A while ago, we reported on the gross disservice putative “educator” Andy Schlafly is doing to his homeschooled students, and the parents that rely upon him. Far from giving te children a leg-up in the world through superior and rigorous education, a Schlafly education sets the bar incredibly low, both for instrutor and student, and clearly prizes ideological conformity far above intelligence, independent/critical thinking, or effort.
Sadly (and one would think impossibly), things have only gotten worse since then. In his latest course (World History), Andy explains away prehistory by saying, “There is no reason to think that man existed for thousands of years without ever expressing himself in written form,” and rewards students for explaining that Plato’s “Republic” is “the basis for our form of government in the U.S.” Interesting, because I don’t recall reading anything in the Constitution about philosopher kings…
Now Andy Schlafly wants to take his show on the road – at your expense – by getting himself accredited as a “Supplemental Education Service” for New Jersey. No Child Left Behind requires each state to develop these SES programs to function as private adjuncts to the public school system, funded and promoted by the state, charged with bringing remedial students up to speed. Given Andy’s noted distaste for public schools, this little stunt (if he follows through on it) is properly seen as his attempt to funnel the godless into his waiting hands, where they can be more easily converted: for the sake of New Jersey’s children, this can’t be allowed to happen.
Fortunately, there’s no reason to think he’ll pass the accreditation process. Most obviously, he seems to be on the “supply” side of the remedial students equation: the only difference between Andy Schlafly and an utterly incompetent teacher is that Andy uses religion to disguise his incompetence as “faith.” The extensive application for certification (PDF), we should hope, aggressively screens out such failures.
Even if Andy doesn’t flunk the certification based on soft estimates of his competence, a number of objective barriers stand in his way. Federal law requires SES providers to be “secular, neutral, and nonideological,” none of which are words that describe Andy, Conservapedia, or his “lectures.” ((See 20 U.S.C. § 6316(e)(5)(D) (2008) and 34 CFR 200.47(b)(2)(B)(ii)(D).)) Nor could Andy make the required certification ((Application p. 12.)) that, as an SES provider, he would live up to New Jersey’s Core Curriculum Content Standards. These standards would require that his students either understand ideas he doesn’t credit (evolution, the science explaining life’s origins, deep-time geology, hominid development), or learn methodologies he doesn’t teach (critical thinking in American and world history). Andy’s entire motivation for homeschooling is to enable him to legally ignore these standards: why he thinks they won’t apply to him the second he tries to step back into the public school system is beyond me.
A prediction: Andy knows this, and won’t follow through. When the deadline for applications rolls around on February 27th, he’ll either forget to file and subsequently pretend the whole thing never happened, or file a truly slipshod document and, when it’s inevitably rejected, blame liberals. If he takes the latter course, he’ll whine for a few weeks, gloat in the web-traffic he gets from gawkers based here or at similar blogs, and then pretend the whole thing never happened. Laughs will be had all around.
That said, there’s no accounting for government incompetence. Acccordingly, we’ll report back as this story develop, with contact information for New Jersey Department of Education officials if necessary.
Oh, dear. Andy really doesn’t have a clue. I, who knows a wee bit about the PA education system, can see how bad this application is.
* He doesn’t understand what the state means by “alignment of standards.” That would require him to look at them.
* He hasn’t addressed LD and English language learners at all. (Having had them in your “course” does not qualify you for knowing how to deal with these students.)
* He cites the Boston Globe as education research, clearly not understanding the peer reviewed journal concept. This is typical of the standards of scholarship at Conservapedia.
* I highly doubt the state will consider his on-line courses as “high quality.” It’s not even published.
* He doesn’t understand assessment, not even the warped form of No Child Left Behind.
* He has no evidence of professional development.
Even with some leniency, this will not fly.
I just took a quick scan through that application document, and Conservapedia doesn’t have a chance.
I see words and phrases such as “record of effectiveness”, “research-based”, “credentials”, and so forth.
I’m sure Shoofly thinks he meets these standards, but he manages to maintain his own world-view despite all evidence to the contrary.
Oh wait, don’t they call that schizophrenia?
I, and the people at RW, think this is a new Lenski incident. I.E., he’ll bitch and moan about his failure to live up to objective standards, blame liberals, and then drop out :)
I always get a chuckle out of this kind of cognitive dissonance on the part of religious right kooks. While on the subject of schizophrenia is it possible to have someone committed over the internet?
Only if there are virtual asylums to commit them to.
Wow. It’s been a while since I looked at the “educational” materials at Conservapedia.
If anyone looks at the “assignments” in the “writing” “course,” it will be obvious there is nothing going on here. Andy refers to another book and then just has some essay topics. There is nothing about developing paragraphs or writing based on a thesis. There’s no revision guidelines, no draft submission, nothing. It’s not even clear level at which the course is pitched.
[...] Andy Schlafly WILL seek state funding to provide Supplemental Education Services, and plans to submit his application today. I have an e-mail in to the New Jersey Department of [...]
[...] Entertainment, Science fiction Conservapedia: Andy Schlafly WILL seek state funding to provide Supplemental Education Services, and plans to submit his application today. I have an e-mail in to the New Jersey Department of [...]
What a bunch of elitist socialists.