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  3. There is something badly wrong with the way standards for school science being set in the US. When the Texas State Board of Educ

There is something badly wrong with the way standards for school science being set in the US. When the Texas State Board of Educ

admin2012-11-30  83
问题     There is something badly wrong with the way standards for school science being set in the US. When the Texas State Board of Education voted in new standards last week, it left the door open for teaching creationism (神造论) in the name of science in federally funded schools. These must be closed, and quickly.
    Because standards are set at state level, students in one state might be learning different science and using different textbooks from what students in another are learning and using. What is worse, the state boards of education that are responsible for standards and textbooks are made up of elected officials who lack any specific skills or qualifications in the relevant areas of science or education. As we saw in the 2005 trial over teaching intelligent design in Dover, Pennsylvania, and are now seeing in Texas, school boards have become a political battleground. Many board members appear to be acting on behalf of religious groups like local churches or the Discovery Institute.
    School science standards should be set by people who understand science and science education. At the same time, it is dangerous to argue that the powers of democratically elected officials should be taken away if they don’t produce the outcome you want. Yet that is what may happen in Texas. Some Democrats have introduced legislation that would transfer authority for textbooks and curricula to the Texas Education Agency.
    Is there a way out of this impasse? One possibility is that candidates for school boards should be tested before they stand. Another is that the pro-science (支持科学者) should try to engage more fully with the democratic process. After the Dover trial, board members who favored intelligent design were dumped by the voters. Something similar could happen in Texas.
    Another possibility is to push decisions further up the democratic ladder. President Barack Obama has already called for all states to have the same achievement standards, raising hopes that he might push for federal standards across all US schools. While this might drive conservative mad, it would put an end to the present situation in which an accident of geography can determine whether a child is taught valid science.
    Obama has already made remarkable changes in Washington by restoring scientific expertise to its rightful place in government. Many teachers and scientists would like to see him do the same in the place where it can count most: in the classroom.
What can we learn from the second paragraph?
选项 A、Different standards are good to students’ study in different states.
B、The members of state boards of education know little about education.
C、Intelligent design aims at finding useful teaching method in the school.
D、All the board members are representing certain religious groups in the school.
答案B
解析 细节辨认题。第二段主要说明美国因州而异的教育标准。但是糟糕的是，教育委员会的成员都是对教育领域几乎一无所知的门外汉，他们中许多人代表的是宗教组织的利益，渐渐把学校董事会变成了政治的战场。B)“州立教育委员会的成员对教育所知甚少”，是对原文第二段第二句中elected officials who lackany specific skills or qualifications的同义转述。
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