Don't make me quote George Santayana.

Reading from his prepared text, the president continued: since the country spent more on education in recent years "only to wind up with less ... America [should] get back to stressing fundamentals in our schools"--fundamentals of learning as well as of principles. These principles encompass the following five:
1. Education is "the right and the responsibility of every parent," and institutions serve to "assist families in the instruction of their children";
2. As in our economy, "excellence demands competition among students and among schools";
3. Diversity and pluralism in American education "has always been one of the strengths of our society, and we welcome the recent resurgence of independent schools";
4. We cannot "restore educational excellence in schools still plagued by drug abuse, crime, and chronic absenteeism";
5. Let us "begin... by allowing God back in the classroom."

Sound familiar? It sounds a lot like some of the things conservatives say about public education now. This was Reagan, speaking in 1981 to the committee that would eventually produce the report "A Nation at Risk".

Sad Scientist and the New York Times

As I posted to Facebook yesterday, I'm so done with John Tierney. And damnit, I had thought that the NYTimes was done with him too -- the TierneyLabs blog was shut down in April. The afore-linked column is in regards to the underrepresentation of women in science careers, particularly "mathy" sciences like physics, chemistry, and engineering (which lets him casually dismiss the near gender parity in the social sciences and the life sciences). Tierney is taking the groundbreaking, heretofore-unseen position that maybe women just don't like working with math. Women prefer to work with people and "organic" living things. As both a biologist--the life sciences are actually pretty math intensive!!--and a woman--any issues I have with math have better explanations than my lack of a penis!!--I took umbrage.

Teachers -- and kids -- in Space!

Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger is currently aboard the International Space Station, overseeing some much-needed repairs to the coolest damn thing we've put in space so far. Yes, I think the ISS is much cooler than lots of the other instruments that we've got floating about; it not only does science, it does it with people inside.

Metcalf-Lindenburger's job is to oversee the space-walking work done by fellow astronauts Clayton Anderson and Rick Mastracchio, watching them on camera as they use prybars to remove things from the outside of the station, and try really really hard not to accidentally propel themselves out into space with no hope of a rescue. It's gotta be kind of tense.