University of Michigan Press Blog

'Teaching about Religions' author favors balanced religious courses in public schools

Emile Lester is author of Teaching about Religions, a brand-new book on religious education in public schools from the University of Michigan Press. He speaks here about how religions can be incorporated into a public school curriculum.

Recent attempts by Texas state school board members to accommodate conservative Christian concerns in the social studies and science curriculums have produced predictable handwringing among many liberals and secularists.  These groups have responded by emphasizing the need to teach evolution only and insulate the public school curriculum from conservative Christian biases.

These groups’ concerns are not unwarranted.  Still, in Teaching Religions: A Democratic Approach for Public Schools, I argue their concerns are based on a misconception about the religious divide in America, and their response is only likely to deepen this divide.  Public schools would better live up to democratic ideals of respect and neutrality by providing a limited and balanced discussion of crucial conservative Christian views.

Longer than an article, shorter than a book: UM Press director suggests (the return of) a new digital art form

University of Michigan Press Director Phil Pochoda, along with coauthor Joseph Esposito, recently composed a piece for the On the Scholarly Kitchen blog of the Society for Scholarly Publishing on what they see as a new form of born-digital publications: the rebirth of the pamphlet-length, peer-reviewed piece, which is currently awkward in print (too long for a journal article, too short for a book).

The entry is entitled "Through the Wormhole: A new format for the born-digital publisher," and posits the return of the medium-form piece, a classic structure that harkens back to works such as Thomas Paine's "Common Sense."

Stephen T. Ziliak Discusses ‘Cult of Statistical Significance’ on BBC Radio 4

Stephen T. Ziliak, co-author with Deidre N. McCloskey of The Cult of Statistical Significance: How the Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice, and Lives, appeared on BBC Radio 4’s More or Less with Tim Harford to discuss the problems with significance testing. Harford’s program focuses on the way numbers and statistics are used and misused in the public realm, and for the April 15 episode he spoke with Ziliak about a recent Supreme Court decision that hinged on whether statistical significance was a meaningful standard by which to assess a company’s liability for a potentially dangerous product.

Harford began using an example of a bowl full of Smarties candy with colors other than orange and blue removed, from which the host would take a sample to determine which color was present in greater quantity. A random sample found 2 blue, 8 orange, which led Harford to ask, “Does that prove that there are more orange than blue Smarties in the jar?” As Harford munched away on his sample, co-host Hannah Barnes explained that statistical significance testing would assume an equal number of orange and blue Smarties and then calculate the likelihood of drawing 8 orange or more in a sample of ten.

“One reason I do not like the test of statistical significance,” Ziliak told BBC Radio 4, “is that it doesn’t tell you what you want. What you want to know is the probability of your hypothesis being true, given the available evidence. That would be very useful, for example, when you’re taking a pain relief pill. You’d like to know the probability of the benefits and costs of taking that medicine when that effect is actually there. The test of statistical significance does not give us that information. It reverses the problem entirely and says the following: what is the probability of seeing the data given that there’s no difference between the two medicines we’re examining?”

Author Annie Lehmann speaks out on Autism Awareness Month

Annie Lehmannn is author of The Accidental Teacher: Life Lessons from My Silent Son. She wrote this essay in honor of Autism Awareness Month, April 2011.

Parents raising children with autism are on the front lines every day, navigating a sea of unique challenges, emotions and bureaucracies. Yet when it comes to autism education, the parental perspective tends to be overlooked.  Parents have a great deal to contribute and getting professionals to appreciate this was one of the reasons I wrote The Accidental Teacher: Life Lessons from my Silent Son. 
 
During the 20 plus years chronicled in this book we tried every intervention available. Still when our son Jonah reached adulthood, he remained severely impaired.  
 
Over the years there was frustration and anger at his lack of progress.  There were (Individualized Education Plan) IEPs where we sat across from the teachers and professionals who knew Jonah well and cared about him, but resented our questions and upset.  As well trained as they were about how to teach children with autism, keep records and write an IEP, they never fully appreciated what we, as parents, faced on a 24/7 basis.  
 

Snow in April? Author Paul Gross can tell you why Michigan's weather is wacky

A week ago, it was 80 degrees in Michigan. Today, it's snowing, with actual accumulation in some places. What gives? We turned to WDIV-TV meteorologist Paul Gross, author of Extreme Michigan Weather: The Wild World of the Great Lakes State, for help.

"As much as people don’t like the snow, we do get snow in April," he said. "Almost every day during the last half of the month has had at least some snow in the past, including many with record snowfall over an inch. We’ve also had a few May days with snow that had to be shoveled.

"The last day we’ve ever seen snowflakes in Detroit was flurries on May 31^st, 1910! And don’t forget that the biggest snow storm in Detroit history was on April 8^th, 1886… we got two FEET of snow!Hope this makes you feel better."

No, Paul, it really doesn't. But to learn more about the wacky weather we get here in Michigan, be sure to check out his book (or listen to a podcast of him discussing weird weather, on the same page). From heat waves to cold snaps, tornadoes to waterspouts to deep snow, it covers it all.

Was Citizens United a Game-Changer for American Interest Groups?

guest blog by Robert G. Boatright, author of Interest Groups and Campaign Finance Reform in the United States and Canada (Cloth 978-0-472-07144-9 / Paper 978-0-472-05144-1), available now.

Interest Groups and Campaign Finance Reform in the United States and Canada went to press at the end of 2010, at the same time that the Republican Party was rolling toward gaining 63 seats in the House of Representatives and six seats in the Senate.  The Republican wave was predictable long before the election, but the size of the Republican gain exceeded most predictions.

As I document in the book, American campaign finance law was upended in early 2010 by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. FEC decision, which completely struck down restrictions on the ability of corporations and labor unions to air political advertisements.  The Court’s decision not only overturned one of the two major provisions of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, passed in 2002, it also overturned a 1990 Supreme Court decision (Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce) that had prohibited corporations from engaging in “express advocacy,” directly exhorting voters to vote for or against a candidate.

It has been tempting to say, then, that the Court’s decisions enabled interest groups -- and corporate interests in particular –- to buy seats in the 2010 election.  The fact that Republican gains exceeded so many political scientists’ predictions, coupled with the absence of restrictions on group advertising, has been used by some as evidence of the effect of interest group advertising.  At the least, this is an interesting correlation.  I expressed skepticism in the book that Citizens United would have a profound effect on the 2010 elections or on interest groups’ electoral strategy.  Now that the dust has settled on the election results, I still stand by this claim.