And So It Ends
March 27th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
After six hours of often mind-numbing debate, the State Board of Education has mercifully passed a final version of new science standards that will guide the content of science textbooks and curriculum for the next decade.
Reporters and members of the public packed the meeting room in Austin today to see if creationists on the board could succeed in poisoning Texas science classes with a requirement to teach so-called weaknesses in evolutionary theory. On that front, the pro-evolution side mostly won the day (more on this in a minute).
But perhaps the most notable aspect of today’s proceedings was not what the Board members did, but how they did it. Dysfunctional doesn’t quite cover it. These folks make the Texas Legislature look organized and deliberative.
Imagine a policy-making body run by the Smothers Brothers with help from the Three Stooges and you get some idea of what it’s like to sit through a State Board of Education meeting.
The board has supposedly been working on these science standards for a year, yet members were still debating topics as mundane as word choice on this, the very last day. There were quite a few substantive amendments, of course, but they took a while to get through. Most of the amendments were hand-written (see photo below). Sloppy scrawl and poor spelling (one key amendment included the word “expirimental”) made proposals hard to read. It typically took at least 10 minutes of discussion before all the board members could even understand what some amendments were proposing.
Board Chair Don McLeroy, the dentist from Bryan, didn’t help. McLeroy’s frequent bumbling of parliamentary rules left some board members confused. “OK, we’re going to get this right now,” McLeroy would say. At least twice, fellow social conservative David Bradley interrupted McLeroy’s ramblings to summarize and clarify exactly what the board had just done, so the minutes would be correct.
“Slow me down if I get too fast” McLeroy said at one point.
“I’ve been trying to,” Bradley quipped.
You can read our earlier dispatch on today’s meeting here. Also, the Texas Freedom Network live-blogged the meeting, and has a good play-by-play of the amendments and maneuverings (from the pro-evolution side of things) here.
In the end, the pro-evolution side won several significant victories today. The language that required students to examine the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution is gone from the standards, presumably forever. (In its place are some rather harmless-sounding compromise phrases that ask students to examine “all sides of scientific evidence of the scientific explanations so as to encourage critical thinking.”)
A statement from TFN this afternoon says the new language is better, but still will allow social conservatives to pressure textbook writers into including doubts about evolution. Perhaps, but if there’s wiggle room there, it’s very small.
Similar compromises were struck in the sections governing biology and Earth science classes. Pro-evolution members removed the most controversial, anti-evolution language and replaced it with compromise phrases that encourage critical thinking and examination of all sides. For example, the board removed language that McLeroy had promoted that would require students to learn how certain parts of the fossil record supposedly disprove evolution.
When this junk science was taken out, McLeroy launched into a lecture. He said that examining flaws in the fossil record was the scientific thing to do. He also added that genetics was the true basis of science and that evolution had simply hitched itself to genetics. “Evolution goes back to a man [Darwin] who basically came up with philosophical speculation.”
The board finally compromised on language that satisfied both McLeroy and the pro-evolution board members, asking students to examine “scientific explanations concerning” different elements of the fossil record.
Again, there may be some maneuvering room there for social conservatives in future debates, but not much.
In the end, it seems, after much debate and effort, the school children of Texas were saved from the whims of the State Board’s seven social conservatives.
Others of us weren’t so lucky.
March 27th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
It’s good to hear that intelligence was victorious today. It’s worth noting however that this needs to be larger news.
Having gotten old and re-examined the standards under which I was scrutinized as a young girl trying to go through public school, I’ve often considered if maybe my own brand of thinking has been poisoned by those who refuse to view science as universal law. I can’t necessarily say I know all universal truths, and I certainly don’t know everything. I was never even a good student — passing mostly on C’s — but even so, it’s good to know that the future of Texas students is at least for the moment safe. I understand people have religious beliefs, and that’s all fine and good. But the truth of the matter is, science says otherwise. And, until science can prove that one or another of these religions are right, they still have no place in our public schools.
Public schools should be a place where a child can learn what is known to be truth (mathematics, basic science principles, history of the human race, etc) without it being intoxicated with the sick poisons of slander known as conservatism.
Bottom line: If you want your kid to believe that God made you out of sugar and spice, and that a man named Darwin was a liar (not unlike yourself) then just send him or her to a private school, so that they can learn at a young age what they’ll later learn in life: that being close-minded will only bring more harm than good.
…Said the woman who was a catholic school girl for 5 years of her life before learning about the wonders of public education.
March 28th, 2009 at 7:31 am
The public school must teach what is considered public knowledge and established theory. And I agree with one feedback that this kind of fight needs more public attention. I deal with this kind of ignorance in the small town I live in where parents won’t let their kids read Harry Potter because it is the “occult” and won’t read a biography of Barack Obama because he is “Muslim”. Public mean access to information and our kids need to be taught to be open minded. If parents don’t want their kids to learn about the truth…evolution…then they can home school. To continue to fight such an established body of facts such as Darwinism grounded in years of research, and biology and botany is the problem with “Christians” today..they have closed their minds. “A closed mind lives in a closed soiety.”
March 28th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
[…] topic, thankfully, the latest row over evolution and creationism in the Texas school curriculum appears to be over. If you’d like an excellent overview of why this outcome is a good thing, I recommend Jerry […]
March 30th, 2009 at 9:23 pm
Let’s not forget who re-appointed this Leanderthal as Chairman. How much are we paying to “house” Perry because he was outside the Hemisphere when the Governor’s mansion burned down? Homeland Security at it’s best/ I hope the Observer spends time tracing the money trails emanating to and from Perry.
March 31st, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Glad to see intelligence and common sense is rising in this world. Honestly, evolution is more sound of a theory than Christianity. At least there are some facts to back it up, as opposed to a man made book that wants people to have an invisible friend, even adults.
I think it’s great that ultra conservatives can’t poison our children’s education. I am a conservative, but, not far right wing. I personally don’t think religion has any place in a public school and people should leave their religious beliefs at the door if they are elected representatives. Religion is too powerful of a motivator to have in your mind when making decisions that could affect education for a decade. Just look at the ultra extremist Wahhabi sect of Islam, which is where most of the terrorists are educated. People like that only tarnish the people they represent, i.e. these representatives basing their decisions on religion makes all religious people look bad.
April 1st, 2009 at 10:41 am
IN your March 27 blog, you wrote “In the end, the pro-evolution side won several significant victories today. The language that required students to examine the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution is gone from the standards, presumably forever. (In its place are some rather harmless-sounding compromise phrases that ask students to examine “all sides of scientific evidence of the scientific explanations so as to encourage critical thinking.”)”
Perhaps you didn’t hear some of the SBOE members talk earlier about opening the door to challenging mainstream scientists on global warming, continental drift, the Big Bang, and other things. Not only is the discussion of evolution not safe, more targets are now available.
Roger Mills
April 1st, 2009 at 9:10 pm
@Roger Mills:
You may be right that more targets are now available, but the truth of the matter is, there will always be enemies of science. As long as there’s skepticism, there will always be non-believers. And, last I checked, the number one root in all science is a healthy skepticism. It’s a viciously endless cycle.
But, you know, there’s an upside. As long as there’s people willing to say “we don’t believe your science” there will be plenty of intellectuals to stand up and fight them with, well, science. It’s a marvelous thing, really.
April 23rd, 2009 at 8:35 am
In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made school boards.
-Mark Twain