Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

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Religion and science are compatible, award winner says
(By Tobi Cohen, Canwest News Service, March 26, 2010)

The annual award, worth one million pounds sterling -- about $1.5 million Cdn -- honours the person who best "affirms life's spiritual dimension."

Culture wars: Legislative actions feed divisiveness in Florida
(Stephen Goldstein, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, March 28, 2010)

One example of anything may be written off as a mere isolated instance. A second similar one may even be dismissed as a coincidence.

But a third example makes it clear that we are dealing with a trend. And by that standard, one of Florida's most divisive trends " the culture war " has reared its head again, reminding us that it's always ready to explode.

Example One: Once again, to flout our historic separation of church and state, the God-police in Tallahassee want to inject prayer in our public schools by yet another subterfuge. The language of House Bill 31, now wending its way through the Florida Legislature, would permit "the delivery of an inspirational message at a noncompulsory high school activity, including, but not limited to, a student assembly, a sports event, or other noncompulsory school-related activity, if the participating students request and initiate the delivery of such inspirational message."

At a time when Florida is more diverse than ever, we need tolerance, not ceaseless efforts to impose the beliefs of one group on others. I don't know whom the supporters of the bill are trying to kid, but student assemblies, sporting events, and other activities are not "noncompulsory"; they are essential parts of student life. Prayer initiated by students would be as offensive to atheists or students of minority religions as any heard in a classroom.

Example Two: In 2008, the state Board of Education made the teaching of evolution part of the science curriculum. But since then, some legislators have tried unsuccessfully to pass laws injecting creationism into biology. And some teachers won't teach to the standard.

In ‘Florida Teachers' Attitudes about Teaching Evolution' ("The American Biology Teacher," 2010), Samantha R. Fowler and Gerry G. Meisels report that "[o]nly 72 percent of the [353] teachers [who responded to their survey] agreed that evolution is a central organizing principle of biology, and 17 percent felt that one can understand biology without learning about evolution." In addition, "[s]eventeen percent of the teachers disagreed that the earth is at least 4 billion years old."

One teacher of evolution reported that a "colleague who was outspoken in his born-again beliefs harassed my AP bio students when we were studying evolution." One believer in creationism said: "I have been criticized, censured, disparaged, and belittled for my beliefs in God as my creator and the creator of the world, in the scientific community at school as well as elsewhere." According to Fowler and Meisels, "[s]urvey responses described administrators discouraging or forbidding the teaching of evolution and, in some cases, indicating a refusal to retain teachers who teach evolution."

Example Three: While the Legislature was debating tax incentives for the film industry, there was a huge backlash over a bill that would disqualify movies and TV shows that contained "non-traditional family values" from receiving a bonus tax credit. Chastened, legislators are eager to find a compromise. But the intent is clear: state-sponsored censorship to advance a limited moral agenda.

It is no coincidence that Florida's ever-brewing culture war is now boiling over: This is an election year. And elected officials want to be sure that they can tell their religious constituents that they're fighting dread secularism.

The problem is that their actions violate the Constitution. And if they asked God, she'd say she disapproved.

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This is an election year. And elected officials want to be sure that they can tell their religious constituents that they're fighting dread secularism.

The problem is that their actions violate the Constitution. And if they asked God, she'd say she disapproved.

Educator pushes for new chapter of civility on state board
(By TAWNELL D. HOBBS / The Dallas Morning News / March 29, 2010)

Dallas ISD educator George Clayton pulled a surprise upset in the recent primaries, snagging a Republican seat from a veteran member of the State Board of Education.

He was a political unknown with underwhelming financial support running against a 26-year member of the board, which sets education policy in Texas.

His opponent, Geraldine Miller, wasn't the only one shocked by the results. Nearly a month after his victory, Clayton says he too was surprised and is still getting used to his newfound attention.

"It's daunting, but at the same time gratifying," he said. "I hope I can live up to the buildup."

Clayton, 60, brings an interesting background to the job: He's been a Democrat, now he's a Republican. He owned a residential insulation company, now he's an educator. He finished his bachelor's degree at age 47 and now holds a key spot in the Texas education system.

No Democrat ran to represent the district, which includes parts of Dallas, Collin and Rockwall counties, so Clayton as winner of the GOP primary is all but certain to take the seat.

He has been thrust into the spotlight at a time of controversy. The board recently gained national attention as it debated how some civil rights leaders and evolution would be handled in textbooks.

Clayton is critical of the board's debate.

"I just think the board was chasing its tail down there, and it was somewhat embarrassing," he said. "I will not participate in that. I was embarrassed for the state of Texas. It was so unnecessary and personal."

Most board observers say Clayton's election is not expected to alter the balance of power on the 15-member panel " made up of seven social conservative Republicans, three moderate Republicans and five Democrats.

Of more consequence was the loss of social conservative Don McLeroy of College Station, who was defeated in the primary by moderate conservative Thomas Ratliff of Mount Pleasant.

That pares the social conservative bloc down to six members, with one of the seats still in a Republican runoff election next month.

Miller was one of the three Republican members not aligned with the social conservatives " and Clayton says he will be independent-minded as well.

"Don't put one of those labels on me because you're going to be very disappointed," he said. "If you want to label me, label me as an educator."

Clayton said he plans to be an advocate for teachers, who he believes are "the scapegoats" for failing schools. He also "hopes to bring some civility" to the board that he believes is just too political.

Clayton, who was born in Greenville and grew up in Garland, first became involved in politics at age 19 as a Texas delegate to the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The Richardson resident changed from Democratic to Republican in 1976 because the Democrats became "a little too liberal."

He attended East Texas State College between 1967 and 1970, but did not graduate, according to school officials at what is now called Texas A&M University-Commerce. He said he moved to Florida in the late 1970s, without a job and with the "money I had in my pocket."

He operated a residential insulation company in Florida. He ran unsuccessfully for the Tampa City Council in 1987 and dropped his bid for a seat in the Florida House of Representatives in 1988.

Clayton was a member of the Republican Party Executive Committee for Hillsborough County in Florida. A.J. Matthews, a state committeeman for the Hillsborough County Republican Party, remembered Clayton as someone who offered a lot of ideas during the time he was involved in Florida politics.

"He didn't speak often, but when he did, it was powerful," he said.

Clayton returned to school and earned his associate's degree from Hillsborough Community College in 1995 and a bachelor's degree in 1996 from the University of South Florida in Tampa.

He said he worked in real estate before coming to the Dallas Independent School District about 12 years ago as a permanent substitute teacher. He is now a supervisor over English teachers at North Dallas High School.

Rafael Rodriguez, a North Dallas High School community liaison, has known Clayton for at least a decade. He said the man is so committed to education that he gets to work at around 6:15 a.m. and leaves late.

"Those kinds of people are really special," Rodriguez said. "He's always been a very humble person, very sincere with students. Everybody was pleasantly surprised that he won. I know that he didn't have any funds."

Clayton's voice gets animated when he talks about teaching. He said there's nothing like seeing the faces of students light up when "they get it." He said he expects educators will find him a friendly listener compared with other state board members.

"If they don't come to me, I'm coming to them," he said.

Teachers were a big part of Clayton's victory in March. He was outspent by a large margin " Miller's war chest was at least $54,000 compared with Clayton's $3,000.

Miller, who received 48 percent of the votes, said she never saw her loss coming and still wonders how Clayton pulled it off.

"I covered my entire district," she said. "I went to every meeting, every Republican event. I never ran into him; I only met him twice."

Clayton said it proves that spending money doesn't always guarantee a win. He said fundraising doesn't come naturally and he felt uncomfortable spending "donated money."

Miller said she hopes Clayton comes to the board with an open mind ready to be part of the team. She said that Clayton came off angry during a candidate interview at The Dallas Morning News, basically blaming the state board for everything wrong in education.

Clayton says Miller mistook his determination for anger. He said he'd only seen Miller two times during the campaign, and it's possible she wasn't used to hearing a candidate so passionate.

Clayton realized his life had changed the morning after the March 2 primary.

He awoke to 153 e-mails and received dozens of calls for several days. He heard from local education leaders and Dallas schools Superintendent Michael Hinojosa.

Rena Honea, president of the Alliance-AFT teachers association in Dallas, said she has contacted Clayton for an appointment.

"Coming straight from the school setting, he'll probably have a pretty good perspective of what really happens in schools," she said. "Who better than somebody from an urban city school?"

Clayton said he looks forward to getting to work for teachers and their students.

"Teachers have become kind of the scapegoat [for low performance], and they don't have anyone to defend them," he said. "I feel like if I advocate for teachers and help them get what they need, just that action will put the students first."

Home-School Textbook Debate: Evolution or Creationism?
(Tara Herrschaft, WCTV News-Tallahassee Florida, March 29, 2010)

Recently, textbooks in the home-schooling community have received some criticism for dismissing the theory of evolution. But some say since the curriculum is chosen by the parents, it should be their responsibility to research and decide for themselves.

Carol Richardson relies on a Christian-based curriculum to teach her three children. She has been home-schooling them for the past four years and decided to choose this path primarily for religious reasons. While creationism is their belief, she also feels it's necessary to teach evolution.

"We really want our children to understand why they believe what they believe and to be able to defend that. And part of that, if you're going to be able to defend what your world view and your belief system, you have to be able to understand what other people believe and what they are teaching," explained Richardson.

Richardson has started using Apologia curriculum, which has recently received some criticism for dismissing the theory of evolution.

"I think that they teach both well. I mean the man who writes it is obviously from a, he believes in creationism. So he tells you what he believes, but you also learn a little bit about evolution," said Shaelyn Richardson, Carol's 14 year-old daughter.

Federal statistics show that more than 80% of parents who home-school their children do so because they want to give their children religious or moral instruction.

Richardson says it's because of this that a lot of the curriculum is Christian based. But she says it's just as easy to find textbooks that support Darwin's theory of evolution.

"There's a whole plethora of resources and companies that you can go through that are accredited that are solid programs that are going to leave out creationism and are going to represent the theory of evolution," said Richardson.

If a parent wants to home-school their child they have to register with their district, but it's completely up to them when it comes to choosing the curriculum and program.

UPDATE ON HOME-SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS

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Home-School Textbook Debate: Evolution or Creationism?
(Tara Herrschaft, WCTV News-Tallahassee Florida, March 29, 2010)

"I think that they teach both well. I mean the man who writes it is obviously from a, he believes in creationism. So he tells you what he believes, but you also learn a little bit about evolution," said Shaelyn Richardson, Carol's 14 year-old daughter.

If celebrities are the new American aristocracy, the exotic baby name can sometimes function as the equivalent of a royal title, a way for a privileged caste to bestow the power of its legacy on future generations.

"There's a sense of 'I'm special, I'm different, and therefore my child is special and different,' " said Jenn Berman, a clinical psychologist in Beverly Hills, who has worked with actors. "It's unconscious, but they think, 'We're a creative family, you have the potential to be creative, so here, I bestow you with the name 'Joaquin,' " Dr. Berman said.

As artists, actors often consider it their duty to shake up assumptions, defy conventions and push the frontiers of the possible. To settle for a tedious name for the child would almost be a form of spiritual surrender, said Stuart Fischoff, a psychologist, who has also worked with Hollywood clients.

"They're expressing their creativity, and they're also expressing their fear," Dr. Fischoff said. "It would be very embarrassing for people to think of them as normal."

Well, it's nice that she's learning a "little bit" about the most fundamental over-arching theory in all of biology.

Apparently home-schooling parents have a lot of freedom in choosing textbooks.

this made me chuckle, ros...

when I was much much younger, and mebbe a bit wild, I used to date a catholic school girl or two.

that's how we described their religion classes.

A message for Washington on schools: Don't mess with Texas
(Michael Birnbaum, The Washington Post, April 1, 2010)

MADISONVILLE, TEX. -- As vendors sold yellow "Don't Tread on Me" flags nearby, Texas State Board of Education member Don McLeroy assured a gathering of Tea Party activists one recent evening that President Obama was going to keep his hands off the schools in the Lone Star State.

There would be no bid for Obama's Race to the Top grant program, no endorsement of new math and English standards that Obama backs. And the state school board, under McLeroy's prodding, would continue its push to adopt social studies standards that set Texas apart from other states because, among other changes, they recast sections on the American Revolution to put more emphasis on Christianity and less on the writings of Thomas Jefferson.

Officials in other states, including Virginia and Alaska, have expressed concern about elements of Obama's ambitious education policy. But here in this Bible Belt town of 4,200, where Washington is seen not as the solution to problems but their cause, Texans are pushing back. Hard.

"Our children will now study some of the unintended consequences of the Great Society, such as the destruction of the black family," said McLeroy, a compact, enthusiastic dentist who keeps a copy of the Constitution in his breast pocket. "Our students will be taught that this country was founded on biblical principles."

Historians have said many of McLeroy's assertions are dubious and have worried about politicization of such classroom staples as the Revolutionary War and the civil rights movement.

But in Madisonville, where pickups are sold in red, white or blue and "Pray for Our Nation" signs dot lawns of the modest one-story homes, residents embrace local control and look at Washington with caution.

"We've got a good system here, and we don't need anybody messing with it," said Jana Corley, after her son took part in the county rodeo last month.

Texas's rejection of federal education initiatives is good politics, analysts say, especially in a primary season in which Gov. Rick Perry (R) fought off a challenger by shifting rightward.

"You get a lot of issues that the other states are facing but not talking about because they want to be eligible for Race to the Top" money, said Sandy Kress, a former adviser to President George W. Bush and one of the authors of the No Child Left Behind Act.

Obama and his top education officials say their goal is to return power to states, not to grab it. The president's revision of No Child Left Behind would reduce federal mandates for many schools. But Obama wants to require states to shake up their lowest-performing schools by taking aggressive steps such as replacing teachers.

Typical of Obama's view on federal-state relations is his embrace of the movement to adopt common academic standards in states across the country. Republican and Democratic governors are leading that effort. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has said states are in control, and he made the common standards a factor in Race to the Top decisions. Many states were disappointed Monday when just two were announced as winners in the first round, but even the losers remain in contention for a program doling out a historic bounty of $4 billion in education support.

Texas was among 10 states that didn't even apply in the first round.

The morning after the Tea Party gathering, Madisonville School Superintendent Keith Smith, who oversees the town's four schools -- all just beyond his office door -- sat and shook his head at the growing power struggle between Washington and Austin. Smith and his schools are caught in the middle.

To him, Austin's version of local control takes away just as much power from him as the federal kind. He said the tug of war about standards and states' rights is just a distraction from more basic questions of equity in statewide school funding.

"The Tea Party people, they seem angry and disenfranchised. You see that in educators, too," he said, as policymakers increasingly dictate what teachers must cover in class. "It's somewhat insulting as an educator to have someone write your curriculum for you."

Madisonville's schools walk a fine line between old-Texas tradition and the kind of data-driven decision-making espoused by federal education officials. In fact, much of Obama's agenda follows from that of his predecessor, who pioneered the approaches during six years as Texas governor.

But with Bush gone, Texans are guarding what's left of local control in schools. In Madisonville, they scrapped a state-approved reading curriculum and bought their own after tests suggested that they needed to do better. A sheaf of fresh benchmark results was recently on high school Principal Keith West's desk.

West, who works from a frugal office that looks like it hasn't been significantly redecorated since the school was built in 1965, said part of what was special about his high school was that it was the only one in town.

"This is where the kids go. All of them," he said: the kids of the workers at the big mushroom plant nearby; the ranchers' kids, some of whom raise the cackling roosters audible on the school grounds; the kids of the people who staff the prison just outside town. His school is about half white, a quarter each Hispanic and African American. Two-thirds of his students are economically disadvantaged. "We don't have a private school. We don't have a charter school," he said. He went to school there. So will his two children.

Although he said he appreciated many of Obama's proposed revisions to No Child Left Behind, the policies supported by Race to the Top don't apply to his town, he said. The district is too tiny for charter schools. And although he said he has an excellent teaching staff, he'd be hard-pressed to find more good teachers in a place as remote as Madisonville if he sacked a bad one.

The future of the Texas curriculum remains unclear. After 11 years on the state school board, McLeroy narrowly lost his Republican primary election. The general election in November could tip the majority to moderates, and some observers speculate that the board could revisit some of its social studies decisions next year.

That doesn't faze McLeroy, who blamed his loss on teachers' groups campaigning against him.

"The bottom line is we're going to have some very, very good standards," McLeroy said.

California Science Center Opens New Ecosystems Exhibit
(CCST News, April 1, 2010)

The California Science Center, a public-private partnership between the State and the California Science Center Foundation located in Los Angeles, has been actively working for years to provide unique, hands-on educational experiences. On March 25, it added a major new exhibit to this roster when it opened the Ecosystems exhibit gallery.

According to a 2009 study by the National Research Council, there is abundant evidence that informal science education settings, such as museums, aquariums, and after-school programs, are important contributors to people's knowledge and interest in science.

"Informal learning is a vital part of teaching STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics]," said CCST Executive Director Susan Hackwood, who was present at the Ecosystems opening in Los Angeles. "For children, there is no substitute for this kind of hands-on experience. The whole notion of getting your hands wet, bringing the learning environment right up front and personal so you can smell the kelp so to speak, is exactly correct and makes a big difference."

Ecosystems invites visitors to explore eight environmental zones illustrating different ecological principles ranging from the most ordinary and domestic to the most remote and inhospitable. The exhibits also vary in terms of scale, with one focusing on a very tight region - Los Angeles - and another focusing on the ways in which living and physical systems interact on a global scale. Visitors can learn about how isolation reveals the processes of evolution, explore how our own homes are habitats - even see how rot and decomposition release nutrients that nourish life. The highlight is a 24-foot-long transparent tunnel through a 188,000-gallon tank that puts visitors face to face with horn sharks, swell sharks, giant sea bass, wolf eels, bat rays and other fish swimming in a kelp forest.

The new exhibits nearly double the exhibition space of the Science Center, which expects at least 2 million visitors this coming year.

It is expected that the opportunities afforded by the Ecosystems exhibit will soon be integrated into the Science Center's formal programs as well, many of which are developed through a multifaceted partnership with the Los Angeles Unified School District, both for K-12 students and for teacher professional development programs.

"People continue to learn their whole life," said CCST Council member Jeffrey Rudolph, president and CEO of the California Science Center and the president of the California Science Center Foundation. "The best learning isn't always happening in schools."