All hell is gonna break loose here, I fear. I mean, the very idea that only evolution will be taught is an obscene concept in this area with 4 bible colleges and a Southern Baptist Church on every corner.
Plan to Require Evolution To Be Taught in Schools For the first time, standards in science have been written that would require Florida public-school students be taught about evolution. The new standards released last week say that evolution will be taught beginning in the third grade. Current standards do not use the word evolution, preferring the term "biological changes over time".
The state Department of Education is expected to approve the new standards in January.
The proposal will likely fuel a backlash from those who believe in intelligent design, the idea that life began as a result of an intelligent force or being. The new science standards exclude intelligent design.
I don't know about other counties, but I believe ours had been teaching both side by side. We never used to touch the subject when I was teaching before I retired from the elementary grades.
Looks like someone finally discovered it was hurting our state in science scores.
A 45-member committee appointed by the state Department of Education began revising the science standards in May in response to a failing 2005 report on Florida's public school science curriculum by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington-based nonprofit group. The Fordham study said Florida's standards are "sorely lacking in content," "naive," and that life sciences and evolution are given "shorter shrift than any of the other" science topics.
"The superficiality of the treatment of evolutionary biology alone justifies the grade 'F,'" the report stated.
I notice the article has several quotes from the dean at Southeastern University, until recently known as Southeastern Bible College.
That dean states all views should be taught. I don't think so, not in a science class. Southeastern is a place that thinks getting Sean Hannity for a speech is a huge triumph.
Interesting comment by one of the framers:
"It (evolution) wasn't really an issue in framing the standards," he said. "That would be like saying let's discuss the alternative theories of gravity."
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