Thank you for the article. It is interesting to see what the students think and realize that some of them have a grasp on the issue. As a biology teacher in Maryland, we recently had a little movement in two counties, Charles and St Mary's, that are right next to the county in which I teach, Calvert. There was a "movement" backed by some of the fundie churches down here to get people on school boards that didn't have a problem with including ID in our biology curriculum. Of course, their true intentions were shown out in the fact that they also wanted certain "controversial" books taken out of school libraries! Why Catcher in the Rye and Tom Sawyer keep getting picked on is beyond me.
Anyway, after the intial furor over the ID thing in my neighboring counties, the wonderful Nancy Grasmick, one of our state board's more intelligent members, sent out a memo saying that evolution is in the state science standards and that our standards are consistant with the national standards. She also pointed out that it would be inappropriate to teach one version of creationism over the countless others put forth by other religious groups. She also sent us a list and synopsis of 6 relevant court cases and a statement about keeping evolution in and creationism out that was taken from a 1995 brochure written by over thirty religious groups. If only we could get a stronger response from every state school board in the country.
Thanks for reading!
Hitchy
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