Arizona hasn’t updated its science curriculum standards for public and charter schools in more than 15 years, so a committee of several dozen science teachers has been crafting a new policy over the last year. Turns out, though, when they submitted their plan to the Arizona Department of Education, Superintendent Diane Douglas and her creationist goobers at the agency crossed out or qualified “evolution” whenever it appeared and replaced it with language a little more flexible—language that gives cover to teachers who want to teach evolution as just another story, alongside creationism.
In one area of the draft focusing on life science essential standards for high school students, "evolution" is replaced with the words "biological diversity." This section reads: "Obtain, evaluate, and communicate evidence that describes how inherited traits in a population can lead to evolution biological diversity."
It’s bad enough Arizona has led the nation in defunding education over the last decade; now the Department of Education, led by dominionist nutball Diane Douglas, wants to give students third-rate instruction. Science teachers, people concerned about church-state separation, the Arizona Education Association, and parents who hope to prepare their children for college oppose the changes, as does the National Center for Science Education.
At a recent meeting, Department of Education board members heard from 92-year-old Ed Reitz, who wrote a book explaining how the world has gone to hell since we took god out of the classroom (I guess we’re mighty powerful beings, removing god and all). "The teaching of evolution is something that concerns me because it is a theory and it is not science," he said. Hey crackerjack, a lot of science is theory and vice versa, but theory based on scientific observation. Still, that’s who the Department is listening to, not its own science committee.
The rewriting of reality extends to the Big Bang as well, which will be taught as “just another theory,” alongside the six-day story in Genesis.
The Department of Education’s revisions instead call for teaching our children “theories related to ... the expansion of the universe” – opening the door to Biblical rather than scientific explanations.
During her campaign, Diane Douglas made it clear that she wants public schools to look more like Sunday School: “Should the theory of intelligent design be taught along with the theory of evolution? Absolutely.” Now, however, she’s trying to downplay those statements in order to soft-pedal the new science standards. Oh no, she says, those were just my personal views. Okay, but your personal views are shaping education standards, as the nation is witnessing with Betsy DeVos.
Arizona Republic editorialist Laurie Roberts points to the way ahead for Arizona:
Next up: wherein our children learn that the moon really is made of cheese, the seas are rising because of rocks falling into the ocean, and yes, you really can fall off the end of the earth if you walk far enough.
On the way down, maybe you can ponder whether the theory of gravity is real.