Evolution Saga at TEA Evolves
December 21st, 2007 at 4:18 pm
Leaders at the Texas Education Agency are so squeamish about evolution that they even considered avoiding the term on a new biology end-of-course exam to be offered to Texas high school students next year, agency emails obtained by the Observer show. “We are a bit concerned about the label and description used for objective 3 based on the recent news events concerning evolution,” wrote Julie Guthrie, TEA’s director of math and science assessments in a December 3rd email to Cyndi Louden, a student assessment staffer. “Please work with your team to see if you can come up with a different label and description for objective 3.”
At the time of the email, an educator advisory committee made up of science teachers had drafted five objectives for the biology exam to cover as part of an exam “blueprint.” Objective 3 was entitled “Genetics and Evolution” and consisted of 12 test items “sufficient to represent the relative importance of this objective.”Evidently TEA quickly decided against obscuring the evolution section. On December 12, Guthrie sent another email to Louden stating “no change should be made to the biology blueprint.” After reviewing the state standards for biology, Guthrie wrote that she had concluded, “the current language for the biology end-of-course assessment blueprint which includes evolution simply reflects the language in the curriculum adopted by the State Board of Education.”
Why did Guthrie consider deviating from the state’s official position on evolution in schools? After all, the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) - the foundation for what Texas kids are taught and tested - plainly require that a student “knows the theory of Biological Evolution.” Her December 3rd email alludes to concerns surrounding “recent news events concerning evolution.” The recent evolution news in Texas has been centered on the termination of TEA’s director of science curriculum, Chris Comer, for promoting a talk by an anti-creationist author.
“I think that there had been such an outcry over this recent situation [over the Comer firing], it caused [Guthrie] to look at the language and wonder if it needed to be changed,” said Debbie Graves Ratcliffe, a TEA spokesperson, “but the more she thought about it and looked at the curriculum standard that the test covered she decided it wasn’t an issue, it didn’t need to be changed.”
Even using the term “evolution” in standardized test questions represents “progress,” said Steven Schafersman, president of Texas Citizens for Science and a long-time defender of evolution. “They avoided it for years,” Schafersman said. “They would use euphemisms - adaptation, change, change through time. They wouldn’t sue the ‘e’ word. And they never, never talked about human [evolution].”
That TEA backed off watering down the new biology test is good news and shows that common sense can still prevail at the deeply troubled and highly politicized agency. But still… the fact that a high-level TEA staffer thought “evolution” was such a toxic word that it needed to be scrubbed is sort of incredible.
April 23rd, 2008 at 4:23 pm
[…] from the academic community toward creationism in the last year in Texas.” He cited the dismissal of Texas Education Agency employee Chris Comer, the upcoming review of TEKS and critical thinking […]