Why bother trying to understand science?

What's the point? As all right-thinking people know, science doesn't have nearly the relevance to the real world that postmodernism used to have and that the latest academic fad with "studies" in its name now has. So why learn about science? Todd Akin is a good reason why.

More on America's "underfunded" public schools

It is teaching necessary for salvation that more money is both necessary and sufficient to improve America's schools, and as is always the case with teachings necessary for salvation, you must accept this one completely on faith. Nonetheless, additional evidence has come to light that the "underfunding" manifests itself in every way except funding statistics.

I have previously noted America's rank among the OECD countries in education spending. Now comes a study from the Center for American Progress, which can hardly be dismissed as a bunch of reactionary wingnuts, on return on educational investment, including comparisons of school systems within each state covered. The plots of achievement against adjusted per-pupil spending show nothing like the strong correlation that everyone is sure exists.

Public spending on education

As you may have guessed from my previous blog post, I am not a huge fan of Governor Rick Perry. Still, in fairness, articles like this grossly overestimate the role of school funding in school quality. If the link were what it is popularly supposed to be, America's schools would be at or near the top among the OECD countries, and the District of Columbia (an example that advocates of throwing money at the problem love to hate) would be at or near the top in America.

Magnet schools

Proponents of the "Harrison Bergeron" model of education are complaining that a local science magnet school is non-diverse, since African-Americans and Latinos are underrepresented. Nonetheless, European-Americans are also underrepresented, and one particular community of color — Asian-Americans — makes up 46% of the student body. In that case, what definition of "diversity" are people using? After all, a magnet school like that has to be the least effective tool of white supremacy ever.