Word: contentions
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Second, and more basic, the article does eventually raise important questions about course content and program relevance. But by the time you get there, you are so conditioned by a stream of criticisms that the overall image of the reader is bound to be negative. This is too bad. The Mason Program, in formal and informal evaluations, has received consistently high marks over the years. Costs are high and so is quality. The program is an eminent success by the triple criteria of Fellows getting their degrees in individually tailored selection of courses, returning to their countries to a life...
Some critics have charged that textbook adoption procedures like those in Texas have resulted in a general watering-down of the content of science texts, which in turn has contributed to a decline in student achievement in the sciences. According to Robert Yager, past president of the National Science Teachers Association, 90% of all science teachers use a textbook 90% of the time. Florida Governor Robert Graham, a leader in school reform, has observed, "States have upgraded requirements for graduation, raised teachers' salaries and enacted a variety of reforms. Parallel with these reforms must be a serious uplifting...
When Texas talks, textbook publishers tend to listen. As one of the largest purchasers of school textbooks ($65 million this year), the state has regularly exerted a strong influence on the content of books used by schools across the country. After the Texas board of education accommodated Fundamentalist Christians in 1974 by requiring that evolution be taught as "only one of several explanations" of the origins of mankind, some publishers began to alter their texts to make them more widely acceptable. For instance, in the 1981 high school biology book published by Laidlaw Bros., a division of Doubleday, the word...
...rather than a dedication to scientific truth." Two weeks ago the Texas board of education repealed the controversial measure. Said American Way Coordinator Michael Hudson: "This is going to free publishers to write about science accurately, unhampered by religious dogma. It undoes ten years of creationist influence on textbook content, and it will spill over into every state...
...statement. Her remarks are admirable enough; her strongly-worded statement, which goes farther than that of Bok or Fox in questioning the underlying attitudes suggested by the newsletter, reflects what is clearly a deep and genuine concern for the respect of women and all students. But while the content of the message is admirable, its timing is not. Under considerable pressure in 1977 to merge with Harvard, Radcliffe administrators held out for independent status, claiming that women at Harvard would continue to need an organization committed first and foremost to their needs. Horner, who was instrumental in negotiating the agreement...