Louisiana Rejects Teaching Creationism in Public Schools

You’ve got to be kidding.

As an educator, I know that when a teacher tries to relocate from Louisiana to Texas they are seriously scrutinized. Louisiana, says the common wisdom, simply doesn’t hold a candle to the level of instruction that takes place in Texas’ classrooms. Its teachers, are not exactly responsible for this, it’s the system that they are forced to teach within.

Enter stage left: the state’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education this week rejected the critiques of evangelical Christians that demanded that evolution be taught as one of several explanations for speciation. That evolution is merely yet another attempt to make sense of scientific observation. This week they rejected all of these arguments and adopted a science textbook whose sole explanation for “the story of life” is in evolutionary theory.

The Louisiana Coalition for Science, a more focused lobby group, but similar to Texas’ Texas Freedom Network, released the following statement on this coup:

“We are pleased and proud that the board has done the right thing. As a result, students in Louisiana public schools will have the most current, up-to-date information about biology, including the theory of evolution, which is the strongest explanation of the history and development of life on Earth ever constructed.”

More current, I might add, and more up-to-date than students in neighboring Texas will receive now or in the future.

Texans take note: Louisiana has taken the lead here in the deep South and is forging on ahead of you and your school system.

At some point, I expect, Texas teachers, especially biology teachers, will have to be seriously scrutinized if they ever decide to move to Louisiana in order to ply their trade. Because if you are trained to say that evolution is merely a theory that is on par with the theory that Earth, the universe and all life was created on a 6-day creation schedule, and this soon followed by a catastrophic flood that destroyed the dinosaurs, you tend to lose your edge.

And your brains tend to turn to mush.