In the 2003 US budget, environmental education (EE) was labelled "ineffective." The budget calls for a reorganisation of Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), with EE funds being allocated to the National Science Foundation. The specific criticism of EE is: "This program has supported environmental advocacy rather than environmental education. The budget transfers funding to the National Science Foundation (NSF) math and science programs so that a consolidated program can better serve educators and students.".
Forty years ago we called "advocacy" in schools "civics". We prefer a numb, materialistic generation fluent in standardized tests that basically revel in semantics and put critical thinking, problem solving and citizen participation on the endangered species list. (Students might ask, what is that endangered species list, in a few years in this new world of non-science according to the Bush Administration.)
As Sam Smith so eloquently states, "Bush is destroying our Constitution, bringing disgrace to our history and endangering the entire planet." We, a nation of proud liberty-loving patriots, are allowing arrogant corporations and greedy intellectuals to attack an area of knowledge, called ecology and dismember it.