accept state scholarships takes issue with Sentinel columnist Lauren Ritchie who\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3322#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2927"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2927"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2931,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2927\/revisions\/2931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}