The Louisiana Textbook Council is set to meet tomorrow (Friday) to consider complaints about the science curriculum and to make recommendations to the State Board charged with reviewing textbooks every 7 years. Spurred by the Louisiana Family Forum, the main issue seems to be the desire to see creationist influence in the Biology classroom. The Baton Rouge Advocate reports:
Critics contend some biology I, biology II and other school books under scrutiny for public classrooms put too much credence in Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.
“It is like Charles Darwin and his theory is a saint,” said Winston White, of Baton Rouge, who filed a comment with state officials reviewing the textbooks.
Noted expert Barbara Forrest warns at her blog that the effort represents a "'Texas-style attack' on the selection of Biology textbooks", and Sandhya Bathija at Americans United points out that the maneuver can be traced to a controversial law (the Science Education Act ) signed by Governor Jindal in 2008.
The law was pushed heavily by the Louisiana Family Forum… It allows teachers to introduce into the classroom “supplemental textbooks and other instructional materials” about evolution, the origins of life, global warming and human cloning.
…
And now, not shockingly, the LFF has already started to use it to chip away at evolution and sound science standards by claiming the state’s biology textbooks give too much credibility to Darwin’s theory.
Stay tuned for reports from the meeting and the Council's recommendations.
