Two legitimate reasons to be angry about science education

Both of the following reasons were found via Ed Brayton's Dispatches from the Culture Wars, and both one of them are quite disturbing, to say the least:

A study concerning the level of knowledge among science teachers in Oklahoma on the very subjects they're supposed to be teaching proved that their supposed expertise is downright abysmal, and - unsurprisingly - the abysmal nature of that lack of knowledge extends straight down to the students they're supposed to be teaching. I could also go on about the AP/GfK poll that reveals some equally scary facts about the lack of acceptance of science in the American population at large, but enough people have already done that - but perhaps not loudly enough, though.

The most horrible thing revealed here is that Oklahoma - a state where I normally joke that "all the cool people I know from that state have escaped" (not quite true, but close enough) has had know-nothing idiots like Sally Kern and Josh Brecheen (feel free to look them up - I patently refuse to link to their own web sites for obvious reasons) trying to pass laws weakening science education in that state even further for decades. All in the name of getting the Yahoos to re-elect you over and over again, of course, and also to apparently produce a new generation of the Future Fry Chefs of America out of that vast mass of intellectually incurious high school graduates that they're effectively created.

The sad thing is that Neil deGrasse Tyson said it boldly a while ago, and not enough people listened. Not nearly enough. Which is why I'm reposting it again. For your kid's sakes, if no one else's.