Re: Challenges to teaching biology

>>> "jack syme" <drsyme@cablespeed.com> 04/03/06 6:31 PM >>>asks the
following obvious question:

How exacty can we "choose" not to give tax dollars for public education?
The last time I looked, they didnt deduct the tuition I pay for Christian
education from my tax bill. ;)

Ted answers:
By refusing to authorize school districts to increase levies for public
education. That is, as part of a taxpayer rebellion.

Now, let me add immediately: I'm saying this not to foment that rebellion
myself. I'm saying this as an observer and commentator. I believe this may
well be coming. Let me elaborate.

Public education (that is, "free" education to all, paid for by tax
dollars) began at the state level (remember, the US constitution leaves
education to the states, despite many federal initiatives concerning it) in
the mid-19th century; it postdates the constitution by several decades.
When public schools began, and for the first several decades thereafter, it
was understood widely that public education was NOT to deal with
controversial subjects. Evolution entered around the end of the 19th
century, and the Scopes trial came 30 years later. Evolution largely
disappeared after Scopes until the aftermath of Sputnik, when Congress (not
the states) reinvigorated science education by authorizing the rewriting of
curricula in the 3 major sciences, at which point evolution came back big
time. Henry Morris and company started to get a large audience in the 1970s
and 1980s, and ID has come along in the 1990s to provide a far more
sophisticated challenge. But the bottom line is, that when something as
controversial as evolution is taught in public schools, political support
for public education erodes. This isn't rocket science.

Ted
Received on Mon Apr 3 19:28:01 2006