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Evolution Scare Tactics Undermine Florida's Quest For Excellence

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 4, 2008

Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio cares so much about Florida's education standards the second of his "100 Innovative Ideas for Florida's Future" was creating a "world class" curriculum for our students.

Rubio never specifically defined what he meant in saying world class. But since the speaker began pushing lawmakers to continue the battle over teaching evolution in public schools, now we know.

In Rubio's world, apparently world-class curriculum standards means undermining and ignoring the top-flight educators and scientists who spent months crafting and reviewing the guidelines to create a rigorous and appropriate science curriculum that would bring Florida's education into the 21st Century.

And it means allowing science teachers to infuse science curriculum with religion - with the state's endorsement and protection.

Rubio invited his fellow lawmakers to follow him down this path shortly after the Florida Board of Education adopted new standards last month requiring that evolution be taught in public schools.

Until that action, Florida's science curriculum standards were among the worst in the nation. Test scores were equally lamentable.

The curriculum overhaul was long overdue.

But in an interview in the Florida Baptist Witness, Rubio fed the anti-evolution hysteria by saying parents who teach their children creationism or intelligent design would be "mocked and derided and undone" in the public schools.

That's utter nonsense - and unfair to Florida's science teachers who understand that many students in their classroom have religious beliefs that transcend the day's science lesson.

Rubio further inflamed the situation by suggesting that this standard makes schools, not parents, responsible for a child's upbringing.

Really, Mr. Speaker? We would suggest if parents' years of influence are negated in a single science lesson, they probably didn't make a big impression on their children.

In the Florida Senate, Ronda Storms introduced legislation casting the creationism issue as academic freedom. Storms' bill protects instructors who teach intelligent design under the guise of offering a "full range of scientific views." Students would be tested but couldn't be penalized if their answer reflected their disagreement with the scientific theory of evolution.

Well, at least there will be one question on the science FCAT where there is no wrong answer.

This is all reminiscent of a decade ago when a school board in Oakland, Calif., decided to recognize Ebonics in its public schools. Ebonics was what the children were learning from their parents, and it was a controversy heavy with worries that students would feel discriminated against if their school work did not reinforce what they were being taught at home.

The only problem was that Ebonics was not correct English. And creationism and intelligent design are not science - they are perfectly fine content for a religion or philosophy class, but not science class.

If Florida lawmakers really want world-class curriculum, they'll let education experts - not politicians - build them.

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