Contract dispute ignites Dover race

York Daily Record/York Sunday News ^ | 10/30/05 | Michelle Starr

[Nextrush]

Incumbents in the race for Dover Area school board say they've tried to resolve the teachers' contract situation but have had little help from the union, while challengers say the board's efforts haven't been enough..The teachers union waited until late summer 2005 to submit a contract proposal...the proposal called for a 19.1 percent salary increase for the first year...The PSEA's PACE has donated $4,982 in cash and in-kind contributions since February to the Dover CARES...

[Nextrush]

This is the story behind the story in the intelligent design case you've all seen posted. Eight Democrats versus eight Republicans (incumbents) on November 8th. The Dems call themselves Dover CARES and the GOP are Dover FIRST (doverfirst.net). The conflict in Dover started in 2002 when the board opted to renovate the high school and save over 10 million dollars. Some people wanted to spend more and started Dover CARES. In 2003 they fell flat on their faces. (we cross file and they didn't win for either party in the primary) This year they won on the Democrat side and the conservative incumbents won on the Republican side. Note the union money in this race and their demand for a 19.1 percent pay raise this year. It looks like they hope to pack the school board in Dover using intelligent design as a ploy. The union proposal for five years would give a tax increase of 965 dollars on a home assessed at 125-thousand dollars.

[shuckmaster]

they hope to pack the school board in Dover using intelligent design as a ploy

So, you're saying there wouldn't be a problem if the Republicans in Dover weren't inexplicably siding with ignorance on the completely bogus intelligent design farce?

[Physicist]

It looks like they hope to pack the school board in Dover using intelligent design as a ploy.

But in reality they hope to pack the school board in Dover using intelligent design as an excellent and compelling reason.

[dmz]

I've seen you post this story and your opinion several times. It seems a separate issue from the GOP controlled school board soliciting funds from a church in order to purchase ID texts.

Maybe I'm reading it incorrectly, but the Dems didn't have the ID issue to bring to the party until the school board did its thing with the ID texts.

[Nextrush]

I guess you don't mind paying the price of reason..My school
district just put up a new high school that was supposed to
cost around 60 million dollars but the real cost is being hidden till after the election. This school board is saving
taxpayers money and is now opposing the union plan to raise
pay 19.1 percent this year for teachers. The union plan
raises property taxes 965 dollars for a home assessed at
125-thousand dollars. They were able to get their high school renovated and spend less than the Dover CARES people
wanted to (over 10 million dollars).

[VadeRetro]

I've been telling creationists for years that if you hand the Democrats an issue by going after science education as they've been doing it's going to hurt. See also the tagline.

[Nextrush]

I've been watching this school district before the ID controversy. The problems began when the district debated what to do with its high school in 2002. A majority of the
board went with a less expensive renovation plan to meet the
increased student population. Some people got very angry about that decision. One or two board members resigned after
their side lost. The Dover CARES group contested the 2003
elections but lost in the primary. We run the same school
board candidates on both parties if they cross-file in both
parties (most do). Then this ID thing came along and all
hell broke loose including the lawsuit that includes one of
the Dover CARES candidates as a plantiff and the Dover CARES
breakthrough in winning the Democrat slots in the primary
this year.

[dmz]

I understand about the previous controversy, and how it might color the current controversy.

But given that this same fight is being fought elsewhere, the issue stands by itself, and I have to think that even without the previous funding controversy, the reality that church funds were solicited for the purchase of an ID text for use in a science class in a public school would have been controversial in and of itself.

JMO.

[Nextrush]

The ID issue and our liberal newspapers (Daily Rectum,
York Disgrace, York Sunday Blues) have helped propel their
campaign. My view is in favor of freedom since some scientists see intelligent design as legitimate their
views should be in science class. Before the Supreme
Court decision in 1987 creationism was part of science
classes and even mentioned in the public school I attended in this area in the 70's. I'm not here to impose religion
but I demand freedom and not a dogmatic attachment to one
scientific idea. You are entitled to believe that evolution
is truth but don't try to impose it on others.

[Nextrush]

The ID books were headed for the school library as a supplemental text, I believe but so what. When Jefferson
was president didn't Congress authorize funds to print Bibles? Why should people be hung up on the myth of 1947
created by Justice Hugo Black (ex-KKK)(ANTI-CATHOLIC) "constitutional separation of church and state."
That idea is a truthful as a flat earth and global warming.

[VadeRetro]

My view is in favor of freedom since some scientists see intelligent design as legitimate their views should be in science class.

The controversy is all outside of science and thus doesn't belong in science class.

Before the Supreme Court decision in 1987 creationism was part of science classes ...

In a few backward areas. Anyway, that was wrong and it got fixed for the better.

You are entitled to believe that evolution is truth but don't try to impose it on others.

You are entitled to ignore the truth in your personal life but don't try to teach your ignorance as science in science class.

[Right Wing Professor]

My view is in favor of freedom since some scientists see intelligent design as legitimate their views should be in science class

Which is why you want the school board to impose it on your science teachers.

Seems to me that instead of unifying social and economic conservatives behind an agenda of frugality, the DSB went off on a Christian fundamentalist crusade, thus endangering the entire conservative agenda, sticking the district with large legal bills, and making y'all a laughing stock. If your taxes go up, you richly deserve it.

[Nextrush]

Thomas More is donating its services, my friend. There are
no legal bills unless they lose their case but they are
planning fundraising if they do. So send your check to...

[dmz]

Here's where we probably part company.

I'm all for ID being discussed, just not in a class devoted to the natural sciences. I think ID is currently in the realm of philosophy, and given that was my college major - in the '70s, I don't say that as a knock at all.

I'd even go so far as to suggest that more than a few of things we refer to now as science started out as philosophy, and became science as the philosophical position was tested with stuff from the material world.

As it stands now, just because Behe is a scientist, and he examined some natural processes and structures in his book, does not necessarily make his position on ID "science". It may yet get there (or not), but until it does, why is it a problem to study it in its natural environment (philosophy)?

Again, JMO.

[Nextrush]

Why put down other people? I've seen quite a few "fundamentalist crazies" in my lifetime. I used to
play tapes of preachers at a radio station for hours on
end when I was younger. All you do is start a conflict
although some people are looking for a fight even if you
are nice. I consider myself a "balanced Bible-Believing
Christian" if there is such a word. America has survivied
as a free nation of believers and non-believers. This
school board was trying to bring balance to a one-sided
presentation of science with a limited knowledge of the law.
They could have done better homework but would have been
sued no matter what. We need to work together to keep America free and letting liberal unions take over school boards should be part of that agneda.

[Right Wing Professor]

I had to excerpt this article to post it, and one of the paragraphs I excerpted said that public university graduate teaching assistants all have unions. I am wondering if their unions have the same scope of authority this union was seeking at NYU in terms of settling disputes.

If you've been following the case, you'll realise losing is pretty much a foregone conclusion. The evos are mostly worried that the DSB and Thomas More made such a pathetic effort, the judge will simply strike down the policy on narrow grounds, and won't make a broad decision ruling that ID is in fact creationism.

[Right Wing Professor]

Aaargh, wrong quote. Sorry!

Thomas More is donating its services, my friend. There are no legal bills unless they lose their case but they are planning fundraising if they do. So send your check to...

If you've been following the case, you'll realise losing is pretty much a foregone conclusion. The evos are mostly worried that the DSB and Thomas More made such a pathetic effort, the judge will simply strike down the policy on narrow grounds, and won't make a broad decision ruling that ID is in fact creationism.

[Nextrush]

Frankly, the parts of my science classes in 8th and 9th grades devoted to all this were minor, but memorable because of my young Christian belief and the sensitivity to
the issue created by radio preachers I listened to back then. We need to lighten up. Darwin himself would be shocked at how dogmatic people are about his ideas. All the
board wanted in light of the 1987 Supreme Court decision
was for a disclaimer to be read in class, not a denial of
evolution.

[Dimensio]

My view is in favor of freedom since some scientists see intelligent design as legitimate their views should be in science class.

"Some scientists" see Islam as "legitimate". Should their views be in science class?

[Junior]

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CrevoSci threads for the past week:

1. 2005-11-01 Contract dispute ignites Dover race
2. 2005-10-31 Scientists and engineers apply nature's design to human problems (Man borrows from God's DESIGN)
3. 2005-10-31 Kansas Fight on Evolution Escalates (Teachers groups punish Kansas school)
4. 2005-10-30 A Critique of Douglas Theobald’s “29 Evidences for Macroevolution”
5. 2005-10-30 Meru Foundation eTORUS(tm) Newsletter #30 (Intelligent Design: Don't be taken in)
6. 2005-10-29 Groups Balk at Teaching Intelligent Design
7. 2005-10-28 Scientists discover dyslexia gene
8. 2005-10-28 Buckingham seesaws on the stand [Dover trial 10/28/05]
9. 2005-10-28 The Worst Jobs in Science No.3- Kansas Biology Teacher
10. 2005-10-28 Is US becoming hostile to science?
11. 2005-10-27 Genetic Catalog May Aid Search for Roots of Disease
12. 2005-10-27 Sex-Selection by Embryo Screening Approved for US Trial
13. 2005-10-27 How Miers and Dover Intersect: 'Science' determines 'Law'
14. 2005-10-27 Jumping wallaby genes and post-Flood speciation (Evidence supports Biblical model)
15. 2005-10-27 Generosity Is No Monkey Business, Study
16. 2005-10-27 Bone marrow stem cells may heal hearts even years after heart attacks
17. 2005-10-27 Former school board member `misspoke' in advocating creationism
18. 2005-10-26 Discovery Institute and Thomas More Law Center Squabble in AEI Forum
19. 2005-10-26 Poll – Americans See More Promise in Stem Cells Not Derived From Embryos

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Lost CrevoSci Battlefields (Pulled Threads)

• 2004-04-27 Stop Teaching Our Kids this Evolution Claptrap!
• 2003-10-29 The Mystery of the Missing Links (Intelligent Design vs. Evolution)
• 2003-10-27 Physics Nobelist Takes Stand on Evolution
• 2003-10-23 Gene Found for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
• 2003-10-21 Artificial Proteins Assembled from Scratch
• 2003-09-23 Solar System Formation Questions
• 2003-07-18 Unlikely Group May Revive Darwin Debate [Evolution v. Creationism]
• 2003-07-02 "Unlocking the Mystery of ""Unlocking the Mystery of Life"""
• 2003-06-26 Darwin Faces a New Rival
• 2003-06-06 Amazing Creatures
• 2002-09-13 Oldest Known Penis Is 100 Million Years Old
• 2002-04-10 (Creationists) CRSC Correction
• 2001-08-28 The Ultimate Creation vs. Evolution Resource [6th Revision]
• 2001-08-26 A Scientific Account of the Origin of Life on Earth [Thread I]
• 2001-01-13 A Christian Understanding of Intelligent Design
• 2000-10-10 Another Lost Generation?
• 2000-08-30 Evil-Ution
• 1999-11-14 Creationism's Success Past 5 Years: (Gallup: 1 in 10 hold secular evolutionist perspective)

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Longest CrevoSci Thread Ever

• 2002-12-11 Evolution Disclaimer Supported (6,871 replies)

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Glossary of Terms

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