So who’s going to stop them?
January 23rd, 2008
Star-Telegram.com: | 01/19/2008 | Evolution’s status may be debated by state board
The state’s public school curriculum, called Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, says students must learn “the theory of biological evolution.” Section 3A of the biology curriculum states that students must use critical thinking to make informed decisions, including analyzing a theory’s “strengths and weaknesses.”
“They do not cover the weaknesses of evolution,” said Don McLeroy, chairman of the state board, of the state’s science textbooks. “They present evolution as an absolute fact.”
McLeroy, an outspoken creationist, said he doesn’t want changes in the state’s biology standards. But some say that doesn’t mean that creationism or intelligent design, both held by the U.S. Supreme Court to be religious theories that are barred from the classroom, won’t seep into Texas’ curriculum.
Just think, with the decision of the majority of the Texas SBOE to reject a textbook for reasons other than failing to meet basic state curriculum requirements, McLeroy now doesn’t even have to bother with the analyzing the “strengths and weaknesses” rule to reject textbooks that teach evolution. Before, the Board would have to go through the motions of documenting that the textbook didn’t demonstrate the weaknesses of evolution in order to reject the book. The Board could have demanded the publishers to include so many “weaknesses” in the textbook so as to make the evolution section appear a travesty of unscientific reasoning.
But now, McLeroy and friends won’t even have to bother. They believe they can just decide to reject a book for any reason. Their decision to reject the math textbook sets the precedent for the upcoming selection of biology textbooks. Unless Attorney General Greg Abbott steps in now to stop the board, he will find it very difficult to do so in the future. He avoided having to explicitly define the Board’s authority in 2006. It seems to me, that the Board is calling him out to make him actually block Board action in rejecting a textbook. Will he do it? I guess it all depends who is funding his next run for higher office.
Technorati Tags: Texas State Board of Education, Texas SBOE, Don McLeroy, textbook approval, evolution, Terri Leo , Greg Abbott
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See also:
- If they’re allowed to do whatever they want, then they didn’t break the law (January 19th, 2008)
- Because they don’t like it (January 17th, 2008)
- Texas SBOE does not support teaching of evolution (December 27th, 2007)
- Teaching them to think right (October 26th, 2007)
- Teaching them to think right (October 26th, 2007)
January 23rd, 2008 at 1:34 pm
[…] censorship, cultural values, education, evolution, textbooks — texased @ 2:32 pm Texas Ed Spectator » Blog Archive » So who’s going to stop them? Just think, with the decision of the majority of the Texas SBOE to reject a textbook for reasons […]
January 14th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
The only thing that can stop them is people with closed minds that want to teach evolution and origins as a dogma. What could be more boring than to act as though all the tough questions have been solved.
It has always amazed me that evolution is the only theory that needs laws to protect it from criticism.
A scientific theory must be looked at critically and from all sides. If discussing evidence that would seem to disconfirm the theory makes it ‘appear a travesty of unscientific reasoning’, that is not the fault of the evidence. And it is not the fault of the students who many would want to insulate from any such evidence.
The theory must stand or fall on the evidence. All of it.
If we can’t tell them the whole story, we shouldn’t tell them anything, and nobody wants that. Selectively teaching only the supportive evidence isn’t teaching, it’s indoctrination.
Students love a good controversy and bright intellectual minds want to search for answers to tough problems. If we ignore the problems and the controversy, we do these young people a disservice. Let’s tell them the truth.