Jesus Facepalms
IT sounds like a plot dreamed up by the creators of Southpark, but it's all true: schoolchildren in Louisiana are to be taught that the Loch Ness monster is real in a bid by religious educators to disprove Darwin's theory of evolution.
Herald of Scotland.
Found via Wonkette.
Thousands of children in the southern state will receive publicly-funded vouchers for the next school year to attend private schools where Scotland's most famous mythological beast will be taught as a real living creature.
These private schools follow a fundamentalist curriculum including the Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) programme to teach controversial religious beliefs aimed at disproving evolution and proving creationism.
One tenet has it that if it can be proved that dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time as man then Darwinism is fatally flawed.
Your tax dollars at work.
Federal funding comprises approximately 15 percent of Louisiana’s K-12 public education budget. For Fiscal Year 2011, Louisiana is receiving nearly $1.4 billion in federal funding. The vast majority of this funding is awarded through state-administered grant programs and direct grant programs.
I think this suggests that vouchers may not improve the quality of education received by students in Louisiana. But I'm just one of those cynical liberals who don't understand the free market and how wonderfully it works.