Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
As the Florida State Board of Education holds public hearings for comment on the proposed new science standards there, the Taylor County School Board has actually passed a resolution against the new standards. Like the Dover school board, the Taylor board put their virulent ignorance on full display. I'll post the resolution below the fold:
Whereas, the Florida Department of Education has drafted and is now proposing new Sunshine State Standards for Science, the Taylor County School Board opposes the implementation of the new standards as currently presented.Whereas, the new Sunshine State Standards for Science no longer present evolution as theory but as "the fundamental concept underlying all of biology and is supported in multiple forms of scientific evidence," we are requesting that the State Board of Education direct the Florida Department of Education to revise/edit the new Sunshine State Standards for Science so that evolution is presented as one of several theories as to how the universe was formed.
Whereas, the Taylor County School Board recognizes the importance of providing a thorough and comprehensive Science education to all the students in Taylor County and to all students in the state of Florida, it recognizes as even more important the need to present these standards through a fair and balanced approach, an approach that does not unfairly exclude other theories as to the creation of the universe.
NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Taylor County School Board of Taylor County, Perry, Florida, that the Board urges the State Board of Education to direct the Florida Department of Education to revise the new Sunshine State Standards for Science such that evolution is not presented as fact, but as one of several theories.
There's that old fact vs theory nonsense. The new standards does teach evolution as a theory, it just teaches it as a well-validated, coherent theory that explains the evidence. That is precisely what it is. But because these people labor under the false notion that the moment you suggest an idea might be true you're no longer calling it a theory, they just don't get that. And these people are running school boards.
Comments
Apropos of this entry, the following item from the journal Nature should be a wakeup call to supporters of the teaching of good science in high school classrooms. As New York Times columnist Tom Friedman puts it, the powers that be in China and India are rooting for school boards in the US to teach creationism in high school science classrooms. They want our jobs.
http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080109/full/451112b.html
Posted by: SLC | January 10, 2008 9:36 AM
A lot of idiots are on schools boards. In a local suburb here an individual was elected to the school who had been fired by that district for essentially witnessing to students. The principle who had him fired decided to quit when he was elected. But that begs the question. What is your opinion on who should be running schools? For any board that is made up from members of the local community - you are going to get wingnuts on the board who believe in all sorts of things. So are you against citizen control of local schools boards (and by extension the schools)?
Posted by: yoshi | January 10, 2008 9:46 AM
The same site reports on 2 other counties passing similar resolutions, Baker County and Holmes County. And it also quotes someone saying there are total of 12 counties that have done so, so far. Florida is just not going to allow Texas to take the lead in ignorant stupidity. Look at the more recent blog entries.
Posted by: Dave S. | January 10, 2008 9:46 AM
Are there specific people on this school board arguing for this as there were in Dover? If so it's time for local folks to start targeting parents to bring their influence to light.
Posted by: David Durant | January 10, 2008 9:49 AM
"evolution is presented as one of several theories as to how the universe was formed."
This half-sentence alone shows their ignorance. Evolution has nothing to do with how the universe was formed.
Posted by: Suricou Raven | January 10, 2008 10:14 AM
"So are you against citizen control of local schools boards (and by extension the schools)?"
I am, but of course my opinion doesn't amount to much. I believe schoolboard members should have minimum qualifications to attain that position. Our childrens education is too important to have knuckleheads screwing it up for political or religious reasons.
Posted by: RAM | January 10, 2008 10:24 AM
I support citizens running the school board... if they can meet or exceed a set of requirements. Organizing the local school book drive is one thing that almost anyone can do, but affecting the school science curriculum without actual knowledge of the science? I call it madness, but it's called Florida this time.
Posted by: Tenax | January 10, 2008 11:10 AM
They don't seem to be ordering anything to be taught in their classrooms, only making the state board aware of their position. Does that clear them of lawsuit potential?
Posted by: Tegumai Bopsulai, FCD | January 10, 2008 11:16 AM
Do I support having elected school boards? No, not really. We don't have an elected board to govern, say, medical schools and decide what is taught there and what is not; indeed, the thought of such a board strikes us as unimaginably foolish. After all, the average citizen cannot possibly have the knowledge and training necessary to make good decisions on medical curricula. But why is history or biology or mathematics any different? These are specialized disciplines as well and they require study and training to become competent at them, much less become experts.
I think it would be a very interesting experiment to give the standard AP exams in the various subjects to school board members around the country. I'd be willing to bet that far less than half could pass even half of those exams - just pass them, mind you, not do well on them. Allowing those who are ignorant of a subject to determine policy on that subject is madness (and this is as true of state legislatures as it is of school boards). No one would think to put me on a board overseeing the education of auto mechanics, nor should they; the same is true for putting the Bill Buckinghams of the world in charge of a biology curriculum.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | January 10, 2008 11:33 AM
...so that evolution is presented as one of several theories as to how the universe was formed.
Aaarrrrrgggghhh! The Stupid, It Burns!
Other than that, I got nothin'. I'm so glad I moved away from Florida.
Posted by: Elf M. Sternberg | January 10, 2008 12:11 PM
The idea is that most people have a choice of avoiding a school that is run by idiots. Public schools don't. The solution would seem to be to allow the community to select who will determine curriculum. In an ideal world all the parents would be very involved and pick the most qualified people for school board. The problem here is low voter awareness and turnout, not the idea of an elected school board.
Posted by: FutureMD | January 10, 2008 12:15 PM
It also suggests that there are some Hovind fans in the board. Everything that conflicts with the Genesis myth (including cosmology) is "evolution" in Hovind's dictionary.
Posted by: C.W. | January 10, 2008 12:28 PM
This is the best argument for demanding that prospective school board candidates demonstrate some minimal level of academic competency - especially in math, history, and science.
Posted by: BobbyV | January 10, 2008 1:04 PM
"...so that evolution is presented as one of several theories as to how the universe was formed."
I would like to see some school take this literally and teach evolution alongside the Big Bang theory in physics classes, just to spite these morons.
Posted by: CS | January 10, 2008 1:07 PM
CW, I think it's just that they think they both happened more or less at the same time (the instant of creation) about 6000 years ago. In their minds it is the same event, hence the conflation.
Posted by: Leni | January 10, 2008 1:08 PM
I don't think people who haven't been there can really understand what a backwards place Taylor County is. I used to live not far from there and did botany field work just outside of Perry.
I wrote a little something about the place, but let's put it this way: the county seat is still essentially a segregated city. The infant mortality rate in Taylor is 33.3 per 1,000 live births, twice that of Panama. For whites, the rate is 0.0. Getting the picture of this place yet?
More in the above-linked entry. It's amazing that places like this still exist in the 21st century. Or it would be, if I hadn't lived nearby myself and witnessed it first hand.
Posted by: Mike O'Risal | January 10, 2008 1:33 PM
so that evolution is presented as one of several theories as to how the universe was formed
I wonder how galaxies mutate and reproduce.
Uh-oh! That's not going to fly very well in Florida! ;-) Galaxies don't practice abstinence!
Posted by: Kristine | January 10, 2008 2:05 PM
"In an ideal world all the parents would be very involved and pick the most qualified people for school board. The problem here is low voter awareness and turnout, not the idea of an elected school board."
What if most of the voters' idea of "most qualified" is "most fundamentalist". In many areas the problem isn't low turnout, it's that they have a screwed up idea of what education is supposed to do. As far as I know (I could well be wrong, though) local democratic control of schools is unique in the developed world. Unlike some other unique American institutions, I really don't see the merits of it.
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | January 10, 2008 4:52 PM
Posted by: Pieter B | January 10, 2008 5:27 PM
Argh. Bad tag. Opened another blockquote instead of closing the first.
Posted by: Pieter B | January 10, 2008 5:29 PM
I'm sure Ed, and probably most of his readers, are aware that Mark Twain was prescient in this instance as well.
And these people are running school boards.
God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.
I'm not sure just what standing this sort of resolution has, but surely if they try to implement it as school district policy a Florida Kitzmiller will stand up and one more poor school district will be forced to waste scarce resources trying to defend the indefensible.It's incredibly difficult for me to understand just what motivates the evolution denialists.One wonders what else they find incomprehensible, germ theory, plate tectonics, most of higher math( of course I'd join them on that one).
Posted by: donquijotesrocket | January 10, 2008 6:05 PM
BoobyV said:
None of those are really covered in the Bible, so why would you be wanting to teach them in Florida?
Posted by: kehrsam | January 10, 2008 6:14 PM
>evolution is presented as one of several theories as to >how the universe was formed.
Sweet Mother of God! This must be the stupidest county in America!!! This was written by the people responsible at the highest level for educating the students in this county!
We are doomed; flee to Canada or elsewhere A.S.A.P.!
Posted by: TheFamilyGuy | January 10, 2008 7:35 PM
Since Suricou Raven and others have beaten me to the "origin of the universe" part, I just have two words:
National Curriculum.
Posted by: BaldApe | January 10, 2008 7:44 PM
The only good thing about having public school curricula in the hands of local school boards is it means that idiots from red states (and counties) don't have influence over the entire nation's curriculum. I'd rather have a bunch of local battles against creationists than have those battles at the national level. (What if the entire nation's science curriculum had been at stake in the Kitzmiller case? For one thing, the creationists would have had better legal representation.)
Posted by: Tom | January 10, 2008 8:19 PM
Echoing Tom, it seems to me that the reason the US flirts with ID, when other Western countries do not, is not that your country has no national curriculum, but rather that you have a lot more fundies than everyone else.
A national curriculum would only protect you from the fundies if you are confident they will never gain control of the federal government. Now who do you have for president again?
With the type of currculum laws in some western countries, the fundies could not only banish evolution from public schools, but from private schools and even homeschooling as well. They could make teaching science completley illegal.
Posted by: James | January 11, 2008 3:14 AM
Tom says:
I think this is not entirely true. For instance, there may be indirect influences. If say a big state with a lot of textbook purchasing power (say Texas) were to swing wildly Creationist friendly, the textbook manufacturers may respond by currying to that and diluting the evolution bits. Since they're not likely to have various versions of textbooks flying around, this dilution may present itself in all its textbooks sold nation-wide.
Posted by: Dave S. | January 11, 2008 8:01 AM
Dave S. has hit the nail on the head and there is no maybe about it. Its one of the dirty parts of the textbook wars. Texas holds enormous power over the publishing industry because if its very centralized control of purchasing. Those who have fought this evolution-creation battle for awhile know that Texas is one of (if not THE) biggest battlegrounds. That's why this new round of textbook approval in Texas this year is being taken so seriously and why a pro-evolution teacher with the state education division lost her job. Remember the head of the state board is a dramatic creationist and very vocal about it.
Places like Dover, Kansas, and Florida are important skirmishes, but tend to be localized. Changes in Texas will impact textbooks throughout the country and thats very disturbing. Keep your eyes open for this one because its going to be a rough one.
Posted by: Scott Reese | January 11, 2008 9:08 AM
I have a stinking suspicion that some school board members are very apt examples of the results of elected school boards and why -- even if they are remained elected -- there should some minimal standards in place for qualifying to be on the board, at least. Why couldn't there be standards even with an election when the President has to be 35 and can't be foreign born?
Posted by: Donna | January 11, 2008 12:18 PM
It is ridiculous that school board members are elected. Local elections are so poorly researched... do members of the community ever get fully exposed to a candidate's views? I have never voted in an election where I was familiar with the views of every candidate for every position, if only because I have no idea where that information would be available, or if it is at all.
Until we can be guaranteed that people know who the hell they're voting for, school boards should consist entirely of former/current trained instructors with a minimum of a Masters degree in Education and five years of teaching experience. Optimally, the board would consist of educators from multiple domains (early education, middle school, high school, science, english, etc.).
If you can't muster up this kind of a school board, you should be required to adhere to state standards. Period.
Posted by: Brian | January 31, 2008 1:22 PM
You are all wrong if you say that school board members should have minimal qualifications. No politically elected office in the United States has such a requirement. Congress people and Senators aren't required to have economic degrees and yet they are directing the economy, and the qualifications are only to be citizens and meet age requirements, etc.
School board elections have low turnouts, so if you have dolts on the boards it is your own fucking fault. The purpose of the board is to oversee it financially and economically. They oversee the adminstrators, negotiate labor contracts and make sure that expenses are within budgets. They have independent curriculum committees and you are all welcome to volunteer for them instead of bitching and complaining on blog boards.
This is a republic and not a meritocracy. We have had warnings for the last twenty years that the creationists were going to be working from the local levels of government up in order to make this a theocracy and if you don't off your asses and get active locally it will continue.
Yeah, it's cool to talk about the horse race presidential races and all that because it is easy to sound sophisticated without having to really do anything.
Second point, Texas will be losing its influence soon if people in the rest of the country get behind open access publishing. Electronic distribution makes it less expensive for publishers to create versions for the rest of us even if the Texans and Floridians try to mess with science education.
Posted by: Mike Haubrich, FCD | January 31, 2008 2:01 PM
Brian -
Why do you wait for election day?
Politics is what happens to you if you don't get involved.
Posted by: Mike Haubrich | January 31, 2008 2:05 PM
"No politically elected office in the United States has such a requirement. Congress people and Senators aren't required to have economic degrees and yet they are directing the economy, and the qualifications are only to be citizens and meet age requirements, etc."
They're doing a SUPER job.
Posted by: Brian | January 31, 2008 6:29 PM
And what are you doing about it, Brian? Waiting for things to get better on their own?
If people pushed for better education from the grass roots then the citizens we elect to the school boards would be qualified.
Posted by: Mike Haubrich | January 31, 2008 7:30 PM
Well I know what I'm doing about it: encouraging scientifically literate people to run for school boards and take the seats from the ignorant.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | January 31, 2008 10:52 PM