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Evolution targeted in curriculum study
01/15/02John Mangels and Scott Stephens
Plain Dealer Reporters
Columbus - A controversy about the teaching of evolution is threatening to derail the process educators had been using to update what's taught in Ohio public school classrooms.
Unhappy with an early draft of the proposed science curriculum for grades K-12, several members of the State Board of Education are pushing for a rewrite that would present evolution as "an assumption, not fact," and would include an alternative explanation for how humans and all other living things came to exist.
"Obviously, the process has broken down," said Lynn Elfner, a member of the board's science advisory committee and director of the Ohio Academy of Science. "All bets are off at this point. It's a political ballgame now."
The board members are especially interested in having Ohio students learn about "intelligent design," a contention that living things are too complex to have occurred by chance, and thus must have been "designed" by some unspecified but purposeful being. Most mainstream scientists say the concept is scientifically untestable and should not be taught alongside evolution.
Presenting students with alternatives to evolution runs counter to the board's own science advisory committee and the recommendations of national science and education groups. Department of Education staffers have warned board members that intervening in the ongoing curriculum-writing process - which the board approved - might prompt the volunteers who are doing the work to resign, and could expose the board to lawsuits.
Nevertheless, the group of board members may push for a vote as early as today. Their views emerged in a sometimes heated meeting late Sunday night and will be aired again when the board's standards committee resumes this morning.
Although evolution is a well-accepted explanation among most working scientists for how the teeming diversity of life developed on Earth, how the subject is dealt with in the classroom has often been a source of conflict.
Certain religious groups, and lately, backers of the intelligent design idea, say scientists aren't open to the possibility that a god or some other creative force directed the evolutionary process. Scientists confine their investigations to things in the natural world that can be tested experimentally, as opposed to faith or beliefs, which can't.
Such debates run headlong into the constitutional barrier between church and state, and into the thicket of disagreement about whether public attitudes and beliefs, and not just pure science, ought to shape the lesson plan for public schools.
Federal courts, including the Supreme Court, consistently have ruled that teaching alternatives to evolution based on a supernatural creator is a constitutionally prohibited endorsement of religion. Those cases have involved only the overtly religious "creation science," however.
Against that stormy backdrop, Ohio's public schools have until now avoided directly dealing with evolution in science classes. The current curriculum uses phrases such as "change over time" to describe the development of humans and other organisms.
Under orders from the Ohio legislature, the Department of Education set about last year writing standards that guide how all subjects, including science, are taught in public classrooms. After a relatively smooth process that sought ideas from educators and the public, state board members in December approved new guidelines for English and math.
The science guideline-writing effort was just gathering momentum and was awaiting public advice when this week's controversy erupted.
With the help of science advisers and using sample curriculums from other states and national science organizations, a team of 45 volunteers - educators, employers, parents and community leaders - had just finished a draft spelling out what science subjects should be taught, including evolution.
On Sunday night, though, that orderly process showed signs of coming unhinged.
First, several members of the board's powerful curriculum standards committee invited an intelligent design proponent to speak for 30 minutes without rebuttal from scientists in the audience who asked to respond. John Calvert, a Kansas City lawyer and co-founder of the Intelligent Design Network, urged the board members to allow Ohio students to be taught alternatives to evolution.
Calvert acknowledged that no other state promotes the teaching of intelligent design in public schools. "We're talking about a groundbreaking paradigm here," he said.
Led by board member Michael Cochran, several of the education policymakers began questioning whether the curriculum-writing process would reflect how Ohioans feel about teaching alternatives to evolution.
"I think this process has been flawed," Cochran said. "It's a fait accompli. There's no diversity with respect to ideas on the science advisory or the writing team."
With the support of five other board members, Cochran proposed ordering the science standards-writing team to prepare another draft, this one including intelligent design.
"We need to discuss that issue and make sure Ohioans support [science] standards they can all be comfortable with," board member Deborah Owens-Fink said. "I do think this is an opportunity to be on the cutting edge."
Only one board member openly disagreed. "I can't go along with this," Martha Wise said. "Somebody's dreamed up another way of expressing creationism, for heaven's sake."
Department of Education staffers cautioned that presenting only one alternative to evolution could spark lawsuits from groups with different beliefs. They also warned of the consequences if the guideline-writing team was told to recommend something that didn't square with its best judgment of what should be taught.
"You need to be prepared for the writing team to resign and for the board to write its own standards," Associate State Superintendent Bob Bowers said.
Several team members said yesterday that neither they nor members of the science advisory committee would be willing to endorse putting alternative theories to evolution into state science standards.
"I can't imagine anyone on the writing committee willing to head in that direction," said Bill Badders, director of mathematics and science systemic reform for the Cleveland schools and a member of both committees.
Standards committee Chairman Joe Roman asked his colleagues to delay voting on the proposal, saying the board's advisers need time to research "the legal, political and policy ramifications of what you're suggesting."
That committee vote could happen this morning; a favorable recommendation would mean the entire 19-member Board of Education would have to decide the issue.
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© 2002 The Plain Dealer. Used with permission.
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