New Science Teaching Policy Is Assailed

A new science teaching policy designed to strengthen classroom instruction about evolution and other controversial topics has drawn criticism from an Orange County Christian fundamentalist leader.

The new policy, approved by a unanimous voice vote at a state Board of Education meeting in Sacramento last week, defines and distinguishes between the teaching of scientific theory, such as evolution, and teaching about beliefs, such as Bible-based views that man was created in his present form.

Only science, including tested theories that explain natural phenomena and are based on evidence, should be taught in science classrooms, the new policy says. Discussions of competing beliefs, which are partly matters of faith and not subject to scientific testing, should be encouraged in social science courses, it adds.

“This new policy is a gag order for a teacher, for a student, for a parent, not to be able to properly reflect their viewpoint in the classroom,” said the Rev. Lou Sheldon, president of the Anaheim-based Traditional Values Coalition, a church-based group that lobbied board members to reject the policy.

Sheldon said his group has already started to prepare packets for parents and others on how to lobby local school boards not to support the state board’s new policy. Creationists will also fight for their view to be reflected in science teaching guidelines and new textbooks, he said.

Action Supported

However, Elizabeth Parker, a member of the Orange County Board of Education, said the state board members “did the only thing they could have done. . . . Science is one thing. Religion is another.

“It should have never been an issue to begin with,” said Parker, also a member of the Orange County Coalition for Educational Integrity, a citizens group that monitors activities of politically active fundamentalists.

Supporters of the new policy, including experts in the state Department of Education and panels of scientists and educators, say it is part of a larger effort to rebuild the quality of science teaching at a time when studies show that U.S. students are deficient in their understanding of basic scientific principles.

Part of the problem in California, many argued, was the state board’s 16-year-old “anti-dogmatism” policy on science teaching, adopted as a compromise after an earlier battle between creationists and scientists. That policy, which is replaced by the statement adopted last week, called for “conditional” statements to be used in discussing origins of the life and the Earth.

Critics say it led textbook publishers and teachers to neglect or be ambiguous in teaching widely accepted, organizing scientific theories about prehistoric time and human development. In addition, some teachers were using the policy as a rationale for introducing creationist views, which are not endorsed by any major scientific organizations, into classrooms.

‘Dumbing Down’

Francie Alexander, the state’s associate superintendent of curriculum and instruction, said the new policy is a “reversal of the ‘dumbing down’ ” trend of recent years.” Previously, she said, when a topic was as tough or controversial, “the implicit policy (was), ‘When in doubt, throw it out.’ ”

“We have to do a better job if we want a more scientifically literate population,” Alexander said. “This is one piece of a whole strategy.”

But Sheldon said: “We see a very good anti-dogmatism statement being somewhat watered down.” He said state education officials are attempting to teach evolution as a fact and are “putting themselves in a further adversarial role to family values.”

Sheldon said the battle is not over. He and state education officials note that the new policy statement is only the first step toward adoption of new, detailed science teaching guidelines. Those guidelines will shape the content of the next generation of state-funded science textbooks used in the 1990s in classrooms throughout California.

Moreover, Parker said, many smaller states tend to follow California’s leadership in textbook publishing.