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Re: Education




Dan, earlier I expressed myself re this topic and was curtly told that
political commentary was not welcome here. I said that I did not start the
thread. Now we get a new barrage of this sort of discussion,

My question was meant to ask if the political commentary of others is
welcome, how can I -- with contrary views -- be expected to remain silent.

Dan, I now take it that you have set some sort of amorphous rule re
political commentary

I restate my position:

Rarely has the federal government done anything really good -- yes they
hand out money and people like this very much and just as rarely eschew it,
but it has been shown --at least in my opinion -- over and over again that
the fed gov is not a very good administrator of money.

Jim:

You are welcome to post political views with respect to physics education
and the political support thereof. PHYS-L is about physics and physics
education. Please state your position, and explain it to us. Restating
it without change may be a little tedious. All I ask for such exchanges is
that they take place in a courteous and professional manner, and that they
be appropriately labelled in the subject header. The lack of the latter is
what led to my ejecting the folk discussing creationism a few months
back, not an evaluation of their subject matter.

Pure politics is not appropriate for PHYS-L. I am not interested in
arguments such as 'Federal government is bad and State Government is
good' which I think is ideology not germane to physics education. Others
on the list have discussed counterexamples to this argument based in
science education issues (like KS or AZ) which are germane. A discussion
of examples or counterexamples from outside science education (E.g. civil
rights) would not be germane.

I have no hard and fast rule other than civility and professionalism
for PHYS-L. I do encourage political discussions that are germane to
physics and physics teaching, and discourage those that are not. And I have
gained insights listening to your positions on the Eisenhower situation.
I hope your postings continue to inform and challenge my interpretation
of that developing situation. Since many members of PHYS-L (including myself)
use Eisenhower funds to improve physics teacher preparation now, and we
do not expect to have access to these funds if this new bill passes (as is
likely) I believe you will see continued postings on this topic for some
time. We welcome your interpretations on the issue when they address the
science education (as opposed to the political ideology) aspects of the
issue. We can even handle some limited amount of straight ideology, but
don't expect us to be too happy about that :^).

My best regards, and keep posting germane commentary on the situation
please,

Dan M

Dan MacIsaac, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Northern AZ Univ
danmac@nau.edu http://purcell.phy.nau.edu PHYS-L list owner