Last week, I mentioned that Georgia Public Schools’ Superintendent Kathy Cox (R) has proposed banning the word “evolution” from the state science curriculum. I wanted to follow up with more details, most of which make this controversy look much worse.
First, Cox wasn’t innocently trying to strike some compromise by censoring “evolution,” which she criticized as a “buzzword.” Rather, she sought her elected position as superintendent two years ago by specifically promising to allow public school science classes to “deal with competing theories” about human origins.
Last week, she dismissed evolutionary biology as “that monkeys-to-man sort of thing.”
Indeed, Georgia’s new proposed state curriculum was based almost word-for-word on the “Standards for Excellence in Education,” an academic framework produced by the Council for Basic Education, a nonprofit group — except when it comes to biology. Not only does the curriculum remove the word “evolution,” but it also omits references to Earth’s age, a classic creationist concern because they believe the planet is only a few thousand years old.
A report in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution today notes that Cox has defended her proposed changes by insisting that the new science curriculum would not only delete the “buzzword” she dislikes, but would also allow science teachers to undermine evolution and offer lessons on “intelligent design” creationism.
Gov. Sunny Purdue (R) addressed the issue over the weekend, saying that he wants the word “evolution” to stay in the curriculum, but that he’d also like to see non-scientific notions introduced to students in science classes in the interest of “academic balance.”
This is unfortunately consistent with Purdue’s record on the issue. In 2002, Purdue said he had “no problem” with bringing creationism into public schools.
No word yet if Cox and Purdue would support teaching students that the sun revolves around the Earth and that astrology is a legitimate alternative to astronomy in the name of “academic balance.”