I can appreciate the fact that education policy can be complicated, but when Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, who has a reputation for policy expertise, talks to the New York Times about a national controversy, she should know what she’s talking about.
Spellings sat down with the Times for a Q and A published in yesterday’s Sunday magazine. Most of the interview was pretty mundane, except for the part when she suggested states ignore a Supreme Court ruling on teaching creationism.
What do you make of the current controversy in Kansas over whether creationism should be taught along with evolution?
I can tell you that in Texas we did go through this issue, when Bush was governor and I was working for him. We ended up — the curriculum says basically that both points of view are taught from a factual basis.
How can creationism be taught from a factual basis? Are you implying that events in the Bible should be taught in the public schools as literal history?
I’m not implying anything. I’m just saying that my recollection from my Texas days is that both points of view were presented.
Wrong answer. If as a state education official in Texas, Spellings helped create a curriculum that presented both biology and creationism in public schools, she was ignoring the law. In 1987, the Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana law that offered students a “balanced treatment” between evolution and creationism. It’s unconstitutional, the justices said, for public schools to promote and endorse religious ideas in science classes.
And yet, here’s Spellings, the nation’s top educator, effectively saying that she ignored the Supreme Court while in Texas, and what’s worse, pointing to that example as a solution for other states grappling with similar debates.
Maybe Spellings could clarify her thoughts on this?